June 19, 2016 - Moses Learns to Delegate

TONY & MICHELLE PAWLAK

MEMORY VERSE

Two people are better than one. They get more done by working together. If one person falls, the other can help him up. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10a

Have you ever been in charge of something?  There is so much to do isn’t there?  You are the one responsible to make sure everything gets done so you had better get started, right?  If you are the Children’s Pastor at your church you have to get all the chairs and classrooms set up, prepare a lesson for every class, get all the crafts and snacks ready, get the worships songs chosen and get them ready to be projected on the wall at the proper time so everyone can worship, practice the songs because you are going to have to lead worship, get all the kids checked in and checked out, and make sure ever you solve every argument, fix every problem, and everything else that might happen is taken care of!  This is what it takes to be a leader, you have to do EVERYTHING….right? WRONG!!!!

If you actually tried to do all of this you would either wear yourself out or explode.  God never called anyone to be everything at once, he created us to be a body: different parts doing different jobs.  A good leader knows how to delegate: share the work with people he/she trusts to get it done well.  A leader is the head of a team and chooses his/her teammates according to the gifts that God has given them. They appoint people to be teachers, tech people, security guards, people in charge of snacks, etc.…  Surely there was nobody in the Bible that ever made the mistake of trying to do everything themselves…right?  Wrong.

Last week we talked about how God kept His promise that He made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel by bringing their descendants out of Egypt and putting them on their way to the Promised Land in Canaan. 

Afterwards, God had to rescue them from Pharaoh one last time by parting the Red Sea and allowing the Israelites to

escape.  At that time, Moses found that he was the leader of somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 million people!  The people all started looking to Moses to be their teacher, their judge, their problem solver, and God’s messenger to them.  It was a big job!  Moses would often be working from dawn till dusk solving problems and teaching lessons.

One day Jethro, the father of Moses’ wife, came to visit. 

He listened joyfully as Moses told him all about how God had freed them from Egypt through the Ten Plagues and parting the Red Sea.  Jethro was very happy to see that God was taking care of Moses and his people.  The next day, Jethro watched as Moses sat as the judge for all the people all day long.  Afterwards, Jethro came to Moses and said, “What are you doing?  Why are you trying to do all this by yourself?”  Moses answered him, “The people come to me to fix their problems, settle their disputes, and teach them about God.”

“It isn’t good that you’re doing this all alone, Moses.  You’re going to wear yourself out!  Listen to me, I have some really good advice you should take.” Jethro said.  “You should continue being the people’s teacher and the messenger between them and God.  However, you need to find others

to help you judge the people, solve problems, and settle disputes.  Find men that are honest and can be trusted and put them in charge of the people.  Put some over a thousand people, some over a hundred, some over fifty, and some over ten. These people will help you share the load and take care of the smaller problems.  Only if there is a problem too big for them will they bring it to you to solve.  Otherwise, you will wear out and the people won’t have any leader! 

Moses saw how wise his father-in-law’s advice was and decided to take it.  We should do the same thing if God ever puts us in charge of something.  We, as Christians, are meant to work as a team, not try to do everything by ourselves.