The House of Jethro: Integrity, Insight, Imitation, Intensity

As Moses sat there by that well, he had no idea of what God had in store for him. He must have thought his life was ruined, finished, over. Yet God was getting ready to take him from the house of Pharaoh to the house of Jethro, from the house of a king, to the house of a priest. In the house of the priest of Midian, Moses would find wholeness, a picture of what God had planned for his future, and his feet on holy ground.
It is no accident that whenever God is getting ready to do something extraordinary in the life of someone, they often have to go through a time of great trial and often "hit bottom." There is no saying why this is for sure. I suspect it has something to do with humility and understanding grace, and the fact that God chooses the least things of this world to make the greatest in the Kingdom. I am sure if we asked Abraham, David, Peter, Paul, or Moses for that matter, they would tell us about coming to understand our dependence on God and that it has to do with God getting all of the glory for what He is about to do. Whatever God's purpose for doing it, He most often does, and this is where Moses finds himself.
Here is our hero, Moses, feeling scared, alone, tired, and desperate. But God was not through with him yet. In fact, he was right where God wanted him. As Moses sat there by that well, the seven daughters of Jethro, the priest of a nomadic Midian tribe, came to water their flocks. Like any desperate man, he helped the ladies out, fighting off shepherds who tried to run them off and then drawing water for them. Is this a great story or what? The daughters went home and told their father about the stranger at the well and he sent for Moses to come and eat with them. I love the Bible right here. "Moses was willing to dwell with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses. Then she gave birth to a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, 'I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.'"
Let's not call it a comeback yet, but God has a way of putting us in a better place. Jethro was a wise man, and in his house Moses learned contentment. Moses would spend the next forty years tending the sheep of Jethro. During this time, he grew close to God. He learned to have integrity and found wholeness in his life. Moses matured as he fought off the wild beast and protected the sheep in the desert. He found a context for his life and most importantly, he found his heart in his wife Zipporah and his two sons.
Meanwhile, the Israelites were crying out because of their suffering, and the king who had made them slaves died. God heard them and purposed to keep the covenant He had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to make them a great nation and give them a land of their own. As Moses was becoming what God created and called him to be, God was developing a picture of his future for him to see. It was time for Moses to learn insight.
We all know that while Moses was tending sheep near Mount Horeb, the mountain of God, he saw a bush burning but not being consumed. The Bible says that the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. Moses saw unbelievable circumstances but he did not yet see God. He lacked vision, divine perspective, purpose, and plan. Seeing this, God called to him.
"Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." Then He said, "Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." He said also, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Exodus 3:4–6
Moses was about to get a clear picture of what God had planned for his future.
The LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt."
Exodus 3:7–10
There is a lot to learn here about vision and how it works. First, God saw the need of His people. It did not matter that forty years before Moses had seen the need of his people. It is all about what God’s perspective and timing.
Second, God makes it clear that He has come to deliver His people from the power of the Egyptians. He is not calling Moses to set them free. We have to be careful to not take on God's role in fulfilling His plan.
I do not believe that Moses responded with false humility or lack of faith. I believe he simply remembered vividly the circumstances that caused him to leave Egypt. When Moses sincerely asked God, "Who am I?" it is in this wonderful moment that Moses learns the value of imitation. God says, "It does not matter who you are, I am with you." I love how God goes back to the vision to confirm for Moses that He will be with him. "But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain." You will know that I am with you because when you are done doing what I have called you to do, you will worship Me right here!
Moses rightly understands that he did not have influence with his people any longer because he lacked integrity before them in the past. He asked a legitimate question, "Under what authority do I tell them I come? In whose name do I go, for I cannot go in my own name?"
God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations."
Exodus 3:14–15
Only through imitation does Moses have credibility with the people to lead them from where they are to where God wants them to be. It was not Moses, but God with Moses. Moses will not say, "Let my people God." The Lord will say it. It is in the name of God and by His authority that Moses will do battle with Pharaoh. Now God speaks with the intensity of that battle, giving Moses a sense of urgency about what God has called him to do.
Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, "The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, 'I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt, and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.'" And they will listen to your voice, and you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; and now, please let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God." But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go. Exodus 3:16–20
Here we see God give Moses those three essential elements of intensity. First, God empowers Moses and the children of Israel for the battle by giving them an assurance that He has seen their suffering and that He will act accordingly. God rightly evaluates the current reality, giving them the power of the intensity of their circumstances.
Second, God prepares the people for what He is about to do by giving them a promise for the future. God knew the people would need to be encouraged in order to persevere through the battle. So, He gives them a clear picture of what He has planned for their future in order to prepare them for battle.
Finally, God gives them a plan of attack. He tells them not only what He is going to do for them, but exactly how He is going to use them to do it. "This is what you will do, this is what he will do, then, this is what I will do and this is what will happen! I will work all things for good to those who love me and are called according to My purpose."

MOSES: A Legacy Model

We are all familiar with the epic narrative of the life of Moses that runs throughout four books of the Old Testament, from Exodus through Deuteronomy. His story is one that is rich with wisdom and adventure. However, as a leader, there is no one who parallels Moses. From the most humble of beginnings, God brought Moses to a place where he was the most influential person in the Old Testament. J. Oswald Sanders wrote in his book Spiritual Leadership that “God's greatest gifts to Israel, better than the land itself, were men such as Moses and David and Isaiah. God's greatest gifts are always men; His greatest endowment to the church was the gift of twelve men trained for leadership.”
There is so much more of value in Moses' life than we could ever hope to cover here. However, we can look at the life of Moses simply as a model of the kind of legacy leadership that we have been discussing. The best way to accomplish this task is to look at Moses’ life along three natural breaks, which loosely represent the stages of influence, impact, and legacy as I have laid them. Moses was 120 years old when he died on Mount Nebo, and his life can be measured by three forty-year segments.
The House of Pharaoh: Standard and Influence
The story opens in Egypt, where Jacob and his family had settled and lived for four hundred years. In the thirteenth century BCE, a new Pharaoh came to power in Egypt who was a great builder, but who had no respect for the Hebrew people. In order to build his great cities, he made the Hebrew people slaves and put them to work in forced labor camps. He feared they would revolt against him because they became great in number, so he ordered that every male infant be killed at birth.
Moses was born to Amram and Jochebed, who were from the line of priests called Levites. We know how Moses was saved by being hidden for three months and then being floated down the river in a basket. Pharaoh's daughter found Moses and had him fished out of the river. She felt sorry for him and decided to keep him. So, Moses grew up as the adopted son of the Pharaoh. However, Moses was always aware of his true heritage as a Hebrew because God made a way for his mother to be his nurse and to raise him in the house of Pharaoh. This is all-important to us because this is the context in which God established a standard of excellence in Moses' life and gave him influence.
Moses spent the first forty years of his life living in one of the great societies of human history. Living in the house of Pharaoh, he was trained in language, art, law, engineering, and all of the sciences of his day. Having been raised by his Levite mother, he was instructed in the heritage of the Hebrew people and nurtured in a love for the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is why the idea of generational faithfulness was so important to Moses, as we read in Deuteronomy 6.
Moses was being given the foundational preparation that He would need to become who God had created and called him to be. However, though he had a position of influence as a member of the house of Pharaoh and was a person of influence among his own people, he was not yet ready to have the impact that God intended for him to have. In fact, in Exodus 2:11–12, we read how Moses tried to use his position to take matters into his own hands. "Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked this way and that, and when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand."
In the very next verse, we see that Moses again tried to use his persona to take matters into his own hands. "He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, 'Why are you striking your companion?'" Though Moses had been raised to live up to a standard that called him to defend and lead his people, he did not yet have the integrity and insight to do so. Though he had been given a position of authority, the rest of the passage reveals that his lack of integrity and vision had caused him to not walk in a manner worthy of his calling. "But he said, 'Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?' Then Moses was afraid and said, 'Surely the matter has become known.' When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well."
Despite the advantages of what God had done in his life to this point, Moses lacked integrity, vision and a godly life. This did not produce a life of impact and legacy, but one of fear, fleeing, and loneliness.

Leading A Legacy

We are called to be spiritual leaders in whatever sphere of influence we may live. Whether we are at school, at work, at home, on the soccer field, or at church, God calls us to be examples of those who believe. It is clear from this calling that God has a purpose for our being here and particularly for our leadership. As a result, I believe our leadership should move beyond influence to having a lasting spiritual impact by becoming spiritual leaders who are not trying to use their influence to get things done, but spiritual leaders who are willing to say with Paul, "follow me as I follow Christ." Our spiritual leadership should move from the level of impact to that of legacy as we intentionally pass on what we have received to those who come behind us, for the purpose of passing it on to others. God has called us all to use our influence for His kingdom, and not just use our influence, but to use it in a way that makes a lasting impact in peoples lives, an impact that is generational and leaves a legacy. He has given us clear principles for living that kind of life in His revelation of His own nature and character, the Bible.
The idea is simple. We have true spiritual influence in the lives of the people around us when we make Christ the only standard of excellence in our lives and we answer the call of God to be examples of what a believer should look like. However, that influence is short-lived and only has a lasting impact when people see us moving from where we are to where God wants us to be. That maturing process is marked by several characteristics. First, we must have integrity in our lives and in our relationships to others. Second, we must demonstrate insight into the purpose and plan of God. Third, our walk must be characterized by the nature and character of Christ as we give ourselves to being imitators of Christ. Finally, that walk should have an intensity to it that reflects the reality that we are engaged in a spiritual warfare of epic and eternal proportions. When our leadership takes on that quality and character, we are ready to lead generationally. That means that our influence will not only have impact, but it will leave a legacy of faithfulness long after we are gone.
One great test of leadership is how well a leader's legacy continues after they leave. Unless we are intentional about developing leaders, it will not happen. This is evident in the well-documented drop-out rates among Christian teens. Some seventy percent of students who grew up active in a student ministry in the United States over the past ten years have left the church without any real indication that they intend to return. These are our church kids, our core group. If we are not raising leaders for the next generation in our churches and in our Christian homes, then we are not going to leave a lasting spiritual legacy. Therefore, we are not fulfilling our role as spiritual leaders. One way that I try to be intentional about developing leaders is through personal discipleship. My primary role as a discipler is to be the primary spiritual influence in the lives of my children. My wife and I, with the help of our church, make an annual plan for the spiritual development of our children. We work to implement that plan each year and expand it as they grow and mature. The main focus is to prepare them to be spiritual leaders even when I am around.
I also work to maintain what is called a Barnabas, Paul, Timothy model of spiritual multiplication. The idea is to have a more mature believer who is mentoring me and speaking into my life spiritually. I like to have two or three of these because I need a lot of work. We do not always meet in a formal discipleship format, but these older men simply pour into me what they have been receiving from God in their own lives, and holding me accountable. In turn, I try to keep about three younger believers into whose life I am speaking. I try to disciple and mentor them. Some are more formal than others, but I mostly try to give them resources and pour into them what God has been pouring into me. That is why I see my life as investing in the lives of those who invest in the lives of others. It is because I believe so strongly in this spiritual multiplication process. This is the model of leadership throughout Scripture and the natural result of our becoming what God created and called us to be.

Spiritual Training in the Home

The following is a link to a brief discussion by one of America's best known pastors about how he approaches spiritual training in the home. You should take the time to listen because it is a great encouragement.

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/MediaPlayer/3208/Audio/

Expanding the Bogging Universe

I am doing my part to expand the blogging universe!

I have been invited to write a series of guest blogs for my good friend Ty Neal. Ty is the Families Ministry Pastor @ Grace Point Church in North Las Vegas, NV and I have known Ty for almost 10 years and have seen him grow in Christ since his conversion. He was a member of our church in Kentucky and is one of my dearest brothers in Christ.

Ty has just recently entered into the blogusphere and he has asked me to write a series of posts on Leaving a Leagacy. The series will be about 5 posts over the next couple of weeks. I will send the first one today titled Leading A Legacy. I encourage you to check out Ty's blog and look for my post.

Pictures from Legacy Student Leaders Conference

The Conference Room at Morningview Baptsit Church

Anthony is ready to register participants.

Conference leaders fellowship in the Blue Room

Conference Participants gather in anticipation

Four Days Late leads a time of worship.

Steve Wright leads the first session.

Conference participants listen and discuss.

Reid leads session two.

Randy Stinson leads the final session of the day.

See more snapshots on Reid's facebook page!