Moses: Learning To Trust The God Who Leads - Part 5
Exodus 18:1-27
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
Well, I am so excited that you guys are here with us. I know Lauren, Pastor Lauren, already mentioned it, but Sundays just aren’t the same when you guys aren’t here. We love having you guys here; it’s amazing. We are continuing in our Moses series. We are in Exodus chapter 18 today, and a lot has happened since last Sunday. We’ve jumped through a couple of things.
Pastor Andre talked about Moses going in and facing Pharaoh, so we are past all of that. The Israelite people are now out of Egypt, and they are wandering in this desert area. This is the Desert of Sinai, which is what it is technically called. We had the plagues. We had the moment where Pharaoh finally said, “Get out of here. I am so sick and tired of you. Take you and your people and just go.”
Then they get to the Red Sea, and they’re like, “Okay, what are we going to do?” All of a sudden, Pharaoh goes, “Wait a minute. Who is going to do all this pyramid building now? Because it’s not going to be the Egyptians.” They’re like, “All right, let’s go get those people and bring them back. We’re going to capture them.” So Pharaoh sends all of his armies to them, and they freak out. But then God does this miracle. He divides the Red Sea. The Israelite people walk on dry ground. Pharaoh’s army follows them in, and God just goes, “Whoop!” and closes up those waters. All of Pharaoh’s army is swallowed up and killed in one moment.
So they are on the other side of the Red Sea, seeing all of this happen, praising God. Then God shows up in a pillar of fire at night to guide them and in a column of cloud during the day. Then all of a sudden they realize, “Wait, we’re out in the desert. Where are we going to get some food?” God goes, “I got you,” and He brings manna and quail. Then all of a sudden they’re like, “Hey, that spring we passed like two days ago? Yeah, we’re all out of water now.” God goes, “Hey, Moses, go over to that rock. I’m going to make water come out.” God does a miracle, and water starts flowing out of the rock. It’s an incredible moment.
God continues to show up for the Israelite people. All of a sudden, they get attacked out of nowhere by the Amalekites. Moses goes up on the hill above the valley where the Israelite army is fighting. As long as Moses has his hands up, the Israelite people are winning. But if you’ve ever tried to hold your arms up for an extended amount of time, it doesn’t last very long, right? So when his arms start going down, the Israelite people start losing. He raises them back up, and they start winning. Aaron comes up on one side and Hur on the other, and they hold up Moses’ arms until sundown, and the Israelite people have victory.
This is where we come to the scene right now. They’re chilling. I have a couple of pictures of what the region would look like. This is where they’re at. There’s absolutely nothing out there. They’re just living their lives. And I would think they’re not really outdoorsy people. So things start getting a little restless. People start looking and saying, “Hey, that was my rock yesterday that I sat on.” “Yeah, you stole my rock.” And they start bickering. “Hey, you stole my goat.” “Hey, you stole my tent.” “Hey, hey, that’s my pillow. You bring that back.” They start getting at each other’s throats.
At the same time, Moses had sent away his wife and kids because of all the chaos of everything that was happening. He gets word from his father-in-law, and he says, “Hey, bring my family back. I think we’re settling down here where we are in the Sinai Desert.” So we come to this point in chapter 18. God has done some incredible things through the Israelite people, and yet they find themselves at this moment: “So what do we do now? Where do we go from here? What is going to happen?” God is going to use this moment, a little family reunion with Moses’ family coming back home and a conversation with his father-in-law, as a critical moment for the Israelite people in this section of Scripture.
So it says, “Now Jethro, the priest of Midian, the father-in-law of Moses, heard of everything God had done for Moses and for His people Israel, and how the Lord had brought them out of Egypt. And after Moses had sent away his wife Zipporah, her father-in-law Jethro received her and their two sons. One son was named Gershom, for Moses said, ‘I have become a foreigner in a foreign land,’ and the other was named Eliezer. He said, ‘My father’s God was my helper, and He saved me from the sword of Pharaoh.’ Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, together with Moses’ son and wife, came to him in the wilderness where he was camped near the mountain of God, Mount Sinai. Jethro had sent word to him, ‘I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and your two sons.’ So Moses went out to greet his father-in-law, and bowed down, and kissed him. They greeted each other, and then went into the tent.”
The relationship that Jethro and Moses have is more of a friendship and kinship. This isn’t necessarily a father-son kind of relationship. They are more like best friends. This came from all the time that Moses had spent in the land of Midian with Jethro before the burning bush incident and being sent back into Egypt. This relationship is seen here in how they are greeted. It’s a very common friendship greeting. Moses received Jethro, but I can imagine some of the thoughts and hesitation that Jethro might have had.
All of a sudden, the man that he had given his daughter to marry, to have a family, and to take care of, comes back from this moment in the desert having hallucinations of seeing a burning bush that didn’t burn up. And what Jethro thought was going to be a quiet life for his daughter, his family, and Moses turns into this surprise roller-coaster of a life. So I can imagine the rumor wheel that had been spinning from what Jethro had heard from someone who had heard from someone who had heard from someone who had heard from someone in Egypt.
Guys, have you ever played the telephone game growing up? What is told to the first person is never what the last person says, right? Over time, it kind of tweaks a little bit and tweaks a little bit more. So I can only imagine the rumors that Jethro had heard: “Well, this happened in Egypt, and then this happened, and then this happened.” And the conversations that Jethro might have been having with his friends, his neighbors, and his family: “Man, that son-in-law of yours, whew. He went off the deep end, didn’t he? I mean, he came back talking about a burning bush that didn’t burn. There’s blood in the river in Egypt. There are snakes, locusts, people are dying. What is happening? Like, what? He made the sea swallow up Pharaoh’s army? Like, how?”
So I can only imagine he’s coming back and he’s going, “What version of Moses am I walking into? And what version of Moses am I returning my daughter and my grandkids to? I just had to take care of them. I’m pretty sure Moses, this was your job, bro. And then I’m having, like, what’s going on here?” Yet at the same time, there’s this beautiful image of Jethro also returning the greeting from Moses. I think there’s something profound here. I want to dig in a little bit more.
Verse 8: “Moses then told his father-in-law about everything the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, and all about the hardships that they had met along the way and how the Lord had saved them.” I read this Scripture and I was like, “Oh, cool. So Moses is just giving his father-in-law, like, ‘Hey, oh, for the past couple of years, this is what we’ve been up to. We’ve been doing this, we’ve been doing this, we’ve been doing this.’” But the more that I dug into this, I realized that Moses is actually giving testimony of God to his father-in-law. Moses here is telling Jethro about Yahweh, telling Jethro, “This is what the Lord Almighty did for us.”
I love how in this, Moses just doesn’t give the good highlights. He just doesn’t give all the mountaintops. The Scripture says that it’s all about the hardships they met along the way and how the Lord saved them. I think sometimes in our lives we like to just highlight the good stuff, right? It’s kind of what social media has trained our brain to do, right? We just post about the good stuff. “Hey, family vacation, check this out.” “Oh, hey, got the new iPhone.” “Oh, hey, look at this thing my kid did.” But that’s not a true testimony.
See, our true testimony is when we share, yes, of the victory of God in our lives, but also the hardship. It’s a both-and. Because the reality is, in the modern church, we begin to sanitize our own testimonies. And we only talk about the happy things that happen. But the problem is that a biblical testimony includes the struggle. Because when we share the hardships and the deliverances, we show that God is not just a God of the destination, but that God is the God of the journey. And in that, we’re real.
I mean, we all have that friend who just talks about how life is just so great, right? “Everything’s good. No problems. This is awesome. This is awesome and this is awesome and this is awesome.” It’s like, “Are you a real person? Like, there’s no chance that you don’t have any hard in your life.” You come across fake, and I think sometimes in our intention to want to celebrate who God is, we begin to become fake to a very skeptical world around us that’s looking at us. And I want to tell you, it’s okay to share that life is hard. Moses did.
Moses here is saying, “Hey.” It’s one verse here in the Bible, but I can imagine they spent hours talking. And I think for Moses, this might have been the one closest friend that he could truly share with about what he was going through. He’s like, “Man, the people came at me. They were so angry.” Because the Israelite people were like they just had a memory of a goldfish. It was like yesterday they had manna on the ground and it was just a miracle, and the next day they’re like, “We’re out of water. We’re going to die.” Moses is like, “Uh, can we rewind to yesterday for like ten seconds, people?” But as a leader, I can only imagine. So I think there’s a little bit of Moses going, “It’s been rough. And I finally have a friend to share with.” But he doesn’t just complain either. He talks about, “Man, God did this miracle, Jethro.”
He continues on, verse 9: “Jethro was delighted to hear all about the good things that the Lord had done for Israel in rescuing them from the hand of the enemy, the Egyptians. He said, ‘Praise be to the Lord, who rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians and of Pharaoh, and who rescued the people from the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all other gods, for He did this to those who had treated Israel arrogantly.’”
Jethro was no stranger to faith. His title was priest of Midian. Jethro is a direct descendant of the children of Abraham. So Jethro himself had a faith of knowledge. But I think that’s where it ended. Because you and I, we can come into church every single day, we can sing these songs, we can read God’s Word, we can know and have knowledge of God. But there’s something different when we step into a knowing of a personal God. And Jethro here is having this theological moment where his background of knowing the stories of his great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather and great-great-great-grandfather, who lived among Abraham, those stories had been passed down to them. He had knowledge, but there’s a difference between knowing about God and knowing God Himself.
And in this moment of Moses giving testimony to Jethro, Jethro’s face becomes alive for the very first time. Jethro has this concrete belief that the stories that had been passed down for generations, which he probably knew as fairy-tale details, are real. He realizes this is the real Yahweh. And when he saw the evidence of God’s power over the superpower of the world, Egypt, Jethro knew.
So I want to encourage you today in this: your life may be the evidence for someone else to come to faith in Jesus Christ. Your testimony, with victories and the hardships, may be the catalyst for someone in your life for them to come to know Jesus for the very first time. Because you have people in your life and in your world that I don’t know. And God may be calling you to be the one to share with them, not me. You are going to be the one. You are with them. You are around them. You are in their presence. So our faith life is the evidence for others. And our testimony is the bridge between their heard stories.
“Oh, yeah, those Christians, those Jesus people out there. I’ve heard of them before. Don’t you have like a book or something with stories in it?” “Yeah, the Bible.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever that thing is.” But what if you’re the one by how you live your life, your testimony? How they watch you walk through hardships, but then see the victory of Jesus in your life? They know you’re a real person. They know who you are, and you’re not fake with them. You’re real. You’re authentic. You are the one in their life to bring them to know Jesus for the very first time.
It continues on, verse 12: “Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and other sacrifices to God. And Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat a meal with Moses, his father-in-law, in the presence of God.” So Moses’ testimony leads to a place of revelation with Jethro, which then leads to worship. Jethro in this moment realizes who Yahweh is, and there are three things that happen in this: the response of sacrifice, the response of a meal, and the location and the presence of God Himself.
See, this is faith in action. Jethro just doesn’t offer, “Hey, thanks, God. I appreciate who you are.” Jethro is moved to bring a burnt offering. A commentary I read noted that a person had to show that they had converted to their faith in Yahweh through action, and it began with the action of worshiping God Himself. I am so thankful that we live in a post-Jesus world. Could you imagine, for every little sin that you had, you had to go find an animal and then sacrifice them and kill them? I’m thankful that that is not the case now, and that Jesus is our ultimate atonement.
But in this moment in the Old Testament, Jesus hadn’t come yet, and so there had to be reparations for what had happened. This needed to be an atonement for their sins. And Jethro recognizes who God is, and this is a holy Yahweh, Almighty God. He couldn’t come on his own merit to the presence of God; he needed forgiveness and acceptance. And this is a reminder for us about how there has to be a shift in our thoughts, thinking that we must die to ourselves so that we can live in Christ Jesus. Jethro had to offer animals. We can accept Jesus into our lives. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice for us, and He died so that we might be able to live.
And Jesus, in Scripture, before He was crucified and died, actually gives the disciples a gift of the Last Supper, and we celebrated last week communion of the bread and the cup and what that represents. And here Jethro gathers together with Moses and all the elders of Israel. And there is a feast that is had together. So you have this flow of Moses’ testimony, which brings revelation, which then leads us to worship, that leads us to community. Because a changed heart always brings about worship and praise. That’s why we gather. That’s why we’re here every single Sunday. Sunday is to give praise and honor to God because our hearts have been changed through the blood of Jesus, our atonement, sacrifice on the cross.
But there was this sequence that happened. And this piece of community was all done in this amazing place in the presence of God, because after Moses’ arms had been held up and the Israelite people had victory over the Amalekites, he built an altar there at Rephidim. And it was a place that Moses called the banner of God. In this place, there was an altar and sacrifice built for people to remember. So Jethro here, with all the Israelite leaders, Moses, and his family, worships God in His presence with his new relationship with Jesus.
See, our fellowship as a church is only healthy when it is centered around the sacrifice of Christ. You have permission that if you come here on a Sunday morning and sit through a whole service and we don’t mention the name of Jesus once, call us out. Because without Jesus, we’re just a country club; we’re just Rotarians. I’m not saying those things are bad. Rotary clubs are great. Those are awesome. They do amazing work in communities. But we’re called to something different as a church. We’re called to be a community of Jesus Christ for this world around us.
Moses continues on: “The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. When his father-in-law saw that all Moses was doing for the people, he said, ‘What is it that you’re doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?’ Moses answered him, ‘Because the people came to me to seek God’s will. Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God’s decrees and instructions.’”
Moses’ father-in-law replied, “What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you. You cannot handle it.” So the next day Moses goes out, and he begins to gather the people, probably as he has done every day, and people get in line. Early bird gets the worm. So people are probably waiting out in front of his tent early in the morning. “Moses, you got to talk to my neighbor. They are off the deep end. You’re not going to realize what they did.” Moses is like the first HOA president of the Israelite people. Poor guy, he didn’t sign up for this.
So morning till night, he’s just listening to people bicker, and he’s like, “Okay, you’re dumb. Go away. You’re right. Do this. Okay, why did you steal his rock? Just give it back. Go on. Like, okay, you killed his goat. Give him one of your goats. Like, come on, guys. Like, really.” Just sitting there all day long. I can only imagine how exhausted Moses must have been, and just be like, “I get to do this tomorrow. Yay, me. Thanks, God.” And so Jethro’s over there going, “Bro, dude, you gotta stop. I get you’re tired, Moses. That person who’s been standing in that Sinai Desert for eight hours, by the time they get to you, they’re not thinking straight, and they’re angry. It’s like this is just going to completely implode. Like, everybody’s just going to turn on each other. Like, this is not going to go well.”
And so Jethro’s like, “Dude, you can’t be doing this, man. Like, I appreciate your heart. I appreciate where you are, but that’s just not going to happen.” Moses was one dude for all the Israelite people. And I’ll give you a confession from Chris: I’ve fallen into this. I’ve fallen into this. Well, at a church our size, we’re blessed to have multiple pastors around. But it is so easy for us as pastors to get pulled into something like this and just do everything. Everything. And Moses here gives words of wisdom. I’m preaching myself right now. But I think maybe some of you have found yourselves in that place, too. Maybe you’re running it solo at work and you’re burning yourself out. Maybe you’re running around ragged trying to do everything for your family.
And you have a good heart. You want to do it all for everybody. And that’s a great place to be in. But at what sacrifice? Some of the wisest leaders and people in this life that I know recognize this early in their lives, and it saves them heartache. And Jethro here is looking at Moses, going, “Bro, I’ve been there, man. I didn’t get the title of priest of Midian by just being the quiet guy in the back corner. I’ve been there.” And then there’s a danger in this: when we try to do everything ourselves, even the simple stuff, we become completely overwhelmed and we burn out. We have no energy left for the things that God has truly called us to. And we can’t fulfill the calling that God has for our lives.
So Jethro has some wisdom for Moses. He says this, verse 19: “Listen now to me, and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to Him. Teach them His decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave. But select capable men from all the people, men who fear God, trustworthy, who hate dishonest gain, and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens.”
Jethro comes to him and says, “Hey, you need a team of people to help you.” But he doesn’t say you need to gather the most experienced, well-qualified, highly educated, degree-holding people. No. He says people who are capable. I want to inform you this morning: you are capable. You are capable. You are a capable person. He says there are three qualities that are required for those who are capable. One, they fear God. What does that mean? They have a spiritual priority in their lives. They have a heart of worship that they live every single day. Two, they are trustworthy. They are reliable people of integrity. They are dependable. You know you can depend on them to do something. You can tell them, “Hey, I need you to do this,” and you know it’s going to get done. Three, they hate dishonest gain. They have a moral purity in their lives. And they have biblical convictions that they live out, and can intercede and discern among disputes.
So if you check these three boxes, you are capable. God has a calling for you in your life, and you can live that out. You don’t have to have the title of pastor or a degree to be capable. God doesn’t view you this way. God has given you gifts, talents, and abilities, and ways that you can serve the church, build up the body, and care for those in your life. And if you love the Lord and you are a person of your word, you are exactly who God is calling to step up.
It continues on, verse 22: “Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you. The simplest cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. If you do this, and God so commands, then you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.”
See, there are two camps in this situation. One camp: Moses, keep doing what you’re doing. But you’re going to burn out. And then you won’t be a leader anymore. Because you won’t have the capacity, the ability, the time, the strength, anything to lead in a way that I have called you to, Moses. Or the camp of the bystander: the one who is standing in line every single day, waiting to go before Moses and to have their case settled. And that person would be the one who lets everybody else do the things while missing their own purpose and calling.
See, there’s a mutual blessing here in verse 20: “You will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.” This is a beautiful picture of the church: that the pastors pastor in the way that they are called to, and the people serve and work with one another and care for the church body with one another. Paul writes about this in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13, and he talks about the body of the church being an actual body itself. Is that the eye? The job of the eye is to see, right? We would laugh if we made sure to go, “Okay, I gotta listen to you. It’s not an ear, it’s an eye.” And an ear isn’t supposed to be able to see. And a hand is supposed to be able to grip, not like gripping with our eyelids.
There’s this old NFL commercial that’s hilarious where it talked about, like, Dak Prescott, and it was like a one-leg thing. And it was this idea that you can’t play football with just one leg. It’s like you need the whole team to be able to play football. And just like us, we need the whole team for the church. And Moses needed people at thousands, at hundreds, at tens, maybe even down to fives, to be able to care and to help and to work with the Israelite people. And when we do this, this is a beautiful picture of coming together, and the church is just built up and more glorified when that happens.
We have amazing people in this church that serve week in and week out. But for some of them, they need some breaks. They need some time off. They need to be able to come in here, especially if they’re in kids’ ministry. They need to be in big church with the big grown-ups and have grown-up conversations. They have an incredible heart to teach little children about who God is and how God loves them. And that’s their true calling and gifting. But that’s draining. They need to be built back up so they can go, and Scripture says they are spurred on in faith to keep going in their calling. But they can’t just always be pouring out. So we have to have teams where we can backfill and give them weeks off, and they can be here in church.
And I’ll say even this: if you’re serving on a regular basis and you have a week off, be in church. Don’t use that week off as the week that you just don’t come to church because you’re not serving. That’s not healthy. Saying you can’t go take vacations and have a week off and have a Sunday where you worship God from home? Yes. But you also need the body to worship with, to be around, to be encouraged, to spur it on. You can’t replace this with YouTube videos or podcast sermons. You can’t. And this world is heading in a trajectory where they think they can follow Jesus without ever talking to another Christian in person in their life, and it’s a lie from Satan. You will not survive in your faith without a church body.
So the question is: Are you the one standing in line for Moses to fix something? Or are you offering to be one of the tens, the fifties, the hundreds, to help carry the load? So we see this chapter, we see this beautiful full circle here where Moses’ testimony toward Jethro brings them into a revelation of Yahweh and a faith in God Almighty. And then Jethro has this ability to share faith with the Israelite people, and then to speak into the wisdom of Moses in his leadership, to give him wisdom. And that leads Moses to restructure the help and the care and support for the Israelite people, that glorifies God and lifts people back to God Almighty. And all the people are satisfied. What an amazing picture here.
So I have two closing questions for us this morning. The first of which is: What is your testimony? What has God done in your life that you should be telling other people about? Not just the victories, but also the hardships. No, don’t go out there and just be, “I gotta be a Christian. I’m just going to have a smile on my face, and life is just perfect.” If you follow Jesus for two minutes, you know life isn’t perfect with Jesus. But Jesus is perfect and He’s with you. And so what is your testimony? How are you sharing it with others? Maybe this week you need to tell somebody about your life and your hardship before Jesus, the moment you came to Jesus, and what your life looks like after Jesus now, living for Him. You’ve gotta have all those parts in there. Maybe you take some time this week and write it down. Because you never know when God might prompt you, “Hey. Go tell that person I love them.” “Oh Jesus, I don’t know. I didn’t practice my testimony this week.” Well, Chris told you on Sunday, “Might happen. You guys, like, you might really want to work on that this afternoon. Okay.” I’m praying for it to happen for you guys this week.
But then my other question is: How can you move from a consumer to a contributor? Because that line of people that were waiting for Moses, some of those people, God was prompting them to step up when Moses had open interviews for his new command. Are you going to be a consumer or are you going to be a contributor? Ask yourself: Am I standing in line waiting for a leader to fix something, or am I offering to help carry the load?
Your card today, the tear-off card on the program, says, “I’m taking steps from being a consumer to a contributor.” So I would encourage you this week: check that card, write your name down, drop it in the back. We’ve got ushers that’ll be in the back after service. And we want to be praying for you this week, this week specifically. And maybe that’s coming to one of the pastors and saying, “Hey, how can I help? What can I do?”
This week Pastor Andre started his new role as the hospital chaplain. And we’re excited for him. And we are so thankful; he could use your prayers. But there’s also a shift in his transition. And we’re shifting as pastoral staff in our leadership and responsibility. And so right now I find it very timely that God would put this sermon out there in the way that He delayed what was supposed to happen a month ago. This wasn’t even supposed to be this week. It’s funny how God lines some stuff up like that, right? So we’re going to need some extra help around here to carry the load. Are you willing and able to step up to be one of those who help carry the load?
Let’s pray. Jesus, we thank you for this morning. God, we thank you for Moses. But God, we also give you praise for Jethro. God, thank you for his wisdom that he was able to share with Moses at a critical point in the Israelite people’s lives. That yes, they had been wandering in the desert, and they’re about to wander for a whole lot longer than they even realize, God. But they needed a system in place to be able to care for the church and the body of the Israelites. And so, God, for us too, Lord, we need those able hands to help. And we also need to have our testimony, God.
Jethro was an old man, and he had heard the stories for decades and decades and decades and still didn’t believe. And it was through the power of Moses’ testimony that brought Jethro to faith in Yahweh Almighty the very first time. God, may our testimony lead people closer to You, Jesus. God, may we work on our testimony to have a time ready to share, not to get nervous or anxious, but just to be able to share of what You have done in our lives, God. We thank you for that. We thank you for being the ultimate sacrifice and the atonement of our lives, God. We praise You. We worship You. We thank You today. We love You. Amen.