When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, âWhat is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?â Moses answered him, âBecause the people come to me to seek Godâs will. Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of Godâs decrees and instructions.â Mosesâ father-in-law replied, âWhat you are doing is not good.â (Exodus 18:14-17)
Mosesâs father-in-law Jethro was blunt. But he was also profoundly helpful. So much so that Exodus 18:24 tells us that âMoses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said.â
What did Jethro tell Moses to do? In short, delegate the work of governing Israel. Exodus 18:13-26 gives us a front-row seat to the masterclass Jethro taught Moses on delegation. Today, I want to turn your attention to five principles from that passage that are relevant to you today, whether you lead a ...
On the sixth day, [the Israelites] gathered twice as much [manna]âtwo omers for each personâand the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. He said to them, âThis is what the Lord commanded: âTomorrow is to be a day of sabbath rest.ââ (Exodus 16:22-23)
This is the first time Sabbath rest is offered to human beings in the Bible. Contrary to the Israelitesâ ruthless Egyptian masters who offered them no rest for 400 years, their perfect Heavenly Master offered them the gift of rest once every seven days. And he promised to provide the manna they needed for two days so that they could rest without worry!
The announcement of this gift undoubtedly led to great jubilation. And yet, Exodus 16:27 tells us that âsome of the people went out on the seventh day,â to work. In her terrific study on Exodus, Jen Wilkin explains why, saying that while God had gotten his people out of slavery, he had yet to get the slavery out of his people who fell back into non-stop work due to four...
Then the Lord said to Moses, âGo in to Pharaoh and say to him, âThus says the Lord, âLet my people go, that they may serve me. (Exodus 8:1 ESV)
A few weeks ago, we saw that it was the horrific working conditions of the Israelites that was the impetus for their exodus from Egypt. But if weâre not careful, we can mistakenly believe that God freed his people so that they could spend all their time worshiping him through song and sacrifices in the wilderness.
But thatâs not at all what we see. Seven times between Exodus 4:23 and 10:3, the Lord states his purpose for delivering his people. Over and over again he declares, âLet my people go, that they may serve me.â Commenting on this passage, one theologian says that âGod did not deliver Israel from work. He set Israel free for work.â But work as he had originally intended it.Â
This sets up a theme we see throughout Scripture: Salvation isnât an end in itself. It is a means to an endânamely being with God and working for his glory rather...
Then the Lord said to Moses, âSee, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. You are to say everything I command youâ (Exodus 7:1-2)
God could have set the Israelites free all on his own. He could have taken human form, walked straight into Pharaohâs palace, and led the Israelites out of Egypt for good.Â
But that wasnât his strategy as todayâs passage makes clear. The Lord said to Moses, âI have made you like God to Pharaoh.â In other words, while God could have done this work on his own, he chose to do it through Moses and Aaron.Â
Why? Was it because God had more important things to do? No. Itâs simply because this is how God has always chosen to operate. All throughout Scripture, we see that while God is perfectly capable of working on his own, more often than not, he chooses to work in this world through human beings.Â
That was true with Moses thousands of years ago, and itâs true with you and me today. In the words of Tim Keller, âWe are ...
âSo now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.â (Exodus 3:10)
God just said he would free the Israelites from their oppressive work conditions in Egypt, which undoubtedly brought Moses great joy. After all, he once killed a guy for the way he treated an Israelite worker (see Exodus 2:11-12).Â
But what God said next broke Mosesâs grin: âI am sending you,â Moses, to do this work. Exodus 3:11 - 4:10 records four excuses Moses makes for why heâs not the right person for this job. Today, I want to look at two of those excuses we borrow all the time to avoid doing the hard things God calls us to do.
Excuse #1: Iâm not qualified! Immediately after hearing Godâs words in todayâs passage, Moses said, âWho am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?â (Exodus 3:11) to which God replies, âI will be with youâ (see Exodus 3:11-12). In other words, âYou arenât the point, Moses. âI AM.â I donât need you to be qualified. I need yo...
The Lord said, âI have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians. (Exodus 3:7-8a)
Weâre in a seven-week series extracting wisdom for our work from the exodus, and in todayâs passage, we find the impetus and trigger for this monumental event: Work! Or to be more specific, the horrible working conditions of Godâs people.
The Egyptians had âmade [the Israelitesâ] lives bitter with harsh laborâŚ[and] worked them ruthlesslyâ (Exodus 1:14), screaming âGet back to your work!â (Exodus 5:4), and, âMake the work harderâ (Exodus 5:9). So Godâs people âgroaned in their slavery....and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to Godâ (Exodus 2:23).
And as todayâs passage shows us, God heard the cry of his people and acted decisively. The ability of Godâs image-bearers to do good work is so important to him that he se...
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, âWhen you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.â The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. (Exodus 1:15-17)
The midwives in todayâs passage play a starring role in Exodus 1. What can Shiphrah and Puah teach us about our work today? At least two things.
First, that God uses the nobodies of this world to do his work. To fully appreciate this truth, we must understand the context of todayâs passage. The King of Egypt (AKA Pharaoh) had a problem. In Exodus 1:9-10 heâs quoted as saying, âthe Israelites have become far too numerous for usâŚ.we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.â
Pharaohâs solution is the ma...
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. (Isaiah 9:6a)
Weâre in a four-week series exploring the vocations of some of the characters of Christmas. This morning, we come to the principal of the nativity scene: Jesus himself.
Now, you may be thinking, Hold up a minute, Jordan, this is a series on âChristmas Vocationsâ and Jesus didnât yet have a vocation lying there in the manger. That is precisely what I want you and I to focus on today.Â
While Jesus would one day hold vocations as a carpenter, preacher, and king, for the first years of his life he had no work. Instead, the Creator chose to be entirely dependent on the work of his creatures. Theologian J.I. Packer marveled at this truth saying that âthe Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child.â
Do you see the absurdity of this scene? Jesus could have come into the world as a ful...
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. (Luke 2:16)
Since our first date 16 years ago, my wife Kara and I go to the historic Tampa Theatre every December to see Itâs a Wonderful Life. And even though the film is more than 75 years old, the theater is packed every year. Why? Because the movieâs protagonist, George Bailey, encapsulates a timeless desire of the human heart to do work that matters.
If you havenât seen the film, hereâs the gist. George Bailey was raised in the small town of Bedford Falls, but he dreamed of doing âsomething big, something important.â But life got in the way and George remained stuck in his hometown working an obscure job he saw little purpose in. It took a literal miracle for him to see just how impactful his life and work had been.
Scripture tells us nothing about who made the manger Jesus slept in his first night on earth. But Iâm willing to bet he felt much like George Bailey. He probably spent years ha...
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, âWhere is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.â When King Herod heard this he was disturbed. (Matthew 2:1-3)
Those last words are one of the great understatements in all of Scripture. Herod was more than âdisturbedâ by the news of Jesus. He was apoplectic because this new âking of the Jewsâ represented a direct threat to his throne.
Herod knew there can only be one king in a kingdom. Either you are on the throne or someone else is. There is no in-betweenâno compromise whatsoever. Which is why, after hearing of this threat to his career, Herod unleashed one of the most grotesque campaigns of violence in history (see Matthew 2:16).Â
But Herod isnât the only king we see in todayâs passage. Weâre also introduced to the Magiâthe âthree kings of Orient areâ we sing about every Christmas. While Herod res...