One of the finest examples of sacrifice by a leader in the Bible is the life of Moses, the greatest prophet of the Old Testament. He could easily be the poster child for leadership sacrifice.

The Dreamwork’s movie The Prince of Egypt captured his situation well. He grew up like a son of Pharaoh, a prince. As a boy, he enjoyed every pleasure of the palace. He possessed power, privilege, and possessions. But not only did he receive the best of what Egypt offered physically, he also received its intellectual benefit. Scripture explains, “Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds.” (Acts 7:22)

Yet Moses was willing to risk losing all of that to try to help his people. And he did lose it all. After murdering an Egyptian, he faced a forty-year exile in the desert of Midian. He went from privilege to poverty, from the world’s capital to the wilderness, from adopted son to obscure shepherd.

When Moses fled Egypt, he probably thought he had risked and lost everything for nothing. For forty years he lived with the sacrifice he had made before learning that God intended to use him as a leader. By then, Moses has undergone the breaking and remaking process required for him to be used by God. He had gone from an arrogant child of privilege who thought he could deliver the Hebrews single-handedly to a man of God who, as Scripture says, “was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth” (Num. 12:3 NKJV).

Leadership always has a cost. To be a leader, you may not be asked to leave your country or give up all your possession, as Moses was. But you can be sure that leading others will have a price.