Exodus 18

It's important to use wisdom and not overexert yourself when you are put in charge of an organization of any size. This chapter shows you a Godly way to do that!

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Welcome back to the Christians on College Campuses podcast. My name is Hayden Faught, and I attend Highlands College out in Birmingham, Alabama. And today we are going to be looking at Exodus 18. And so here in Exodus 18, for some context, Moses has freed his people from Egypt and from Pharaoh, and we saw God do this amazing miracle of parting the Red Sea for them. And so now he's back, and here we're gonna see Moses and Jethro. Jethro is Moses' father-in-law. Moses had actually sent his wife away to Jethro, and a lot of scholars uh believe that this was because Moses and Zipporah, his wife, were having a dispute. And so Jethro was Jethro was bringing his daughter, Moses' wife, back to him. And so we'll kind of go over that real quick. But I strongly encourage you always to read the entire chapter for yourself because there's nothing like reading the word of God and the pages jumping out at you and whatever God wants to say. But we're gonna pick it up in verse 13. After Moses has greeted Jethro and his wife, and this starts out says, The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people. They stood around him from morning till evening. So all day long, 24 7, like Moses is constantly being this judge. He's got this entire nation of Israel with him as the sole judge. For any disputes, for any arguments, for any decisions to be made, Moses is the guy, and and it continues on. It says, when his father-in-law saw that Moses was doing this, he said, What is what are you doing? And why do you do it alone? And why are all these people standing around you from morning till evening? And Moses answered him, Because the people have come 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. So Moses' father-in-law replied, What you're 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 alone. So, before we get into the rest of the scripture, the name for what we're going to be talking about today is called Jethro's Principle. And so we'll slowly see this. But we see this in a lot of great organizations today, especially where I work, Life Church, we have a version of this Jethro's principle laid out, and there's even on our staff page an organization chart with who is leading who. So we have Pastor Craig who leads three guys Bobby, Jerry, and Sam. And those three collectively, they have people under them, and people under them, and it's spread out evenly. So we'll see this really quick. Says in 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 disputes to them. Teach them his decrees and his instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they shall behave. But select capable men from all the people men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. Have them serve as judges for people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you. The simple 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, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied. Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said. He chose capable men from all of Israel, made them leaders of people, officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. They served as judges for the people at all times, the difficult cases they brought to Moses, but the simple ones they decided themselves. So we see this Jethro's principle, and I think it's really important for all of us in two different lessons. One is more of a very practical lesson, but another can be a very personal, so I'm gonna go with the practical first, in which when you're at an organization or you're leading an organization, I strongly suggest that you have a format of Jethro's principle. The students team is made up of about 25 people. Now, if you were to have one person, the youth pastor, over all 25 of these people, that would be a lot. To have all 25 of them meet with him day in and day out, he would be very swamped and almost enough to not be able to do his job. And so this is where Jethro's principal can come in and help him directly. So, how we have it set up, we have a youth pastor, an associate youth pastor, and underneath them, they have five high-level dream team volunteers, and they directly communicate with these five. And now these five lead areas, and these five then have different amounts of people ranging from three to five people underneath them because it's a lot easier to be able to manage three or five people as opposed to the entire 25. So if you appoint those, those five people that directly report to the youth pastor and the associate youth pastor, and those five are able to take care of three to five different people, there's a good intentional connection built between all of you as one team because that intentionality is saying, Hey, I value your time and you need to be developed properly. I can't give all 25 of you that all at once. But what I can give you is one person, and each of those people can directly report to whomever needs to be. There's a lot of different ways you can break it up. You don't have to break it up exactly that way, but I strongly suggest if you are ever leading an organization or a part of an organization, you see that there is stress upon a leader because they are taking on a lot of different projects andor people to be over. This is a great principle for us to look at. But in a personal sense, how does this apply to us? It's just a great reminder of sometimes you can be carrying too much in your life. Moses is carrying a lot, and he thinks that it's healthy, and that you may be in the same boat as Moses, as a lot of great things are happening in your life, but it is a lot and it's stressful, and you may think because they're great things, they must be directly from God, and that you have to carry all of them. Sometimes that's not always the case, is that God has called us to be intentional with what we have, not to minimize or to not pay attention to as much the things in our life or to downgrade what we have, but to allocate resources properly and to give yourself enough time. And that's why we have a sabbatical is hey, you need a day of rest. God, when creating the world, even took a rest day. So who are you to say that you don't need a day of rest? So when we look at our work week, when we look at things we need to get done, that Sabbath is very important to have because seven days all at once and doing that constantly, that's not sustainable. What Moses was doing was not sustainable. So if you look at your life too, and even in a day's perspective, how much are you loading on your day? Are you loading your day from wake up to go to bed? And if that's the way it has to be, that's okay. There's still a way to be able to find rest, whether that's taking a Saturday, a Friday, a Sunday off and being able to take time for yourself and just manage that. It is a part of who we are and the way that we are wired to have rest so that we can operate at high levels. So if you were to take anything from this is the intentionality of Jethro is he sees how the people at the way bottom of the totem pole can be served much better just by reallocating resources and being able to what's the word to delegate properly. Not to just shove off to the side, but delegate properly to call and raise up somebody that can help you out because it's always okay to ask for help. That's not a sign of weakness, that's a sign of strength that you understand your personal limits and you're self-aware of that, and that you can rely on other people to be able to help you out because we all need it. So I'm gonna pray over real quick. Lord, thank you so much for this time. Thank you for this person who has taken their time out of their day to listen to this podcast, and I pray that you show them something from this, whether it's in their personal time of reading the direct words from scripture or it's from listening to this podcast. I pray that you speak to them in a way that is specific to them and that they are able to grow in their life in whatever whatever way, shape, or form, because we believe wholeheartedly that the Bible, the word of God, there in every piece of it is something for us. And I pray that out of this scripture that there is something for everyone here, that you reveal that to them in their time, Lord. I pray over peace and strength over these people as they go out into their life, into their college campuses to spread your word and your gospel. Give them the strength and courage to be able to spread this love and this amazing gift that we never deserve in the first place. That they are a light on this campus wherever they are, Lord. Thank you. In your name we pray. Amen.