Numbers 11:10-17 March 28, 1999
When God Gives You More Than You Can Handle

Poor Tattoo, the basset hound from Tacoma Washington, wanted to go for a walk, that's all. Being a stubble-legged K9 whose stomach and ears dragged the ground, a nice walk was about as much exercise as he could handle. He didn't intend to go for an evening run, but when his owner shut his leash in the car door and took off for a drive, Tattoo had no choice. Terry Filbert, a Tacoma Motorcycle Cop, noticed a passing vehicle with something that appeared to be dragging behind it and as he passed the vehicle, he saw Tattoo. "He was picking them up and putting them down as fast as he could," said Filbert. The officer finally got the car to stop, and Tattoo was rescued - but not before the dog reached a speed of twenty-five miles per hour, and rolled over several times. 

Not to worry, the basset hound was okay. But, Tattoo's owner has said that Tattoo has not asked to go out for a walk in some time. Tattoo had the experience many of us have felt. Too often our days are marked by "picking them up and putting them down as fast as we can." Our world moves so fast we can't keep up. We are desperately running to keep pace. Time after time we fall down and get up to the same overwhelming load. Other times we're dragged along in the process. And it's not just the rush, its also the load. The load we carry can feel overwhelming and nothing we do seems to take it away. It leads us to a weariness of living that can cause us to complain.

When life gets weary, when our leash is stuck in the car door and we're tumbling about in life, like Tattoo we might lose the zeal to go for a simple walk. When our load is too much to carry and stress is overwhelming, we can easily find ourselves falling into melancholy; we can become depressed.

According to Dr. Bertram Brown, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, depression is our nation's most costly emotional problem. The cost to taxpayers is over $5 billion a year in medical expenses. The cost to businesses - in lowered productivity, reduced morale, and lost jobs - is many times greater. Studies have discovered that nearly 80% of Americans will struggle with some form of depression on an annual basis. Depression is defined as one or more of the following: A feeling of dejection or sadness, An attitude of self-depreciation, a reduction is quality or force, a lowering of vitality or functional activity

When stress in our life is too much, when we sense that our exhaustion is leading to despair, when a simple "blue Monday" seems to flow into every day ending in the letter "y," we need to stop and assess the problem. Our passage this morning in Numbers 11:10-17 outlines two false assumptions which will lead us to despair.

10. Moses heard the people of every family wailing, each at the entrance to his tent. The LORD became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled.

11. He asked the LORD, "Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me?

12. Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their forefathers?

13. Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, `Give us meat to eat!'

14. I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me.

15. If this is how you are going to treat me, put me to death right now--if I have found favor in your eyes--and do not let me face my own ruin."

16. The LORD said to Moses: "Bring me seventy of Israel's elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you.

17. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone.

As we saw last week, the people were fed up with being fed manna. They wanted more variety to their diet, but in their complaining, they forgot God's goodness and so they rejected Him.

This morning we'll look at how this grumbling group stressed out Moses so that he too gave up. In verse 10 while the people acted as though God forgot them, God's anger only increased. But notice how Moses responds - he was troubled, literally, it was evil in his sight. What was evil to Moses?

WE DESPAIR WHEN WE ASSUME GOD IS ANGRY  - verse 11

Moses knows where to turn, but he betrays his misguided thought. God is angry at the people for their sinful attitudes, but Moses is torqued at God's handling of the situation, for putting all this on Moses.

The rabble's rebellion has affected Moses. Like an out-of-tune musician causing others in the orchestra to question whether they are in tune, Moses joins in with gripes of his own. The effect of the complaining people on Moses was pitiful; the people yielded to discontent; but Moses gave himself over to absolute despair. Why does Moses despair? What does he assume about God? Moses is sure all this is happening because God is angry with him.

Moses may be clear on God's sovereignty, but is weak on God's goodness. Certainly God in His sovereign plan could've kept Moses from being the leader. But when Moses stresses God's sovereignty over His goodness he misunderstands God in a very basic way. This misconception is seen in his second question: "What have I done to displease you?"

Certainly God could've answered with a list a mile long, given that Moses, like each of us, falls short of God's demand for absolute perfection. But the question betrays a misguided idea of how God deals with our sin. Moses reasons that the troubles he is facing is a direct result of something he's done to offend God. Moses pictures God as the cosmic disciplinarian who doles out evil in our lives whenever we slip up.

When we adopt this outlook on God, that our performance will command either God's smiling face to shine down on us or His angry disapproval when we fail, we will live in constant speculation as to our standing before God.

To conceive of God in this manner will cause us to interpret our daily circumstances in a twisted formula. When life is good, we'll think it is obviously due to our goodness. Likewise, when life is bad, it must be bad karma, some cosmic pay back for sin. We adopt a frame of mind which says: "I was nasty to my wife this morning, that is why my boss is on my back." "I forgot to pray this morning, no wonder God is making my day so miserable." Or, "I was nice to this person, that's why my day is going smoothly."

When we adopt this scheme, the God of all grace fades into a Zeus hurling thunderbolts from heaven. But God's disposition, either good or bad, toward us is not dependent on us, on whether He loves us today and is angry with us tomorrow. Rather, when we trust that Christ is sufficient for our standing before the Father, then we must remember that His displeasure is placed on His own Son and that His love for us is dependent solely upon His Son's perfect record that is given to us.

WE DESPAIR WHEN WE ASSUME GOD IS ABSENT  - verses 12-15

It is not far removed from thinking God is angry to thinking God is absent. In verse 12 Moses takes himself far too seriously and imagines that God is far removed from his life. God is very small.

Notice how in each of his gripes, the focus is on him: "Did I conceive them? Did I give birth?" With a play on words Moses states the problem when he compares himself to a nurse. The word he uses for nurse is a masculine form for a wet nurse, a woman put in charge of giving milk to an infant. But in using the masculine form he states the obvious: he doesn't have what it takes to give the people what they want and need. God is wrong, because He's asking the impossible.

Moses' problem is pronounced by his pronouns. Notice the emphasis here, how often he uses first person pronouns. Verse 14 summarizes it well: "I cannot carry all these people by myself."

But did God say to do that? Where did God ever say that the people's life or death is solely dependent on Moses? When did God say that Moses is indispensable? Moses's despair centers around his faulty conclusions that God intends for him to do it all. He took the people's sin as one of personal rejection. Moses was doing so much, but with this, he could not take it any more. He just got tired of doing what was right.

In his wonderful book, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures, the great British pastor Martyn Lloyd-Jones warns of the problem of growing weary in well-doing. Taken from Paul's admonition in Galatians 6:9 to persevere, Lloyd-Jones draws out the problem that many believers face as they go the long haul in the Christian life. While the initial experience of a relationship with Christ may be surprising and wonderful, there comes a point when new discoveries wane. The Christian life become mundane, that which animated in the past is now passé and we succumb to the temptation to quit. The problem is God is wholly absent from the framework of our Christian life. He says:

"We have really been doing all that we have been doing, to satisfy self, in order to please ourselves, in order to be able to say to ourselves: `How wonderful you are and how much you do.' Self says that we are important. We have to admit that it has not all been for the glory of God, but for our own glory. We may say that we do not want the praise and that "to God be the glory", but we like to see results and we like it to appear in the papers and so on - self has come in and self is a terrible master. If we are working to satisfy and please self in any shape or form, the end is always going to be weariness and tiredness."

But whenever we vainly imagine that everything rests on us and when what rests on us is the weight of the world, we find ourselves crushed. It is no wonder that Moses cries out for God to kill him. He reached the point where death was a welcome relief from all the pressure.

It is as though Moses says, "If this is how you treat your friends... no wonder you have so few." At this point in his life, for Moses grace only means a nice, quick, painless death. But he betrays his own sinful heart when he thinks all this is about his own ruin.

When the burdens we carry, or believe we carry, become great enough to crush us we lose focus, we can lose rational judgment. We become angry. We blame God. We think God has done it to us. How many times have we thought: "Lord, look at what you've done to me? Why have you placed such a heavy load on me? Who can carry it?"

When the kids are overwhelming, how tempting is it to shake your fist at God. When the job demands more than you can give, how quick are you to forget God? How distant is God when those you love treat you with disdain? It is at times like that people will try to comfort you with hollow words. There is an old adage which we should discard immediately: "God never gives us more than we can handle."

I have some news for you. God always gives you and me more than we can handle for the simple reason that the successful Christian life is not about you handling your own problems. Our life is to be about faithful dependence on a loving Father who demands to be at the center of our life.

Moses's problem is not poor scheduling, it is not that he needs a week at the cabin in the mountains. His problem will not dissipate when the people are well fed and in a better mood. His problem is simple unbelief.

It is the nature of unbelief to turn inward, to rely on one's own resources. The heart of unbelief is simple self-reliance. Moses despairs because he sees what needs to be done and he tries his best to do it, all this without a thought of God's grace.

Unfortunately, you and I are far too capable for our own good. We don't have 3 million people asking for food in the desert. We just have the boss asking for the report in half the time it takes to produce it, a two year old whining for attention, parents who just don't seem to understand. So we think, we must dig deeper to do what we must, even to do what is right and good. This turn toward the self will either create a comfortable Pharisee, a pleasant hypocrite who gets by with coping or eventually it produces the pale of death, and you'll want to give up.

WE ARE FREE FROM DESPAIR WHEN WE BELIEVE GOD PROVIDES  - verses 16-17

Moses despaired of what God wanted him to do as long as he believed his own press releases, as long as he thought that it really did depend on him. Moses vastly overestimated his own importance. God set him straight rather quickly with a simple command: "Get seventy of Israel's elders."

Notice what God does here. He takes 70 others who are known to be leaders, has them come to the Tabernacle. There they stand, just like Moses, before the presence of God and there God places on them the same Spirit that is on Moses. In verses 24-25 see what happens when the Spirit came on them; they prophesied. The clear message to Moses is this: "You are not alone. It all doesn't depend upon you." But we all struggle with this simple lesson. We like to believe in our own self-importance.

As Garrison Keillor explained, we all want to think we are great, that the world can't survive without us. In Lake Woebegone Days, Garrison tells about growing up without praise and the inner hunger it created in him to be important.

He admitted that when he received compliments he would say how he didn't deserve the praise. Then he said, "Under this thin veneer of modesty lies a monster of greed. I drive away faint praise beating my little chest, waiting to be named Sun-god, King of America, Idol of Millions, Bringer of Fire, The Great Haji, Thun-Dar the Boy Giant. I don't want to say, 'Thanks, glad you liked it.' I want to say, 'Rise, my people. Remove your faces from the carpet, stand, look me in the face.'"

Keillor struggles with what we all face everyday: self-centeredness. Be it an overblown and boisterous ego or a timid self-effacing shyness, we are all too easily bound by the chains of our own self-sufficiency. But the dead end of that life is despair. It is for that reason God calls us to share the load with others. We must let go of the lie of our own self-importance and realize that God graciously provides others to share our load.

In the story the elders do not parcel out the quail when they arrive. In fact we don't hear of them again. But they served as an illustration for Moses - God's grace comes to us in so many different ways, but often it comes in the simple assistance we receive from someone else. The same God who was at work in Moses is the God who would empower these men whenever he deemed it necessary.

How about you?

Are you under a heavy load? Do you feel like Tattoo the tumbling Basset? Has the pace of your life worn you out? Are over your head? Recognize that it doesn't all depend on you. Ask God to send others to share your load. Give others the right to help. Be thankful for them. This is the heart of the message of the Cross. The stoic self-reliance flies in the face of what it means to be a Christian. The Gospel says, "You cannot carry the load. You can never achieve it. It has been given to you as a gift. There is such a word as DONE. You can rest. It doesn't depend on you."

This is the heart of the gospel. All our striving has gotten us nowhere. Our work was and never could be enough. It was the accomplishment of Jesus Christ. It was His obedience, His faithfulness, His achievement, His Cross that has brought us peace and rest. When we enter into what He has DONE we can cease from our labors and find life. "Come to me," Jesus said, "all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

When faced with fatigue that leads to that downward spiral of depression, examine your assumptions. Do you act as though God is angry with you? Are you finding it hard to believe that His plans for you are good? Does it feel as though God is absent? Does it seem that God has dumped everything on your shoulders and taken a vacation from caring about you?

As we approach this Easter week, as we take time to consider what Christ's death means for each of us, we are confronted by that wonderful reminder of the Cross, that all the weight of our sin was placed on His Son and that in the resurrection of Easter morning, we know that what He offers us is a life free from the burdensome lies of our own self importance.