Men's Luncheon - Pastor Greg Addison - March 3, 2026

This is uh fun.

Uh I've been uh working through the chronological Bible, as you know, and we're kind of picking up on that some here as well.

And I had a great experience this morning.

Uh I've been working on my luncheon lesson for a few days, excited about it, and I had a lesson on prayer that came from our reading last week.

This passage of scripture in November 13 in Numbers 13 and 14 is the time where the they send the 12 spies into the land of uh Canaan and they come back and ten of them, you know, squash the hearts of everyone, and uh and God pronounces judgment on them.

And so it's a significant passage of scripture.

There's all kinds of stuff in it.

You could spend weeks on it, and that's literally what I've been doing.

I preached last Sunday on it.

I couldn't get past a particular lesson I had on prayer that I wanted to do, and as I kept working through that, I kept hacking up these incredible truths and sticking them over on the side.

And I couldn't get past all these notes on the side that I had over here that I just was desperate to want to teach.

And then as I'm working through, I literally sent my screens to Charlene this morning as I finalized this lesson on prayer, and then I had this lesson just jump out at the page at me right there, and the Lord said, Preach both of them.

I want you to teach both of them.

That's why I gave them to you.

And I thought, okay.

And at our church, uh we are have entered into a season that we do every spring called Faith Forward, where we have a faith forward, it's an offering that we take that's a part of what our growth and moving forward as a church is.

And last week uh we started and I kept telling everybody, you need to pray about what you're going to give.

Ask the Lord what you're supposed to give.

Pray about what you're going to give.

And he said, Greg, are you not paying attention?

You're just telling the church they're supposed to pray for something, and I gave you a lesson on prayer.

That's for Sunday morning.

So do that one there, and do this one that I kept giving you, that you kept sticking to the side.

Give that to the guys on Tuesday.

That's what I want.

And so I thought, okay, let's go for that.

So here we go.

Uh, what I want to talk about is a leadership lesson.

How God trains leaders.

How God trains leaders.

If you're reading in all of Numbers 14, what you get is the ten guys bring back all of these examples of fruit, and they say the land flows with milk and honey, just like God said, it's awesome.

And then they make that famous statement, we look like grasshoppers in their eyes.

And then they begin to tell the whole congregation, and the Bible says that their hearts fainted or melted different versions of it.

And they were so negative in how they shouldn't go face these terrible enemies and all of that, that the Bible then describes the people almost riot.

They're complaining, they're whining, they're hollering at Moses and Aaron.

They start saying things like, we ought to go back to Egypt.

Then they start threatening to get new leadership and take Aaron and Moses out and stone them.

Joshua and Caleb come up and say, now wait a minute, y'all.

God's blessed us with this and he can handle all this.

Let's do it.

And they reject all that.

So then we have this aside where Moses, reeling from this, I'm sure, goes and gets along with the Lord, and they have this conversation with the Lord.

And here's how it begins in uh Numbers chapter 14, uh he says this.

Numbers 14 · chapter mention

Uh we missed a screen there.

Let me tell you what she says.

I told you I was working on this all morning, and changed horses.

But here's what happens.

Um in this conversation, God says uh to Moses, How long will these people despise me?

How long will they not trust me, despite all the signs I have performed among them?

And then here's the verse he says.

I will strike them with a plague and destroy them.

Then I will make you Moses, I'll just make you the next Abraham, I will make you a greater and mightier nation.

Now, keep in mind this conversation.

Moses has just come from this riot in the tribe.

I mean, people are going bananas.

They're literally talking, the Bible says, about stoning them and getting rid of them.

Moses goes along to get with the Lord, and the Lord says, I'm gonna strike them all dead, and we're gonna start over.

Now, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't have had to have a conversation with the Lord.

I'd have just said, okay, amen.

Y'all think you're gonna stone me?

Like, watch what God's about to do to you.

You bunch of Yahoos out there, like, watch this.

Watch my God at work defending me and my honor as his leader.

I mean, come on, wouldn't we all react that way?

No, we would.

You know we would.

I mean, if you knew what went through my head in the midst of church business meetings, it would shock you.

I'm standing up there as best I can with a poker face, and people ask questions, and in my mind, I'm thinking, God don't strike me down for what I just thought about that.

I'm thinking, some of the nicest things I think are, that's the stupidest question I think I've ever heard in my life.

There are plenty of those questions I'm thinking, don't laugh out loud, Greg.

Don't laugh out loud.

I mean, it's just incredible.

And there are plenty of meetings I've been in where, now, fortunately, we are doing well here.

God's blessed.

Man, we're cooking, but you got to remember, I took over two other churches that were in rough, rough shape.

My time at First Cabot, I followed two terminated pastors.

The second one, it was so bad, they fired him on Saturday morning before Easter Sunday.

My I did nine interims, about half of those were in conflict.

One of the meetings I had at one of the churches, I was brought in because the pastor had been sleeping with uh the financial lady secretary in the church, and he didn't have any accountability in any of the committees or whatever.

And there was all kinds of stuff going on, and we brought in lawyers and a forensic accountant, and I had to lead a business meeting that took three hours and 45 minutes where we presented the 26 areas of the church finances that had to be restructured and how we had turned over five years of research to the criminal division of the IRS.

Three hours and 45-minute business meeting.

And the whole time I'm thinking, I need to get through this without getting sued for defamation.

I mean, it was like you've been in these meetings, and these pale in comparison to we're gonna take you out and stone you because you took us out of Egypt.

So you gotta think here in this moment, there is something going on.

If God says, I'm gonna kill them and I'm gonna start over with you, and you're we're gonna make an even bigger nation and even greater and all that.

There's something going on here in Moses' mind and heart and thought process, and you know there's gotta be a part of him that thinks, okay, let's roll.

I'm ready, I'm with you, Lord.

Let's go, right?

So, why do we have this conversation?

Pastor I've grouped used to tell us all the time, why did God put in there, put that in there?

It had to be there for a reason.

Well, I really think that we're learning here in this moment, God knew this was going to happen.

This was not a shock to God that they responded this way.

It's not a surprise.

Nothing is a surprise to him.

You know, that old evangelist saying they used to say all the time about, did it ever occur to you that nothing ever occurs to God?

He already knows it all, right?

So he knew this.

So why is he having this conversation in this fashion with Moses and why does he give it to us?

There's a reason.

And I believe that in this moment, God is seizing this time as a classroom to teach Moses how to be a leader and how to lead these people.

Because God knows they've been doing this already up to this point.

They did it again.

Now he's gonna send them to the wilderness for 40 years, and he's gonna let that generation die off because of their lack of faith, and they're gonna train the next generation to come up, and then he'll bring them back in 40 years to the Jordan River, and we'll try this again.

And so, in all of that, Moses has got to lead them through this 40 years of this training and this failing and this coming back and all of this kind of stuff.

And Moses has got to walk through that.

And the significance of training Moses, we, if we look ahead, understand.

Eventually, one of these moments, Moses lost his temper and cool and didn't follow the instruction that God gave him.

And because of that, Moses did not get to go into the land of Canaan.

Right?

And if you know this story, you understand that happened.

So the importance of training Moses to be prepared for these things is vital.

And as we look backwards through the story, we understand why this is here and why God is spending so much time working to train Moses.

And then if he's going to give us a window into this conversation between he and Moses, then it's got to have lessons of importance for us as church leaders.

And so I think it's an incredible thing.

And there are very few things as rewarding as being in church leadership.

If you're a deacon, if you're a Sunday school teacher, our staff guys, all of you, the pe you guys have been elders and leaders in your churches, and you've worked along staff, pastors and staff and all of that, then you know that's true.

It is incredible to watch when God turns lives on.

It is incredible to watch people saved.

It is there is nothing greater than watch God restore, rebuild, his spiritual life flourish in someone's life.

It's just incredible.

It's incredible.

There's nothing greater.

There are also very few things that are more frustrating than being in ministry.

Because for every person that flourishes, another one rejects everything.

Right?

And so you have these things going on.

And so as you are leading in the body of Christ and in the process of God turning his people into his people, it is important for us to learn these lessons because we have to respond the way Moses did.

And so God gives us this example of his response, and we read through here.

And the big idea that I want you to get today is this God knows his people, he knows their journey, he knows their needs, he needs Moses to understand what you're doing, and these are my people, and I love them, and I need you to not get frustrated, not reject, not quit.

I need you to understand so that you can lead them to me.

And that's the call for any of us who are leading or impacting or influencing people in church.

That's what our job is.

A lot of times I'll tell our staff something will be frustrated and we're dealing with something or whatever, and I'll say, Well, look, I get they don't get it, but that's why God called us here.

That's literally what our ministry is, right?

Is to serve people and help them get there.

And I've had plenty of times in my life.

One of the guys speaking, leading that men's night is Dr.

Floyd.

And I've been in meetings with Dr.

Floyd where we went through some things at the SBC, and some of y'all know that, or whatever, and I'd go in all frustrated, and he's Moses teaching me.

I mean, I'm frustrated, I'm ready to hang somebody.

I mean, I'm ready, like, they want to go to war, let's go.

I'm trained as a warrior.

Like, I'm a lawyer, like I win.

Let's go.

And he's like, he'd let me, you know, vent or do whatever.

And then with incredible integrity and pastoral insight, he'd say something funny to break the ice, and he'd go, feel better?

Or something, you know?

A little bit.

And then he'd remind me, well, that we're pastors, Greg, and that's why we're here.

And we're not gonna let them, this would be a phrase he would use, we're not gonna let people out of our circle of love.

And we're gonna serve them, and we're gonna point them to Jesus, and that's why God brought us here.

And it was incredible to learn and to see a godly leader in these moments of stress understand his role as a godly leader.

And so I think as I kept running across these incredible truths yesterday, last night, again this morning, and writing them on this list and setting them to the side, I thought, we don't need to set those aside.

We need to look at that.

So let me just show you a couple of things.

Here's what happens as they enter into this conversation.

Moses' response to the Lord, and I've kind of excerpted this for time's sake today.

Here's what he says.

God, if you kill these people, if you kill these people, now this was Moses responding.

I'm like, yeah, we're all in.

Especially that guy back there who was picking up rocks already.

Like, take care of him first, Lord.

Moses responds, if you kill this people with a single blow, the nations that have heard of your fame will declare this.

Since the Lord wasn't able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them, he has slaughtered them in the wilderness.

You get the statement in that?

They're gonna say, you weren't big enough to do this.

They're gonna defame your name.

They're not going to believe in your power and who you are, and all the things that you've done to show yourself as God.

They're gonna say, look, you're not big enough to get it done.

You had to kill them all.

Like you couldn't even manage that rabble.

So he says, So now, may my Lord's power be magnified, just as you have spoken.

The Lord is slow to anger and rich in faithful love, forgiving wrongdoing and rebellion.

Now, this is Moses telling God this about who God is, right?

And he says, but he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the father's wrongdoing on the children to the third and fourth generation.

Please, this is his prayer to the Lord, please pardon the wrongdoing of this people in keeping with the greatness of your faithful love, just as you forgiven, have forgiven them from Egypt until now.

Now that's a big phrase right there, right?

So what he's reminding God is everybody's been watching you since the Passover deal.

And everybody's been watching us and our claims, and they heard about the Egypt thing and dumping the Red Sea on them and all this journey.

We've been doing this for a year, and they failed, and they've messed up, and they've come back, and they did the golden calf, and they got sick of manna, and you told them I'm gonna give you pheasant until it's coming out your nose, and all those stories that we saw.

He says, Listen, you have been forgiving them from Egypt to now as a part of your journey of preparing them to be able to go into the land.

That's who you are, and that's what you're doing.

That's your purpose.

And I'm going to ask you to forgive them and extend that same forgiveness now that you have been in this journey up to this point.

Now, first of all, I'm just in awe that Moses responds that way.

I mean, that's an incredible standard of leadership right there.

And it is the result of God's teaching.

And in this moment, I believe God gives him this opportunity.

He says, I'm going to kill them all and start off with you.

And then he's looking at Moses like, let's see what you got.

Moses, let's see what you've learned.

What is your reaction in this moment?

I want to affirm with you what you're doing right.

I want to correct what you're doing wrong.

Here's this moment in front of you, Moses.

Let's see what you've learned.

And I think God is listening to Moses and he's looking at Moses.

And here's a couple of things that uh in my list of things, here's a couple of them that I really most wanted to say.

The Lord answers his prayer and he says, I've pardoned them as you requested.

So God hears Moses.

I believe that's an affirmation of Moses' prayer.

God is continuing his plan.

Moses understands that about the character of God.

That's literally what he's asked for.

And now here's what you see in that moment.

First of all, God teaches Moses to see beyond what happened to what needs to happen.

Right?

Moses says, God, everybody's watching us going to Canaan.

We've got to go to Canaan.

That's been your promise.

By your character, all this work, you've staked this ground, you're taking the people to Canaan.

And Moses says, I get it that they failed.

I get it.

They did.

But we still got to get there.

Your plan, your character is God, the testimony of who you are.

Remember, he prays, Lord, so that the world may see your power.

Lord, this is not the end of the story.

I get what we're doing.

That's what needs to happen.

I've got to look beyond this moment of failure.

As a leader, I've got to look beyond.

They're griping at me and complaining.

They're threatening to stone Aaron and all that kind of stuff.

And if you want to let them stone Aaron, that's okay.

Let them go first, and maybe they'll get tired of throwing rocks.

And he says, and it's an incredible thing to be able to look past what's happening in this moment.

We live in the moment.

Especially when a moment doesn't go the way we want to.

It is hard to keep plowing when it didn't go what we already thought it should have gone.

To keep our eyes on what God's plan is and how we're supposed to keep going, to keep focused and to keep plowing is a real thought process of faith that requires a leader to think about who God is and think about where God's going and to have a long view beyond the moment of failure that you're dealing with.

It's really important to think it didn't happen the way it's supposed to, but God is always about his work.

He's always about accomplishing his plan.

And the people of God need us now more than ever to find a way to stay on track and refocus them on what needs to happen, on what should happen.

And that's a deep lesson right there for leaders to learn.

It takes a lot of sitting in God's seat, seeing the long view.

It takes a lot of faith to believe that God can actually get us there when it doesn't feel like we can get there.

And so this is a huge lesson to learn.

We cannot be bogged down with the frustration of what happens in the moment.

If we do that, we never go forward.

We never get anything there.

Very seldom is any motion, whether it's at work, it's in your family, it's in a Sunday school class, it's in a church, if you're a leader in children's ministry or student ministry, in that particular ministry, very seldom do things go smoothly.

And very seldom do we lay out this thing and like we get there.

You know, the military guys will tell you the axiom your battle plan is not to execute the battle plan.

Because every battle plan comes apart when you encounter the enemy for the first time, right?

The planning allows you the ability to adapt and move and adjust to keep moving forward and win.

And that's literally what Moses has to learn.

And God is testing him in this moment.

He even gives him the chance to give in.

But Moses understands what happened is not what needs to happen.

And what needs to happen needs to be where our focus is.

And that's why he prays and asks God to forgive them and get us there because this is what we're supposed to be doing, and I understand this is your plan, and I'm not gonna let this moment of failure let me off track.

And God is testing Moses, so Moses understands God's like, Moses, I'm about to really put this lesson to test.

I'm about to say, We're gonna wander in the wilderness for 40 years because they don't have faith, and they're gonna have to learn faith, and you're gonna go through this over and over and over again, Moses.

So I'm glad you've got That lesson, let's let's let's cement that lesson in this moment.

The next thing he teaches him to view things from God's point of view.

From God's point of view.

This wasn't about Moses' failure.

This wasn't that guy's fault.

It wasn't all that stuff.

He is looking at it from the way God looks at it.

When God says, How long will my people despise me and not trust in me?

Moses understands that that is the spiritual battle that's in play.

It is a spiritual matter.

It was not a problem with the plan.

It was not a problem with the person.

Well, those ten guys, you should have picked ten other guys.

It's not, I'm mad at them because they don't know how great I am as a leader.

I led them out of Egypt and all that.

You know, don't y'all remember like I'm calling out frogs and stuff, and like y'all aren't.

None of that.

Moses doesn't get bogged down in any of that.

He sees this for what it is.

It is a spiritual battle of faith.

It is God's people.

Their lack of faith leads to a sinful rebellion.

He understands what God says when God says, How long will they not trust me?

That's why he comes back and prays to the Lord about God's faithfulness, about his never-ending mercy.

That's why he's asking the Lord, I know that you promised to do this and they have failed.

Will you forgive their sin and rebellion?

Moses calls it out exactly what it is.

It wasn't some factual problem, it wasn't some circumstantial problem.

It was a lack of faith that led them to directly rebel and say, we're not going to do what you told us you wanted us to do.

And Moses hones in on that and he says, This is a spiritual matter, God, and I understand it's a spiritual matter, and we need forgiveness, and then we need you to re-engage in teaching us how to get there.

And that's the nature of his prayer.

And so many times these things we face, they're spiritual matters, and we get mad about this or that or frustrated because this won't happen and all this stuff.

We get personal with people.

We get personal with people.

It's interesting.

People ask me, you know, I get lots of affirmation.

Our church is great.

I love preaching here.

I love teaching you guys.

We have great conversations back and forth.

But every preacher gets you know, yang yang yang, whatever.

It's amazing.

As I've gotten older and done things and been around and dealt with those things, somebody will call, they'll call me or text me or send me an email, they'll get me in a hall and they're yeah, yeah, yeah, and about whatever.

And they're all in my face and they're doing whatever.

And I mean, now you can really learn.

If you just listen, they'll tell you what their faith issue is.

They will, it will be obvious what their spiritual struggle is.

And if I'm getting all mad because they call me this or call me that or whatever, I can't be a pastor in that moment.

Right?

But if you listen, now I know how to be a pastor because I'm hearing what the spiritual issue is, and I can pastor that and we can help them grow through that.

And that's what Moses sees here.

That's what he sees.

I remember I had a lady in Cabot.

We were friends, like we had done ministry together, our kids were the same age.

We'd done, I mean, it was, we'd done stuff, we were doing a town hall meeting about some project we needed to move forward on or whatever.

And uh, and I and after it was all over, I was headed back to my office, and she comes up to me, and I mean, she gets in my grill, and I mean, I'm like backing up against the wall.

I mean, total mama bear in my face, pointing at me like this, and she said, I'm so mad at you.

I can't even speak.

I'm so mad at you.

I mean, I can't, I can't tell you how mad.

I can't even talk to you.

Like, I don't even want to talk to you.

I'm like, well, then stop.

I mean, she's going on and on and on.

And I said, Why are you mad?

And she goes, Well, I'm not gonna talk to you because all you're gonna do is that lawyer thing.

You're just gonna do that lawyer thing and tell me how wrong I am.

But I'm so mad.

She said, I'm so intimidated by that lawyer thing.

Like, I can't even talk to you because you're a lawyer and you do that lawyer thing and I don't like it when you do that lawyer thing.

And I said, Man, I'm really glad you're intimidated.

I would be terrified, I'd be terrified of this if you were free.

Right?

And then, you know, do you get mad or do you try to think through what is God doing in this?

How does God view this moment?

What is God working in this person's life?

What's the spiritual matter in the middle of this?

And Moses does that and sees that.

And I think that's incredibly important for us.

Final thing I want you to see.

He teaches us to rely on God's character as the journey gets long.

You think about the superlatives that that Moses gives in this prayer.

Now remember, this is a guy talking to the Lord.

He has been with the Lord on the mountain and gotten the Ten Commandments and all that.

This is a guy who is a prayer.

He's connected with the Lord.

This is not some flowery, you know, say it in church so we sound spiritual or we're creating, we're trying to be reverent and giving off.

That's not what this is.

This is a guy who's just had his life threatened and he's gone off to the side as the leader when it's all falling apart and he's talking to the Lord about what's going on, what are we going to do in this?

Right?

That's the setting of this.

So he's not just trying to, you know, stroke the Lord or whatever kind of a deal.

Listen to what he says.

So now that my Lord's, may my Lord's power be magnified.

The Lord is slow to anger and rich in faithful love.

You are rich and faithful love, forgiving, wrongdoing, and even rebellion.

He forgave them when he came down with the Ten Commandments, and they had built the golden calf, altar, and all that, and God worked through all that and brought them together and forgave and judged who needed to be and forgave what needed to be and kept his people moving.

And Moses is saying, You are you are incredible in your forgiving of wrongdoing rebellion.

I know you won't leave the guilty unpunished.

I know this is a sin deal.

I know he got that, but in verse 19, please pardon the wrongdoing of this people in keeping with the greatness of your faithful love.

The greatness of your faithful love.

He says, You've been doing this from day one since we got out of Egypt.

You've been doing this.

And you keep doing this, and that's who you are as God.

You forgive, you get your people there, you work through the sin, you forgive the sin, you are faithful in all that you're doing, and the magnitude of your forgiveness and the magnitude of your mercy, when we keep struggling with all this nonsense and you keep doing it, God, that's what we're relying on.

That's what we're relying on.

And he makes sure that Moses is attached into his character as God so that other times when this journey is going to get difficult, Moses knows and has been trained by the Lord to return to and rely on the character of the person of God in these struggles.

In the journey, God is faithful.

In the journey, God is merciful.

In the journey that's difficult, in the times when you think this is never going to work.

How are we going to get there?

We know we'll get there because God is faithful.

Because He's rich in His love for His people.

I mean, think about the superlatives of this.

The richness, slow to anger, faithful love, the greatness of your love.

Over and over, Moses is standing in the presence of God as a leader, understanding man, God is bigger than this.

God is bigger than this.

God is more than this.

God is big enough to have this.

God is big enough to get us there.

It does not matter how bad the journey is or how many twists and turns, God is faithful and loving.

It doesn't matter how bad we mess up this deal.

We know you're going to deal with it.

He says, I know that you bring consequences to the unpunished.

I know that.

But even in the midst of that, your mercy is still overwhelming.

You think about when David was, one of the times David was judged for sin that he did.

And God gave him a couple of different options of what would happen.

And you can let this nation conk you for this long, or you can do this, or I will do this to your people.

And David's response is, I know I've sinned, and I would rather be, because of your character of mercy, I would rather be under your judgment than anything else.

Because of your faithfulness and your love and your mercy.

Even in God's judgment, He is a Father who loves and has purpose and mercy and is dealing with us in those moments.

And so what you have here is God rehearsing with Moses.

You're going to trust in my character in the journey as we go through this.

So those bless me as I was studying through that.

I hope they encourage you.

Let me pray for us.

Lord, we thank you for today.

Lord, I thank you for these insights that you give us in Scripture.

Of all the ways you could have written Scripture, you could have given us a history book, an encyclopedia, a theological treatise, a dictionary.

You could have given us all these things.

And in the midst of all those aspects of Scripture, you take moments like this between you and a man in a situation that is incredibly difficult, and you open the windows of heaven and the heart of a man, Moses, and you let us see how you interact with your children.

You let us see how you want to interact with us.

You give us these moments in the life of a person as a classroom to learn so that we can be who you want us to be.

We can lead in our churches and our families and our organizations and the places where we work, wherever it is, we can lead the way that you want us to lead.

You can prepare us to walk through the valleys and the struggles and not give up, not walk away.

You teach us about your character that you walk with us through those moments.

I just thank you for this incredibly beautiful picture in Scripture.

I pray you'll bless these guys, bless them for their week, bless them the rest of their day.

Thank you for the time you give us together each Tuesday.

We thank you most of all for your incredible, just as just as Moses said, your rich and faithful mercy that brings us salvation through Jesus.

It's in his name we pray everybody sit.

You guys have a great afternoon.