Exodus Series, Part 8 | Bearing Each Other's Burdens | Randy Garcete

Good morning everyone.

It's good to see a full and a packed house this morning.

Before I start, I'm going to ask you to turn to your neighbor, and there's a point to this, it's not just filler time.

Turn to your neighbor and ask them how was your week, and then tell each other how your week was.

Thank you.

All right, you can close it down now.

We could almost just dismiss right now and just go straight to the meal and keep on fellowshipping.

I think that would be good, it guys?

It's hard to slow you guys down.

Good, okay, all right, open your Bibles to Exodus, chapter 17.

Exodus 17 · chapter mention

Exodus, chapter 17,.

Exodus 17 · chapter mention

We're going to be picking up in verse 8.

Before we read the text, just a little bit of review.

I've been preaching through Exodus and we've been following the story of what God is doing with His people.

They started off enslaved in the land of Egypt.

We watched God miraculously save and deliver them from out of bondage, bring them out of Egypt.

They crossed the Red Sea and the last time I preached we looked at the way of the wilderness and how God was using their time in the wilderness to form and to shape them into his people and that the wilderness, the suffering, the hardship in the wilderness was actually.

It wasn't just pointless.

Suffering, the hardship in the wilderness was actually.

It wasn't just pointless.

There was a point to it and the point was that it was through the trials in the wilderness that God was shaping them into and preparing them to go into the promised land and to reflect his plan, his purpose, into the world.

We're going to pick up in verse eight of chapter 17.

I'm going to have you guys read it and basically, if you feel led, stand up, read however many verses you want to and then sit down and then somebody else can pick up and and and read as many verses as you want to.

We're going to read until we get to the end of chapter 18.

So a lot of scripture here, but it's all fairly crucial as we get through this.

So the time is yours.

If you feel led to read the text, start in verse 8 of chapter 17.

Read loudly and clearly so everyone can hear.

Read loudly and clearly so everyone can hear, and Moses' children, and followed Daniel.

While Moses, aaron and Herb went up to the top of the hill, whenever Moses held up his hand, his room was filled, and whenever he lowered his hand, amalek was filled.

But Moses' hands grew weary so that he took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it.

While Aaron and Herb were holding his hands, one on one side and the other on the other side, and his hands were shaved, shall be going down in the sun and Joshua overwhelmed.

Amalek and his people were disordered.

Then the Lord said to Moses, righteous and the Immortal, and repeat and recite it in the ears of Joshua that I will utterly wipe out the memory of Amalek from under heaven and Moses told the altar and called them to the name of the Lord.

Now, Now, Jethro, the priest of Nudim and the father-in-law of Moses, heard of everything God had done for Moses and for his people of Israel, and how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt.

After Moses had sent away his wife Zipporah, his father-in-law, Jethro, received her and her two sons.

One son's name, Gershon, from Moses, said I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.

And the other was named Eleazar For he said my father's.

God is my helper.

He saved me from the sword of Pharaoh.

Hey, verse 5 of Jethro.

Moses' father-in-law came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness, where he was encamped at the mountain of God.

And when he sent word to Moses, I, your father-in-law, jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons with her.

Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him, and they asked each other of their welfare and went into the tent.

Then Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Moses and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way and how the Lord is greater than all else, because it is the glory of the Lord.

He felt everything.

He felt everything.

He felt everything.

He felt everything.

He felt everything.

He felt everything.

He felt everything.

He felt everything.

He felt everything.

He felt everything.

He felt everything.

He felt everything.

He felt everything.

He felt everything.

He felt everything.

He felt everything.

He felt everything he felt.

And so it was on the next day that Moses said to the people.

And the people stood before Moses in the morning and in the evening.

So Moses' father-in-law saw all that he did for the people.

He said what is this thing that you are doing for the people?

Why do you alone sit when all the people stand before you from morning until evening?

And Moses said to his father-in-law Because the people come to me through the wires of God when they have a difficult time, they come to me and I don't see one another and I make known the statutes of God in his love.

Moses' father-in-law said to him when you are doing things, you are not able to do them all 1 Peter 3, what it must do.

Moreover look for aid from all the people, men and women, who are trustworthy and will provide and place such men over the people that choose to fight against the country's most dangerous enemies and let them just be without crime, Every great matter they shall bring to you.

But I am a small man and I am a Christian besides myself, so it will be easier for you and they will bear the burden with you.

If you do this, God will grant glory and you will be able to endure, and all his people also will know that they have faced good times.

All the people, all the people.

They're going to be replaced.

So Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said.

Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, chiefs of thousands and hundreds and fifties and of tens, and they judged the people at all times.

Any hard case they brought to Moses, but any small matter they decided themselves.

Then Moses let his father-in-law depart and he went away to his own country.

Amen, thank you all for participating in that.

So, going back to the first thing we did this morning, when you turn to your neighbor and ask them, how was your week, I'm curious how many of you said used the word busy, raise your hand.

If you said busy or some word that would describe that would be synonymous to busy, raise your hand above your ears.

Okay, so, like half of you at least, and the other half of you just like, if you would have had more time, eventually you would have said busy, most likely.

So there's a study, sort of a little bit of a study, done by a lady called Nora Rosendahl.

Done by a lady called Nora Rosendahl, and she did this little experiment where she asked I want to say it was like 1,500 people.

She asked them how are you?

She said that eight times out of 10, they use the word busy.

They responded with the word busy.

I don't know if this is true or not.

Word busy there's.

I don't know if this is true or not, but it makes a good story, the the.

There was an immigrant who came to the United States and was learning the English language and whenever he would ask someone, how are you?

He came to believe that the word busy meant good, because he heard it so often.

He was like how are you?

So we said busy and so he was like oh that busy must mean good.

We live in a culture that is busy and there's something that has actually changed, I think, to where we view busyness almost as a status symbol, to where it used to be, that possessions, how much money you had, how many possessions you had, was sort of a status symbol.

Today it's like if you're not busy or whoever is busy must have some sort of a status status.

This busyness that we live, busy life that we live, ends up causing what Richard Swenson in his book Margin he calls it overload.

He uses the term overload to describe how many of us take on much more than what we're able to handle mentally or physically or even emotionally.

He describes this with a couple different ways.

Some different ways that this expresses itself is in activity.

Activity overload School work, two sets of families, church, small group, neighborhood activities we're constantly doing things, we're constantly filling up our calendars with things, we're double booking, we're having to cancel because we just can't cram it all in.

So we have activity overload.

We have change overload where for thousands of years your life didn't change a whole lot, from the time you were born to the time you died.

You, you, you grew up in the same community.

You had the same neighbors all your life and you grow up, live, have children and die in that community.

Today change is constant.

We're constantly changing where we live, our jobs, our friends.

Change is just constant.

We have commitment overload, he says in his book Margin.

He says most of us have more commitments than time.

Some people just can't say no.

They take on too many relationships and too many responsibilities.

They enroll in too many courses, hold down too many jobs, volunteer for too many tasks, make too many appointments, serve on too many committees and have too many friends.

Does that resonate with any of you all.

Okay, melody's smiling back there.

Yes, he talks about expectation overload.

An advertising firm had this I don't know which one it was, but it had this billboard that said your world should know no boundaries.

If you can dream it, you can do it.

There's no limit to your ability, and this problem of busyness that leads to overloaded lives is a problem that actually, I think it especially plagues leaders today, and especially church leaders.

There's some statistics alarming statistics that I read about a couple different studies done on church leaders, specifically pastors.

In 2013, there was a study done by Schaefer Institute that reported that 90% of pastors report working 55 to 70 hours a week and 50% of them feel unable to meet all the demands of their job.

The study went on further to say and they found this was in 2013, said that 1,700 pastors leave the ministry each month, and the reasons they cite are depression, burnout or being overworked as the primary reasons for quitting.

As the primary reasons for quitting In 2022, 40% of pastors showed a high risk of burnout.

That was almost a 400% increase from 2015, when that number was just 11%.

So 40% of pastors are a little bit shocked and I want to say from the outset that I don't share these statistics to guilt trip you as a congregation or to have a pity party for Sean or I.

I'm just saying this is the reality of church leaders in America today and it's the reality that I think we have to be honest with ourselves as church leaders, or anyone within in church leadership of any type, say this is this is the reality for for for a lot, of, a lot of people in church leadership.

The text we're looking at today, I think, speaks to this, to this problem.

This story that we that we just read speaks into this problem and I think can give us some principles, some guiding principles for how we deal with this problem of overload with responsibility and commitment within church.

So, looking back at the lesson today, or at the verses, the first part of chapter 18, jethroro is referred to as a priest of Midian.

He's also the father of Moses' wife Zipporah.

He comes to Moses with Moses' two sons.

The last time we read about Jethro was in chapter 4, when Moses was in Midian and he went to God, called Moses to go back to Egypt and Moses went to Jethro and said, said this, specifically said, to see whether his brothers are still alive.

So Moses said Jethro, I want to go back to Egypt just to check up on my brothers.

Fast forward to chapter 18.

And now they finally meet up again and Moses went from checking in on his brothers to leading his entire enslaved people group up out of Egypt.

And so Jethro goes into Moses' tent here in chapter 18, and Moses tells Jethro everything that God has done since they last saw each other, and Jethro says Jesus.

Verse 9 says Jethro rejoiced for all the good that the Lord had done to Israel, in that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians.

Jethro said Blessed be the Lord who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh and has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians.

Sort of an amazing story.

I don't think Jethro was quite prepared to hear all of that when he met up with Moses, but nevertheless he rejoiced.

He brought a burnt offering and a sacrifice to God in gratitude and sat down to eat with the elders of Israel the next day.

If you look at verse 13, it says the next day Moses sat to judge the people and the people stood around Moses from morning until evening, from morning until evening.

Moses sat there for 400 plus years while the Israelites were in Egypt.

They had been part of the Egyptian system and I don't know what that system looked like for as far as justice laws, what that looked like for if you were a slave.

But one thing is clear is that Pharaoh was in charge and he had an entire system under him, an entire host of priests, of lawmakers, of magistrates and other leaders to help, I guess, create this system where they could carry out the decrees that Moses or that Pharaoh had for his kingdom, for his empire.

But now Moses and the Israelites they weren't part of that system anymore, they had fled that system.

And now they're in the wilderness and Moses finds himself being the one man court, the only sheriff in town.

Basically, and what we see here in chapter 18 is that he sits down and he is trying to carry out the load of leading this people, this group of people, this group of people, and he's struggling.

Jethro responds he sees this.

Moses' father-in-law sees this, which father-in-laws often have just good advice.

Normally, if your father-in-law tells you something, you should probably pay attention.

He says this Moses' father-in-law said to him what you are doing is not good.

That's not fun to hear from father-in-law.

I've heard it.

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.

You are not able to do it alone.

And I wonder how Moses heard that.

I wonder if his pride was hurt or if maybe his ego was sort of bruised.

He was like come on, jethro.

Like I literally led this people out of Egypt.

We crossed the Red Sea.

What do you mean?

I can't do it alone.

I've been doing this alone up until now.

What are you talking about?

But Jethro gives him this advice, and I think this is where we can.

This is some of the earliest, I guess, wisdom and advice on church or just on leadership in general that I think we can learn from here and that I think there's so much wisdom here.

First thing, jethro tells him, is this that we can learn, too, is understand your role.

So if you're a church leader, if you're a leader of any type, if you're a parent, if you're a business owner, if you're in charge of leading any group of people at all, I think it's crucial that you do this is to understand your role?

Jethro tells him you shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God.

Jethro reminds Moses this is what you're supposed to do.

This is your role.

This is what you're asked to do Represent the people before 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.

So two things Represent the people before God that's your primary role, moses and bring their cases to God.

And secondly is to teach the law.

So warn them and let them know the way that they must walk and what they must do.

Moses had to understand what his role was in order to actually accomplish it, in order to actually do it.

I think often, if we don't understand or have a clear picture of what our role is within an organization or even within church, we're tempted to take on more than what we can handle.

We don't know when to say yes or when to say no.

We just say yes to everything, like Moses, because we think we can do it all and in some ways, sometimes it hurts us to say you know what?

Actually, this is too much for me.

I can't actually do do all of this.

We like to think that we can, we can handle everything, and there takes some.

There takes humility, like Moses, I think, to say you know what, you're right, I can't do everything and I can't know what.

What to say no to if I don't understand clearly what my role is?

To say no to if I don't understand clearly what my role is.

So, secondly, jethro gave him further instruction First, understand your role.

Secondly, to spread the load, he says.

Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a.

He says Spread the load.

Spread the load.

The work that Moses was called to do was overwhelming.

It was a task that he was not able to do on his own.

The work of the church today, globally, but even locally, is a work that is greater than what one or two people can do by themselves.

The work that we at, specifically in Winfield, ohio, as Grace Point Church, is a big work.

It's a big call, it's a lifetime of work and it's a work that is much bigger than one man.

I think this is something we can learn as a church at.

Grace Point is like Moses, instead of Sean or I, trying to do everything, is spreading the work out amongst others who are equipped to do that work.

And we do that in a couple different ways, I think.

Number one he said call forth new leaders.

Call forth new leaders, he said he told Moses, get men, men who are God-fearing, men, who love God, who have a testimony of faithfulness, have a testimony of living upstanding lives, who are trustworthy you can trust them who hate a bribe, basically who are men of integrity, men who you can trust.

Have them watch over smaller groups of people in order to handle all the load.

Today we do that through a couple different ways.

We do that through having ordinations.

Having ordinations In the New Testament Paul talks about the gifts within the church.

He talks about the apostles, pastors, evangelists, shepherds, teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry.

I'm not entirely sure yet when we will have an ordination, but we will need to eventually.

And the purpose of that is for this very reason, is to spread the load, to spread the work of ministry.

But it's not only within the pastoral team.

We've also spread the load at church through calling forth discipleship group leaders to help do soul care.

We do that through things like superintendent at church and the work of church life in general is a big work, so I think we want to do a good job of doing this.

I think, secondly, with that, actually I love this quote by Steve Beiler in a class I took a couple months ago at Zollik and he said this, talking about church leadership structure.

He said that if the vine is Christ and we are the branches that are part of that, the church, the way church is structured, and specifically church leadership structure, is like the trellis that supports the growth of that vine.

And he said this.

He said it's an abuse of neglect if an inadequate trellis isn't built to support the vines around it.

It's an abuse of neglect if an adequate trellis isn't built to support the vines around it, and the vine will only be as healthy as the trellis that supports its growth.

I think that's true and it's challenging convicting.

Jethro further told Moses in verse 22,.

He said let them judge people at all times.

He gave them a clear role.

He said he had Moses give his people a clear, these leaders a clear role and a clear responsibility, so that they had an accurate picture, a clear picture of what their task was.

It was to judge amongst smaller matters, amongst the people and as things got more complex, they rose to the surface, until Moses would only be responsible for making the big decisions.

Think of, I don't know, maybe like the Supreme Court in America today, the Supreme Court doesn't sit there and make decisions on whether or not my speeding ticket was valid or not.

They make big decisions.

Abortion the big things.

That's essentially what Moses was going to be doing, but the people under him were to have a clear picture of their role and responsibility.

Right, I think, for us today.

I think we need to ask ourselves this If you've been asked to do a job at Grace Point, do you have a clear picture of what your responsibility is, what it means?

If you're a small group leader, do you have clarity around?

What is my role?

What is my responsibility?

What's expected of me?

What should I be doing?

How do I know if I'm doing my task correctly?

I think we need to be asking questions like are there things that are getting neglected?

Are there people that are being neglected?

What's not getting accomplished?

So clarify roles and responsibilities and we see how I'll end then with the results of this.

But I want to jump back to the last part of chapter 17.

Turn your Bibles back to chapter 17, verse 8.

We had this sort of bizarre, in my opinions, this sort of bizarre account of the first, maybe, battle that Israel faces when they come out of Egypt, and that is, the Amalekites come out against Israel.

They have this battle.

Moses tells Joshua go out, choose men, go out and fight with Amalek, just like another Tuesday morning.

Just go out and battle this random group of people that come out in the wilderness.

So they go out, they fight and Moses goes to the top of the hill and he had it says he took the staff of God with him, the staff that he had carried with him out of Egypt.

That was a picture of this power.

And I've actually I got somebody.

I got three volunteers, actually two volunteers.

I'm going to need one more.

Logan, come on up.

Our brave Moses.

This morning he took the staff of God, take this and this, okay, just hold on a little bit.

And he held up his arms, held the staff of God up above his head and it says as long as Moses held his hands up, israel prevailed and Moses was actively involved in this battle.

So go ahead and raise up your staff.

And as he held up his hands, the battle started in the morning.

He was actively involved in this battle.

He wasn't carrying a sword, he wasn't fighting, but he was holding the staff of God up above his head.

And as long as he was able to hold that staff up, israel prevailed.

They were winning.

They were winning the battle.

But eventually, as our young Moses here, his arms began to shake.

He started to get hungry.

He might have maybe wanted to go down and just join the battle himself, who knows?

But his arms got tired, started to droop, started to droop, started to droop, and when his arms went down, israel started to lose the battle.

And the Amalekites started to win.

And Moses' two friends, aaron and Hur I have Aaron, I need a Hur.

Yet, andrew, if you want to come on up, who wants to be a her Jesse?

They went, they got a stone and they put the stone under Moses.

So get a chair, put it under Moses.

And Moses, the Israelites are losing.

You got to keep holding that staff up, okay, his arms kept getting tired.

Moses and Aaron stood on either side of him.

And Moses, the Israelites are losing.

You've got to keep holding that staff up, okay, his arms kept getting tired.

Moses and Aaron stood on either side of him, held up his arms, and together they were actively involved in winning this battle.

Eventually, joshua, they overwhelmed Amalek and the people with the sword.

It says they basically won the battle.

This illustrates, I think, a powerful lesson for us today that the work of the church is a big work.

It's a big calling and the work of just the Christian life in general.

Whether you're a mom or a dad or an employee, maybe you're actively involved in your neighborhood just being a follower of Jesus comes with you, get wore out, you get burnt out, you get wore out, you get tired.

There's moments in life where you, just you, cannot lift your arms anymore and my encouragement to you all is be an arm lifter.

Look for the brothers and sisters around you who, like Moses, maybe their arms are getting tired, they're getting wore out.

Maybe they're falling to sin.

Maybe they're being complacent, they're not paying attention.

Maybe they're falling to sin.

Maybe they're being complacent, they're not paying attention.

Maybe they're discouraged, depressed, they're just not able to do everything that they've been asked to.

Look for those brothers and sisters and come alongside them, like Aaron, like her, and help them carry the load, help them carry the burden.

You guys can go back to your seats.

Thank you all.

Galatians 6, verse 2, says bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Galatians 6:2

So somehow, by carrying one another's burdens, we fulfill the law of Christ?

I'm not, it's profound.

I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, but the two verses later he says for each will have to bear his own load.

So let's bear each other's profound.

I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, but the two verses later he says for each will have to bear his own load.

So it's bear each other's burdens.

But then he says for each will have to bear his own load.

And I think what that means is that is, that the work needs to be spread out amongst everyone.

Everyone needs to help bear the load, but in carrying on your own burden, in taking on your own little load, you're helping carry that burden for others.

Okay, so in closing, I was wondering what advice would Jethro give to us if he came, if he showed up this morning, drove his chariot into Grace Point parking lot, walked in, dusted off his sandals and came to the front here.

What advice would he have for us?

What would he say?

Would he tell us?

He said, like he told Moses, what you are doing Grace Point is not good.

That would hurt.

What you're doing is not good In our modern culture of bigger, faster, stronger, equals better.

How are we at grace point?

How are we living?

Counter-culturally to that, I think, and I don't want to put words in Jethro's mouth, but I think he would point us back to the words of Jesus that said take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

My burden is light.

What would it look like for us at Grace Point to live lives where we carry the burden of church work with the ease and the grace that Jesus did?

We came alongside him, we yoked together with him and we weren't part of the statistics that I read at the start.

And we weren't part of the statistics that I read at the start Because I don't believe that, jesus' yoke being easy, his burden being light, I don't think that results in the statistics that I read at the beginning.

And somehow we have to be able to live out the calling that God has asked us to to further the work of the church while at the same time following in the way of Jesus, of having a light burden and not getting just fried to a crisp.

In closing, I want to leave you guys with this verse.

Turn back to Exodus 18, verse 22b.

This is the last part of verse 22.

We see what happened when Moses put this into practice, or the promise that Jethro leaves Moses.

He says verse 22,.

So if you do these things he says so it will be easier for you and they will bear the burden with you.

If you do this and this is the promise I want to leave to us today for seeking to live this out God will direct you, you will be able to endure and all these people also will go to their place in peace.

In peace, not in burnout, not in just getting completely fried to a crisp, but able to endure it and able to go to their place in peace.

We have a lot to learn from this and as we seek to live this out as leadership especially, I think there's a lot that we can learn from this and hopefully we can put into practice here.

Let's stand for a word of prayer and then I'll turn the time over to Sean.

Father, we come before you in Jesus' name.

We thank you, lord, for this day.

Thank you so much for everyone who's here this morning, from the youngest to the oldest.

Thank you for bringing them here.

I pray, father, that as a church, we could learn what it looks like to carry the burden of leadership with the grace of Jesus.

In Jesus' way.

I pray, father, that you could meet everyone here, wherever they're at in their life, that you could meet them in a special way, and that you could work in their lives in a special and a unique way through the power of your Holy Spirit.

We thank you for the food that we're going to eat this afternoon.

We praise you and we bless you for it.

In Jesus' name, I pray Amen.