The Weight of the Stars

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Kyle Douglass; Deuteronomy 1:9-18 The Weight of the Stars

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Welcome to Recast Church, where we're growing in faith, community, and service. You're listening to a message by Pastor Kyle Douglas from the
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Book of Deuteronomy from a series entitled, Clinging to God on the Way from Here to There. If you'd like more information about Recast Church, check us out at recastchurch .com
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or you can find us on Facebook. Here's Pastor Kyle. Good morning. Welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Felsnick. I'm the lead pastor here. We're going to get started, so if you can find your seats, that would be great. Remember to check out the worship folder that you received when you walked in.
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There's different announcements and activities that are there. You can check that out and see what's going on. You received a connection card when you walked in.
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If you're here with us for the first time and you fill out one of those connection cards, please turn it in the black box back there.
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And then also do us another favor and take a free coffee mug back there, just our way of saying thank you for coming and joining with us this morning.
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I'm glad that you're here and we want you to have that. And then remember that if you're here on a regular basis, there is a place for prayer requests and suggestions and comments and things like that on the back of these.
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And the leadership does pray through the requests that are put on these sheets every week.
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And so take advantage of that and update your own personal information through the connection card here would be great.
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Any offerings you would choose to give this morning, go in the black box back there on the desk. We don't pass an offering plate here.
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The main reason for that is that we don't want it to be about the money here. And what it really is, is that your offering should be between you and God.
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And we do see it as a spiritual act of worship to him. And at the same time, I don't want anybody to feel pressured as a plate is passed in front of you like, oh,
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I guess I got to give something or whatever. So we want it to be an act between you and your Lord and that's back there.
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Anything that's marked expansion fund goes towards our eventual goal of building a building and and or moving facilities.
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We're going to hear an announcement about right now. Those of you who attend here for a while know that we don't give a lot of announcements, but we're going to have a little bit of an extended announcement this morning, kind of moving forward.
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Take a few moments to set the stage for 2014, some big transitions that are coming up for us and some some new information and things that we need to be thinking through.
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Just want to set a little bit of the history here for recast church, where we've been back in April of 2009.
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We started meeting 14 people in a basement over in Trestle Creek actually is Greg, who's on the soundboard back there.
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It was his basement and there were 14 of us. If you counted kids there, I think there were 21.
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So but 14 of us and the Lord has grown us.
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He's done a lot. At that time, we were searching for a location to meet. Well, actually, we had already found this by the time that we're already being built out.
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But when I first started looking in the Matawan area for a place to meet, our first conversation was with the superintendent of the schools.
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I was hopeful that that we might be able to meet there in the school and that we might be able to rent some some of the facility there.
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I had blocked out a half an hour meeting with the superintendent and the meeting lasted maybe 10 minutes tops.
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I pitched the suggestion to him, hey, you know, maybe you could charge us some and we could use your facility. And the answer was no.
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And we really didn't have much discussion after that. He was just very closed off to it.
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They basically set a precedent of already having said no to several churches. And he said it just wouldn't be fair if we altered our stance on that at this time.
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And having said no to other churches, we will not allow you to meet in the school's end of discussion.
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And so I had an extra 20 minutes on my hands that day. So we looked around.
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We actually looked at maybe even buying a house with a big pole barn. There are a couple of them for sale around kind of looked at all different kinds of things settled on this space.
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This space has served us very well over the last few years. It'll be five years and basically in September, well five years, eight weeks from April, whatever.
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But basically four and a half years since we started meeting in this place. About a year ago, we as a congregation voted to purchase 12 acres on East McGillan with the hopes of putting up a modest facility for our church.
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Zach is going to, one of our elders and our treasurer is going to be walking us through some of the details of the finances on that.
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But there are many reasons why we began to look for a new facility. One of the, one of those reasons is that we've come up against our capacity in this building several times.
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Now, some of you might've noticed that just even right now we've got about 180 seats in here. Not all the seats are full.
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Did anybody at any time before this service started feel like you were trying to get around somebody and had a hard time getting around them?
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I did a couple of times. Am I the only one? Okay. It can be a little bit hard to move around and the more that we get these seats full, the worse that that gets.
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And so I don't want you to, I want to make sure that you understand that when we say, we're not up here trying to sell you something or trying to make a pitch that we're full.
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When it comes down to it, about this time last year, you'll see on the numbers, we've got a graph.
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We hit up against it in the second service to the point where we had people standing in the back waiting for chairs to be set up.
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We've run up against that again a few times over the holidays. And it's not defined, full is not defined as having every single seat occupied in this building.
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As a matter of fact, you know that meeting space is a function of sociology and psychology and less about mathematics.
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So we can count 180 seats in here. We will never have 180 people sitting in these seats because you all like a place to set your
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Bible and your coat and all that kind of stuff. And so I can say as much as I want, scoot in, scoot in, scoot in, but there's a limit.
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Would you agree with me on that? There's a limit to how much I can ask you to scoot in before you're able to identify the flavor of deodorant of the person next to you or the lack thereof.
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And so we're Americans after all, right? So I mean, there's an aspect of that involved in all of this.
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So we're basically, we've come up against that number where we believe that we've hit kind of the ceiling and we've plateaued.
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And I think that part of it is facility. Also, there's the fact that our current lease is a little bit tentative here right now.
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We are month to month after November. And so that means that we've got a standing agreement for the next 30 days at any given point to our current landlord.
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But the thing that gets sticky there is that next door, Borges has actually purchased a first right of refusal, meaning that they've actually paid money to our landlord saying when the time is right and when you want us and we're ready to expand.
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I think they want to put in an x -ray machine in here or something. But when it's all said and done, they have the right to basically kick us out with a month's notice.
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And so when Borges says, let's go, the landlord is actually bound by contract to give this area to them.
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It's not a scary thing. I'm not scared. I believe that we're in the Lord's hands and he'll take care of us. But at the same time, we need to be making plans to move forward with something else at this point.
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I would like to read for you at this time. Article two from our bylaws, a document that probably doesn't get read a whole lot.
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And yet at the same time, it focuses on the purpose and the vision of our church so that you can see and be thinking about the the way that the church wants to be moving forward in regard to our mission and our vision, our purpose statement, and then think about facility in that regard.
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So Article two, the purposes of recast, the purpose of recast church shall be to glorify
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God through worshiping him and seeking worshipers for his name. We are to be out seeking more.
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There are people out there in the Matawan area who do not yet worship him that we want to see come to an understanding and a knowledge to be able to come in and join with us in the worship of our great
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God. And then the vision, the vision of recast church is to, one, proclaim the glory of God and the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ to to provide the residents of Matawan and surrounding communities with a welcoming place to come and meet with God and learn his word.
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Three, intentionally train everyone to minister with a focus on reproducing believers in churches for show the love of Christ to our community through service and five measure success by deeper growth.
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And so that is the vision of recast church. And how many of you here are worshipers of God? We found you.
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OK, that was that was that's our stated purpose is to find you and we found we found you, but we're not the purpose is to keep finding.
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It's to keep going out and finding more for his name. And as I said earlier, there's we believe a host of people out in Matawan in the neighborhoods around here.
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When I go for a run, I don't just run. I pray. I pray for houses and people. I pray for people that live in houses that I don't know who they are yet.
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But do we have a mindset of there are people out there that don't yet know that their heart longs to worship
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Christ and they don't even know that yet. But our goal is to be reaching out that more would come in and join us to worship.
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And to be quite frank, we just need to have some seats for them and a comfortable space for them to come in and join us and be a part of us.
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And so that's a part of the motivation for the things that we're talking about here. In a miraculous turn of events, we reopened a conversation with the administration of the schools.
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The former superintendent retired. They hired a new superintendent who has been very favorable towards us, a new pharaoh in Egypt, if you will.
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And he is favorable to us. As a matter of fact, so favorable that the last email
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I received from him was saying, if there's anything we can do to accommodate your church meeting in our facility, please let us know.
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This is after we've been in discussions with them and kind of getting down to them drawing up a contract that we want to look over and check out.
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And he's saying, what can we do to sweeten this deal for you? So everything is turned. And I would I would say that from my first conversation with the administration of that on school to now, it is
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I don't think it's an exaggeration to use a miraculous in the turn in the way that the school is now currently responding to us.
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So in the next year, we have set before us both a challenge and a transition and I think an exciting challenge, an opportunity to see
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God move and work and do some amazing things. And the elders, after a lot of wrestling prayer, we've weighed a lot of pros and cons.
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We believe that the next step for our church is to move to the schools. We have some details that are still being hammered out.
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We have some Q and A's coming up that Zach's going to talk about, but we are confident that this is the direction that God has for us at this time.
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We also have the challenge of raising funds. We have not yet given you a number. Zach is going to be sharing a number with you.
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That's a significant number. It is the number that we need, the financial amount that we need before we can break ground.
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And so we're just going to put that number out as a challenge to us as a congregation and be thinking through that.
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So we have this challenge of raising funds, a transition in our future, but God is going to walk with us in 2014.
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I think this is going to be an exciting year here at Recast. There will be challenges, there will be difficulties to overcome, but I think that's what makes an awesome year is when there are things that we are we have challenges set before us that we get an opportunity to see
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God break through on those things. I'm going to ask Zach Lloyd to come and share some of the he's the numbers guy, he's the treasurer and he's he's the guy with the the finances in hand.
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All right, so I won't take much of your time, just kind of walk through a couple of different aspects, I'll talk about the schools and give a little bit more detail there, talk about the property, what's going on with that and then just a current update of where we're at with our finances.
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So Greg's going to help me kind of walk through the presentation. I just talked about the three topics or maybe skip ahead a couple of slides to the school if it's going to move or it goes one more.
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So schools, we'll just talk about why we're going to the schools. Don's kind of talked about that already. Where, when and then some of the details.
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So when we talk about why go ahead, advance the slide. This is the graph that he was alluding to. This is just a representation of graphical of our attendance over time.
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And you can see it's a pretty good slope there. But you'll notice it's kind of hit that peak a couple of times, gone down a valley and it's going up and down.
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And we perceive that to be sort of a psychological limitation to this facility. We recognize that we can get more people in these seats, but we feel like we're up against sort of a physical limitation to how many people we can put here.
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So that's that's one of the why. So go ahead and move to the next slide. And the where that we're thinking of is the elementary school.
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So if you're familiar with Matawan Elementary Schools, there's the later in the early L and there's that center building. And the next slide shows a picture.
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Maybe Jack, you remember, this is the building that we're talking about meeting in. Right. We were really just blown away.
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And inside we would be meeting in a cafeteria. The next photo shows Brian Frank took a photo when we went and visited there a month or two ago.
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And it's been actually quite helpful to have that. So that's what it looks like inside. There's a stage on the left. May or may not use that.
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There's bleachers on the right. And you know, the kids sit there and that's what it looks like when it's fully occupied.
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We think that we could get 500 people in there pretty easily. So there'd be a lot of room to grow sort of in the interim before we can move to our building.
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And I'll kind of get to the timing of that building here when I get to that section. So go ahead and advance the slide on the when we're going to do it as soon as we can.
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There's a number of details that we need to iron out, one being the contract with the schools, make sure that's locked in and we're comfortable with it.
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But just a lot of logistics and what it would look like. So probably this winter I would almost
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I'm not going to say that we're shooting for as soon as we can. Lord willing. Next slide.
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And then the details, a lot of details that I just don't have time here to talk. And there's probably a lot of questions in your mind.
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So we just set up a couple of Q &A sessions, one this Wednesday evening there, 630 to 730, then another one next
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Sunday from one to two. And we invite everybody, as many of you that can come to come so that everyone is well informed.
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And we've certainly have not thought of everything. So we're open ourself up to hear some of those questions that we might be not thinking about.
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So please come and help us work through those details. So now I think we're going to go to an update on the property.
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So we decided to build, we bought the property and we've been going back and forth for a better part of a year, more than a year, in fact, on what that facility should look like.
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And we've kind of landed on a facility that's going to cost one point seven million dollars. And that's a big number. And we we just don't like that number.
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We looked at let's just do some pole barns. But we just don't think that's wise. So we've kind of come back to this and the facility that we want, the size.
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There are others in the community that have similar facilities of what we would like in their mortgages are much bigger than that one point seven.
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So we feel like that's a pretty fair number and it's a quality building and it would serve our needs. Well, we've agreed that we would take out a seventy five percent of that loan.
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That's how much we would go into debt and we would not make that decision. That would be the church would make that decision. So that would require us to have twenty five percent down payment.
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That's four hundred twenty five thousand is that is the math there. We've also committed to always having at least two months of operating cash in our bank account.
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We've never spent below that. Whatever is going on, anticipating what our monthly expenses are, that would be sixty four thousand dollars.
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That's anticipating what utility bills and and all that will look like in the new facility. So we need to have that on hand.
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So the total cash to start the building would be four hundred eighty nine thousand. Currently we have one hundred sixty five thousand dollars in the bank.
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So our need then to start a building is three hundred twenty four thousand. So hopefully that's clear. If not, please speak with me.
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But we've been saving. It looks like we're saving about one hundred thousand dollars a year. So that's where you can kind of get that time frame, maybe three years or so, unless the
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Lord really does something unique before we would be starting a building or perhaps moving in. So that's where the schools will probably fill a nice maybe three year gap.
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But it's all the Lord's timing. Don't want to speak to that too clearly. And lastly, just to give you an update on the way things are going for us financially, we've set up a budget.
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We're halfway through the year, six months through December. We budgeted to spend one hundred thirty two thousand.
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We've actually spent one hundred eighteen thousand. We budgeted to bring in one hundred fifty thousand dollars in offerings and we brought in one hundred sixty six thousand.
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And in addition to that, one hundred sixty six, we've also received sixteen thousand three hundred dollars towards the expansion fund.
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So God is meeting our every need. We just are trying to be good stewards and we just thank God for him bringing people like yourselves that give him just ask that you continue to pray that he will bless us.
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Thanks. Thanks, Zach.
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Thanks, Don. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for channeling your inner youper and making it out a takeoff hoser.
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All right. My name is Kyle. I'm the associate pastor. Happy to be speaking with you again this morning.
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In 2005, I was a youth pastor at a church just south of here in Schoolcraft, Michigan.
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I had taken the position immediately after graduating from Western Michigan University with my bachelor's.
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I was newly married. I had been accepted at Moody Bible Institute and was attending seminary there, taking one class a week, usually traveling up to Chicago for a day and spending the night and coming home.
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And the youth program that I inherited when I started there was at about six kids.
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So just a handful. Haley might have been one of them. By the end of my two years there, it was up to 30 to 40 in attendance at with the high school group and around 20 or so for the junior high group.
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But the key words there are by the end. I burned out of my first full time youth ministry position.
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My numbers were growing. And as far as I knew, everybody was really happy. But I wasn't.
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Despite having a handful of parent volunteers around me, I was in a miserable spiral of emotional and physical exhaustion.
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Floundering in the responsibility of teaching and programming and counseling with the 75 kids or so that I was responsible for on a weekly basis.
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I think what led to this was a combination of factors, including having unfortunately high standards for myself.
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A lack of personal discipline and a pride that said that I can handle anything that I get myself into.
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I was young. I was 22 years old by this point. I'd started in youth ministry when
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I was 19. But I'd been a college football player. I was strong. I was big. I can do it all.
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Right. And so when I started to sense that some of the plates that I was trying to keep spinning were starting to wobble in fall,
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I just said, all right, I'll just work harder. Right. I'll get more organized.
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So then you go to, you know, what matters most, you know, seven habits of highly effective people. Right. I just got to get my calendar down,
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Pat. Right. Need better checklists, all that kind of stuff. I would burst, give bursts of energy, putting time into making things really awesome.
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Right. Because I mean, if I just if I could just get things back upright, then I'll be good. And usually that turned into spending a lot of time on things that made me feel productive, like making the handouts for youth group look really awesome.
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Right. Rather than doing the things that would actually make a difference and help me be effective and sustain me like prayer and sleep and managing volunteers.
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Right. So, of course, this didn't work. Putting more energy into the same activities and I got more and more tired.
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I was embarrassed that I was failing, frankly. Kyle Douglas does not fail.
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I was voted most likely to succeed. OK, I got the yearbook to prove it.
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I'm still proud of that. I'm just like, yeah, not the sweater
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I was wearing in the picture, though. So I finally got to a breaking point and I did an about face.
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I said I didn't think God had ever really called me to the ministry. I labeled myself a bad leader and I tried to run away from it all, including my wife and my new baby girl by joining the
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Marines. I was going to go and I was going to join the military and just get away and go to boot camp and they'd really turn me into a leader.
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But really, it was just about escape. Obviously, I got back on track.
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I'm here. Right. The Marines fell through and God took me on a six year walk through a couple of different jobs to heal me up from my implosion and help undo the lies that I told myself in order to cope.
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Have any of you ever seen a pastor burn out or maybe a ministry leader or a missionary?
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Maybe someone in the nonprofit world or your boss at work. It's not pretty, is it? Maybe when you hear my story, you go, yep,
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I've been there. Maybe you're there right now. You're you've been or you are in a position of leadership where you're responsible for guiding or caring for some number of people.
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And the responsibility has just gotten really, really heavy. Maybe it broke you.
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Maybe it is breaking you. It broke me pretty bad. Frankly, I snapped under the weight again.
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Maybe you're there right now and you just don't know how much more you can take. One more email, one more side comment, one more crisis at work and you're out.
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You're done. Check, please. Right. But. I have good news.
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You don't have to burn out. You don't have to fade away. And duh,
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God's word gives us hope for what we can do to defend ourselves against a situation like I got myself into.
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It's not a cheesy kind of hope, like a God's just going to zap it all away. Just, you know, really believe really hard and he's going to solve all your problems.
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But it's real, godly, biblical, practical hope. For how to handle the increasing challenge of God's call and his blessing.
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And I really believe that that's what our text is about this morning. Moses is on the verge of burnout.
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Not surprising, right? I wigged out with 75 junior hires. He has a million former slaves.
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Do the math. But he's up front. But he is.
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He's still up front, right? He survives. In Deuteronomy, he's still in the position.
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He's up there giving this inspiring, insightful, passionate, zealous speech to help his people take the next step.
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And he's into his 80s. I think this text tells us what he did and what some of the people around him had to do to help him succeed as a minister to God's people.
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So let's read this text this morning. Deuteronomy, chapter 1, verses 9 through 18.
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It's on page 125 in your seatback Bibles. Deuteronomy, chapter 1, verses 9 through 18.
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At that time, I said to you, I am not able to bear you by myself.
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The Lord, your God has multiplied you and behold, you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven.
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May the Lord, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you as he has promised you.
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How can I bear by myself the weight and burden of you and your strife? Choose for your tribes, wise, understanding and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads.
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And you answered me, the thing that you have spoken is good for us to do. So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and set them as heads over you, commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of 50s, commanders of 10, and officers throughout your tribes.
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And I charged your judges at that time. Hear the cases between your brothers and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien who is with him.
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You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone for the judgment is
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God's. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me and I will hear it. And I commanded you at that time, all the things that you should do.
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Let's pray. Father, as we get ready to worship and as we've just read your word from a book that maybe some of us don't spend much time in,
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God, I just pray that you would open our hearts to hear the message that you have for us this morning. I thank you,
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God, for allowing us to come together to hear your word. And Father, we pray that we would fulfill our purpose as your church to worship you and to glorify you and to find worshipers for your name.
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As we gather here, God, we just open ourselves up to you, acknowledging how great you are, but also asking you to change us as necessary so that we can be obedient to you and faithful to you and follow you.
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I pray, God, as we sing these words and as we go through these songs, that that would be where our heart is, that we would acknowledge you, but that we'd also open ourselves up to be changed for you to minister to us and show us what we need to do,
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God. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Thanks, Rob and the band.
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Always appreciate it. All right. Feel free to keep your Bibles open. That might be helpful to refer to the different verses, and I'll try and point those out as we go.
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If you were here last week, you know that I started a series on the book of Deuteronomy.
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This is my second week I have to preach, and then I'll have two more in February. And I figured, hey, let's just, you know, go
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Old Testament and join with Don and Genesis there and add to it.
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But I think that part of my reason for picking the book is that I do think that there are parallels to where our church is at and kind of what the people were going to.
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Lots of differences, but, you know, certainly some things that apply. And, you know,
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Israel is no longer a traveling band of nomads with a few families and a couple of camel station wagons, right?
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But they're a multitude. They're a nation at this point. This was a fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham.
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And as we'll look at that again this morning, we'll see that Deuteronomy takes place right on the verge of God fulfilling the other part of God's promise to Abraham.
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So He's already made them kind of as numerous as the stars. He'll continue to grow them. But He also promised to give them a land of their own.
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And in the context of Deuteronomy, they're getting ready to move into that land. So here
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Moses stands preparing the people for God's next phase on the move from here to there.
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In their context, here was Kadesh Barnea. They're moving there to the promised land.
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And what was the key to their success on the way from there here to there?
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It was to cling closely to God, knowing that He had already set the land before them.
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He had already guaranteed that it was going to take place and they were to walk in obedience and faithfulness to that promise, knowing that it was
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He that would make them able to succeed. And that starts to touch on the most important movement of all, which wasn't just a move from one physical place to another, but it was a move in their hearts from a place of doubt or fear or lack of trust to a place of wholehearted trust and faithfulness and obedience to God.
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And isn't that what God is trying to do in all of our lives? He's trying to move us from where we're at, which is always just a little too far away from Him.
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And He's trying to move us to a place where we are close with Him, in relationship with Him, trusting in Him fully to do what
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He promises to do in our lives. In our text this morning, we continue in what
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I'm calling the historical prologue of Moses' sermon. So Moses is there giving this big sermon and he decides to go back in time and share with them some of the events that brought them to the place where they're at right now.
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He's going to highlight the important things that God had done in order to show
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God's faithfulness and remind them, hey, this is the God that you're serving. And He'll continue to be faithful just like He's been faithful in the past as you move forward in trust with Him.
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So last week was the first part of that where God gave the mission again, which was defining the boundaries of the land that He was giving to them and reminding them that He would make it happen.
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And, you know, so He starts with this kind of grand visionary opening, right? You know, see, I've set the land before you go and take it.
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You know, it's like, yeah, the mission, rah, rah, rah. Well, today He's going to get a little bit more practical, right?
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And how many of you would maybe consider yourself kind of the visionary type? You know, you're the one that sees the big idea.
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You know where everyone's got to go. You know, you can see the grand scheme, right? And then how many of you are the administrative person that like just shakes their head when that person starts talking, right?
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It's like, you know how many bottles of water this is going to take. You know, this is like impossible, right? So He starts with the big high -level vision, and now we're going to really get into how
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Israel had to change and be set up in order to move into the land in the way that God wanted them to.
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As we look at 1, 9 through 18, and this is just kind of setting the stage aside.
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It can look like a parenthetical, right? So verse 8, we have God saying, go.
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And then verse 19, it says, we set out. So why take this time here in the middle to just kind of throw in this administrative detail, right?
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It almost seems like an interruption of the narrative story of how they were moving into the promised land.
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But I think we'll see that it sets the tone as a reminder both of how God was being faithful to keep
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His promise, and He would continue to do so, and also how God desired to establish a fair and equitable society.
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So the laws that would come later are in the spirit of that, that you people are to structure yourselves so that when you land in the there of the place that I'm taking you, you're the type of people
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I want you to be. So I'm okay trusting that Moses had a reason for these nine verses here and placing it rather than seeing it as a later addition, maybe by an editor or the narrator.
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So where does it all begin? If you look at verse 9, it's such an important starting point.
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Moses begins by admitting his own personal limits. He confesses that he isn't enough by himself.
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Moses is considered a humble man, incredibly meek, and this is why, right?
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He's quick to recognize his weakness and can admit when enough is enough. How hard is this, right?
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Anyone just love pointing out your own weaknesses, right? For many of us, it's really hard.
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I've already admitted that I think this is part of where I went wrong, and I'm still tempted to go wrong, thinking
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I can do it all. But I think there's another side to this, and it's when we're tempted by pride to land on the other side, which is self -loathing and to berate ourselves as an excuse to quit.
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So you see the difference between those two? Both kind of like sides of the same coin. On one side, we can think that we're strong enough to take it all on and just keep piling it on ourselves.
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The other side is that we get to a point where we snap and we just say, oh, I'm just so sympathetic, I'm a terrible person,
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God can never use me, I'm out, someone else can take it over, much better than me, right?
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Moses, I think, and we'll see this as we continue to unpack this text, lands in the middle. He's strongly and confidently simply saying,
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I'm at my end. I'm not strong enough to keep going, but I still know that God has called me to this place, so he finds the balance.
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Proverbs 11 .2 says, when pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.
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How many pastors and leaders have gotten into trouble trying to be a one -man show, who can't admit that they need help, or when they finally get to that point where it's unavoidable, they see it as a sign of failure?
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Moses gives us leaders permission, I think, by his example to ask for help.
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But there's a little more behind verse nine in his admission than what we have here in Deuteronomy, so let's actually go back to where this all takes place, the at this time that he mentions there.
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Turn with me back to Exodus 18, if you'd like. We won't read from it, but I'll kind of summarize it, might be helpful to have it open before you.
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Exodus chapter 18, this is the backstory of how Moses came to admit that he had a problem.
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So we have the situation here where Jethro, the priest of Midian, it says, who is also
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Moses' father -in -law, brings Moses' wife, Zipporah, and his two sons back to him.
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For some reason, Moses had sent them away, probably for safety reasons, either during the Exodus or during their wilderness wanderings.
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But Jethro hears of all the good things that the Lord had done and said, okay, I'm gonna go see it for myself, I'll bring his family back, and they have this little reunion.
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They worship God together, they have a meal, all that good stuff. As Jethro is hanging out and visiting, though, he spends a day watching
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Moses do his work. And anyone ever had that? Like, you know, someone, a relative comes to visit, and like, you take him along with you.
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You know, it's kind of a neat thing, like, see what you do every day and, you know, what your job's like, or, you know, that kind of a thing. Well, Jethro's sitting there hanging out while Moses is judging
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Israel. So he's deciding disputes and representing the Lord. The people would come to Moses asking for help with the decision.
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It might have involved casting lots, as they often did in the Old Testament, to determine the
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Lord's will. But he's explaining the law and essentially being an arbiter between the people. How to describe what
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Jethro was seeing. Anyone been to the Secretary of State's office? Okay.
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Take the population of Michigan. Then take all of the Secretary of State branch offices and reduce them to one.
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Then take the Secretary of State herself and make her the only customer service representative in that office.
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Right? A million people, one Moses, take a number.
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Right? How frustrating would this be? I mean, it would just, like, I get bent out of shape when
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I have to sit there for, like, three, you know, little numbers, slips of paper. And they didn't even have iPhones back then, right?
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I don't know how they survived. Jethro's looking at this scenario and he's like, this is not sustainable.
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Verse 23, he uses the word endure. You can't endure this, Moses. This is kind of asinine.
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Like, it's not going to go well for you if you keep up this workload. Now, the
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Exodus text here doesn't say specifically that Moses thought that he had a problem yet. Although, you know, thankfully as we read
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Deuteronomy, he's quick to admit that, yeah, like, I couldn't do this by myself. But at this point in time, it doesn't say he was burning out or getting tired or anything.
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But we can see with Jethro that he's in danger, right?
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I mean, we can deduce from the text that this is not going to go well. What are some of the things that Jethro was probably concerned about?
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Number one, personally, as one man, Jethro knows that Moses doesn't have the energy to keep up this kind of workload.
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The Hebrew term in verse 18 means literally to droop or fade away.
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So in verse 18, he says, you'll wear yourselves out, right?
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That word meaning to droop, to fade. He's burning the candle at both ends.
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Another danger, he's going to wear the people around him out. The meaning of this is a little bit unclear, like who are these people that he's talking about?
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It could mean Moses' servants and officers, those around him who were straining to try and keep
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Moses upright, right? Or maybe having to handle the business that Moses wasn't taking care of and should have been, right?
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But I think based on context, he's probably talking about the people having to wait in line, having to endure the frustration of not getting their things resolved quickly and precisely, right?
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Another one, by doing work that others are capable of doing, he's not able to focus on what
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God has uniquely called him to do, which is as verse 19 and 20 show, to represent the people to God and teach them his law.
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And think about it this way, what might happen if he did a better job at that? Maybe shorter lines, but he's obviously not prioritizing the main thing that he's been called and equipped to do.
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And then, you know, this is another aside here, and Moses isn't going to be around forever, and maybe
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Jethro sees that. And ministries that are built solely on the character or the personality or the energy of one person do not have a long lifespan, because when they're gone, the ministry's gone.
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Jethro knows that Moses and the people are at risk. So he intervenes and he sits down and he tells his son -in -law how it is.
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And I think Jethro's example gives us a couple of lessons that we really shouldn't miss here. First is that effective leaders are open to advice, correction and rebuke from people they trust.
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They need mentors. They need wise people, maybe older, maybe not, who will tell them the truth about themselves and their performance for their own good, in their best interest.
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Moses' feelings may have been initially hurt by this, right? Anyone like to hear hard words from someone else?
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Like, it's just like, man, I'm way more sensitive than I wish I was. Like, someone criticizes me and it's like, you know, they hate me.
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I don't hate you, dog. That's sharpening. But we can be defensive, right?
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We can take these things and we can feel insulted. Like, we hear in these words, Moses, you're a terrible leader.
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Moses, you're a fool. Why would you keep doing it like this? Right? The advice can seem condescending.
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It can seem fatherly, whatever, but it's needed. It needs to be said. Not just for Moses, but for the good of the whole community.
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And the second lesson I think that we get from this, if you're one of the older, wiser types like Jethro, get in the game.
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Don't let your wisdom go to waste. I don't think you need to be walking around looking for people to blow up, right?
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But for our good, share what you know. And I can't promise that we'll always listen.
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I've been known to be pretty thick -headed and stubborn from time to time. But that's our problem, not yours.
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You step up and say what needs to be said. And if we're wise and we listen to you and we take to heart your advice, you'll be a part of our success.
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Peter Drucker, the management guru, literally wrote the book on management. It's about this thick, says management right across the top, right?
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He reminisces about a hard lesson that he learned in 1933 at one of his early positions at a
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London bank. He was hired by the bank because he had a successful, he was a successful securities analyst at an insurance company, right?
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And they liked his work ethic. They liked his potential. And so they hire him on.
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But they hired him not to be a securities analyst, but to be an economist and a secretary to the three senior partners of the bank.
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At one point, the founding member, the senior partner calls him into his office.
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Says, have a seat. Sits down. He says, I didn't think much of you when you came in here.
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And I still don't think much of you. But you are even more stupid than I thought you would be.
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And much more stupid than you have a right to be. I understand you did very good securities analysis at the insurance company.
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If we had wanted you to do securities analysis work, we would have left you where you were. You are now the executive secretary to the partners, yet you continue to do securities analysis.
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What should you be doing right now to be effective in your new job? That's a fun conversation.
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He explains that sitting there hearing those words made him furious. But at the same time, he knew that old
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Codger was right. And he changed. He says that in his many years of consulting with successful leaders in all types of organizations, he found that nearly all, and I quote, owe their success as I do to a long dead boss who did what that old gentleman in London did for me.
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He forced me to think through what the new assignment requires. Now, I'm not saying that a part of your training program should be calling your mentee stupid three times before you give him some encouragement, but you can get their attention.
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You can give them hard words. But in love, like Jethro did, he helped
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Moses see what he himself could not, either could not or would not see for himself in order to make
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Moses better. All right. So if we flip back to Deuteronomy chapter one, we look at verse 10.
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So what was this problem again? What led to his needing to admit that this was too much for him?
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Moses undertakes to explain it and not just the problem, which was lots of people with lots of strife, but where the problem comes from.
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And where does the problem come from? From God.
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The problem comes from God and what he's doing, right? It's because God kept his promise to Abraham to make his offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven.
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As director of Orphan Justice Mission, one of the jobs that I had before coming here, I had the opportunity to travel to Uganda a lot.
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And my work would take me out into the bush. So out to the villages where there weren't power lines and there wasn't running water or approved roads.
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So very rural. Any electricity was usually from a battery -powered lantern or whatever.
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And one of my favorite things to do would be after the day's work and we were exhausted or whatever, I'd get back to the house or, you know, whosever home
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I was staying at. And I'd take my cell phone out and I'd go and sit outside and call Nikki. And we'd talk for, you know, 30 minutes, whatever kind of catch up on the day.
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And then we'd hang up and I would just sit out there in the dark, maybe on a clump of red earth, maybe laying in the grass, cool breeze, you know, temperature's probably around 70 degrees, just pleasant.
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And I would just look up at the stars, the beautiful, glorious, incredible stars.
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And without the light pollution and without all the things that, you know, prevent us from seeing out into the great beyond,
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I mean, it was just mind -blowing. Millions and billions of these stars to the point where at times you would think that there were clouds in the sky, but it was really just, there were so many stars.
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It looked like fog, just beautiful.
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And I'd just be blown away by God's power and his creation and his generosity. And I always think back, you know, to this promise of God to Abraham, what it would have been like to be there.
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God right next to Abraham saying, look up, you see all those? Those are your grandkids.
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I'm gonna make you like that. Can't even count them, can you? It's gonna be awesome.
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And what a genius way to describe that promise, right? Because every generation after Abraham could look up at that same sky and see those same stars and remember what
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God had promised. And now
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Moses standing here, giving the sermon to the people in Deuteronomy is looking out over a million people a sea of Israelites.
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And the stars now all have faces. It's come true.
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God has kept his promise and he's blessed. But with this promise comes an incredible responsibility, right?
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All of these people, this literally major US city size collection of people complete with neighborhoods based on tribes and in need of food and water and direction, right?
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They all have needs. Back in Exodus 18, 18, Jethro says that this is literally too heavy for you,
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Moses. God has blessed, but now the weight of these stars is crushing you.
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But look what he says in verse 11. Moses rejoices in it and blesses the people saying,
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I hope God multiplies you thousand times what you are today. Does this seem natural?
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This doesn't seem natural to me. It's like, what? You're asking for what? You already said it's like too heavy.
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It's too much, right? I think in his own weakness, he could have easily recoiled from it and simply complained about the inconvenience and the burden of it all.
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But he doesn't. Man, I think this is so, so important for us to understand.
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Rather than limit the good thing, rather than ask God to knock off this covenant faithfulness thing, rather than telling him when, before his cup runs over, he says,
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Father, keep it coming. You keep doing your thing, God, and I'm with you.
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I'll find a bigger cup. Rather than ask God to change, he's willing to be changed, to become even more dependent on the presence and provision of God in order to handle whatever's next, whatever he has for him.
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I think it's possible this morning that some of us need to repent. It's possible that some of us, out of a desire to keep things manageable in our lives, to stay comfortable, to avoid the inevitable stretching that comes with God's blessing, have asked
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God to cut it out. That's enough. Could it even be that that's some of our attitudes about recast this morning?
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I like a small church. I just worry we're getting too big. It's not how it used to be.
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There is certainly bad growth, and we elders are really aware of this. Believe me.
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And we can have sinful motivations for wanting to grow numerically as a church. But God help us if we find ourselves fighting against the loving, gracious call of God to every sinner who does not yet know the glory and the freedom and the awesomeness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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God help us if for the sake of our own comfort or based on our own meager limitations, we try and limit the size of heaven.
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Instead, what would it look like to say in your heart, God, make this church 10 times the size.
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And whatever you need me to do to serve and love these people and to help them grow, I'm willing to do it.
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In verse 13, he starts to get strategic. Notice that it isn't a Hail Mary, right?
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He's not saying abracadabra, God take care of all these people. No, he's getting smart about it and suggest a system in conjunction with the people.
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So he asks for their feedback and then he executes it. The structure itself is pretty simple.
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He tells them to number one, find wise, number two, understanding and number three, experienced men.
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And he will appoint them as leaders in a tiered system of shared responsibility. So you gotta get that, right?
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Okay, no problem. I think she needs you. So this tiered system of shared responsibility, beginning with commanders of a thousand down to groups of 10.
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This likely isn't like this exact, division of thousands and hundreds and tens and all of that.
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It's simply trying to say that there's an even breakup. For example, in Hebrew, the 10 could be used as the family.
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So that was one way you talked of your immediate families to say my 10 or the 10. But the whole point is that, evenly divided in a shared load.
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I wanna point out also that the structure is not commanded by God, neither here or in the
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Exodus account. In fact, Jethro's worship of Yahweh, despite Jethro's worship of Yahweh, it's unclear whether he's still, whether he is or is not still a pagan, worshiping other gods.
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So he might've just said, Moses, it's obvious your God is big and powerful and I'll join you in worshiping him. But, so he may not be a completely godly influence, but Moses can still see the wisdom in what he recommends.
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So this is a wisdom issue. God isn't dictating every single action of our lives or the programs of our church, though he's sovereign and the outcomes are his.
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Never at ever is he out of control, but he gives us a little bit of freedom in certain areas to use the wisdom that he's given us and to figure things out on our own.
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He himself is a delegator in a sense, right? Why does he even call Moses? Why does he give rules and teach?
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Discipline people. So I think Moses was free to be flexible and experiment keeping an eye on whether his structure was succeeding in accomplishing the ultimate purpose of helping the people become righteous and holy.
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I love what Jethro says in verse 19 of Exodus 18. He says, now obey my voice. I will give you advice and God be with you.
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Sometimes I think that's perfectly acceptable. A leader can make a decision and ask
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God to be with them. I think the key to this whole thing working is the presence of godly character.
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This probably goes without saying, but of course we want people who are honest and upright and just and authority over us.
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The qualifications for New Testament elders and deacons, which we find in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus are founded on these same qualities.
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The difference being here that in Deuteronomy, this was a national, political, legal, even military, militarily divided people.
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As the term commander suggests. As the New Testament church, we're not now establishing a political kingdom like they were at that time.
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Their leaders had the responsibility of deciding civil disputes, judging, much like a court of appeals.
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So the harder the case, the higher it would go all the way up, ending with Moses, as verse 17 points out.
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And this is why integrity was so important, because these disputes put the judges at risk of being bribed or working things out in favor of their families or their group of friends.
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Especially when property was at stake. Moses tells them to judge righteously, even between an Israelite and a foreigner.
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So this wasn't just about Israel, but knowing that they were going to have interactions with people around them. They were not to be a respecter of faces.
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So a judge was to be there and to give a fair decision based on law, not say,
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OK, here's my buddy and he can get me on the backside, so I better weigh in favor of him.
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They were to be even and fair. And hopefully the result would be a well -ordered and peaceful society.
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Now, as New Testament elders, we may be involved in settling disputes from time to time, but our primary responsibility is not civil, but is in structuring the church to accomplish the
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Great Commission. So this isn't a one -to -one parallel, though there's a lot of similarities. But I think the main takeaway for us in this, the key point, is that we should be wise and strategic about solving problems as we grow.
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And specifically for leaders to delegate authority and responsibility when necessary. Ah, delegate.
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Ever been given that advice? Talk to someone, oh, I'm really struggling with this or that, and they're like, just delegate it, right?
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As if we can just give everything away and it'll just be fine, right? Delegation is powerful, but it's not a slam dunk solution.
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It's simple, yes, but not easy. It seems easier for leaders to try and do everything themselves, frankly.
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People are hard to work with and systems bring their own maintenance costs. Israel now needs to identify and commission leaders.
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How are they going to move up and down the ladder? How are they going to be held accountable? How do they know when something's too big for them and they need to pass it up, right?
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So, I mean, there's a lot of things that had to go into this structuring, this tiered system. This isn't a vacation for Moses, but his energy will be put into more effective activities.
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Ultimately, he's bringing more good to more people by allowing others to help him, which frees him up to focus on the most important tasks that God has called him to, which we went through earlier.
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So we may have heard the people say, yeah, Moses, don't be greedy, delegate, right? But the other half of this organizational restructuring is the willingness of the people to get involved.
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Moses' stepping back has to happen in conjunction with the people stepping up.
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Notice in verse 14 that he suggested to the people and they respond, yes, this is good.
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Essentially, what they're saying is we're in. So now we can turn to the people and see what it means for them.
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And I think just like there are dangers for Moses if he doesn't delegate, there are dangers for these men called to be leaders if they don't heed the call to help out.
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Number one, they may simply become lazy. It's just easier to let someone else do it. Number two, they avoid an opportunity to grow in their own character, right?
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When you take on responsibility, you have to be self -controlled. You have to be disciplined. You have to work on your own skills.
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And if you're never stepping up, if you're never, you know, growing in the responsibility given to you, maybe you're not going to have opportunity to flesh out your full potential.
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But the other danger here, you know, moving out to the broader community is that if people are not stepping up, it puts an undue burden on those who are.
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Or it means that things are going undone. Neither very good options, right? And this is so typical in the church.
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And recast, I mean, we got some awesome people who are helping out. So this is not trying to, you know, beat the church over the head kind of a thing, step up, although we do need volunteers, especially for kids' ministries, right?
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Throw that in there. It's a freebie. Anyone ever heard of the 20 -80 rule?
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It gets thrown around churches all the time. 20 % of the people doing 80 % of the work. The people, however, in this case, respond well and they accept the proposal.
01:00:07
And now they're invested. Now the success of the community isn't just about Moses and his leadership. It's shared.
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It's a shared responsibility among them all. What's going to work? Teamwork.
01:00:21
Wonder pets, yo. A lot of wisdom in that. Sorry to put that in your heads.
01:00:31
All right. As we get to a point where maybe we can start really trying to land this and make some strong applications here,
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I just admit that I struggled. And it's not because there aren't application points for us personally.
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It's that there's so many, right? I mean, we could sit here and I could talk about, hey, you need to get involved more, do more.
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You know, all the followers need to step up and do all this stuff. But it's not just about doing more, is it? Most of us are doing too much.
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Most of us are too busy. Kyle Douglas, preaching to myself.
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It's about restructuring ourselves, possibly, so that we can do better what we should be doing to help our community.
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So maybe not more, but certainly different. Are you the person sitting in line complaining about what a bad job everybody else is doing, but you're not willing to help when asked?
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Do you avoid taking responsibility because it means sacrificing some of your own fun or free time or resources?
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Well, then maybe you need to get involved. Or are you the leader who makes it all about you and pridefully arranges things, including keeping other people out so that you get the glory and look good rather than Christ?
01:01:58
Are you the over -committer who runs herself into the ground because she can't admit that her plate is full? She's not strong enough to tell someone, no,
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I'm at my limit. If that's you, then delegate and give away.
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So ask yourself if you're the person who never says no, or you're the person who never says yes.
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And is that who God wants you to be? And as we land back on verse 18 here,
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I think it helps bring this whole thing full circle. Moses says he instructed the leaders at that time, the time of their installment in the law, and told them what they are to do.
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So as a leader, he gave clear instructions to the people. This is what you need to be doing.
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He spent some of his time equipping and supporting those who were going to help him out. He didn't just offload it and off they go.
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And you see how that works together, how leadership and followership should support one another? He trains and equips them for their work, and by spending time with a smaller group of leaders, he effectively multiplies himself.
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And I know of someone who didn't spend time with thousands of leaders and change a nation, but he spent time with 12 fishermen, a couple of tax collectors, and changed the world, right?
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It's a good system. To conclude,
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I just want to make good on my promise that I would share some of the strategies that we as elders are working on, I don't have much time, and I'll just kind of throw them out there, but we are really taking this to heart.
01:03:39
I mean, this message hit me like a ton of bricks. And isn't it funny how sometimes God coordinates things with situations?
01:03:46
I mean, I knew Deuteronomy was applicable, but I feel like this one is just like, bam, right now, right?
01:03:52
We as elders know that we haven't always done a great job at Recast in trying to help people know how to get plugged in, to know what it means to be fully involved in the church and to be invested, right?
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And we want to improve that. We want to improve especially our communication systems and add a few other structures that will help you know what the expectations are.
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One of them we're planning in February, probably, to launch this officially is a Recast 101 class.
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It's kind of a membership class, right? It sounds so churchy, like membership class, right?
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But it's not just to make members and be able to get your name on a piece of paper, but it is to equip you. It's to help you know what
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Recast is about. It's to introduce you to some other people in the church, and it's to get you on the radar officially, or at least to help you be informed so that you can make a decision about whether Recast is the place that you really wanna plug in.
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And then we have small groups. In small groups, we actually have a really high percentage of people involved in small groups.
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And I think many of you find those really helpful. We want most people plugged into small groups.
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And I'm one, I can even admit that I'm not a big, like, force me to do something kind of a guy, right?
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But here's the thing, it's not just about a small group and you have to be there every week and you gotta do this kind of thing, but we wanna make sure that everybody has someone walking with them as they grow.
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We don't want anyone to fall off or fall through the cracks, right? If you're a part of our church, we wanna know that someone is caring about you.
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Someone's gonna miss you when you're gone. Someone's gonna ask you how you're doing. You have someone to go to. And so it's always your option, how you get plugged in, but we just wanna do a better job of making sure that that option is available to everybody.
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And so you don't have to wait in a line forever either to do that, and that's something else we've been kind of slow to do. And so membership is a little bit bigger part of this.
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And again, not so we can keep our roles nice and tidy, but so that we can clarify for ourselves, who's in, who are we growing with?
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All that kind of stuff. Now, a couple of things. Someone may be hearing all this and you love bureaucracy and you're like, it's about time, right?
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Rules, structure, classes, programs, Wednesday night at six, right? All that kind of stuff. Or you may be on the other side and like your hives are already starting to grow because you have an allergic reaction to anything structured or formal, right?
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Let me just reassure you that at Recast, Jesus Christ is central and always will be to everything that we do.
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It's about the gospel. It's about God loving humanity and giving His Son to dine across for our sins and redeeming us.
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Everything else is frosting. And sometimes there's too much frosting, right? So we're okay getting rid of things that don't work.
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We're okay, we are committed to being a simple church. We're not just adding structure to make it look like we're doing a million things.
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In fact, it's really hard to try and get something in the programming schedule of Recast. And we do that intentionally so that people aren't being just bombarded with a million things at church to do.
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But there are times when we recognize that in order to be effective in what we're doing, we have to add a little bit of structure.
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We have to add some things that are gonna help people grow. And we're willing to experiment with those. And we're flexible.
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If it doesn't work, it's gone, right? There are no sacred cows here. If we try the Recast 101 thing and it doesn't help people fall more in love with Jesus and grow and all that, out.
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No problems there. But the thing that we can't afford to do is to do nothing.
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We want Recast to continue to grow into a stinking awesome church that can handle all of the stars that God throws our way.
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And we as leaders are committed to that. And we're asking everyone in our church, whatever level that you're at, to be a part of that with us.
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And together we'll get it done with God's help. Amen? Amen.
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Let's pray and then we'll take communion. Hold on, don't pray, heads up.
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Got carried away and forgot communion. Communion, we do this every week. If you're new here, communion is the time that we take to remember the sacrifice that Christ has made for us.
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The bread represents his body, the juice, his blood, his body broken for us, his blood spilled as a part of the new covenant to us, that he loves us, that we're forgiven and that we can be reconnected with God.
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And as you take the juice and the bread, we're reminding ourselves of that great promise and that great work of Christ on our behalf.
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All right, now let's pray. Father, we do thank you for your word.
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We thank you for all that it teaches us. We thank you that there's even this practical wisdom stuff in here that helps us maybe evaluate ourselves and think about what we need to do on our journey from here to there.
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And God continue, I pray for recast this morning. I pray for those of us sitting here in these seats that you would help us continue to take our steps to where you want us to go as a church, as individuals.
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And we know, Lord, that that results in your glory. We want people to know how loving you are.
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We want people to know how amazing it is that you're not mad at us, even despite our sin. And so God, I just pray that you'd help us.
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You'd help us in our structures. You'd help us, you know, keeping our priorities straight, but help us to be wise and help us to work together, leadership and followers both, and help us to get this done,
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God. And we thank you for your faithfulness. We thank you for the work of Jesus Christ. And as we take communion, we remember that most of all, that you've died for our sins.
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You've set us free. And we have a home in heaven because of that. And it's in Jesus's name that we pray.