Battles, Blessing, and Burnout (Ex 17:8-18)

The boldness of these guys though fr. Moses did not mention the reason for the Amalekites’ attack on Israel but even his very first readers would have known something of the history of enmity against Israel and this people. This war between these two tribes will cascade into the future of Israel, this is the same tribe that the bad guy from Esther is from Saul will fight these folks. So we see Israel in the future fighting these very same folks.

but it also cascasdes BACK in to the past. Because the Amelitkes come from Esua. And much of the hostility here is previewed the Esau-Jacob rivalry described in Genesis. Amalek was a grandson of Esau

Genesis 36:12 ESV

(Timna was a concubine of Eliphaz, Esau’s son; she bore Amalek to Eliphaz.) These are the sons of Adah, Esau’s wife.

, and his descendants organized themselves into a very early national nomadic group (“first among the nations,” in the words of Balaam,

Numbers 24:20 (ESV)

Then he looked on Amalek and took up his discourse and said,

“Amalek was the first among the nations,

but its end is utter destruction.”

So this was an early nation, cousin of Israel, who lived near they area -

Yet they see the weakness of the people wandering in the desert and what do they do? They “come up” , leave their normal area - and they attack. We dont know why, but it was probably to gain possesion, or glory right?

What does this remind you of? Cain and Abel, Pharoh vs Israel

We arent exactly sure why they went up to fight them, but Deutoronmy does give us a heart issue that plagued the Amalekites.

Deuteronomy 25:17–18 ESV

“Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God.

What caused Amalek to go up against Israel? they didnt fear God. Whats the beging of wisdom? Fear of the Lord.

So often we can run in to bad decisions in our life, especially sin, if we dont fear the Lord. And we will see people around us do this all the time.

It is in our very nature to “raise a hand against the throne of God” - to say, I want that throne, I want that glory, I want to be king. It is only when we understand the Charactger of God rightly - both in fear and in love, that we will truly submit to his throne, instead of trying usurp it.

can i ask a theoretical question, and i think we are supposed to sometimes mediate on these things.

Whats another way this story could have went? What could they have done? ]

they could have shown kindness to the people of Israel, to help protect them and guide them through the land. This passage in Deuteronomy is interesting. It is actually sandwiched between two laws about fairness and justice. The law before it is a command to have fair measures and weights - so dont cheat and to to gain more through under handed tactics. And the law after it is about offering your produce to the Lord beacuse he blessed the people. AND after they do that they were supposed to give the produce offering to “the sojouner, the orphan, and the widow” - the people that couldnt often feed themselves. So i wonder if this story about Amalek isnt supposed to help us think about how to treat our brothers, especially those who are weak and helpless.

How we treat the weak and the wandering can reveal a lot about our character. It is often in our nature to take advantage of those who cant help themselves. Yet what the bible calls us to is to instead of preying on the weak, its to help them. To give to them, and to love them, and share the blessings that God has blessed us with, with them.

In this corner - Israel

i dont reallly know what to do with this text. Most commentators have a decently favorable view of Israel and Moses in this story, and i havent found any sources that views it in the light that I tend to see this story. So there are two ways to look at whats going on here. I want to start with mine.

What issue might i possibly be seeing in this text? When the people of Israel meet war, why might i fault their response? They dont involve God!!! - people like to read in to the story that God told Moses off screen to do all of this. Yet, that is not told to us. and in the stories before this we are openly told that Moses cries to God, the God shows him how to navigate certain things. Yet not in this story. Moses does it all alone, and it is not until the end of the story that the Lord speaks, and its not to commend Israel, but have them remember that he will blot out the people of Amalek for thier deeds.

Know that i am in the minority view on this, but i do think if we went back and highlighted all the times moses reponds to crisies in the Exodus, i think we would find that this story he doesnt respond how he normally should. And when we compare other stories of people in the bible meeting war, and the DO cry out to God, it doesnt normally go this way.

Because i think what both of these stories show, both this one and the Jethro story is highlight moses tendancy to want to do things alone. And it will only be later in the Torah where he conveys this burden to God and God gives him releif from carrying it all by himself.

But again, this is probably a minority veiw, and until I get my PhD and write my Exodus commentary, you dont really have to believe it. The alternative view is that Moses was either told by God to do this (WHICH YOU HAVE TO READ INTO THE TEXT) - or that it was the right thing to do, based on faith and previous experinces with how God had saved them. But even then, God rarely does things the same way every time. So just because he had Moses use the staff once, doesnt mean he wanted him to do it that way always.

So i wonder if there is a critical element missing here - when we face struggles and hardship, we are supposed to, i think call out to God, to do, as david will do, “inquire of the Lord” - not just do what worked in the past. The results might be okay - but when you rest on your strenght instead of Gods strenght, the victory will ultimately come down to your strength and we see Moses wasnt strong enough.

But i digress, so the other view is that Moses puts his trust in the power of God to save and doesnt even need to call out to him, he just knows that God will deliver.

And then i guess the lesson becomes “keep your hands up” ? - if this is actually the correct interpretation, then it does seem that having faith in God’s provison is probably the take away. And the fact that we cant do it alone, Moses needed help.

God’s response

God provides victory (?) - though this isnt directly stated, i guess its true. We do see God providing for Israel again. He is helping fight their battles.

What we do see God say for sure is this

Exodus 17:14 ESV

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.”

Moses is the one who states “The Lord is Banner - flag pole, rally banner - think Pirate ship

The Nations Seeing the Blessing (Ex 18:1-12)

So then we go from the battle field to parents weekened - isnt this a bit of an odd turn, and its a very interesting interjection between the stories we are about to get. So what is this story doing here?

When the narrative takes a semingly odd turn in the Bible - grow in your curiousity. press in to odd details/turns in the narrative, they are often trying to teach us something

so whats this story doing?

v1 - Jethro hears of the works of God done for Israel and how he led them out - How?

v8- retelling of the deeds and acts of God

v9-12- what does Jethro do? - rejoices, praises, and he blesses the Lord, and he even offers a sacrifice to the Lord. Whats interesting about this? thoughts? good or bad? what does this make you think back to maybe? (Genesis 12 - Gods promise to bless abraham, and bless all the nations of the world through him)

This is one of the first times we see the nations coming in to the house of God to worship the Lord based on the acts that he did for his people. Note that he does this after Moses recounts the “hardships” - the things we were complaining about the last 3-4 chapters are now serving to show the nations the glory and grace of God.

So dont despise your difficult circumstance though they might be hard, they might just be the thing that someone down the line comes to see the glory of God because of.

Bringing Order to Chaos (18:13-27)

Now - we move from parents weekend to bring your father in law to work day. Now this story is such a kindness here. Not only does this story greatly benefit Moses, and the people of Israel AND it benefits us.

So we are going to look at this interaction with Jethro and Moses and see if any of the things that are true in this story, might also be true of us.

So Jethro takes a day and just watches Moses’ life. And this is a good thing, - theres so much we can comment on in this passage about how Jethro interacts with Moses and offers advice, idk if we will hit all of fit. But first thing he does is he observes. And we all need people in our lives like this. We all need people around us, that are wise, that we let in to watch our lives, to help us evaluate our habbits, patterns, and choices.

So what does Jethro see Moses doing?

Exodus 18:13–16 ESV

The next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening. When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning till evening?” And Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God; when they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and his laws.”

show Israel Org Chart

Moses is working sun up to sun down, literally the max amount of time you could actually do things back then. He is working around the clock.

there is a chaos in the orginzation of the life of Moses. And its burning him out.

Moses’ own eagerness both to help and please his people as well as to learn God’s standards for the nation must have motivated him to spend much time and careful thought on every decision, including the time involved in waiting for an answer from God to his questions raised on behalf of the people. He presumably treated no case lightly but threw himself into the work wholeheartedly and became entrapped by the caseload brought before him. Thus in spite of everyone’s best intentions, the judging of disputes had bogged down, as was immediately obvious to someone new to the faith and the situation of Israel, such as Jethro was.

Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, vol. 2, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006), 417.

And i think if we are honest - we can find ourselves in this very spot SO often - despite our best intentions, and so often because of them! we can take on too much.

tonight we are going to ask the question, how do we bring order to the busy, chaotic winds of our lives?

thankfully, Jethro idenitifes a patern in Moses’ life that is not sustainable and he calls him out

Exodus 18:17–18 ESV

Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone.

“what you are doing is not good”

its not this this thing was inhertily evil - its not that Moses was sinning - But Jethro watches his life and notices the thing he was doing wasnt good. It wasnt sustainable and it wasnt going to lead to his flourshing of Moses or the flourishing of Israel

1st step to bringing order to the chaos is identifying that what you are doing isnt good.

We have to admit what i’m doing isnt working OR it wont work forever. (AA first step is to admit you have a problem)

so often we end up in crazy places of chaos because we dont admit what we are doing isnt sustainable.

And notice Moses takes his advice. He doesnt big time him, he doesnt get defense, or attack him. He listens and responds. And i think we need to do the same.

why? whats the problem with taking on more than you can handle?

“you and the people with you will surely wear yourselves out (fade, wither, decay)” - wear out, its an agriculture word, it means to decay, to fade, to wither.

When taking on too much, you hurt yourself

When you try to take on too many things, you end up killing yourself.

Why do we do this? Why do you think there is this tendancy to take on as much as we can, and to try to do it all ourselves?

we love to be in control

we are scared it wont work without us/we dont trust other people

What happens when we do this? How does taking on too much hurt ourselves?

When taking on too much, you hurt the people around you

when you try to take on too much, when you over commit, refurse to rest and try to take on everything, you dont just wear yourself out - you actually burden the community that you are in as well.

Why? How does you taking on too much hurt the community?

when you’re over worked, you cant do the things your being counted on to do

when you take on to much, you cant excel at the things you have been gifted the most

when you take on too much you will become drained. When you become drained, you will either suck life from those around you, or you will lash out in your weakness

2nd step - Focus on the things only you can do - your primary skills, giftings, responsiblities

Moses is going to have to drop some things, and we’ll talk about that in a second - but notice what Jethro tells him to do first, before dropping things.

He tells moses Ex:18:19-20

Exodus 18:19–20 ESV

Now obey my voice; I will give you advice, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God, and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do.

He doesnt tell him to stop judging, but he says focus it Moses. Focus what you are doing to what only you are able to do. Only Moses could represent the people before God, and only he could make known his statutes.

Simillary, when we find ourselves in the midst of the chaos of over work - we have to ask ourselves, what are my primarly responsibilities? What are the things only I can do, or what are the things God is uniquely calling me to? We need to do these things well, and first.

Focus on priorities, not proximity. It is so easy to find ourselves doing things because they are in our proximity, and not our priority.

What Jethro tells moses to do is focus on the main thing, the only thing that he can do

what are the things only you can do in your life?

job, spiritual life, serve at church

3rd Step - Finding others to help bear your burden

Moses has to let things go. Moses has to learn how to trust other people, and delegate his responsibilities. He couldnt do it alone.

Why is it hard for us sometimes to delegate things to other people?

What are some things that we often refuse to let go, even to our our demise?

First, before we talk about how we let others help us, what KIND of people should we let help bear our burdens? what KIND of people did Jethro instruct Moses to help him?

Exodus 18:21 ESV

Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.

people that can do the work/are able to help

people who fear the LORD (proverbs says - beginning of wisdom)

people who are trustworthy/faithful/reliable/steady

people who hate a bribe - people who arent in it for themselves, and hate injustice and corruption - people who hate sin

Aside from simple admininstrational tasks, what ways do we need others/community to help carry the weights in our lives?

so we need to hand off, delegate, have other people lean in and help , and sometimes we just need to cut out some things from our lives.

so a really important question for tonight is this “if Jethro came in to your life and watched you - whatarea in your life or what habbit or patern might he say “what you are doing is not good!”

what do you need to delegete, or drop?

Not from the Text, but helpful principles/thoughts on removing things from your life:

Dont cut the supply lines - it is easy when we get overworked that we start cutting things off. Yet, sometimes we have a tendancy to cut off the things we need to survive -

- Physical needs -sleep, food, health

- Spiritual needs - prayer, the word, community - some of us get so busy in life, and if you look around you’ve realized you have cut out the very things God has said will bring us life.

[boat analogy] Its like if you were in a storm on the sea on a boat, and you needed to lighten the load so you cut of the rudder. You might have lightened your load, but cut off the very thing you needed to guide and direct your vessel safely. And if we do that for too long, we’ll eventually get to a place in life you dont recognize, or dont want to be. And when you ask “how did i even get to this spot” - its because long ago your dropped some things you needed to survive.

Dont just drop all your things on the curb - keep your commitments Ps 15:4 - A goldy person “swears to his own hurt and does not change” Matt 5:37 “ let your yes be yes and your no be no”; - so just because you took on too much, dont just all of a sudden start flaking, or backing out on things you said you were going to do. That burdens other people. You find a wise time to step away from things that maybe arent where you need to be.

Dont cut out the things God has called you to do, even though others could do them (serving in the church, studying the word in community etc.)

Just because other people can do things, doesnt mean you arent still called to do things. Dont cut out things that God specifically has called us to do as christians, serving in church, studying the word with each other, serving in our community. We are called to do these things, and if i had to guess, there are probably other things we can drop for spare time that would be better than dropping our commitment to the body of Christ!

Dont burden other people with a burden thats yours to bear

community is here to help you, and vice verse, we are called to help bear each others burdens, we arent called to just throw our burdens on to someone else. Its easy when we get overwhelmend, physically, mentally, emothinoally, spiritually to just want to chuch our burdens onto our closest freinds and community. That isnt loving. About this i have much to say to you - he who has ears, let him hear.

Wrapping it up in Christ

I’ll wrap up with this. So often we want to take on too much ourselves. we want to do it alone, we want to load up our schedules, we want to take on all the things because sometimes maybe we think, deep down in our hearts, the more I do —> the more the more valuable i am. We are like the people at Babel in Genesis 11 - come let us build for OURselves a tower that reaches the heavens and come let us make a name for OURselves, —> lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.

Why do we labor and build and strive so much? So often, we do this because we’re scared we’ll be nothing.

I think both of these stories help us realize that Moses couldnt do it alone. And none of us can right?

We didnt talk about this previously - but we see in the first story that Moses was helped by Aaron and Hur, from Judah. What do we know about Aaron? what will he soon become? - the high preist, the first in the preisthood

And what do we know about the tribe of Judah in the Old Testament? - they would produce the kingship (jacobs prophecy Gen 49 - “the scepter shall not depart from you”).

So what we see here is Moses, the leader of israel, needs help. He cant help sustain the people of Israel by himself - he will soon be replaced by two offices, the preisthood and the kingship. And these were good roles - the preist funtions to help mediate God to the people, and the king served to help govern the people in fairness and equity. Bascially what Moses was trying to do on his own. And we’ll see the preisthood set up in Leviticus, and then in Samuel we’ll get the kingship. We will see God institue two offices instead of one, that are supposed to help the Israel flourish, and help them bring the blessing of God to all the nations.

Yet, while this is good in theory, what ends up being to problem with the preisthood and the kingship? what issue do we find in the preits - the people that are supposed to mediate between God and the people, and the kings - the people that are to rule und Gods law in equity and justice?

Yeah, they dont do a good job. The first preists we see, Nadab and Abihu get burnt up due to to respecting the office. Aaron, the first high preist will actually mediate the people of Israel into worship of another God.

And what about our first king? Saul, the man was a trainwreck of a person. He didnt walk with God, he didnt fight for justice and righteousness. David, the second king was much much better - but even he couldnt fully walk out the life God wanted his king to live. His son Solomon builds the temples, but marrys 500 women. And so as we read about king after king in Israels history we see that almost all of them failed to walk in Gods way. They failed to help lead the people under God.

So time and time again we see the preists reoccuringly fail to mediate between God and the people, and we reoccuringly see the kingship fail to rule in a way that pleases the Lord.

So while THIS section of Exodus shows us that, as great of a leader Moses was, he needed the preisthood and the kingship - the rest of the old testament will show us is we drasciallty NEED a better preist, and a better king. None of are able to carry the weight of the burdens of this life.

but in the prophets, God speaks of a day where he will raise up for his people a true king. He promises to David that he will sent one of his sons up on the throne, and his kingdom of justice and equity will never end. He will faithfully walk in Gods ways and bring shalom, peace, and rest to the people of God.

Zechariah 9:9 ESV

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

and when Jesus rides in to Jerasulem, he rides in declaration that he is king. The true king thats supposed to rule Israel, and be the king of God. Yet the people reject him. And instead of being placed on a throne, he’s placed on a cross. Instead of a crown of gold, a crown of thorns. Instead of the priestly garments, he is stripped naked and beaten.

Yet - what happens in the temple when Christ dies? - the viel of the holy of holies tears from top to bottom. The curtain that hangs between the prescence of God and men rips - becaue the perfect Highpreist is here. There is now no blocker between us and God - the perfect mediator between God and man, the God man, has once and for all brought medation between God and his people.

And though he wasnt given the throne in Jerusalem, he now is sitting as king of all the universive at the right hand of God the father - and he sitting as king of our lives and our hearts - until he comes back and makes his kingdom here on this earth, where is kingdom and his reign will have no end - and there will be perfect peace, perfect rest, and pefect shalom as we rule and reign in the presence of God forever.

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