I. Authority for Our Benefit 00:04
Good morning. We’re going to jump back in and continue our series following the Israelites out of Egypt, into the desert, and heading towards the promised land. Now, I know we’ve had a string of stories about the stubbornness and the evilness of the Israelites. Today we don’t get into that much. It’s present, but it’s a little bit less forward. So today is a good day for the Israelites.
What we’re going to talk about today is how God establishes his authority for our benefit. That’s what we’re talking about today, because I think in our current culture we really misunderstand authority. I think most of us are pretty sure that authority is the thing you try to get away from, that you try to get out from under, that you try to resist, right? That’s really common language: “Resist the power,” protest against authority, doing all these things. And that spirit has become almost embedded in each and every American person. That’s my argument this morning. We have to actively resist it. We have to actively be transformed in order to understand authority rightly, because it’s not taught well in the culture we live in.
Now, I will say this. Of course, abuses of authority can lead to some of the most tragic, awful situations any of us will encounter in our entire lives. So it is no wonder that there is something in us that is suspicious of authority. We see it all over the place. And maybe you’ve been wounded in your past by an authority figure, or by ways people have taken advantage of you because of their authority. But today I want you to know that if, because of your wounding, because of your understanding of the abuses of power and authority, you just write it off completely, then you’re missing out on what God has for you. Not because I think authority is the end or purpose. Authority as the end or purpose, “You submit to this person because they’re in charge”: that’s not the goal. The goal is that God’s authority would reach you through the people he’s put in charge of your life.
I know sometimes we think, “It can’t be. Not my boss. God can’t reach me through my authority. That guy’s such an awful manager, there’s no way God could reach me through that.” I know, I’ve been in those situations. I’m not going to get too deep into what’s said in the New Testament, but about those people, the same people who were arresting Christians and putting them to death because they were Christians, Paul writes some pretty important words: that God himself has put those people in charge to execute his purposes in the earth (Rom 13.1).
So to get back to our story today, what I want you to be thinking about as we look through this is: yes, absolutely, authority can be abused, but we have a responsibility to look for godly authority and to look for where God is leading us through the authorities in our life. Even your annoying boss, or your corrupt senator, or whoever it is you have a beef with. And if we understand authority aright, then God will be able to bless us. Specifically, I think what has happened in our current day and age is that we have almost completely dismissed the authority of the Church, God’s government on earth. So let’s get into that. That’s my challenge: think about that as we look through this story, and let’s see if we can learn anything about how we’re supposed to posture ourselves in the world.
II. The Victory over Amalek 03:45
Okay, we’ll start in Exodus chapter 17, beginning in verse 8:
8 Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. 9 So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek.” Exod 17.8–9
A little aside: he chose men, not women, to go fight. There’s a principle throughout the Bible that men actually have a different role than women, and it is integrally bound up with this idea of authority. So it will be important as we move forward. That’s just a little hint. Moses, talking to Joshua:
9 “Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” 10 So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. 11 Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. 12 But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. 13 And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. Exod 17.9–13
You’ve probably heard this story before. If you’ve been in church, it’s likely you’ve heard some version of this story, some sermon about it. I’m going to pull out a few things I think are fascinating about this little tale.
First of all, let’s remember who we’re talking about. We’re talking about the Israelites, who up until this moment were four hundred years slaves in Egypt. These are the same people who are now in the middle of the desert, literally looking to God for their daily bread, for any water, because they have no supplies. And a tribe of warriors comes up against them. I’m pretty sure they were kind of scared. I would be. They had no training. They were not ready for this. But because of the faith of Moses and Joshua… there’s no passage here where it’s like, “And then they cried out in fear.” No. Moses said, “Joshua, take the men and go fight,” and Joshua did so. Praise God, the Israelites are learning. They’re doing, they’re walking it out, without the fight before the fight, right? They’re trusting that God’s going to show up on their behalf, and he does. It is no less than a miracle that these slaves were able to beat this fighting tribe, the Amalekites.
III. How Do We Conquer Our Sin? 06:07
Here’s another point I want to make. Amalek means “sinful people.” That’s what it means, straight up. So the ancient church fathers used to interpret this the same way we’ve been talking about this story: it’s a story of our fight with sin, our fight with bondage. So how do we conquer our sin? Well, let’s look at this story.
Two things happen. First of all, Joshua and the men confront the sinful people. So they actually are doing something. They’re swinging swords, they’re stabbing with spears. They’re in the process of doing something. But the reason they win is because they’re doing it with God’s authority and blessing, as Moses stands on the hill. Imagine this scenario: they said, “You know what? We’re pretty cool, us Israelites. Why don’t we just go handle this? Moses, you just stay back in the tents.” I don’t think it goes very well for them.
So what would have happened if the Israelites had gone out without the blessing of God on them? They would have been completely overwhelmed. It’s obvious, because every time Moses’ hands came down, the fight went badly for them. They started fighting like slaves, not empowered by the Holy Spirit, by God, in that moment. And yet when we face our life, when we come into a challenge, how often do we go to God for our strength, instead of writing our five-point plan for how we’re going to solve this problem we’ve come up against in our life?
And not only that: how often do we ask our spiritual leaders and authorities to hold us up in our life at that moment? Your home group leader, your pastor, the bishop. You’ve got Father Ed, Father Lewis. You’ve got our deacons, me and Phil. You’ve got many people who would love to hold you up in the ways and places you are fighting in your life. Just reach out. I think there’s something we can take away from here. There’s an opportunity to look to our authority for God’s blessing to flow in our life. I know when I have gone to our Rector’s Council, when I’ve gone to our authority and asked for prayer, there’s not a single time where God hasn’t come through in those scenarios, where God hasn’t shown up.
IV. The Lifting Up of My Hands 09:38
And then let’s look at what’s going on here. What is Moses doing? What do we typically think of as the posture of prayer? Kneeling, with your head bowed and your hands folded, right? That’s a typical posture of prayer. Instead, it pictures Moses standing up with his arms outstretched. And we’re told that that symbolized, that prefigured, the cross of Christ. And the cross of Christ is and was and always will be the power by which we have our victory, the power by which we conquer sin and the enemies that come against us in our life. In fact, it’s related to this, Psalm 141, verse 2:
2 “The lifting up of my hands is as the evening sacrifice.” Ps 141.2
And don’t you know, Jesus died in the evening, with the lifting up of his hands, the true, only, perfect sacrifice. So when you encounter those things, what are you doing? Well, there’s something for you to do. Those Israelites had to pick up a sword and fight. But you also want to go to God for your strength. You want to plead the cross of Christ in that situation. You want to walk out not in your own authority but in God’s. Truly, it’s all about authority: “I’m walking in Christ’s authority.”
Here’s a quote from Gregory of Nazianzus (I don’t know how to actually pronounce that; it’s a little small here), but it says:
“For my own warfare, however, I am at a loss what course to pursue, what alliance, what word of wisdom, what grace to devise, with what panoply to arm myself against the wiles of the wicked one. What Moses did is to conquer him by stretching out his hands upon the mount, in order that the cross, thus typified and prefigured, may prevail.”
Do you have a situation in your life that you cannot conquer? Go to the cross, because it’s already been paid for. It’s already been solved. I heard a great… I don’t know who said this, but basically the question is: when was the problem you’re facing today solved? Two thousand years ago. When was the price paid? Two thousand years ago. So why do we think we need to pay the price? Why do we beat our heads against the wall trying to solve a problem, when Christ wants us to… We’re told it’s in our weakness that he is made strong in us (2 Cor 12.9).
V. Now I Know That Yahweh Is Greater 11:40
So that story is contrasted and supplemented by the following story of the Israelites. They just conquered the Amalekites. They’re getting into the rhythm of living as the people of God. And that’s where we go into this second story we’re going to address today. We’ll read starting in chapter 18, verse 10.
A little background: we’ve got this Jethro guy coming along. If you’ve seen the cartoon, he’s the father-in-law of Moses. He says, you know, the “look through heaven’s eyes.” He’s got this big whole thing around the firelight. Moses ends up marrying his daughter. He’s got this priestly aura about him. We’re told he actually is a pagan priest, but one who recognizes the power of Yahweh. And so we’re looking at this guy who’s coming in, and he’s just coming to visit. He’s actually delivering Moses’ wife and kids. We don’t know when they got separated, but they were visiting with the in-laws. He’s coming into town, and after Moses tells him what happened in Egypt (remember all those plagues, those big signs and wonders, the parting of the Red Sea), Moses tells him that story, and this is Jethro’s response. We’ll start in Exodus 18:
10 Jethro said, “Blessed be Yahweh, 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. 11 Now I know that Yahweh is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people.” Exod 18.10–11
So if you remember (I mean, we’ve been doing this for a little while), what was Yahweh God’s point in saving the Israelites from Egypt? He said over and over again, “My point is so that they may know that I am Yahweh, and there is no other God but me who saves.” So Jethro, this pagan priest, is the firstfruit of what God has done, the first person to actually respond correctly to God’s revelation of his saving power. And that prefigures all of us. Most of us are not born into the Jewish tradition, right? Most of us are not born into that ethnic people of God. But when we encountered God’s power to save, we all at some point or another said yes to him.
And that is what God does from Exodus till now: he reveals himself through his saving power, expecting us to be like Jethro and say, “Now I know that there is no other God but Yahweh.” Instead of that, we hear about miracles, or we have miraculous signs in our life, and in the moment we’re like, “Hallelujah!” And the next day we’re like, “Where is God?” The next day we’re in traffic, yelling at somebody, cursing God’s name at them, right? We get so tied up in what we’re doing that we forget all of the things God has done in our life. Or we turn to our other little gods, little-g gods, right? Our money to save us, or our government to save us, or our self-help plan to save us, or our workout plan to save us. I really like to put workout plans in the idol category, because then I can ignore them and not do it myself. I know there’s a proper way to work out. I’ll learn it eventually. I’m happier just ignoring it for the moment.
So we turn to other gods. But when we read these stories, when we see God conquer the Amalek tribe through these slave Israelites, when we see Moses lift up his hands and they win, what we should be thinking in our head is, “Man, I’ve got to give up all my other gods, because only this God saves.”
VI. What You Are Doing Is Not Good 15:39
So now let’s look at God establishing his government for the people. Not because he wants all of us to have overlords: “You’re not good enough, and so you’ve got to give up your intellect, give up your will to this overlord.” No. You’ll see he establishes his government so that we might have help in our life. So keep that in mind as we go here.
Basically, this guy Jethro, the father-in-law, is in town, and he’s like, “You know what? I’m going to go to work with Moses today.” I don’t know about you, but sometimes thinking about bringing your in-laws along could be a little burdensome. But either way, Jethro comes along, and he’s going to watch Moses and see what happens:
13 The next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening. 14 When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning till evening?” 15 And Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God; 16 when they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and his laws.” Exod 18.13–16
So Jethro is asking; he’s like, “Okay, what’s going on here?” He’s trying to understand. We can read it sarcastically, but I think he’s really trying to say, “Okay, what are you doing? I want to understand.” He’s a priest; he’s used to being a mediator. So he’s asking Moses what’s going on. So then Moses replies, and what’s Jethro’s response?
17 Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good.” Exod 18.17
And every one of us, our ears just shut off when somebody tells us that, right? Somebody comes into our life, an in-law no less, the father of my wife, comes in and tells me, “What you’re doing is not good.” I don’t know about you, but I know when the authority people in my life, even ones in proper authority (this guy has no authority over Moses; he’s just giving advice), but even people who do have authority, when they tell me, “What you’re doing is not good,” I’ve already come up with five reasons why they’re wrong. I don’t know about you, but that’s how I respond: “Wait, hold on. You haven’t thought about it the way I’ve thought about it.”
And Moses has even more right than any of us to think that way, because what has he been doing? He has been leading the people of Israel. He beat the biggest, baddest country, Egypt, the superpower. He beat them with the power of God, and with his staff he split the Red Sea. God has been showing up for Moses again and again and again. And this pagan priest comes along and tries to tell me how to do my job? He could have, like many of us, had a problem with authority. But instead, we’re told later, he did all that his father-in-law said (Exod 18.24).
So what does that mean? It means he listened. He didn’t shut off at that moment. He listened, and he looked for where God might be speaking through this man. Now, if Jethro had said, “What you need to do is make a golden calf, and they can go talk to that golden calf, and then you can help them interact with this idol,” Moses would have said, “That’s not right.” It’s not because Jethro had some power or authority. It’s because Moses was listening for God’s voice through his father-in-law, because he was humble enough to listen. We just learned in the Gospel that those who are humble will be exalted, but God resists the proud.
And so this is what Jethro told Moses:
18 “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. 19 Now obey my voice; I will give you advice, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God, 20 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.” Exod 18.18–20
So what’s going on here? He’s basically saying, “If you’re the only source of God’s teaching in the entire people, you’re not good enough. You’re not going to make it.” We all like to be our own personal gods and kingdoms. We like to make our decisions for our family, for our people, for our job. You can’t do it alone. If Moses couldn’t do it alone, you can’t do it alone. And specifically, in God’s kingdom structure he never puts people alone. He always sends them with two people, or with the council of elders approving them. He puts people in community, that his authority might flow in the people of God.
And think about it this way: they didn’t have a Bible to reference. None of the people of Israel had a place to go to look up the statutes and the laws of God. In fact, Moses is the one who, we’re told, wrote the initial books of the Bible for us. And so he has to actually remind them of the tradition. He has to remind them of the stories that have come before. He has to remind them of the law of God. It’s no wonder that they’re coming to him for these judgments. But he can’t do it alone.
VII. To Pray for the People and to Teach the People 20:44
And so we know what’s coming, right? “You need to build up a team of people who are going to help you in this thing.” But first you have to do something else. And this is really fascinating, because it totally parallels what we believe about the authority of the Church today, with our bishops, priests, and deacons.
First, what does Moses have to do? “You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God.” So what does that mean? He has to pray for the people. The first responsibility of the leader of God’s people is to pray for the people, to bring them before God. And secondly: “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.” The responsibilities of the leader of the people of God are to pray for the people and to teach the people. That’s the authority of the bishop. That’s what he’s responsible for. He oversees and administers, by God’s grace, the prayer and the teaching of the people. And he does a great job; we are so blessed to have that. But that model is deeply embedded in what God brought for his kingdom.
And you know what’s the smallest unit of God’s government in his kingdom? Outside of the Church, we have the family. The father is the priest of his household. Guess what the father is responsible for? To pray for his family and to teach his family the ways of God. It goes all the way down. God’s built it into the structure of how we are meant to be. If you’re exporting the teaching of the Bible to the school you send your children to, or to the church, or the small group, or the youth group, and you aren’t taking any responsibility for that, you’re abdicating your God-given authority in your family to teach your family. Absolutely, you may not be the Bible scholar, and so you’re excited for your kid to study under this Bible scholar or this great program, and that’s how they get built up. A hundred percent. But don’t abdicate the authority and the responsibility you’ve been given for your family.
And not just for your kids. Did you know husbands are responsible for their wives? That’s a really scary thing to say in this day and age. I couldn’t get away with saying that in certain forums in our day and age. Yeah, no, husbands actually have a responsibility to lay their lives down for their wives, because they’ve been given authority over their life. The highest authority in the Church is Jesus. What did he do? He died on the cross. What does it say in the New Testament about husbands? They should love their wives the same way Christ loved the Church (Ephes 5.25). That means you are willing to die for them. But it also comes with a responsibility to use your authority to teach them, to pray for them, to bring them before God.
VIII. Go to Your Place in Peace 23:59
I don’t have time to get into any more complexity on this subject. We’re going to wrap this up and get through some of this. But what is God’s authority for in our life? It’s to bring his blessing, his leadership, into our life. So what is our job? Our job is to look for God’s word, to listen for God’s word, in the authority he has placed in our life. And if you’ve been put in a position of authority, your job is to love the people you’re over, lay your life down for them, and take responsibility, praying for them and trying to raise them in the ways of the Lord. That’s what God’s establishing for his people.
But Moses can’t do it alone, and neither can you. So what does he tell him to do?
21 “Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. 22 And let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. 23 If you do this, God will direct you, you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.” Exod 18.21–23
That’s a promise I want for us today. If we follow the government of God, then we will go to our place in peace. What does that mean? I’ve chipped away at this big subject in this sermon, and I’m not going to go deeper than I’ve already gone. But I think we have a lot to learn, as individualist Americans, about submitting to authority.
My challenge to you today is to actually ask yourself, “Who’s in authority over my life?” It might be easy at your work, right? “Oh, it’s my boss, my supervisor, whatever.” Ask God how you can submit well to them. Ask God how he’s leading you through them. Maybe in your family: maybe you’re a wife. Are you looking to your husband as your authority? Maybe you’re a child. Are you honoring your father and mother, who are trying to raise you in the ways of the Lord? But all of us are called to be a part of this church family. How are you looking to the church authority God’s put in your life?
Mostly, I think, our job is to ask for help more. That’s my challenge to us today. When you get to a challenge in your life, who do you call? Hopefully you’ve got one of us on your side, praying for you, lifting you up before the Lord, giving you counsel. I know the men who lead this church, and they would love to have those conversations. Don’t do it alone. You just can’t. We’re going to end there.
So let me just pray for us today.
Lord, I pray that even as you establish your government and the people of God in Exodus, you would open our eyes to see the places you are looking to lead us and guide us through those people you’ve put in authority in our lives. Help us to look to you, not as the independent lords of our own life, but willing to lay our lives down in fellowship and community as the people of God, seeking your will in our lives. And Lord, I pray for the leadership of this church, that you would encourage them, build them up, and give them the opportunity and the wherewithal and the discernment to lead us rightly. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.