Looking for a Leader Part 3

Love y'all so much. Y'all can go ahead and take a seat, y'all. Take a seat, take a seat, take a seat. Pastor Earl, thank you so much for all those kind words. I do also want to say thank you so much for your humility as a I have had the opportunity of getting to see you in a lot of different seasons of life also, and your humility has stayed so consistent. You and Pastor Onika, the way you love people and fight for people and set the table. It's really, really special and having healthy leaders is really a gift from the Lord. So can we just say thank you? Thank you to the Lord for our pastors. Thank you so much. And some of you may not know this, but Pastor Earl can cook a really good turkey. Okay, and the words of Grayson, it's like so good where the white meat tastes like dark meat. Okay. I mean, it was, it's a good, it's a good turkey, y'all. It's a good turkey, but I'm honored to get to get to share today. I'm excited for what the Lord has put on. I feel like it's revealed to me through the scriptures. And so, but this passage, y'all, this passage is for the real ones. Okay, this one is for the real ones. Okay, so we're going to be turning to Numbers chapter 16. Numbers chapter 16, y'all, Numbers chapter 16.

I'm going to be reading verses 1 through 5, then 28 through 33. Okay, here we go. I want to kind of help paint this picture a little bit. Okay, so I'm going to walk while I read. Okay. Korah, son of Izar, son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and certain Reubenites, Dathan and Abiram, son of Elab, and on the son of Peleth, became insolent and rose up against Moses. So you have all those people I just named, put them mentally right here. Okay, whole crew. Korah, Dathan, Abiram. Okay, they rise up against Moses. Moses standing over here. With them were 250 Israelite men, well-known community leaders, who had been appointed members of the council. They all came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron. So whole crew of people on this side. Now you have just Moses and Aaron and they say to him, you've gone too far. You've gone too far. The whole community is holy and every one of them and the Lord is with them. Now, why do you set yourself above the whole Lord's assembly? Now when Moses heard this, he fell on his face. He fell face down and he says to them, to Korah and all the followers, he says in the morning, the Lord will show who belongs to him and who is holy and he will have that person

come near him and the man he chooses, he will cause to come near him. Now fast forward. Here we have, we see Korah bringing this complaint and a group of people bringing this complaint against Moses and against Aaron. Okay. Let's see what the Lord has to say about this. Verse 28. This is the next day. Okay, fast forward now. The next day. Verse 28. Then Moses said, this is how you will know that the Lord has sent me to do all the things that it was not my idea. Verse 29. If these men die a natural death and suffer the fate of all mankind, then the Lord has not sent me. Verse 30. But if the Lord brings about something totally new and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them with everything that belongs to them and they go down alive into the realm of the dead, then you will know that, then you will know that these men have treated the Lord with content. I told y'all this is for the real ones. Okay. Verse 31. As soon as he had finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them in their households and all those associated with Korah

together with their possessions, they went down alive into the realm of the dead with everything they owned. The earth closed over them and they perished and were gone from the community. May the Lord add a blessing to the reading of his word. Y'all, this is in the Bible. Can we just not pause a little bit? Just be like, yo, this is kind of crazy. Can you not? I mean this story. This is the passage. Earl wanted us to preach on today, the story of Cora. This story is one full of so much drama and passion, but you know, sometimes, you know, sometimes life can be a little bit vanilla, you know, with things, but then also life can have a lot of like passion. This is one of the and she is full of passion, okay? There is no middle ground, okay? There is no, there's zero middle ground, okay? I have proof, okay? Pastor Earl was talking about how we have these beautiful kids. I have three beautiful children, okay? Giovanni, five years old, he's just handsome and he's eloquent, and then we have Pierre, who's also handsome, you know, and he's so strong-willed, he's like, he's just, he's a fighter, you know, like you don't want to mess with Pierre, and then you have like Amelia, she's our baby girl, perfect. I mean, Amelia is just perfect, okay? Well, whenever Gio was like, I don't know, four months old, five months old, he wasn't old at all. This was our firstborn, okay? Gabby was changing his diaper, okay? She was changing his diaper, and then she's like, oh, I'm going to change his shirt. Now, I'm in the living room, and she's in the bedroom with Giovanni, and she's putting a shirt on, and as she's moving his shoulder, she hears this pop, and all I hear is, ah! I come running around the corner. I run in the bedroom. Y'all, my child is on the countertop, okay? On the countertop on the changing station, okay? And my wife is on the ground flopping around like a fish. Ah! I broke his arm. I broke. I was like, what? What is even happening right now? I grabbed Gio. Totally fine. Nothing wrong with him. My wife flopping on the ground. I'm like, if you would have broke our child's arm, the best solution is to flop on the ground like a fish, you know? Like, he could roll

off the changing table. Like, what just happened, okay? But it doesn't just stop there, y'all, okay? I have another story with Pierre. You remember this one with Pierre? So, Pierre is our secondborn. Pierre was like, I don't know, three months-ish, okay? I'm in the bedroom with Giovanni, and we're like wrestling or playing or, I don't know, you know, hanging out. My wife is holding Pierre, and she's kind of holding him like this, you know? You're trying to put your baby to sleep, and you'll like do anything you can to put your baby to sleep. Parents, y'all know this, right? You're just, you're humming, you're doing all the things. She finally gets Pierre asleep, okay? She finally gets Pierre asleep. She's walking around the corner to put him in the room. She comes around the corner, and Pierre hits his head on the corner of the wall. I cannot, I wish this was, I literally hear, ah! I come running. Now, I learned I got to be fast. So, I come running around the corner, okay? She hands me Pierre. She falls on the ground, and she starts moving like a caterpillar along the ground. Ah! I dent his, I dented his head. His head is ruined. My wife just overreacted. Pierre didn't even wake up. Like, he was like asleep the whole time. He's just overreacting. Just, I love you though, boo. I love you for it. You read this story, and you're like, God, were you overreacting? I mean, like, he just had a complaint. No, everybody's holy. No, and then you take the earth, and you swallow him up. Ah! Caterpillar walk. You know, like, it seemed like this was a bit of, like, an overreaction, Lord. Kind of seems like this is a little bit too much, or, or was this a story about the pitfalls of pride? Is this a story about God's holiness? Is the Lord trying to teach us that salvation can only come through Jesus Christ? Because when you look at this passage on the surface, you're like, God's dramatic. Lord, that was too much. But as you begin to dig in to what was happening in the story, you begin to realize, oh, there's so much more happening in that singular moment than we could even know, or think, or imagine. God was up to some things. Now, it wasn't just Korah, okay? You also had Dathan, and you had Abiram. There was this whole crew of them, okay? Now, why do I bring up Dathan and Abiram, okay? So you had, you had Korah, who was a Levite. Actually, I have a map, okay? I want to show y'all really quick of what it would have looked like, okay, for the Israelites, okay? This would have been, first of all, how cool is it that this is a cross? This is how, whenever the, the Israelites were wandering through the wilderness, this is what their community looked like, okay? So this is, this was their neighborhood. Okay, this would have been like their Knox Henderson.

Okay, this would have been like Bishop Arts O'Cliff. Over here would have been like White Rock Lake over here and then Frisco, you know what I'm saying? So this is what it would have been like for them, okay? Now, you have all of these different sections that each tribe was living in, okay? Now, I wanna point out where you see the number two, right there in the very middle, okay, that would have been the temple. This was like the church. This was like the holy place for the people, okay? Right next to them where you see that number two right there, this would have been where one of the groups of Levites would have lived, okay? This would have been the Kohath, okay, group, okay? This would have been where Korah lived, okay? He would have lived right there in that area. Now, do you see right next to it is Reuben. Right next to it's Reuben. So you have Korah, then you had Dathan and Abiram. Now, Dathan and Abiram, they were both Reubenites. So they would have lived right there next to each other. This is why it's really important, the community that you have. It's like, it's really important, like who you're next to, who you do life with is really, really important. This is why we like beg of you, like, please get in a group, please get in a group, please get in a group,

because we know that at like 1 a.m. on a Saturday night, Knox-Henderson is probably not the place that you need to be, okay? Like you need to be surrounded by some people who are gonna push you forward to be everything that God has called you to be. So you have Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, they're all neighbors. Now, Korah comes to Moses and Aaron, and he's like, hey, the Lord's people are holy. Why do you set yourself above them? Why are you setting yourself above all the Lord's people? Now, keep in mind, what was Korah's community? Did Korah's community say to him, no, no, no, no, this is how God ordained some things. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, they're actually called to be the leaders. No, you actually see, if you read in verses 12, 13, and 14, that their response back to Moses was, what? Moses, you were the one who brought us out of a land flowing with milk and honey. Now, keep in mind, they came out of Egypt where they were slaves. But the community that he now has, that Korah has, is not, oh, he brought you out of slavery. Instead, the community that's surrounding Korah says, yeah, these leaders that are putting themselves above everybody, they brought us from a land of milk and honey. They took us out of that land

and they brought us to this wilderness. Now, they gave us a promise of a land flowing with milk and honey, but here we are. We're still stuck in the wilderness. And matter of fact, for the Levites, for Korah, for you, they're not even gonna give you any land. You have no promises of the Lord. You have no promises. Matter of fact, Moses and Aaron, you know what they wanna do? They wanna make you slaves. Do you see how community shaped the way Korah was actually seeing things? Leadership is forged by those who surround you. And we see here in this argument that his friends didn't push him towards Christ or towards unity or towards what God had for the community, but instead separated them away from it. But does this not sound familiar to you? Because the serpent did the exact same thing in the garden. Did he really say? Is that promise really for you? If you eat this apple, will you really die? Or today's, but if you show up early, does it really matter? If you serve, do you really need to serve all that? Do you really need to go to join? Like, isn't showing up just enough? The lies of the enemy that sneak into our minds and into our hearts, we hear these things. You don't need to give.

The church is big. It doesn't matter. You give your Starbucks money. What would that matter? You don't need to give. There's not a part that you need to play. And this is what I wanna encourage you is I wanna encourage you that you stay very, very aware of the community around you and the voices around you because leadership is forged by your community. I wanna remind you that leaders are not born, but instead leaders are made. And as we're in a series of looking for a leader, there's a calling and a destiny on the inside of us. And I do not want us to dumb down the calling that the Lord has on you, but instead I want you to be everything that God has called you to be. Community matters. Now, I do have a bit of a bone though to pick with Cora. Okay? Because this is the first time this man has said anything. Okay? Influential guy in the community. Okay? But I'm like, Cora, where were you whenever the plagues were being hit upon Egypt? You didn't get anybody out of anything. Cora, where were you whenever we're leaving the nation and we came up against this sea

and we didn't know what to do? armies were now coming towards us. I was feeling pressure after pressure after pressure. Moses stood up and the Red Sea split, but Korah where were you? Korah where were you whenever we were hungry and you gave us manna from heaven, the Lord gave us manna from heaven. Korah where were you? All of a sudden now that the nation of Israel is starting to get somewhat established, now he's got something to say. Now that the community is starting to get a picture of what the Lord is wanting to do, now he's got words. It's like this, it's like oh where were those friends that were trying to help you whenever you were stuck in debt or whenever you're going from person to person to person, boyfriend to boyfriend to boyfriend and they were just enabling you instead of actually empowering you to be everything that God has called you to be and they didn't say a single thing about it. They had zero commentary for your life and the call that was on your life, but then you start to go to church and you give your life to Jesus and now you start serving and all of a sudden commentary after commentary after commentary. Here's Korah. I'm like Korah where were you? His argument was that the Jews had now had this experience at Mount Sinai to where now they all knew the Lord and he was essentially saying that leadership is now unnecessary. Korah's argument was not just one of ambition, but his argument was one of pride of life. I don't need a leader. We don't need a leader. It's a bit ironic that Korah was leading a movement to abolish leadership, but he was the leader of the movement to abolish the leadership. Godly leadership isn't always doing things your way. Godly leadership is instead actually doing things his way. We see that Korah was stuck in the pit of doing what he thought was best, not what the Lord was saying. I want to make sure that we're leaders that fights for what the Lord has for us and we celebrate what the Lord has for others. Korah saw the call that was on Moses's life and on Aaron's life and instead of celebrating Moses and Aaron, he began to be jealous and full of pride and tried to take away the blessings that the Lord has put on them. Moses and Aaron, Aaron now is specifically set to be the high priest in the temple. This means that Aaron was able to go into the holiest of holies. We have this temple and in the temple there are a few rooms, but the one that is set apart, okay, this would be where the Ark of the Covenant is at. It was a holy of holies and only the high priest could actually go into the holy of holies. Now you see that he was now making something like the role of the high priest something common. Or you see that he was taking the most holy place

and making it common. What Korah was doing was so much more than just bringing up a complaint. He was now attacking the very fabric and the holiness of God. He forgot that the temple was actually God's house. Korah had this perspective in his challenge with Moses that he that Moses was trying to build his house or Aaron was trying to build his own house, but what was being built in that moment was actually the house of God. So Korah's argument was actually really not against Aaron or not against Moses, but instead Korah was coming up against the very creator of the universe who was trying to establish a story and a narrative that had begun since the beginning of creation that God is holy and he has set apart and he has a calling and a destiny for his people. That is what Korah was challenging. Taking what was holy and saying it's common. Korah saw the duties of a high priest as something he could attain. He saw it as something that was just an isolated moment. But I want to remind you that what the Lord was doing was to set in motion for the Savior of the As you read through the pages of the Old Testament, it's all just foreshadowing pointed to Christ. This is why it's so interesting that the way they lived in a community was even a cross. They had no clue about the cross that Jesus was going to go on, but the Lord knew. He's not bound by time like you and I are, but the Lord knew. So there's all this foreshadowing. So here we have Korah. He's actually challenging and he's saying, hold on a second, Moses and Aaron, why do you set yourself above all of us? You're not that special, but what the Lord was actually trying to do is he's actually trying to set some precedents, because there was actually going to be a high priest who was going to be coming in generation after generation. There was one high priest who was going to make a sacrifice for all of mankind. Where? Aaron would step in and make sacrifice for a year. Jesus Christ was going to come in and he was going to sacrifice himself once only and never need to do it again now that you and I can now have access to the holy place. This is what Korah was challenging. Was God being a little too dramatic? I don't think so. Korah was viewing this moment in his life as something just normal, but we fall into that sometimes too. Like our every day is insignificant. Some of you may be coming here to Shoreline City or even joining us online and you've been coming for years and you're like, oh I can do it later. Oh, I can join later. Oh, I can give later. Oh, I can say yes to it later.

Oh, I can show up to serve or no, I can get in a group later. And we view the moment that we're in, the time that we're in, as something just common. And I actually feel like what the Lord does is he actually orchestrates our stories to where every single day is a bit of holy and a bit set apart. His people, they are holy and they are set apart. And we have this high priest now, Jesus, who has given us the access to the very throne room of God. And what we're a part of in this day and age is not our story. This is God's story. We are a part of his story. Korah was trying to take the place that only Jesus was ordained to take. And sometimes we actually do the same things. We try to put our relationships in the place that only Jesus should be in. We try to put our money in the places that only Jesus should be in. We try to put our jobs in the places that only Jesus should be in. We try to put our dogs or cats or no, nobody puts our cats. We try to put our dogs in the places that only Jesus should be in. We try to put Netflix in the place that only Jesus should be. We do the same thing, you and I. This is why we need a savior. Korah was stepping up and saying, oh no, no, no, it's not that big of a deal. It's okay for anybody to lead that spot. That spot is not actually that holy, but can I tell you the center of your being, the part of you, your soul that Jesus came, He bled, died and resurrected and gave His life for is holy and He is King of Kings and He is Lord of Lords. There should be nothing else on that throne. Nothing else on the throne. We're talking about leadership and I love that you, I'm glad that we want the leadership. We want to have the impact. We want to have the influence and I would say all of these are very good things. I actually think these are really good things. We should want that impact and we should want that leadership. We should make a difference in our time and in our season and when the Lord has called for us to step up into a moment, but to what point? To what end are we called to be leaders? Is it your glory or fame or is it for His? Because God's kingdom is not like the world's. You don't fight for a position like you see Korah doing. Instead it's actually given to you from the Lord. Aaron's position was not taken, but instead it was actually given and you see here in verse 4 that Moses's instant reaction was to fall face down and I absolutely love this about Moses. His reaction was not to fight back, okay? Someone cuts you off in traffic, okay? He was like, bless you, okay? Bless you. You know, I do the thumbs down now, okay? Whenever someone cuts me off, I'm like, I'm disappointed, okay? But Moses, he gets cut off in traffic. He's like, you know, bless you. Just bless you. He falls face down. Moses and Aaron, they both

fell on their face. Why? Because if there's anything that Moses has learned as a leader, he has learned what is holy and he understands that the challenge that Korah is actually making is a challenge on God's holiness. You know that in Exodus, Exodus chapter 3, whenever the Lord first spoke to Moses, you know what he talked to him about? He said, Moses, Moses, take your sandals off. The place you're standing is holy ground. Moses did not know 17 tips to leadership. Moses did not know what to do as a host team member. He showed up on a Sunday being like, I'm gonna watch kids. What? Moses didn't know what it was like to lead a community. Moses did not know what it was like to lead people out of slavery into a wilderness, into a promised land. He did not know all the things, but what Moses did know is Moses did know what was holy. Moses did know what was holy. Now Moses had hustle and Moses ... education. Moses had pedigree. He was like, I mean, I was educated in Pharaoh's house. Okay, like I spent my teenage years amongst princes and kings. Moses had experience. He's like, I split the sea. The Lord threw me, you know, used me to split the sea and provide manna. I've led people out of bondage. Moses had success. And I think Korah could have looked at all of those things and maybe tried to make an argument. But what Korah did not have that Moses had is Moses had humility. Moses had submission. Moses had a knowing of God's ways. Psalms chapter 103 verse 7. It's one of my favorite verses in all the Bible. That Israel knew God by his deeds, but Moses knew the Lord by his ways. And in times of transition and uncertainty, confusion, times of difficulty, leadership is actually paramount. The Lord is looking for a leader. And it's needed more than ever. But the question that I would want to pose to you today is not how can I be the leader? The question I would pose to you today is God, what are you doing and how can I help? Lord, what's happening in this generation and how can I serve? You see here in this moment that Korah brought so much disunity to the tribe of Israel. He brought so much disunity to the community and Korah ended up paying his life. But the story of Korah does not stop there. The story of his lineage does not stop at that moment. Matter of fact, I want you to turn to 2 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles chapter 5. Because we see here that the sons of Korah actually go on and they go on, they go on to write a number of psalms. Psalms chapter like 42 through 49 and a number of them through the 80s. But here we have this moment in the dedication of the temple. This is one of my favorite scriptures in all of the Bible. We see that disunity brought destruction. Y'all want to see what unity can do?

Y'all want to see what unity can do? 2 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles chapter 5. Let's start in verse 7. There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the Lord had made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt. Verse 11. The priests withdrew from their holy place. All the priests who had consecrated themselves regardless of their divisions. All the Levites who were musicians. Asaph, Haman, and Jedithon. Haman is a descendant of Korah. It's a direct descendant of Korah. Now what happens with this is that Haman and their sons and their relatives, they stood on the east side of the altar dressed in fine linen. They played cymbals, harps, and lyres. And they are accompanied by 120 priests sounding the trumpets. You hear this, you see this beautiful picture. Now we're all the musicians, man. You can, y'all can, y'all can feel it. Let's get a little drama here, okay? You feel it? Well, that's kind of jazzy right there, but you see here that all the priests are now standing there. The musicians, they begin to play. It goes on to say the trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets and cymbals and other instruments and singers raised their praise to the Lord and they sang. He is good. And his love endures forever. You see the difference in this moment as a community? Here we see Korah opposing, we saw that Korah was opposing Moses and Aaron, and it brought disunity, and it brought destruction. But here we see in this beautiful moment, this beautiful unity, where literally hundreds of people and musicians are all coming together, not just in their own voice, not just with their own thoughts and with their opinions, not with their own pride and with their own pitfalls, not with their own thoughts and ideas. But instead, in unison together, we see that they're shouting in one voice, He is good and His love endures forever. Then what happened? Then what happened? Y'all want to know what happened? The temple of the Lord was filled with a cloud. The priests, they could no longer perform their service because of the cloud. For the glory of the Lord had filled the temple. This is a picture of what the Lord can do with unity.

And just as dramatic as Cora's story was, we see the possibility of the drama of the beauty of unity. The Bible says in Psalm 133 that where there is unity, that it commands a blessing. You see, they weren't unified around their own thoughts, ideas, or agenda. But instead, they were actually unified about what the Lord is wanting to do in heaven. They were unified about making heaven to earth. And when they were unified, the Lord showed up in a special way like never before. This is what we want for your life. This is how we want to live. I'm gonna ask everybody in the room to go ahead and bow your head and close your eyes. And if you're here today and you're like, man, I feel like in me has been this same disunity that Cora had. Maybe it's words that you've spoken, texts that you've sent, something you posted on social something. Maybe it's just an attitude you've just carried. Maybe nobody knows it, actually. Maybe you've done such a good job of hiding it, nobody actually knows. But you do. And you're like, I don't, I don't want to be one that causes destruction. But instead, you want to be one that brings unity. That brings the blessing of the Lord. I'm not just talking about at church. I'm talking about at your job. I'm talking about in your home. I'm talking about with your life. And you're here today and you're like, you know what? I need to change. I need to surrender my life brand new to Jesus Christ. I would ask you to respond in this moment. And if the Holy Spirit is speaking to you in this holy set-apart moment, I want you to have the courage to just raise your hand on the count of three.

One, two, three. Just shoot up your hand saying, yep, that's me. I want my life to be surrendered to Jesus Christ. It's beautiful. There's hands all over the room. It's beautiful. You can put your hands down. The Lord actually meets you at that moment of obedience. So I'm going to ask everybody in the room to put your hand over your heart. And let's say this prayer together. Say, dear Jesus, thank you for forgiving me all of my sins. I admit I've made mistakes, but today I give you my heart. I give you my life. Give me the power to live for you. In Jesus name, everybody said amen. Come on, let's clap our heads. Lift our hands for those who give their heart to Christ. Amen.