Many Hands Make Light Work
November 21, 2021
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
Exodus 17:8-18:27
17:8 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. 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.
14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” 15 And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The Lord Is My Banner, 16 saying, “A hand upon the throne of the Lord! The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”
18:1 Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel his people, how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. 2 Now Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, had taken Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her home, 3 along with her two sons. The name of the one was Gershom (for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land”), 4 and the name of the other, Eliezer (for he said, “The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh”).5 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. 6 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,” 7 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. 8 Then Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way, and how the Lord had delivered them. 9 And 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.
10 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. 11 Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people.” 12 And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices to God; and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law before God.
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.” 17 Moses' father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. 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.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.”
24 So Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. 25 Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. 26 And they judged the people at all times. Any hard case they brought to Moses, but any small matter they decided themselves. 27 Then Moses let his father-in-law depart, and he went away to his own country.
Well, there are a lot of moving parts to this morning’s service. To prepare our hearts to hear the Word preached, I want us to begin with an exercise. Grab something you can take notes on, whether your phone or a scrap piece of paper or the bulletin. I’m going to pause us for two minutes. I’d like you to list all the responsibilities that are pressing around you—specific work responsibilities, family responsibilities, health responsibilities, extracurricular responsibilities, side-hustle responsibilities, church responsibilities, school responsibilities, and so on. Take two minutes to list them. Then I’ll come back up and pray.
If you feel overwhelmed or know someone who is, stay with me. God has something for you. Let’s pray. “Dear heavenly Father . . .”
Introduction
My first pastorate was in Tucson, Arizona. I’d be exaggerating if I said everyone has a swimming pool, or even if most people have pools. But there are so many people with pools that a public service commercial often came on the radio to warn about drowning. I’ll never forget those ads. They began with a long pause of dead air with only a faint splashing sound. Then the narrator would say, “That’s what drowning sounds like.” Those drowning are so consumed by gasping for air that they can’t yell for help or wave their arms. People have to see and jump in. Without the loving intervention of God, we would take more upon ourselves than we can handle. In our passage, Moses needs God to send people to jump in. You might need someone to jump in for you. Or, perhaps, God might use you to jump in for another. The three-point outline is simple this morning: the story, the interpretation, the application. Let’s dive in.
The Story
We have been preaching through Exodus, a story about slavery and freedom. Thus far, God has freed his people from the hands of Pharaoh. The people are now freed to worship and serve God. We’re in a transition passage that is really three stories in one. Let’s look how the passage begins.
17:8 Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. 17:9 So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.”
A few things. Amalek is a descent of Esau, and his people, the Amalekites, saw a chance to pick on the weak and weary Israelites, so they did. As Israel is stumbling through the desert, they swoop in like bandits, trying to pick off stragglers, perhaps women and children and elderly. In some of Moses’s final words before he died, that’s how he recounts this event (Deut. 25:17–19). This will be Israel’s first battle. At the Red Sea, God fought for his people. Now, God will fight through his people. Next, we’ll see a detail that strikes us as odd. As Moses holds up his hand, they seem to win the battle, but they seem to flounder when his hands fall. The staff Moses holds should be understood as the instrument of God’s judgment; it’s the very staff that struck the Nile and ushered in all the plagues and will defend them now. I’ll read vv. 11–15.
17:11 Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. 17:12 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. 17:13 And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. 17:14 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” 17:15 And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The LORD is my banner . . .
There’s a workout that I do with some guys on Saturday morning, and when one particular guy leads, he always does an exercise he calls the “batwing,” which is a multi-minute exercise that involves putting your arms out in different movements as well as holding your arms straight. The guys hate the batwing because no matter how strong you are, the exercise always puts you to the point of pain. And Moses got there. In vv. 9 and 11, it speaks of Moses holding his staff with his “hand” in the singular. But in v. 12 we read of “hands” in the plural. He can’t even hold the staff with two hands. He’s drowning. And two men jump in to help.
You’ll also note that they were to record this in a book. Indeed, they did because we have that book. But think about this for a moment from the perspective of Moses. What kind of leader is he becoming if he can not only write of God’s victory but of how he needed help? Something is changing in Moses.
In the next story we meet Moses’s family again. We haven’t seen them since before the plagues began. And Moses evangelizes his father-in-law, a man named Jethro, telling him of the wonderful work of God. Chapter 18 introduces Jethro as a “priest of Midian,” that is, a pagan worshiper. But in just a few verses, Jethro praises YHWH as “greater than all gods” and sacrifices to the Lord and eats a meal in God’s presence. Look at vv. 5–12.
18:5 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. 18:6 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,” 18:7 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. 18:8 Then Moses told his father-in-law all that the LORD had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way, and how the LORD had delivered them. 18:9 And 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. 18:10 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. 18:11 Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people.” 18:12 And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices to God; and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.
What an amazing story. Throughout the book of Exodus there is a phrase used so often theologians have given it a name: the recognition formula. “Then you will know,” the phrase goes over and over. God says, “I will do this, and I will do that, then you will know that I am God.” Jethro has recognized this. He now knows “that the LORD is greater than all gods” (18:11). And although in our terminology we might call Jethro a new Christian, God is going to use him to teach Moses something that Moses needs to hear. The passage says the very next day, Jethro’s father watches all the people waiting to be judged by Moses. It’s like a customer service line that wraps around the inside of Home Depot and then all the way out the door, and only one person is working at the counter. Look at vv. 17–24.
18:17 Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. 18:18 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. 18:19 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, 18:20 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. 18:21 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. 18:22 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. 18:23 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.” 18:24 So Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said.
Back in chapter 17, the problem, as one pastor put it, was that there was good work to be done by Moses, but he wasn’t strong enough to do it. So he needed help. Here, there is too much work for Moses to do, and he can’t do it. So he needs to give away some of the work—or a lot of the work. Moses loves these people, but he needs to learn that God loves them more and will care for them. Maybe you have someone you love, and you need to know that God loves them more than you, and he will take care of them. But if I back off, who will do it? you wonder. God will.
So those are the three stories. What is the interpretation?
The Interpretation
There or so many things I’d like to say, but I’ll only say one. God really loves Moses and his people, and God is committed to their wellbeing. And God really loves you, and he really loves us, and he’s committed to our wellbeing. I see this when you consider the arc of Moses’s life.
Back in Exodus 3 and 4, I described in detail Moses’s struggles with pride. God kept telling Moses over and over—five times actually—how God would be with Moses to help him lead. And all Moses could do was look in the mirror and say, “I’m not good enough, so it can’t happen.” God keeps saying, “Look up; look at me.” I won’t re-preach that sermon, but, as I said, Moses has a kind of false humility—which is really a kind of pride. Moses was too concerned with Moses. A few of you came up to me after that sermon and pointed out that in a later book, Moses is called the most humble man on the face of the earth (Num. 12:3). That’s a change, isn’t it? From full of pride to the most humble man. And I see that change happening here.
He loves his people, so he tries to serve them to the point of exhaustion. He’s so drowning with responsibility that he can’t even yell for help. He needs a rock to sit on and someone to hold his hands. How humiliating. And then he gets told off by his father-in-law who’s been a Christian for like 24 hours. How humiliating. Why not just throw the staff down and yell, “If I can’t do this alone, what’s the point.” Why not just look at all the people and yell, “If I can’t judge you, then no one well.” But he doesn’t.
Not only is this a transition passage for the people between Egypt and Sinai, from the law of Pharaoh to the law of God, but it’s a transition passage for Moses. Moses is becoming the kind of leader who not only knows he needs help and is willing to receive it, but he’s willing to write it down in a book for all to see.
This is one of several reasons I believe the Bible. It’s not the kind of stories people often want to tell unless they are true. Moses doesn’t put his Instagram filter on this to make him look better. Moses knows he was drowning, and God sent others to jump in to save him. The Bible is the sort of book where God gets the glory, not Moses or any other man. So, if that’s the story and the interpretation, what’s the application?
The Application
There’s a book I love called The Art of Rest. In the book, the author writes as a pilgrim-pastor trying to journey toward true rest, which is challenging to do in a society that’s created an idol of busyness. “In the West,” the author writes, “we’ve managed to take something [i.e., busyness] that has in every culture until recently been a vice and, through the magic of repeating a bad idea long enough, have turned it into a virtue!” (29). Throughout the book, the author tells readers that he aims to “sell Sabbath rest.” He wants readers to know the how of Sabbath, the why of Sabbath, and the look-how-wonderful-this-is of Sabbath. In other words, he’s trying to sell people on how good it is to be a slave of God rather than a slave of Pharaoh.
Do you remember how we started the sermon? I had that list-making exercise. Your list of responsibilities is not the same list as Moses’s list. But it is a list, and they are real responsibilities. And like for Moses, some of the things on your list need to be done by you, and you need help to do them. Other items on your list should probably be done, but they don’t need to be done by you. And that’s okay.
If you are a Christian, you believe a bunch of things but at least these two things: first, you are not God, and second, the God who is God loves you. So, you can ask for help—from God and others. And perhaps, some of you, are in a season where you can also offer help.
Indeed, if we had more time, I’d go to the many passages in the Bible that highlight the wisdom of God creating the church, a place where different kinds of people with different kinds of gifts use them to give God glory and people peace. To some, God gives gifts of pastoring, to some he gives gifts of service so that both those inside and outside of the church will be blessed.
Look how v. 23 reads: “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.” God gets the glory, the leaders get endurance, and all the people get peace. That’s a good story.
Conclusion
Just over 10 years ago I had my last Sunday at Salem Evangelical Free Church in St. Louis, Missouri. Our family had been members there for several years. The date was May 22, 2011. That Sunday, I was only a newly graduated seminary student and volunteer pastor. The next Sunday I was a fulltime staff pastor in a local church. I’ve been one ever sense, first in Tucson and now here for seven years. My friend Tom Reidy read this passage from Exodus 17 and prayed that people would hold my arms when I got tried. I’m not sure he prayed specifically for me to have the humility to let them or not. But God has been kind to me as a pastor. In fact, Tom still listens to sermons and prays for me.
At a recent training for small group leaders, Pastor David had us make a list of responsibilities; that’s where I got the idea. And then David taught through the precious verses of invitation in Matthew 11. I’d like to read these verses over us now as we close.
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matt. 11:28–29)
Let’s pray . . .
Family Discussion Questions
If you did not already make a list of responsibilities you feel, perhaps in conversation name a few of the responsibilities you have?
As you consider your responsibilities, which responsibilities most overwhelm you?
In the passage, how do you see God working on Moses to make him humble? Does it seem like Moses is learning the lesson? Why or why not?
How is Jesus a better master than Pharaoh?
