Wise Leadership

Good morning It is good to see all of you on this first Sunday of November the first day of the month My name is Tim I get the privilege of being one of the pastors and church workers here and if I haven’t had a chance to meet you I will be out in the West Lobby after the service and I would love it if you came up and introduced yourself It just gives me a chance to connect with you and thank you for joining us today Those of you that are watching online or maybe streaming later on demand Hello to you as well as all of our friends that are watching from First Lutheran in Algonac We always encourage people that if you are checking out Shepherds Gate to come back for three weeks Just come for three weeks in a row and see if this may be the church that God would have you Investigate further that maybe this would become your community of faith as we are in what we’re calling Exodus part 2 and the only reason we’re doing that is because we actually started in the book of Exodus back in January and then right up before Holy Week is when we hit the pause and we’ve done different sermon series since then but September We picked it back up and we only have three weeks left So I know you’re all sad about that in Exodus part 2, right? And you’ll notice today that we have to get through a whole chapter a whole chapter that’s a lot just so you know, that’s why you just heard the video readings I’m gonna be moving around and Because we all got an extra hour of sleep I’m gonna need a couple extra minutes this morning. Well, anybody willing to give me a couple extra minutes Could you just go ahead? So just keep them up two minutes four minutes six minutes eight minutes Don’t worry we’ll get you home in time for the Lions game as they absolutely destroy the Minnesota Vikings Okay, so just realize that I always like to know where we’re going people ask Why do you do this is this is just me I like to know where the preachers going where the church is going, but also to look back So Exodus part 2 we you know got the children of Israel out of Egypt. They were enslaved They went through the Red Sea and these are all the markers so far in this sermon series in this collection of messages You can always go back and find all of these online I’m just gonna highlight one the very last one which was last week where they were actually attacked by a different tribe some people that were not followers of God and wanted to pillage and kind of steal some of their possessions and Because of God because of his mercy and grace he saved them once again And so as we go into this next chapter, I want you to go in with that mindset I mean, they’re they’re thinking pretty high of themselves They realize that they have just won this battle and once again They have seen God’s grace and mercy and his protection for them as his people And so if you have your Bible we encourage you to bring your Bible You can open to Exodus chapter 18 If you don’t have a Bible make sure you grab one on your way out.

You guys might notice There’s only a few Bibles left on that cart. So we’re gonna actually have to order more Bibles in the comings week So we praise God for that But please grab a Bible we love giving those away Exodus 18 chapter 1 we’re introduced to this guy named Jethro everyone say Jethro He’s the priest of Midian and he’s the father-in-law of Moses Exodus Anybody have a father-in-law in this room? Okay, it’s gonna be very applicable to you today. Okay Where did we first learn about Jethro this priest of Midian? You actually have to go all the way back to Exodus chapter 2 which for us means back to earlier this year in January where we learn about this priest of Midian and Wouldn’t you know we’re also told this that he has seven daughters Someone just said he’s lucky anybody else think this guy’s lucky Does anybody in the room nobody at nine, but I’m just wanting anybody at 11 you have seven daughters We had an intern here for our care program many years ago and she was eight of eight daughters And I said I want to meet your father That man deserved medals he deserves honor and praise so look at this This guy’s got seven daughters, and he sends them out to draw water Why because he doesn’t have sons so he sends out the women to do it And there’s some shepherds these bullies come along And they’re kind of disturbing his daughters and getting in the way and who comes to the rescue Moses by the way, this is right after he killed somebody he murdered somebody back in Egypt So he had to escape to a desert so his life’s a little turned upside down all of a sudden He decides to be a hero and wouldn’t you know he ends up marrying one of them and starts a family with her So back to Exodus 15 Jethro the Moses father-in-law Together with Moses’s sons and wives now This is really interesting because this means that Moses’s wife and sons went back to her dad So they haven’t started the wilderness journey.

They didn’t go through the Red Sea together They weren’t there for all of the miracles that we have seen up to this point but somehow because of this verse we can see that there’s communication and there’s travel between the various parts of This region and so he brings his wife and his sons his two sons To Moses and you would think that Moses would be super excited to see his wife, right? You wouldn’t think that and he’d go running to her and give her a big hug and kiss you also think that he would go running toward his sons and embrace them and It’s possible that happened but the scripture doesn’t tell us that and Said it says that Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and he bowed down Which shows a sign of respect and he kissed him Which is how all of us greet our father-in-laws as well That when you go into the house of your father-in-law guys, the first thing you do is what? you bow Next time you’re with your father-in-law bow down and kiss him and see how it goes. Okay, and Then report back to me because I really want to know how it goes They have a greeting They go into the tent and have a meeting and so Moses in this meeting tells his father-in-law everything that the Lord had done starting all the way back with Pharaoh in Egypt the Egyptians the the chariots the Red Sea everything all the hardships everything that we have looked at up to this point and He looks and tells him about how the Lord has saved them each and every way Along their journey to the promised land so far So I’m wondering if we could just stop here for a moment and in just this one verse Maybe ask ourselves. I felt kind of convicted as I was working on this message how I go about recalling the hardships in my life and You ever notice how easy it is when you’re in story mode and you’re talking to somebody to tell somebody else how hard you have it and You talk about some of the challenges that you’re facing and usually the challenges that you face Not necessarily maybe just something that that’s a result of what you’ve done But more often than not it’s the result of somebody else’s bad attitude or the way that they treat you No one else Thanksgiving’s coming folks Christmas is coming and What we do is sometimes we sit across from somebody else or somebody that we haven’t seen in a long time and What ends up happening is we just go through and start complaining and grumbling about all the hardships we have in our lives and all of the people that have mistreated us and how difficult it has been and I was kind of convicted about this in my conversations with people and when I come home from work And I’m talking to my wife Do the things that come out of my mouth or when we go on a walk with our dog do I Constantly just bend her ear and tell her about all the crazy people at Shepherd’s Gate Or do I focus on the positive things that God has in fact given us in our lives? How do we retell the way God is in fact providing for us? Again our phone simple nature I think it’s so easy to bend toward one direction instead of the other in this scripture gives you a beautiful picture of a healthy balance of These are the hardships, but hold on because the best part is still ahead Let me tell you how God even overcame each and every one of these situations Not by my own strength not by my own knowledge, but because God intervened This is how he got me through and this is why I am here today to declare the mercy and the grace and the favor of God amen And so as Jethro is hearing these things he’s delighted which anytime you give your father-in-law good news He’s delighted to hear what it is that the Lord has done and how he has rescued them from the Egyptians Jethro even said these words and it’s important to point this out He says this now I know that the Lord is greater than all other gods And the reason this is important is because remember Moses born an Israelite Gets miraculously rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter grows up in that system and grew up completely outside of the people that he should have grown up with and Then because of the murder because of being thrown into the wilderness he meets people that aren’t children of God.

They’re not part of Israel and so these people were exposed to other gods and as Jethro is hearing the testimonies He’s hearing the gospel Proclaimed he in his heart realizes that there is one true and living God That there isn’t all these religions. There isn’t all these pathways that lead to God and What we see in this verse is a miracle taking place that he too is now able to say this must be The one true God And you know, that’s our prayer for everyone with our family members some of you you raised your kids in the faith and Something happened along the way Where they started doubting and they started being influenced by others and they started saying well, maybe there’s other ways and there’s other Religions and there’s other paths or they start picking on Christianity or saying, you know There’s these other things that you have to take into consideration and they start deconstructing and slowly, but surely They start going down a different path And it weighs heavy on your heart and I would just encourage you to continue to pray for them Here’s an example of a family member coming back to the fold and putting their faith and trust in our Heavenly Father Now after they have this meeting They go to bed and says the next day Moses He takes his seat to serve as judge for the people and they stood around him from morning till evening How many think this is a good idea? Any good listeners in here? Any counselors in our midst like this is what you get paid to do. You just listen other people’s problems From morning until evening just so you know, I could never have this job.

I Don’t have the attention span for it. I love you all But if you just if I was just with people all day long about the third person I would just stop listening not because I don’t care and want to listen I just don’t know like God did not wire me that way and here he is moving into this new realm into this new role I mean He’s done so many incredible things up to this point and his leadership has been tested and and he’s had a you know Kind of adapt to whatever the challenge is in front of him And now all of a sudden the conflict isn’t external the conflict is Internal and as Moses is kind of watching this all unfold on Unfold he’s asking the same question. What is this? You’re doing for the people like why are all these people lined up to see you? And why is nobody else helping out? Why are you the only one that’s in this position and are you the only one that God has blessed to be able to help? others I Mean just think about it.

This is all you’re doing now all day every day Is this really your highest and best use is this really the call that God has placed on your life? And I want you to see Moses’s answer. It’s kind of interesting. He says this it’s because the people come to me To seek God’s will I didn’t ask for this They’re going through hardships.

They’re going through difficulties and they want someone that you know is connected with God That’s going to bring their request before the Lord They’re gonna pray about it and then hopefully I can give them godly advice to help them discern and they’ll walk away feeling better About the situation. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with this. There’s nothing wrong with his response and It made me think about this this week as well.

I Started off in ministry doing youth ministry. I Loved being with teenagers. I love spending time with them I love going out to to their games and their concerts and just immersing myself in their culture Growing up and with teenagers in the period I did they didn’t have cell phones yet And they were starting to emerge and so I didn’t have to deal with that And so the way that I would connect with teenagers is this thing called a OL I am does anybody remember a OL I am and I literally would spend my evenings on a OL I am going back and forth Listening them complain about their parents Listening them complain about their schoolwork listening them complain about Relationship dynamics and the people they liked and didn’t like and all of this and every once in a while someone would actually Ask a spiritual question and want my advice and want to bring God into the situation but it was just a tool a mechanism to be able to connect with the people that I was asked to invest in and Now that I’ve been in this position now here specifically the lead pastor position for the last 10 years You know, I still have that same mindset That I want to be accessible to every single person that calls Shepherds Gate their home In fact people think that I’m crazy that I do this and I’ve done this before but the text just seemed to lend itself If you don’t have my cell phone number, you should have my cell phone number Did you know that? My wife’s right over here in the front and she’s not gonna get up and walk out that I do this Okay, this is my cell phone number You can call or text me.

This is my email. Nobody else checks my email. I don’t it doesn’t go to a filter It doesn’t go to a administrative assistant.

Like I check my own email. These are all the social media platforms I’m on and I love that if you feel the call to come up and want to talk to me or set an appointment with me It might take a couple weeks because of my schedule, but I want to connect with you. I want to know what concerns you I don’t want you just to becomes, you know Somebody that’s frustrated at me because sometimes people get frustrated me and I don’t even know why they’re frustrated me and usually it’s because they receive Wrong information.

In fact, most people will on Facebook not message me on Facebook They’ll use Facebook messenger or even on Instagram direct message me Those of you that are on tik-tok to be honest with you I’m only on tik-tok so I can follow my wife on tik-tok Okay Just you know that I still haven’t really completely figured it out and those of you that are in the business world and you like LinkedIn whatever and here’s what I found doing this because people are like you’re crazy. Who does it? Why would you do that is not everyone is in crisis every single day or every single week That is your needs arise and as you want direct access to me I want you to know you have direct access to me now. This is also insane with the size church that we have.

Amen So we are blessed with a staff here We are blessed with people that are in leadership positions that help do the ministry and help minister to you In fact, can I just give you one prime example this morning? It’s one of the most beautiful examples that we have here at Shepard’s Gate. Is that okay? Every Thursday morning stay with me every Thursday morning 130 women show up for Bible study. It’s awesome.

You can praise God for that. Go ahead They are the second largest gathering outside of what happens on Sunday morning each and every week here at Shepard’s Gate They have one leader. Her name is Ada Roser.

Okay, this woman is incredible. She’s got I’m not joking. She has the strength of ten women.

Okay, she has a whole team of leaders She has people that are in place. They all gather in one room. They watch a video They get the content and then they break up in almost every single breakout room that we have here at Shepard’s Gate Every one of those breakouts is led by a leader It’s a beautiful example of what we are talking about today And we praise God for that that every single one of those women are being listened to and they’re being valued and they’re being discipled Amen But here’s what often happens.

We don’t do it that way We want to do it on our own and interpret this according to your own context interpret this according to your own family and even Your own work situation. Here’s the reasons to go it alone. Number one is this I enjoy doing it So why would I ever involve others? I? Imagine if Ada just tried to go around to every single small group and listen to all of the women on Thursday mornings She hear a lot of stories She’d have a massive prayer list wouldn’t she? Sometimes this actually happens believe it or not in our local mission endeavors people love to go out and serve and and Be used by God and I’m always encouraging people take more with you or let somebody else do the work You do this project and have a different group do this project because we want more and more people to experience the joy of Using their gifts giving up their most precious resource, which is there To go and to serve others.

How about this? It’s just easier if I do it myself. Anybody said that Those of you that are always on the run Never have time for anything. It just takes too much time to explain it to someone else Come on, we all get guilty of this at times Or how about this one if I want it done, right? I have to do it myself.

Where are my people at like that right there? There’s all your perfectionists right there in the room Sometimes the biggest obstacle to moving into the dimension and the leadership principles that God gives us in his Word are us We’re the stopgap. And now I want you to see this if you didn’t pick it up in the video It is such a powerful moment because as Moses’s father-in-law is watching with his own eyes and he’s there physically at the scene seeing what is being played out He literally says to Moses what you are doing is You ever had a father-in-law tell you that what you’re doing is not good Anybody ever have a father-in-law challenge you Tell you he doesn’t like the way you’re treating his daughter way you’re raising your family Again Interpret it for your situation ever have a boss tell you they don’t like what you’re doing with the company or how you’re treating the other employees Or how you’re working too much You need to delegate some more. You need to get some more off of your plates How do you respond when someone challenges the way that you do things? Let’s say that again, how do you respond when someone challenges the way that you do things because this will show you your true character if you actually have the ability to humble yourself and receive advice and feedback from others Here’s the problem When we have the best intentions to address someone that we see is in a situation That’s at that.

They’re literally harming themselves, and they’re being less productive than they could actually be the first response is Always this in our fallen human nature we get defensive People that immediately push back. They can’t handle it You’re wrong like okay I’ve been praying on this for three days, and I’m coming to you, and I’m not emailing you or sending you a text I’m actually on the phone or having a face-to-face meeting with you because I love you so much I get this is uncomfortable, but I just think God has a better plan for your life No, you’re wrong and Then when they sleep on it and supposedly they pray on it. What’s the next? What’s the next thing that they move into? They go from being defensive to what they justify it.

Let me tell you why I’m a workaholic Let me tell you why I’m the only one that can do this Let me tell you why I am right and you are and then the third one when you give them a few more days And this is the one that oh It’s painful as they dismiss you I Don’t need you. I’m gonna start ignoring you I’ll just get out my keyboard got you back So much passive aggressiveness in our society So many people that are grown adults, and they don’t know how to have conversations with others God help us God help us right convict our hearts help us to figure out how to humble ourselves. I Can tell you this? I’m so thankful to be married to a strong woman Who has no problem telling me sometimes you’re working too much Sometimes you’re not as whole at home as much as we need you to be home You probably need to spend more time with the boys.

Hey, we don’t have that much time left You really should start thinking about this. We know that you want to be available to everybody But your first priority is right here in the home I’m thankful. We have a church council at Shepherds Gate.

That’s in my face That’s asking me about my schedule in fact I give it to him every single month part of the council agenda at the very end. Here’s Tim schedule a Group of prayer partners that pray over me that all have my schedule They can see exactly what my days and weeks and months look like like that’s such a huge blessing for me And I get not everyone gets that But that’s all to make sure that I stay in check that I do And function in the role that I should be in and only do what I can do This was the love that Moses’s father-in-law had for him. He said you see these people that are coming to you You are only going to wear yourself out, and you’re gonna wear all of them out There’s no way the estimate is that there’s somewhere between a million Maybe even up to 2 million people on this wilderness journey How in the world are you gonna solve everyone’s problems? You can’t do it alone And even that hurts because no one ever wants to be told you can’t do it.

Oh, no I’m gonna show you you can’t it’s impossible just accept that you need help now I Want you to think about this as it relates to our church and all the incredible ministry that takes place here at Shepherds Gate Someone shared this statistic with me this week And I thought it was fitting for this message that nationwide in and out of different denominations about 66% of churchgoers Say that they have not volunteered for a charity and that means a ministry a church or non ministry Whether it’s inside or outside of the walls of the church in a previous year now here at Shepherds Gate We have a saying that we love people enough that we don’t want them to come here and just sit listen and leave sit listen And leave sit listen and leave which clearly is what is happening in churches all over our country They’re fed the Word of God they receive God’s presence and communion But then they go out, and they just live for themselves They’re They’re not being recruited. They’re not being trained up They’re not being deployed to do ministry inside and outside the walls of their local congregation JJ’s our executive director here and some of you say what’s an executive director do to be honest with you He manages all of our staff and all of our ministries Everything is under his umbrella So that I can be the primary preacher and be responsible for the spiritual oversight of our church He’s in the weeds. He does the details some of you you call the church And you’re like why am I talking to JJ because he probably knows more than I do actually he does know more than I do He works with all of our ministry leaders to help move our church forward to make sure nobody falls through the cracks And so I asked him can you crunch some numbers this week? Can you tell me what percentage of our church goers are not involved in serving inside or outside the walls of? Shepherds Gate, what do you think the percentage is? Any guesses 35 50 40 75 do you think we’re higher or lower than the national average? Okay, well you’re right if you said lower because at Shepherds Gate 52% of those that come through our doors in a given year are not involved Somebody really man you guys talk about serving all the time.

Here’s why We have a Sunday where we forgo gathering for worship It’s the first Sunday of June and we deploy people out into the community this number includes that by the way and even doing this for the last however many years that we’ve done that and we still have plenty of people that would rather sit on the sidelines and Belly ache complain Do you know what reduces complaining in the life of a believer? Serving Serving is the number one reason to get people off the couch out into the streets Because all of a sudden now it’s not about you and it’s about the person that you’re across from Here’s the good news. It actually takes 768 volunteers to do ministry at Shepherds Gate every single year Praise God. Can we give God praise for that? And it just so happens that today is our annual for those that serve inside the church They have their volunteer luncheon right after this service And so we love to to thank them and to appreciate them and those that step out and serve we do that at another time of the year out of the 768 there are 50 people that have been identified as leaders in our church.

I want you to think about this for a moment Even though we want everybody to figure out their spiritual gift and to serve in some capacity We are in need of people that God has gifted with leadership abilities to step up into those roles we need people that that aren’t going to keep taking that gift that God is already entrusted to you and Using it for every other thing on the planet, but yet you could use that gift of leadership right here at Shepherds Gate Let me give you a couple quick examples in Ephesians Christ himself is the one who gave these leadership positions Apostles prophets evangelists pastors and teachers We don’t have time to get into defining them But I think we can all agree their leadership positions and this is their primary role to equip the people for the works of service Leaders are to equip the people so that they can go out and do it and so that the body of Christ will be Built up and it’ll actually function the way that God created it to function That is a beautiful picture of what God wants for his church. Amen Now Jethro leans in To Moses and he says this next Listen to me. I got some advice for you and Everyone went.

Oh, this is not gonna go well Nobody wants advice from their father-in-law May God be with you as I give you this advice You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him So first and foremost Moses you stay on your knees you stay in prayer You continue to be the spiritual leader of these people you teach them What God has instructed you to teach them from from what he has given you you show them you? Demonstrate how they are to follow God and your life better be an example of how you live this out The way that you behave the way you interact with people when people see you outside of the church pastors Moses when people see you out amongst your daily life They better see that that your behavior matches the God that you serve But here’s what’s equally important what you’re gonna do Moses is you’re gonna go find capable men Not just men that that are strong Not men that are good-looking not men that are in your army You’re gonna find capable men, and here’s the categories that you need to look for they need to fear God They need to be trustworthy like you need to be able to lean on them, and they have to actually hate dishonest gain Once you think about that you have to actually hate this attribute, and what do you think it means to hate dishonest gain? You’re not gonna take bribes. You’re not gonna be in it for yourself It isn’t just about building your kingdom here on this earth or building up your business or building up your bank account that you actually Have the ability to see that all the people on the planet are God’s Children those that know him and don’t yet know him as Lord and Savior This is repeated twice in the New Testament in Timothy and Titus Paul who was an apostle that came later He gave instructions to the early church on the men that they were to look for look at these characteristics Faithful to his wife whose children believe He is to manage his God’s household. He is not to be quick-tempered not given in drunkenness not violent and not pursuing Oh look what it says Dishonest gain where do you think he got that line from rather? Here’s the good characteristics here to be hospitable one who loves? What is good self-controlled upright holy and disciplined and you hold firmly to the trustworthy message that has been taught? Oh by the way, so that you can’t just hoard it to yourself that you can now use that to encourage others I think we can all agree.

This is a really good list when it comes to looking for leaders. Amen He goes on to say have them serve as judges For the people all the time put them in their places have them bring every difficult case to you the simple cases They can decide for themselves This is gonna make your load a lot lighter a lot easier and oh by the way, there’s this partnership. There’s the sharing in ministry together If you do this Moses as God commands, you’re actually going to make it You’re not gonna burn yourself out and you’re not gonna burn out everybody else around you They’re gonna leave satisfied.

You’re gonna leave satisfied. This is a win-win for everybody in The children of Israel in God’s chosen people That incredible now what I would submit to you is as Moses is listening to this as Moses is having to take this all in and humble himself and Realize that God is using his father-in-law to speak to him That there’s another miracle that takes place. I Would actually submit to you that this miracle as just as big and just as important as the parting of the Red Sea Because here was Moses’s response you ready for this.

This is insane He listened he listened he absorbed what was being said He didn’t get this offensive He didn’t get dismissive And try to justify it. He’s willing to take it in It’s amazing God help us to become people that allow others to speak into our lives God help us to stop being so sensitive about every little thing God help us to put on the Armor the body armor that the women are learning about on Thursdays to be able to go out and face this world But by God help us to not have this kind of attitude inside your church We’re here for each other We’re here to speak truth and love into each other’s lives as the Holy Spirit leads us. Amen and Equally as important in this equally as miraculous.

Not only does he listen he does everything he says Gotta be honest with you. I wonder if part of me if I was in this situation, I’d be like, you know what? Jethro You weren’t here You look at the chart dude. Look at remember all the stories.

I just told you I hear from God, too So I’ll do 80% of what you say Or I’ll do 90% but just to show you that you know, I’m strong and I’m you know, blah blah blah No, he does everything he instructs him to do and What a beautiful reminder for you and me today that we have a heavenly father Who gives us his instructions? Who guides us in the Word of God and how we are to live our lives in? Humility for what he has given us man To do it through the lens of Jesus Christ who stretched out his arms And he said not my will father but yours Not my will but yours be done With every facet of my life and every facet of my being Men and women in this room. Listen to me That’s God’s heart desire for you. He knows what’s best for you.

He will never leave you or forsake you He will never stop fighting your battles for you. He will never ever ever Abandon the plan that he has for your life. So let’s lean into him Let’s trust that he knows what’s best for our lives and let’s let him continue to pour his mercy His wisdom and his grace and his forgiveness into us.

Amen