Pastor Jeff Williams: June 19, 2011 Going Beyond, Part VIII, “Beyond Biology.” Good morning. Happy Father’s Day to the dads out there. I hope you have a good day planned. I am taking off today after finishing here to go with my son and see the lowly Yankees take on the Mighty Cub. That’s how I’ll be spending my Father’s Day, so watch for me tonight on ESPN. Seriously, we’re kinda up close. Let’s start talking about “Beyond Biology.” Some of you read your bulletin and thought, “Well, we’re going to talk about science this week,” but we’re really not. We’re going to be talking about the fact that in order to be a parent, or to be a father figure or mother figure, it really goes beyond biology. There is so much more to being a parent. There is so much more to being a dad than just contributing DNA. It’s about so much more than that, so that’s what we’re going to talk about today. How many of you this morning are parents? Let me see your hands. How many of you remember the first moment you found out you were going to be a mom or dad? How many of you were scared out of your wits? When I got that phone call that we were going to have a baby, I was just in shock! I felt so overwhelmed by that news. I was 22 years old back then, and I just remember thinking, “Wow! I’m not ready for this. How can I assume this responsibility of being a father?” When it really became real to me was not during the Lamaze preparation classes. It wasn’t during the birth. It wasn’t even holding my daughter. It was when we left the hospital and put her in the carseat. We looked down at this little peanut, who is going to be 28 next month, and this car seat just enveloped her. We looked at each other like, “What do we do now? Where is the manual? Where is the supervisor who is following us home? We need a license for this. It seems like we’re doing something wrong. We are taking this human being, and we’re taking her away from the hospital.” When you’re at the hospital, it seemed legal and right; but when you get in the car and are driving off, it just seemed like something was wrong. “This can’t be legal. I don’t know enough to raise this little one,” but we do our best. It’s on-the-job training, isn’t it? This morning I want to share not so much a sermon, but I want to share just a meditation, a reflection, on this subject today. We’re going to look at a father/son relationship that went beyond biology. They were not biologically related, yet he was a father nonetheless. Then we’re going to look at a Passage that many of you are familiar with in Exodus 18. You think about it pertaining to leadership and delegation, but we’re going to look at it through a different lens this morning. We’re going to look at it through the lens of a father/son relationship. When we do that, we’re going to see the Passage in a whole new light. We’re going to talk about Moses and Jethro today. Jethro is not a southern name, just so you know in case you have watched a lot of Beverly Hillbillies reruns. Jethro is a Middle Eastern name. He was the father-in-law of Moses. Before we talk about him, I want to talk about Moses. Of course you know about his turbulent childhood. They were slaughtering the newborn males. Moses was put into the river in faith, and he was discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter. Then Moses’mother raised him as an act of God’s providence. The father of Moses was hardly ever mentioned. He was mentioned in passing in one Verse, and then we never heard of him again. We don’t know what happened to him, but as far as we know, he was not in Moses’life. As far as we can tell, he grew up void of a father figure. As a young man, he was very aware that he was a Hebrew. He saw an Egyptian strike an Israeli, and he became upset. He murdered the Egyptian, and he then became a wanted man, a fugitive. He left Egypt when the most powerful man in the world, Pharaoh, issued a death warrant for him. He escaped to a faraway land called Midian in the Arabian Peninsula, north of Arabia. Out in the desert with his nomadic people, he met a young lady named Zipporah. Her father’s name was Jethro. Moses was invited over for dinner, and they hit it off. They fell in love, married, and they then had a little boy. He named the boy Gershom, which translates to Foreigner, because he said, “I’m a stranger in a strange land. This is not my home.” It’s a reminder to him, and it was a reminder to his son of his heritage that this was not where he was from. This was not his home. Then they had another child named God’s help, [Eliezer] another little boy. He named him that because God delivered him from Pharaoh as a young man on the run. He then led this quiet life as a shepherd. He formed a bond, a relationship, with his father-in-law, and Jethro became the dad he never had. Jethro loved Moses, and that love was reciprocated. He learned from him. Jethro was a spiritual man. We can’t say if he worshipped God; we don’t know at this point. In Midian, they worshipped Baal; they worshipped the goddess Asherah; they worshipped Yaweh, the God of the Bible. It was this kind of melting pot, so spiritually we’re not sure where he was. We just know he was a devout spiritual man in his region. What it means to be a priest in the desert with these nomadic people, we don’t fully understand, but that’s what he was. Moses thought this was how he was going to live his life, live out his days. Decade after decade passed. He lived under the stars; he lived out in the desert raising sheep in this quiet life far from the capital, far from Pharaoh, and far from his people until one day at Mt. Horeb, God called him from a burning bush. He told him to take off his sandals because the ground he was on was holy ground. He called him to lead God’s people out of bondage. Moses didn’t want to. He did his best Houdini and tried to escape, but God had hand-picked him. He was now leading a life he didn’t want and that didn’t feel equipped for. Things began to get really tense and hostile. He became a wanted man again, but this time he could not leave. This time he could not flee because he was on a mission. Moses did a very protective thing: he took Zipporah and his sons and sent them off to live with Jethro. One of the things a father does is protect his family, so shielding them from harm was an act of protection. Jethro acted to protect his daughter and his grandchildren under his home while this whole drama of deliverance unfolded. Many years would pass before that family would reunite, so Moses sacrificed a lot. He sacrificed a lot to obey the call of God. Years passed, and things settled down. Israel was becoming established as a nation. Moses was basically serving as a one-man government. He was president; he was Supreme Court justice; and he was the legislative branch all rolled into one. He was putting in long hours; it was hard work, but it was time for the family to be reunited. Israel was at peace as a nation. They were trying to live and be governed by God’s law, and Moses received news that his father-in-law, his wife, and his sons were coming back. Moses probably sent out a tweet or a text and said, “The coast is clear. Come on home.” When you think about it, they wouldn’t really know. There was no communication. Somehow they just knew it was time that the station had settled down, so they made the trip. When we pick up the story, Moses is receiving the news that there is going to be a family reunion. He is in such joy and excitement as he knows he is going to see his wife and children and the man, who for all practical purposes, was his dad. Let’s pick up the story in Exodus 18:7 (page 72 of pew Bibles), “So Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him. They greeted each other and then went into the tent…” I want you to see the intimacy there. You see the respect and honor there, and it’s mutual: father to son. He bows down, they embrace; they love each other. There is respect here. This is the way it should be. What I’m sharing with you in this meditation is the way it should be, not always the way it is. I want you to know that I don’t sit up before you as the paragon of what a father is. I’m not a perfect dad; and you aren’t perfect parents either; and our children will not be perfect when they grow up and become parents either. We are all flawed, and don’t shake your head yes, honey (speaking to his daughter). That’s good that you didn’t shake your head yes (congregation laughing). I was worried that my daughter would say, “Yup, that’s right.” We do the best we can, so I don’t want you to feel guilty today in listening to what I have to share. I just want you to know we’re all in the same boat. We’re all doing the best that we can. Some of you are fathers now; some of you will be fathers in the future. Moms, as well, I’m talking to you. We do the best we can, but we’re not perfect. We’re going to talk about how to create this intimacy that these two obviously shared. When you see disrespect, you recognize it. I think as parents, as God calls our children to honor their mother and father, I think we honor our children as well and treat them with dignity and respect. I saw an example of a horrible job of parenting while I was running some errands this week. How embarrassing it was for this teenage girl as in public her mother read her the riot act with a profanity-laced rebuke. “Why didn’t you blankety-blank what I blankety-blank told you to do, you blanket-blank?” It was loud and embarrassing, and I thought to myself, “She is sewing some bad seed. There is going to come a day when she is going to be old and her daughter is going to grow up. She is going to need her daughter, and I wonder if her daughter will even be around. I wonder if her daughter will respect her enough to even be around because she was showing such disrespect. There was such a lack of honor that is due, mutual honor and respect. We see that here in this Passage. I want to give an illustration through a movie clip about how important this is and how to take advantage of these opportunities while we have them. One of the things this will show us in this Passage is that parenting and our influence as parents is something that will last a lifetime. One of my favorite genres of movies is the “do-over” movie: the “Christmas Carol” with Scrooge getting another shot; it’s “A Wonderful Life” when Jimmie Stewart gets another crack at it; “Back to the Future”; those kinds of movies, I just eat them up. I love them. This is a movie kind of on that order. I’ve only seen bits and pieces of it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it all the way through. I think the one time I was watching it, I fell asleep; but it’s a movie called “Click” with Adam Sandler. He plays a man who finds this remote control that he can use to fast-forward through life. He misses his daughter growing up and his father passing away. If I’m getting that wrong, please forgive me. Like I said, I’ve only seen the beginning. We’re going to watch a poignant scene from that film. (Clip can be viewed by following this link: http://www.wingclips.com/movie-clips/click/i-love-you-son). Now we’re all caught up in that movie. We want to talk about how to have the intimacy that those two obviously didn’t have, that one father wanted but the son did not. We want to find out what the key is to having the kind of intimacy that I think Moses and Jethro shared. Let’s pick up the story in Verse 8. They go into the tent after being apart for so many years: “Moses told his father-in-law about everything the Lord had done to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for Israel’s sake and about all the hardships they had met along the way and how the Lord had saved them.” Can you imagine what it would be like to hear the story of the Exodus told by the man who lived it? Can you imagine what it would be like to sit down and listen to Moses himself talk about what it was like to see the plagues; to see the Sea parted; to walk across the Sea; to see God provide miraculously in the wilderness; to see water come from a rock; to see God provide manna and quail that the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night brought? Wow! This must have been such an engaging story to hear from Moses, but I want you to also notice what he shared. It said Moses shared the hardships they had met along the way. I think one of the things that fosters intimacy in a relationship is to be able to share not only the good things but the difficult things, the hardships. Moses is able to share with his dad how difficult it was. It’s one thing to feed children or provide for children. It’s another thing when a nation is saying, “Where is our food? Where are our drinks?” When a nation is saying to you, “We want to go back to Egypt. It’s better to die as a slave than die here in the desert,” [that generates] the pressure, the burden, of leading people. He shares his frustration; he shares his disappointment. He shares with his dad this real and authentic conversation of what his life has become from living a quiet life where all he worried about was the sheep and the field to having to worry about a million people. His dad listens as his son pours out his heart. That is an important quality, being able to go beyond the surface to that which is really real and that which is really difficult and share from your heart and soul. Moses was able to do that. Then look at what happens. It says (in Chapter 18:9, page 72), “Jethro was delighted to hear about all the good things the Lord had done for Israel in rescuing them from the hand of the Egyptians.” He let his delight be known. I think this is one of the important things [in life]: when the people we care for achieve, we celebrate that. We delight in that. We let our delight be known: how proud we are, how thankful we are of them and their accomplishments. I think that’s significant, and I can’t overestimate the importance of that; and I can’t overestimate the importance of that-affirming in the lives of the people that God has entrusted into our care. We delight in their victories; we celebrate their accomplishments. Jethro was a good dad. He tells his son how proud he was, and he said, “I can’t believe that you’ve gone from being a shepherd to God hand-picking you to lead a nation and deliver a people out of slavery. Son, I’m so excited with how God has used you and how God has blessed you in your life.” Then there is a defining moment. I want you to look at Verse 11 as he contemplates all that God has done, “‘Now I know that the Lord is greater than all other gods, for he did this to those who treated Israel arrogantly.’” This is just a little sidebar here. I think this is the moment when Jethro really began to worship the true God because his culture worshipped multiple gods. He heard the whole story about the God of Moses and the God of Israel, and he said, “Now I know who the true God is.” Then as a family, they worshipped God together. That’s such an important part of developing that intimacy-that you lead your family spiritually and your family begins to understand that it is going to celebrate God together and worship together as a family. When we’re able to do that, what a wonderful thing that is-that we teach our children that we recognize the importance of the Lord in the good times and the difficult times. As a family, we’re on this journey together, and I’m leading our family as I follow God. If I’ll simply follow God in His precepts, then leading my family becomes a natural flow of following the promises of God and acknowledging the presence of God in my life. So as a family, they worshipped God together and celebrated His goodness. Then it was back to reality. It was take your father-in-law to work day the next day. Verse 13 says, “…Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening.” Now during this time, Jethro was just watching. He didn’t say anything. He just observed. He observed how Moses interacted with the people. He watched him judge trivial matters, and he watched him judge significant matters. He noticed that there was a problem. He noticed that Moses was pretty much a one-man show. He had met capable intelligent leaders who didn’t have much to do while he watched his son who had more to do than he could handle. He basically was self-governing a nation. He noticed a problem, so he asked some probing questions of his son. He said (in Verse 14), “‘What is this you are doing for the people?’” Moses probably said, “What do you mean?” “‘Why do you sit alone as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?’” I wonder if Moses just wasn’t taken back by the question. I wonder if Moses wasn’t just thinking in his mind, “Well, isn’t it obvious what I’m doing and why it’s important?” I wonder if he didn’t say, “Well, it’s because the people come to me. They seek God’s Will. They have a dispute and it’s brought to me, and I decide between the parties based on God’s decrees and laws. What? What’s wrong with that?” He said, “‘What you are doing is not good.’” It wasn’t the fact that he was judging and that he was deliberating on God’s law. It was the way in which he was doing it. It was the imbalance. He said, “‘You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone.’” He’s going to call upon his experience and wisdom. He’s going to point out something that Moses cannot see. This tells me a couple of things. It tells me that a job as a parent does not end, does it? I used to think that being a parent was something you just kinda did until they graduated, went to college, and then that was kinda it. I thought that when I was really young; that is what I thought parenting was. I’ve come to realize it is a lifetime job. Some of you younger parents are going, “What?” You never stop being concerned about your children. Our children never stop looking to us as an example, and we never stop having influence on our children. It’s a lifetime gig. So here Moses is, not only a grown man, but he is now a senior citizen. Yet, when Jethro comes there, he is his father. His presence demands respect, and he sees things in his life that Moses doesn’t see. A parent will see those things, and a parent will point those things out to us no matter how old we get. There are things that our parents have pointed out to us and shared with us as we raised our family. We still look to Brenda’s mom in Arizona, and she is the only one we have left; but she is the matriarch of the family. She still cares and watches over our family. She is still involved in our family, so we recognize from this Passage that parenting never ends. They have the value of experience-to be able to see things and recognize value and worth in things that we may not be able to see. Experience teaches that, and parents are able to show that to us. Then with Moses, [we respect that he has] the ability to recognize that fact and respect that. My daughter had a variety show at JPAC this weekend, and my sister came to town. It was sold out, and they did a marvelous job. We went garage-sale shopping [over the weekend as well]. My sister said, “Take me to a garage sale. That’s my favorite thing to do,” so I took her to a garage sale. It took me less than a minute to go through there. I was like, “Junk, junk, junk, junk. Well…no, junk. I’m done.” She goes through the same garage sale, and she finds something significant. She bought it, got to the car and said, “Do you see this?” I said, “Yeah?” She said, “This is worth a lot of money.” “It is?” “Yeah.” “How much did you pay for it?” “Two bucks.” “Wow.” She told me what it was worth and why it was so valuable. She shared from her experience. That’s what parents do. Through their experience, they are able to point out valuable lessons to us. They are able to recognize worth, see danger, and point it out because they’ve lived that life. So Moses listened to his father-in-law. His father-in-law said, “Let me tell you some things. What you are doing isn’t good. You’re going to burn out. What you need to do is raise up leaders around you. You have capable leaders here. Raise up Godly leaders and trust them with responsibility. Put this person in charge of hundreds, this person in charge of 100, this person in charge of 50, and this person in charge of 10. Let them deal with the trivial matters. You deal with the major matters. You’re still going to be imparting God’s law and making decisions, but you’re going to be using your time wisely. Listen, your family is back now. Your wife is here; your children are here. You’re a father; you’re a husband again. You need time for yourself. You can’t be leading a nation every day for the rest of your life. Train up leaders who will use their influence and leadership after you’re gone. Use the talents and the wisdom of the people who are around you. Train them. You deal with this; they’ll deal with that. You’re going to have more peace of mind. You’re going to have more energy. You’ll be more refreshed. You’re going to be able to deal with the things that are the most important.” What will Moses do? How will he respond? Verse 24, “Moses listened to his father-in-law” and then said, “What do you know? You’re just an old man. I’m the head of the state. Do you realize that? I am the head of a nation. Mind your own business! Go back home where you came from! Let me do my work. God picked me, not you!” Is that what Moses does? Moses is humbled. In fact, one of the quandaries of Scripture: tradition tells us that Moses wrote the first five books, yet there is a Verse that says Moses is the most humble man that ever lived or something to that effect. Did Moses write that, or did he have somebody else write that? It seems like that would kinda negate it if you wrote, “I am very humble.” Yet he was humble. So here he is: this great leader, this great deliverer. He’s in that tent and he’s listening. He’s a son, and he’s recognizing his father’s wisdom. No matter how old we are, no matter how important we think we are or our job is, we can still learn. We can learn from our parents; we can learn from our children. We learn from the people that are around us, and Moses learned. Moses took it to heart and followed his father’s counsel. He trained leaders; he invested in them, and they began to govern and lead. Moses spendt time with his family. Moses’life changed because of that advice. Verse 27, “Then Moses sent his father-in-law on his way, and Jethro returned to his own country.” Zipporah and the sons stayed, but the father-in-law went home: independent, not co-dependent. He recognized that Moses had his own life, his own responsibility. He invested in his son. He celebrated with his son; he communicated with his son. He worshipped with his son; he’s counseled his son, affirmed his son, and now it’s time to go. It’s time to go back to his home and let his son begin to live out the things that he’s learned. That's healthy parenting too. He’s not going to stay and micromanage or try to have a relationship that’s out of balance. He recognizes he’s done his best, and now it’s time for his son to lead the family; so he returned home. There’s a lesson there too. Moses is able to be an effective leader of people, an effective leader of his family-a protector, a leader because he followed God. For new parents, being a parent can be overwhelming. Just remember to follow God. Follow God’s law and God’s principles, and lead your family. Lead your family. Don’t shrink back from that responsibility. Don’t delegate that to others, but lead your family. There is a song [“Lead Me”] by the group named Sanctus Real that I want to share with you this morning. I want you to reflect on this song, the images, the words, and the message God has to share with us through it. (Link can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLr6G8Xy5uc.) Father, those of us who are parents, we listened to a song like that, watched the clip, and we listened to the message, and sometimes we just feel so inadequate. We have so many flaws; we fall so far short, but we have a Heavenly Father who is perfect. Lord, You’ve called us to first follow You before we lead. There were times when we thought to lead in our own flesh. We failed, so, Lord, might there be that dependence that we have upon You-to follow Your Word, to follow Your principles, and to lead. Lord, I pray that we would have relationships that would have that deep communication, authentic conversation. We are able to talk about hard times as well as good times. We can celebrate victories, worship together, to listen, to observe, to counsel, to know when to establish boundaries so that we’re developing independence and not co-dependence. Lord, we see that Passage in a whole new way today. It’s more than about leadership. It’s about the love of a father for a son and a son who is willing to listen and follow his dad’s advice no matter how old he was or how important he had become. Thank You for the things we can glean from that story today. In Jesus’name, I pray. Amen.