Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome:

Well, good morning everyone!

Glad to have you here.

If we haven’t met, my name is Dan Osborn, the pastor here at Park’s Forest Glen location.

If you’ve got a bible with you this morning, open up to Exodus chapter 18.

If you need a bible, you can grab one from the seat in front of you and is on page ***.

We’ve got a very interesting story that we’re looking at—one that is probably one of the less familiar ones from the Old Testament, but I think one that speaks very directly to us today.

Introduction

One of the hard things about living in the city—and I’m speaking as a younger guy—is moving.

If you’ve been around Chicago for a while, you know how delightful of an experience moving is, right?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really mind helping people move (unless of course you get there and they still haven’t packed anything).

But I’m not the biggest fan of the whole moving process itself.

That said, in the 6 years that Courtney and I have been married, we have moved 4 times.

When we first got married, we moved to Old Town…then Bridgeport…then Lakeview…and finally Irving Park where we’re still at on the corner of Irving and Elston.

The only plus side to moving so often is that you actually pick up some tips and tricks along the way so that the next move isn’t as bad as last.

With the second move…I learned not to move when you wife is 8.5 months pregnant.

Seems like foresight should have caught that one but I guess lesson learned!

Another tip: people are more likely to be ‘busy’ when they find out you’re moving in to a three story walk up.

Lesson we learned—don’t tell them it’s a three story walk up until they get there!

Make sure you have plenty of food…and then promise those friends that helped you that when you move OUT, you’ll definitely hire movers.

But the most important lesson we learned with moving was the necessity of having shifts.

By the 3rd move—I had everything timed out so that Courtney had her mom in town to help her pack up and label everything—I had a crew scheduled to come and move stuff out of our old place and into the truck…and that was it.

Another crew to help us get to the new place…some to unload the truck, some to go up and down the stairs, some to start unpacking…and they could switch in and every so often.

And while it certainly was not easy…what Courtney and I had realized is the necessity of sharing the load with others.

We recognized that we needed other people to help—and what we really couldn’t do by ourselves was able to be done when we had those around us who were willing to share the load with us!

It’s for my good and for the good of everyone involved, right?

We share the load.

And t

The reason I’m bringing this up is because in the passage we’re looking at this morning, this same principle is at work—the necessity of sharing the load.

And what we’ll see is that this is not just a simple organizational principle…no, it’s much bigger than that—it is still a way that God actively uses to mobilize his people today to get after what He’s called us to do!

Share the Load.

Sound good?

Alright, if you’re not there yet, open up with my to .

Then I’ll pray, and we’ll get started.

PRAY

Story

Recap

If you weren’t here last weekend, let me quickly cover what we covered in chapter 16—that as Israel was continuing to move through the Wilderness—they were regularly grumbling against Moses about what they were experiencing—saying that it would have been MUCH better for them if they’d never left Egypt in the first place.

And yet, the way that Moses responds to them—is by calling them to remember and be thankful for the ways that God has already provided for them!

And it really is this simple but PROFOUND idea that the Israelites just seemed to have missed…that if they had taken a moment to look back at what God had already done in the last few months right in front of them—that He had brought them out of Slavery in Egypt—that He had demonstrated His power and authority over Pharoah in the Plagues—what He had shown them in literally splitting the Red Sea right open so that they could pass through the waters…that should have been enough to remind the Israelites that in whatever they are facing now, God is bigger.

Jethro’s Conversion

But as the storyline of Exodus continues, what we find out is that what God has done for Israel in bringing them out of Egypt is not just something God’s People have seen—the word has spread all though-out the region.

People are hearing news of what God has done for his people.

Jethro Hears about God

Look with me at v.1 ()

Which, as we’ve been talking about the last couple of weeks, it’s an impressive roster!

And Moses’ father-in-law hears about this and he decides he would like to hear the story first had from Moses.

Now, we don’t know way too much about Jethro—really, all we know is that he is a Priest of Midian—in fact whenever he’s talked about in Exodus before chapter 18, Jethro is generally referred to as the Priest of Midian.

Here’s the thing: we don’t know exactly what the Midianites believed—though they did have a different set of religious beliefs than the Israelites—in all likelihood they are poly-

theists like many of the other people groups from this time period....and again, Jethro is one of their priests—so he is a believer in the god they worship.

But he comes to Moses because he’s hear

Moses Tells Jethro about YHWH

And when he arrives, Moses sits him down and he begins to recount the story.

Although, there is a very important detail in the way the Moses tells it—one that, if we’re familiar with the bible, we’d easily overlook.

Take a look with me at v. 8 ().

Some of you know this, but whenever you see in your bible the word LORD written in all caps or maybe just with a capital L in some cases, that means it’s an english translation of the special name for God, Yahweh.

You’ll remember from earlier in Exodus chapter 3, this is the FIRST place that God reveals His name.

And the reason we’ll miss why this is important is because we often think of the word LORD as just another way to say ‘god’.

And it’s become so familiar that we forget it is actually a PROPER NAME!

So you’ve got to see what Moses is doing here.

Verse 1 () tells us Jethro has come because he heard what god had done…it’s the general word for god or gods—the Hebrew word אלהים.

BUT when Moses sits down with him, he makes it very clear that it wasn’t the gods who did this like Jethro thinks…it is THE God who did this; Yahweh who delivered them!

Moses wants to be very clear about this for Jethro—and check out what happens!

Jethro believes

Look what he says in v. 10 ().

This is a big deal that we can’t jump over because it will help us make sense of what is coming up next.

As Moses shares what YAHWEH has done—Jethro has this incredible response, right!?

Because what says and does clues us in to the fact that he becomes a believer in Yahweh—that at hearing what has been done, he is now convinced that there is NO other god like Yahweh—that the Lord is greater than all gods.

Many theologians look at this passage and they call it Jethro’s conversion—where he abandons the faith he once practiced so that he can now worship Yahweh, the God of Israel.

And it’s not only what he says here that makes me think this is what’s happened, you also see hints of this in other parts of the story!

Remember, this isn’t the the ONLY time we read about Jethro in the bible, he’s already shown up earlier in Exodus and he shows up again later on in the Old Testament…but what you’ll notice is that BEFORE Jethro talks in v. 10 (), he often described as the Priest of Midian.

But, AFTER he has this conversation with Moses—when he says, “Now I know that יהוה is greater than all the gods...”

He is never called a priest of Midian again.

Why?

Well, as I look at it, it’s because he has become a follower of the LORD.

He is now grafted in to God’s family, a part of His people, right?

All because Moses sat down with Him to share what God had done for him and the Israelites.

And just as a side note.

To me there is something incredibly comforting in this story that through Moses sharing what the Lord had done—it led to his father-in-law…someone who was deeply embedded in a whole separate belief system…committed to a different worldview....someone far from God…it led to his belief and conversion, and ultimately a restored relationship with the God of the universe.

I wonder how many of us have family members who are like Jethro—far from any kind of meaningful relationship with God…deeply committed to another belief and worldview system…just an encouraging piece of this story is a reminder not to give up.

Not to give up having conversations with them, talking with them, and as best you can, bringing it back to what God has done in your life!

Transition

[Expand} But I love what happens next in this story—it’s what really brings us to the main point of what this passage ultimately teaches us.

Jethro’s Advice

Take a look a v. 13 (; )

And Moses explains to him that he all of the people are coming to him to get his advice on what they should do in certain situations.

Explain that he is supposed to represent the people to God and teach them what God is calling them to do.

Which makes sense, right?

Moses is clearly the leader—the Lord is speaking to him, leading him…all of the signs that God had done in Egypt—the plagues, the splitting of the Sea…God did ALL of it through Moses.

and if the people want to know what God thinks about something, Moses is the logical choice to talk to!

But you can imagine that this would be an enormous task—right?

Even the most conservative estimates for how many Israelites came out of Egypt are in the realm of hundreds of thousands of people—and we know from what we looked at last week—that they’ve got some complaints and are VOCAL about them!

And in the current set up…Moses is the only one they go to to work things out!

It would be like if the entire NW side of the city has one DMV location---with ONE employee!

We can all imagine the joy that would be flowing, right?!

And I love how much of a straight shooter Jethro is, he calls it like he sees it.

V. 17 ().

Jump down to v. 17 ().

Jethro continues...

In other words—Moses, you can’t go on like this.