INTRODUCTION
• The hardest thing about ministry is relationships. Many of us are ineffective in ministry because of fractured relationships.
• There is no ministry outside of relationship.
• God’s order began with people in garden, in authority with dominion.
• And it continues that way today. He uses those who let Him use them.
• Moses was one of those guys. A guy who got used because he dealt with his relationships.
Exodus 4:18-19, 18Then Moses departed and returned to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, ‘please, let me go, that I may return to my brethren who are in Egypt, and see if they are still alive.’ And Jethro said to Moses, ‘go in peace.’ 19Now the Lord said to Moses in Midian, ‘Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.’”
o Read vs. 20-31 - This encompasses all the key relationships in Moses’ life.
• Here is Moses/Jethro, Moses/Zipporah, Moses/Aaron, Moses and elders.
• All our lives look at some level like an an organizational chart.
• With people above us, beside us, and below us.
I. RELATING RIGHT
• You and I are called to be instruments of salvation. The goal isn’t to get outta hell to heaven. The goal is to fulfill destiny.
Exodus19:5-6, “Now then, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.”
• Priests - Bridge builders to the world.
• The exodus ones or ones taken out and us the ecclesia (church) or called out ones - ek and kaleo, ek=out and kaleo=called.
• We are all meant to be deliverers. Genesis 12 - Blessed to be a blessing.
• This was Moses, called by God, he turned aside, dealt with his internal identity issues, (who am I) God empowered him with signs (staff) and now he is ready to move out.
• Not exactly. Not till he deals with relationships.
• If you are going to be used as a deliverer you are going to have to order your world properly.
• You are going to have to relate right to those God puts over you: parents, employers, leaders.
• To those He puts next to you: friends, neighbors. Those He gives you charge over: family, employees, etc.
• How do you relate to your possessions (do you own them or do they own you?), to your power, to your place in this life.
II. GET ON YOUR NUMBER SO GOD CAN USE YOU
• Once Moses gets his calling and he figures out what God is up to…
• He then must deal with people on these three different levels.
• When we speak of those above, beside, below there is no value or worth put on the position. We all have value in God’s eyes, but as I taught you three - four years ago we all have our own number.
I Peter 2:13, “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake.” Ephesians 5:21, “Submit yourselves one to another.”
• Do you remember your P.E. teacher telling you to get on your number for roll call?
• Man I had to battle with kids all the time. Do this in alphabetical order, “But Mr. Carroll that means I’m always last.” Get on your number Zimmerman.
• Wow what a hassle but without those numbers having 50 students in your P.E. class would have been impossible.
• Submit = hupotasso = to arrange under, to put under, to put in order
• A Greek military term meaning “to arrange [troop divisions] in a military fashion under the command of a leader.”
• In non-military use, it was “a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility.”
• In P.E. it was getting on your number.
• Without authority and submission we would live in chaos.
• There are times you just want to throw off others and do it your way.
• Doesn’t God know that since this was written we wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to protect our rights?
• The truth is the assurance of our destiny and the fulfillment of our lives is never accomplished by the insistence of our rights but by the willingness to lay them down and let Him raise us up.
• There are times you must respect the position even if you don’t respect the person.
• Acts 23:1-5 - Paul and the high priest.
• It is easy isn’t it to think you could do it better than the person above you?
• To allow your heart to grow critical and hard…beware. God put you in a position to make someone else successful and he will not elevate you unless you elevate them.
• Gary Fulkerson at Ganesha (I thought I could do it better) He won CIF Championship.
• God was clear to me, my job was to make him a success even if his way wasn’t mine.
• Anybody can submit when they agree.
• When you know who your Father is and you are secure in that, moving over for the next guy isn’t so difficult.
• Being last as Jesus suggested isn’t a slam when you know that you are wealthy and your father is the King of the universe.
Jesus kept entrusting (I Peter 2:23) = paradidomia literally He kept giving Himself over to the Father and ended up on a tree. Are you willing for that to happen to you?
• Jesus’ willingness to submit was not a sign of weakness but of power…(John 19:11 Pilate)
III. MOSES’ PRIVATE WORLD
• Moses did well with those over him and beside him (Aaron) but he was a failure with those he is to give oversight to, his family.
• God doesn’t let Moses move into his calling, until he deals with the people around him properly.
• If the enemy can’t keep you from loving God, he will challenge you to work with people God has put in your life.
• Began with the one over him – Jethro.
• Jethro held three roles in Moses’ life
o He was his boss - Moses shepherded his sheep.
o He was his father-in-law - Moses married his daughter.
o He was his spiritual leader - As the priest of Midian.
• The Midianites were not pagan people. Though they did not have the full revelation of the God of Abraham, they were Abraham’s offspring.
• Jethro was the spiritual leader of this group.
• Moses comes to Jethro and asks, “Would you let me go?”
• Moses had just met God on the mountain. He had spoken to God, he had been empowered and sent by God himself and he sks???
• I doubt you and I would have ask. We would have told old Jethro, well see dude it’s like this. I am God’s man. He chose me and empowered me. Wanna see what my staff can do?
• “Please let me go” - He didn’t even tell Jethro he had met with God.
• Was old Mo afraid to speak it? Well he told Aaron the whole deal when they meet.
• Moses doesn’t pressure Jethro. He doesn’t leverage Jethro. He asks.
• This grace of submission is unfortunately rare in the church today.
• What we do - ”Jethro I got a word from the Lord today.”
• “I was face to face with Him. Do you know His name?”
• It is so normal today that when God gives just a bit of revelation we think we know all there is to know.
Close – The release of relationships
• How many of us have fractured with people God has put over us.
• And we are missing our destiny because we are reluctant or flat out unwilling to forgive and release them.
• See many of us do all we can to get ourselves out from under people God has put over us, to bless us.
• Relationships are the key to effective ministry and working through them is the release point for all of us.
• Jethro got it. All of Moses’ destiny rested on this man’s response and he certainly did not have equal spiritual insight with Moses. God released Moses after Jethro did.
• How could he? Only one guy was at that bush but Moses submitted to Jethro.
• He got on his number until Jethro told him he could get off!
• Only by setting your heart on the Father can you and I enjoy the relationships God has appointed for us.
• Only by realizing that God uses people to fulfill my destiny.
• The timing was God’s and Moses got that.
• Be open to what the Spirit will do.
• Be open, if it is God Jethro will be open to it. Tell him to say it is ok.
• Even though he will lose a key employee, his grandchildren, and daughter, but he fully surrenders.
