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GOD REVEALS HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS FOR THE GOOD OF HIS PEOPLEEXODUS 18:13-27INTRODUCTION The birth of a child, while containing a measure of pain and anxiety, is almost always a time of excitement and joy and celebration. However, a difficult, lifelong process called parenting always follows the joy of birth. It happens to almost every first time parent, that moment of realization when you bring the baby home and the extended family leaves and you and your spouse are alone with this little person. You look at each other and recognize that life will never be the same. You are now responsible to care for, teach and train this new human being so they become a responsible adult. You have been appointed as this person’s guide into mature adulthood. The brief excitement of birth is followed by the long-term, fearful work of parenting. With each new child that is brought home the complexity of the job multiplies. Each new life creates a larger web of relationships and conflicts that have to be refereed and managed. I think that the experience of becoming and being a parent captures in a small way the experience of Moses as he leads the people of Israel out of their slavery in Egypt and then to Mt. Sinai to meet with God and then on to the land of Canaan. The relatively short but intense experience of Israel escaping from their Egyptian masters is then followed by the reality of living together as God’s family forever. A new nation is born at the Exodus by the grace and power of God. Then Moses is faced with the reality that these former slaves have to be “parented” so that they become the family that God has planned for them to be. Chapters 16 and 17 cover the three-month period from the time of the Exodus until they arrive at Mt. Sinai. In those chapters we were shown how the people responded to no water to drink, no food to eat and being attacked by an enemy. We’ve seen Moses lead the people and represent their concerns before the Lord and how the Lord has provided for them through Moses. But now in 18:13 the curtain is drawn back and we are shown the daily reality of living with the children of Israel. The picture is not pretty. Each day Moses takes a seat for the purpose of judging, of refereeing the numerous disputes that arise among the Israelites. From the time the sun rises until it sets Moses is confronted with one person after another who has a complaint against someone else in the community and it is his job to resolve each of these disputes. We know that God chose the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be his people. We know that God has promised that he is going to bring the nation of Israel into the land of Canaan and give it to them as their own land. However, this scene does not inspire hope in the success of this enterprise. It is clear that this group of people is just like every group of people in the world, they don’t know how to get along with each other. People regularly complain about how quick Americans are to sue one another. The fact is that we are no different than the Israelites or any other group of people in the world. Whenever you get people together in a group there is one thing you can always be sure of, there are going to be conflicts. This is as true for God’s people, the church, as it is for any other group of people. Just because God chose Israel and rescued them out of their slavery doesn’t mean that they are perfect people who don’t have any conflicts. They are a troubled people, just like every local church in the world is a collection of troubled people who don’t naturally know how to get along with one another. God’s goal for Israel is to get them safely into the Promised Land. The NT uses this as a metaphor for what God is doing with his church. He is saving his church and leading us safely through the desert of this world into the land of rest, to Mt. Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem. What we see revealed in this passage today is how God cares for his troubled people. How is it that God leads and shepherds and directs his people, his church through the desert, to the land of promise? That is what we are going to think about in this passage today. MAIN POINT God cares for his troubled people through…I. A Mediator (vv. 13, 15-16, 19b-20) The setting of this story is pretty straightforward. Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law has come to witness firsthand the great deliverance God accomplished through Moses for the people of Israel. After Moses declares the great works of God to him, the pagan Midianite priest confesses that Yahweh is the only true God and he joyfully worships him along with the people of Israel. This newly converted pagan wakes up the next day and when he goes outside he discovers a mass of people standing in line, waiting to talk with Moses who is seated and serving the people as judge. Jethro watches these proceedings from the morning to the evening. That night, perhaps as Moses and he eat the evening meal in Moses’ tent, Jethro tells Moses that what he is doing is not good. Moses’ father-in-law does not criticize Moses for the function he was seeking to fulfill but for the fact that he was doing it all by himself. The one thing that everyone in this narrative, the people of Israel, Moses and Jethro are 100% sure of and in agreement about is Moses’ job description. Look at the various ways it is described. In v. 13 we are told that Moses is seated to serve as the judge for the people. He is the one who settles the disputes that the Israelites have with one another or gives directions to the people when they don’t know what the right course of action is. The people of Israel know that he is the judge because they come to him. You should note that there is a great irony in this scene because this Moses who is now the ruler and judge of Israel was at one time rejected as the ruler and judge of Israel. When he sought to settle a dispute between two Israelites in Exodus 2 his authority was rejected as an Israelite said to him, "Who made you ruler and judge over us?" Then in vv. 15-16 Moses describes his work to Jethro. He tells him that the people come to him to find out what God thinks about the infinite variety of questions that humans have as to what is just and right as they live together. He tells them what God thinks about their various disagreements and disputes and he tells them God’s laws, God’s directions concerning how his people are to live in the world. When Jethro gives his advice to Moses he merely tells Moses to keep doing what he is doing only to do less of it. In vv. 19b-20 he tells Moses that he is to represent the people to God. He is to go to God with the disputes of the people. Then he is also to represent God to the people. He is to tell the people God’s decrees and laws, to tell them how God wants them to live and what duties he requires of his people. In short, everyone is in agreement that Moses is to be the mediator between God and man. He is to intercede with God on behalf of the people and he is to inform the people of God’s will. Up to this point in the story of the Exodus, Moses has chiefly been portrayed as God’s Savior of the people. He is the one who defeated the forces of evil and set Israel free from their captivity. But now we discover that not only is he the deliverer of God’s people but also their mediator with God. It is his role as mediator between God and man that is going to be a central feature of the rest of story from Mt. Sinai until Moses' death 41 years later. What we are seeing here is the work of Christ being modeled by Moses. One of the chief evidences that Moses is a type of Christ is that he was initially rejected by Israel as their ruler and judge but through the power of God has been exalted to be their ruler and judge. Just as Christ was rejected by men but was raised from the dead and is now seated at God's right hand where he waits to return and to rule over all his enemies. “The stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” Moses is a type of Christ in both his role as deliverer from the slavery of Egypt and in his role here as the mediator between God and his people. In that role of mediator Christ both represents us and our needs to the Father and he represents the Father to us. Paul says in 1Timothy 2, “There is one Mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus.” Hebrews 2:25 tells us, “Therefore he (Jesus) is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.” Hebrews 9:15 says, “For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance…” In John 16 Jesus tells us that everything that belongs to the Father belongs to him and he sent the Holy Spirit to make all that belongs to him known to us. Just as the Israelites could not know God’s will, nor get God to pay attention to them apart from the mediation of Moses, so no one can know God or be known by God without his perfect, chosen mediator, Jesus Christ. Just as Moses revealed God and his ways to the people of Israel , so our Mediator, Jesus Christ reveals God and his ways to us, his redeemed people. We cannot know what God is like or what God likes apart from this revealing work of Christ by his Holy Spirit. Through Jesus Christ, both Jew and Gentile have access to the Father by one Spirit. God has appointed Jesus Christ to be head over his church. He is the one who leads each Christian and each local church through the troubles of this world to our eternal inheritance. God cares for his troubled people through…
II. Very ordinary circumstances and people (vv. 14, 17-19a, 23-24) I alluded to this last week but Exodus 18 is one of those chapters in the Bible that seems out of place. If you’ll look at 17:1 & 8 and then 19:1-2 it is clear that the story line would be quite well served if 19:1 came immediately after 17:16. Like every writer of history Moses, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, chooses which parts of the history to include in his account and in what order. The narrative does not require the information contained in chapter 18 in order to make sense. I’ve already made mention of a couple of reasons as to why Moses included this history right before he launches into the account of God’s giving his law on Mt. Sinai. The report of the Gentile Jethro being warmly invited into the fellowship of worship from which all Gentiles will be excluded when the law is given stands as a testimony to God’s plan to save all, whether Jew or Gentile by grace through faith and not by obedience to the law. Moses’ mediatory role prior to the law gives a portrait of that necessary mediation of the Son of God that unites people to God apart from the law. But a third reason for the inclusion of this chapter is the way in which Moses discovers the will of God for the organization of God’s people from the Gentile priest in such an apparently unplanned, spontaneous sort of way. Notice first of all the serendipitous way that the father-in-law of Moses discovers what is going on. He didn’t come to visit Moses as some sort of consultant. He wakes up in the morning and goes outside and he happens to see this mob of people and Moses acting as their judge and mediator with God. No human planned on Jethro observing this circumstance. It just happened. Then, Jethro addresses Moses based upon his own experience with life and his observation of Moses. He doesn’t receive some sort of divine message. God doesn’t speak to him in a vision. He simply draws upon his experience as a Midianite chieftain and a logical human being who knows that one man cannot possibly care for all the needs of over a million people. He knows by purely normal, non-supernatural means that if Moses persists in this behavior both he and the people will be worn out. Moses cannot possibly carry the burden of all these disputes emotionally and physically and the people will not wait for justice as long as it will take for Moses, by himself, to issue his decisions. Notice in both v. 19 and in v. 23 that Jethro, though he did not receive any direct, divine communication, assumes that what he is telling Moses is something that God would want. He doesn’t want Moses to listen to him unless what he is saying is in accord with God’s will yet he is confident that this is God’s will as he assures Moses that if he does this the people of God will arrive in the land of promise in peace, which is God’s stated goal for Israel. In other words, Jethro believes that this is God’s will as certainly as Moses will know in the rest of Exodus that the law he gives to Israel as a result of God’s direct communication with him on Mt. Sinai is God’s will. According to v. 24, Moses completely agrees with Jethro that what he is telling him is God’s will, again, even though there is no indication in the text that anything is happening here beyond normal human observation and reasoning. Verse 24 is amazing in that here we have the mediator who has direct access to God, who we are told later meets with God face to face as a man meets with his friend and yet he acts on what this old Gentile says as if God himself told him directly. What we see happening here is so important for understanding how God directs and leads his people. So many people are deceived and deluded about how God normally reveals his will to his people. Many Christians view knowing God's will no differently than the people who go to visit the psychic on Milton Ave. view learning the future. They look to know God's will by trying to discern certain "signs" or by having special kinds of spiritual experiences that are beyond rational explanation. Like a young man I knew who was attracted to this young woman. He told her God had told him they were to be married. Then he told her that she could know that was what God wanted by their "laying out a fleece", referring to Gideon's acts of unbelief recorded in Judges. He was able to convince her that if they both woke up at the same time during the night then she would know it was God's will they be married. Wouldn't you know it they both woke up at the same time, two nights in a row—at least that is what he said. This is not faith. This is superstition. Look again at how God directs Moses and the people of Israel through Jethro. It is clear that Jethro does not give Moses a different job description. Moses knows what he is supposed to do and Jethro agrees with what Moses knows he is to do. What Jethro does is tell Moses how to do the will of God better. It is clear that Moses and the people believe that what Jethro says is God’s will, that’s why they so quickly and completely obey him. What we are witnessing here is God’s providential direction of his people. God rules over all things and over all people. He it is that directs the king’s heart as a watercourse. He is the one who works out all things according to the purpose of his will. The mind of man plans his way but the Lord directs his steps. God is at work everywhere and in everything. He is directing all things to the ends for which he has intended since before the creation of the world but not in some fatalistic, mechanistic way but through the agency of human decisions and the natural processes he created and directs. 90% of God’s will for your life personally and for our life as his people corporately is revealed in the pages of this book. That’s the main point even of this chapter. God will reveal his laws and decrees through Moses to his people and we have the written record of that revelation. God revealed himself in his Son and his Son is revealed to us in the pages of this book. God wants you to love him with your whole being and your neighbor as yourself and much of what that looks like is revealed in the pages of this book. It is obedience to the revealed will of God that is the primary focus and occupation of God's people. However, the ways in which God wants us to do the things he has written for us in this book are not all written in this book. He reveals this portion of his will to us through the ordinary circumstances and people in our lives. Knowing the will of God for your life is not like looking for a needle in a haystack. All who are living in submission to his word and in the company of his people by faith in the one who loved us and gave himself for us can be certain that God will direct the course of your life. He usually directs us through the ordinary processes of human observation, evaluation, discernment and decision making in the context of the providential circumstances of our lives as we live in submission to God's word and to one another in his church. Is it God’s will that RHCC exists as a congregation associated with the Evangelical Free Church of America and meets in this building we purchased and built at this time in the history of Janesville? There is no verse in the Bible that commanded the Forest Lakes District of the EFCA to plan to plant a church in Janesville in the fall of 1997. God didn’t speak a word to anyone telling my family and me to move here in the fall of 1997 to start this church. There was no vision given to anyone in our church that we should buy this 3.5 acres and small building from New Hope Lutheran Church in 2002. No prophet stood up and declared that we were to raise money and build this building we are meeting in. However, I am confident it is God’s will that we exist and that we exist in this location. God brought this about through Christians who used their God given minds investigating and seeking counsel and evaluating options and "stumbling" upon opportunities and meeting people. All of this directed by the sovereign God who rules over all things to bring his perfect will to pass. That doesn’t mean that there has been no sin in any of this or that we have done everything along the way perfectly. It does mean that God has providentially directed the steps of many different people through many ordinary circumstances to arrive at this place. God cares for his troubled people through…
III. Qualified, wise and chosen leaders (vv. 21-22, 25-26 & Deut. 1:13-15) The sum of Jethro’s advice to Moses so that the people of God would be able to arrive in the Promised Land at peace was that Moses should appoint capable men to assist him in the work of resolving the disputes of the people. Here we witness Moses, at the command of God through Jethro, establishing the means by which God has cared for his people through the centuries. It is a remarkable thing that we are witnessing at this point. God repeatedly promises to be the God of Israel and to lead them and to protect them and care for them. He declares that he is the king of Israel and that each individual Israelite should heed his voice. All are answerable to him directly, without intermediary. Later, even while he institutes the priesthood and prophets he declares that all Israelites are priests and prophets. Then remember that Moses represents Christ who is the good shepherd of his sheep. He is the only mediator between God and man. All Christians are members of a royal priesthood and are directly related to God as their Father, Christ as their Savior and brother, the Holy Spirit as their comforter and counselor. Yet, God commands Moses through his father-in-law to appoint men as leaders of thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. He says in describing the work of these leaders that the judgments they render are the judgments of God. In the same way, Christ chooses 12 men out of the company of his followers and appoints them as apostles. He tells them that whatever they bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatever they loose is loosed in heaven. They are given the keys to the kingdom of heaven. In Ephesians 4 we are told that Christ appointed apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastors who are also teachers to equip the body of Christ. The apostles appoint elders in all the local churches they establish and tell the churches to obey their elders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over the souls of their congregations. Elders in the church, like the leaders in Israel are commanded to keep watch over the people of God and to oversee the life of the congregation. What we see here is that God has always cared for his people through qualified men whom he has chosen. God’s goal in appointing these “undershepherds” has always been as stated here: the health and welfare of the entire community of God’s people. I believe it would be a mistake and an abuse of this narrative text to argue for a particular form of church government. However I do believe we are given information here that is to be normative for the leadership of the church throughout the centuries. First, I want to notice how these men are chosen. In vv. 21 & 25 it would appear that Moses, by himself decided which men would fulfill these various roles. However, in Deuteronomy 1 he recounts this occasion and there he tells us that he asked the assembly to pick out the men from each of their tribes that they would recommend and then he placed them in their particular positions and told them what their duties were to be. The pattern throughout the Scriptures is that the congregation recommends or in some way is involved in the selection of those who are to lead them. I'm not going to argue that a congregational form of church government is taught here but that those who are led are to be given the opportunity of giving input into the selection of who will lead them. It is wrong to appoint leaders in local congregations without giving the congregation the opportunity for input into who will lead them. A second observation is that not all the leaders were given the same amount of responsibility. Men were assigned to a particular number of people based upon their qualifications and competency. There was to be a system of referring cases up through the levels of leadership. The easiest cases were settled by those in charge of ten who then referred more difficult situations to those in charge of fifty and so on up to Moses. Third, and the thing that is most obvious, is that the men who were selected had to fulfill certain qualifications. If we put together the two lists in Exodus and Deuteronomy we find that these “officials” who were to serve the people had these characteristics: they were capable. They feared God. They were trustworthy. They hated dishonest gain. They were wise and understanding. They were respected by the people they were to lead. In other words, the "officials" in Israel were to be men of intelligence who understood God's law and who had the wisdom to apply God's laws to the infinite variety of human experience and trouble. They were men who were respected by the communities within which they lived. They were men whose basic orientation in life was God-ward. Their chief ambition in life was to know and love God. They were faithful men who could be depended on to fulfill their assigned duties. Finally, they were to be men who hated dishonest gain. In other words, they were men who gave evidence that they would not let power or money or the acceptance of others influence how they made decisions. It is without question that the health and welfare of the people of God through the centuries has risen and fallen based upon the quality and competency of those who lead the church. Whether we think of the judges and kings and priests and prophets of Israel or of the pastors and elders of the church through the centuries, it is the testimony of history that the church rises and falls with her leaders. It is no small thing to be an elder in the church of Christ. Therefore, as we select the men who are to lead us in our church we must take that selection serious. We are not looking for men who will act like directors on the board of some corporation but for men who will invest their time and ability in shepherding and giving spiritual help to God's people personally and corporately. One of the chief reasons we require our elders to lead small groups is so that the men we select will have demonstrated an ability to teach and personally lead others to Christ. Elders are not primarily policy setters, though that is part of their job, but teachers of God's word and shepherds who personally help others to apply that word to the details of their own lives. God cares for his troubled people through…
IV. The submission of his people to his appointed leaders (vv. 13, 15-16, 26) I'm only going to mention what is obvious in this passage. God's leadership of his people through gifted men requires that his people gladly obey and follow those called leaders. It has often been the case in the history of the church that God has appointed gifted and qualified leaders but the people have refused to follow and obey them and thus have brought great harm upon themselves and upon God's church. The history of Israel and the church is sad testimony to this reality. There is probably not a more neglected reality in the church in America than this reality. The Scriptures command us to "Obey your leaders and submit to them as those who are keeping watch over your souls." "Respect those who are over you in the Lord and who work hard among you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work." The first inclination of the soul of the Christian is not to question the leadership of the church. We do not live by the mantra of our culture: "Question authority." We examine our own hearts and motives before we question the hearts and motives of our leaders. We do not join in the consumer quest to find the perfect pastor and elders as we flit from church to church. We seek to live in obedience and submission to God's appointed leaders unless we are given clear and convincing and confirmed evidence that those leaders either by departure from true doctrine or Christian practice are not trustworthy any longer. God cares for his troubled people through…
© Copyright
2005 John Swanson.
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