Faces of the Kingdom: Moses

Today we’ll meet a man who was completely unqualified by every human standard, and yet became the instrument through which God delivered Bnei-Yisrael from their slavery in Egypt. He was a stuttering fugitive, a wanted man, a shepherd hiding at the edge of the wilderness; and yet he was the one that God chose to confront the most powerful empire on earth…

Moses didn’t feel ready. He had a list of reasons why God had the wrong man for this job, and God’s response to every single one of those reasons was not to argue—but to redirect. Every objection Moses raised, God answered with a promise of Himself. That redirection is the heart of Moses’ entire story, and it holds something powerful for us today.

Who was Moses?

Moses was born into a nation in bondage. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt and Pharaoh, fearing their growing numbers, had issued a horrifying decree…that every Hebrew baby boy was to be thrown into the Nile.

During this horrific time there was one woman that we learn of, who refused to comply. She hid her baby boy for three months, and when she could no longer conceal him, she placed him in a basket and set him among the reeds of the river—trusting God with what she could no longer protect herself. By chance (more like by God’s will)…Pharaoh’s own daughter found him there while she bathed and took him in as her own son to raise. A Hebrew boy who was supposed to die in the Nile was instead raised in the palace of the very man who had ordered his death.

His Hebrew name is Moshe (משה) — meaning “drawn from the water” or “one who draws out.” He was pulled from the Nile as an infant, and decades later, he would draw his people, an entire nation out of slavery. His name was a prophecy he didn’t yet know he would live.

After killing an Egyptian he saw beating a Hebrew slave, Moses fled Egypt as a fugitive and spent the next forty years in the wilderness of Midian, tending his father-in-law’s flocks. By the time God appeared to him, Moses was eighty years old — a shepherd with a criminal past, far from anyone who would remember what he had once been, and far from anyone who would expect anything from him now.

And then a bush caught fire. And it didn’t burn up…

When Everything Changed

The Burning Bush

From within the burning bush on Mount Horeb, God spoke to Moses, and the assignment He had for him was quite daunting…go to Pharaoh, bring the Israelites out of Egypt, lead a nation out of slavery. As you could imagine, Moses responded with a list of his own inadequacies, and they weren’t unreasonable ones: 

• Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh? 

God’s answer: “I will surely be with you.” (Exodus 3:12 TLV)

• What if they don’t believe me? 

God’s answer: “But if they do not believe you, or listen to the voice of the first sign, they will believe the message of the latter sign. “ (Exodus 4:8 TLV)

• I am slow of speech and tongue!

God’s answer: “Who made man’s mouth? Or makes a man mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, Adonai?” (Exodus 4:11 TLV)

• Please send someone else!

God’s answer: “I will be with your mouth and with his [Aaron], and teach you what to do.” (Exodus 4:15 TLV)

Notice how God never argued with Moses’ self-assessment and He didn’t try to convince Moses he was secretly more capable than he thought. He simply answered every fear with the same promise: His presence. Moses did not say yes because he felt ready. He said yes—reluctantly and slowly—because God called, and that was enough.

The Red Sea

The Israelites had just left Egypt and they felt triumphant, but then everything looked like they were headed towards disaster…

The Red Sea stretched out in front of them, Pharaoh’s army—with his chariots, horsemen, troops—closed in from behind. There was no way forward and no way back. The people panicked and turned on Moses in their fear.

But Moses said to the people, “Don’t be afraid! Stand still, and see the salvation of Adonai, which He will perform for you today. You have seen the Egyptians today, but you will never see them again, ever! Adonai will fight for you, while you hold your peace.”

Exodus 14:13-14 TLV

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and God drove the waters back with a strong east wind, all night, until there was dry ground, and then Bnei-Yisrael walked through.

Moses brought no strategy. He had no plan except relying on Adonai. He had stretched out his hand in faith and it was not an act of ability, but rather an act of availability. He was saying: I am here. I am willing. I am surrendering the rest to You.

This moment seems almost deliberately designed to eliminate any explanation other than the existence of our one, true God. There is no way to look at the parting of the Red Sea and credit human ingenuity.

Water from the Rock

Decades into the journey throughout the wilderness, the people were complaining again. They had no water, they were angry, and their anger was aimed at Moses and Aaron.

God told Moses what to do: take the staff, gather the assembly, and speak to the rock, water would then flow freely from it. Moses gathered the people. He raised his staff. And then, in a moment of very human exhaustion and very real frustration, he struck the rock instead of speaking to it. Twice.

“Listen now, you rebels! Must we bring you water from this rock?”

numbers 20:10 tlv

Even though the method used was not what God had commanded, water came anyway. God’s provision was not withheld from a thirsty people because of Moses’ failure. However, there would be consequences for him…Because he had not honored God as holy before the people, Moses would not be the one to lead Bnei-Yisrael into the Promised Land.

This is one of the harder moments in Moses’ story, and it deserves to be sat with. His sin wasn’t simply losing his temper. It was shifting the center from God’s holiness to his own frustration. The word we, “must we bring”, placed Moses at the center of a miracle that could only be brought about from God’s hand.

The reminder here may sound harsh, but it is necessary nonetheless…Keeping God at the center of our lives is not a one-time decision made at a burning bush. It is a daily returning, a daily discipline, and even the most faithful among us are not exempt from the need for it.

Death and Burial

Moses climbed Mount Nebo alone. He stood at the heights of Pisgah and looked out over the land he had spent forty years leading his people toward. He could see it all—the Jordan Valley, the plains of Jericho, the full stretch of the Promised Land, but he would not enter it.

So Moses the servant of Adonai died there in the land of Moab, as was from the mouth of Adonai. Then He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor–but no one knows of his burial place to this day.

Deuteronomy 34:5-6 TLV

God Himself buried Moses, in an unmarked grave that has never been found to this day. There is something almost unbearably tender about this image. The man who had stretched out his hand over the Red Sea, who had spoken with God as a man speaks to his friend, who had carried a nation through forty years of wilderness—he died quietly, alone with the God who called him, with no monument to mark the spot.

But here is what Moses could not have known standing on that mountain…

Centuries later, he would appear alongside the great prophet Elijah—standing on the soil of the Promised Land at last, speaking with Yeshua Himself (Matthew 17:1-3; Luke 9:30). His name would be honored in Hebrews 11 among the other ‘faces of the kingdom’, and the redeemed in heaven will sing “the song of Moses and of the Lamb” for eternity (Revelation 15:3).

An unmarked grave couldn’t contain his legacy because the legacy was never really his to begin with. It belonged to the God who called him, equipped him, and worked through him, and when God is the author of your story, not even death is the final word…

What Moses’ Story Teaches Us

Reviewed together, these four moments are not completely separate, disconnected moments of Moses’ life. They hold one single theme, playing out in different ways across the whole of Moses’ life—and they speak directly to us as Messianic believers today.

God uses the unlikely.

Moses was a stuttering fugitive with a criminal past. He was God’s chosen Shaliach — שליח, “sent one”—carrying out this important mission not because of who he was, but because of who sent him. God is not looking for the most impressive vessel. He is looking for an available one.

God does the heavy lifting.

Moses showed up at the Red Sea with faith and an outstretched hand, and God parted the water. The same pattern holds throughout Moses’ entire ministry. Moses made himself available and then God did what only God could do. Our part is faithfulness, and the outcomes belong solely to Him.

It’s important who gets the glory.

The story at Meribah is in Scripture for a reason. When Moses made himself the center—even for this one exhausted, frustrated moment, after decades of extraordinary faithfulness—it mattered to God. The call to keep Him at the center is not a one-time surrender for believers, it is the pinnacle of every choice we make. 

God holds the legacy.

Moses died without seeing the full fruit of his obedience. The Promised Land was visible from the mountain but not entirely reachable, and because of that, the complete picture of what God had done through him was not visible from where he stood. We may not see the full impact of our faithfulness on this side of eternity—Moses didn’t either—but that is okay.

One Central Message

Moses’ story ultimately teaches us that God does not need you to be perfect to be part of His big plan. In fact, your imperfections serve an important purpose. They ensure that what you do in the world reflects not your own greatness, but the greatness of God.

In every defining moment of Moses’ life—the burning bush, the Red Sea, Meribah, Mount Nebo—his story kept pointing away from himself and back to God. That was always the design, and it is the design for us now too. 

The God who called Moses from a burning bush did not choose him because he was qualified. He chose him because He Himself was more than enough to make up the difference, and He still is!

Living This Truth Today

The same God who appeared in a burning bush to an eighty-year-old fugitive shepherd is the God who is present with us today. The same God who parted a sea through an outstretched hand is the God who goes before us into whatever impossible situation we are facing right now.

Moses’ story asks us, personally and practically, to consider where God might be calling us…

Are you at a burning bush moment — feeling entirely unqualified for something God seems to be placing in front of you?

Are you standing at a Red Sea with no strategy and no way forward — only an outstretched hand and a word from God?

Are you in an exhausting Meribah season, where the daily discipline of keeping God at the center has never felt more costly?

Are you on a Mount Nebo — faithful, weary, unable to see the fruit of what you have sown, trusting that God is holding a legacy you may not live to witness?

In every one of those places, God’s answer is the same one He gave Moses at the foot of a mountain, before a bush that burned and was not consumed, “I will be with you.” (Exodus 3:12 TLV)

He didn’t argue with Moses’ weaknesses. He didn’t promise that Moses would feel capable or confident or ready, He simply promised His presence. And His presence was enough to part seas, deliver nations, and write a legacy that echoes from Mount Nebo all the way to the throne room of heaven.

Conclusion

Moses thought he was a forgotten man. A shepherd hiding at the edge of the world with too much in his past and too little to offer. Instead, God gave him a burning bush, a staff, a people, and a legacy that echoes into eternity. His story is recorded in Scripture, studied across thousands of years, recounted during holidays, and continues to remind us that God has never once needed our perfection. He has only ever needed our willingness.

Will we trust Him with our weakness — and watch what He does with our yes?