Family Ties

Series on Exodus

III. The Commitment of God’s People

C. The Subjection of the People, Text: 18

Title: Family Ties

Introduction

In this passage we have the ordination of a group of judges for Israel. Men who like elders would assist Moses in ruling over God’s people. But let’s look a little deeper. This is the family of God. From the beginning God chose a family from which he would make a nation, and he continued to bless individual families in the passover and in the whole constitution of His people. The government depended on the family in the narrow sense. This is something which has been noted about the decline of our own nation; lose the family and you lose the fabric of morality. But the nation was also a family in the broader sense. So today I ask you to look at family ties under three headings: Jethro’s challenge, Jethro’s choice, and Jethro’s conflict.

I Jethro’s Challenge

One of the wonderful aspects to this story is the faith of Jethro. Jethro was in the purest sense a gentile. a Midianite to whom Moses became attached when he first fled from Pharaoh’s house. He has come to visit Moses bringing Moses’ wife and children after the Exodus from Egypt, verse 6, Jethro had sent word to him, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons.” Moses report of all the Lord has done elicits a confession from Jethro which is the essence of saving faith in Jahweh in verses 10-12, He said, “Praise be to the LORD, who rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians and of Pharaoh, and who rescued the people from the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the LORD is greater than all other gods, for he did this to those who had treated Israel arrogantly.” Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and other sacrifices to God, and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law in the presence of God. Jethro is acknowledged as a true believer in Yahweh. This is like putting our faith in Jesus as our Savior. The difference is that we see the Exodus as a deliverance from the slavery of sin and death through Jesus’ death and resurrection. We praise God as Jethro did and we say surely this is the true God. When God creates families his aim is that they should know him. Remember in Genesis God says that He has chosen Abraham so that he may command his children after him in the way of the Lord. Here we have someone outside the family of Abraham becoming a part of that. The fabric of the family is the acknowledgment of the Lord God. Jethro has taken a significant step in this direction. Notice his deference to the Lord in the advice he gives to Moses in verses 19-21, Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him. Teach them the decrees and laws, and show them the way to live and the duties they are to perform. But select capable men from all the people, men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. But along with seeing the vital importance of the family in God’s plan we need to see that there is a tension in the Bible between what we call our natural family and our spiritual family. On the one hand the Bible says if a man does not provide for those of his own household he is worse than an infidel. The effects of parents not caring are obvious in our society. While 51 percent of kids still live with both biological parents, the other 32 million are being raised with single parents, stepparents, half siblings, or grandparents seated across the dinner table. As late as the ’60’s nearly 70 percent of kids had traditional families. More kids than ever—27 percent—are being raised by a lone parent, twice as many as in 1970. And for the first time in history, those children are almost as likely to be living with a never-married parent as with a divorced one. Fifty-four percent of all kids under 6 now live in families in which the sole parent or both parents work. And in most cases do not have time for the kids. This leads to huge numbers of children feeling isolated and in a book on family based youth ministry put out by IVCF the US educational system has been described as the most potent breeding ground for alienation in America. Peers have replaced parents as role models. On the other hand we have the difficult admonition of our lord Jesus in Luke 14:26 if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, yes even his own life-he cannot be my disciple. This tension is a large part of our everyday lives and of the decisions we make. Many of the children of Ministers turn out badly because their parents were too busy in ministry. According to a survey by Massachusetts Mutual Insurance, Parents rate their inability to spend enough time with their children as the greatest threat to the family. It used to be popular to say that one could not spend much time with the kids, but at least the time spent was quality time. I always thought that was bunk. Kids can count. Let us see how it plays out in the case of Jethro.

II Jethro’s Choice

In his book “Dangerous Grace” Charles Colson writes, “In the 1960s Samenow, a psychologist and Yochelson, a psychiatrist started a 17 year study hoping to prove that crime is caused by environment. Published in 1977, entitled, “The Criminal Personality,” the study proved that the cause of crime cannot be traced to environment, to poverty or oppression. Instead, crime is the result of individuals making, as they put it, wrong moral choices. Samenow and Yochelson concluded that the answer to crime is a “conversion of the wrong-doer to a more responsible lifestyle.” Eleanor Roosevelt wrote, “One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words. It is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.” Obviously Jethro is what we would call a family man. When Moses set out for Egypt in Exodus 4 he took his wife and sons along. An incident occurred where God was going to kill Moses for failing to circumcise his son and so Zipporah apparently in anger proceeds to perform the circumcision. Moses is delivered, but our text here tells us, in verse 2, that later Moses had sent his wife and sons back to Midian and his father in law. Now Jethro has come with the family to Moses in the wilderness. Obviously he is reuniting them. If we look at the end of the chapter we see Jethro returning to his own country. In Numbers 10 we are told that Moses told Jethro that he could share in the blessings of Israel and would be well treated, but Jethro says he will return to his own people. Obviously Jethro made the decision to return in spite of a very attractive offer because his loyalty and devotion to his family was great. Jethro’s concern over Moses suggests the same thing. Here’s a good father-in-law. He sees his daughter’s husband being overworked and wearing himself out, and that’s not good for the family, so Jethro has a solution.

III Jethro’s Conflict

This brings me to the point of asking if he did the right thing when he returned to Midian. I don’t know that any of us can decide infallibly, but it does appear that Jethro had a problem handling the conflict between his natural family and the family of God. On the one hand the good advice he gives to the people of God is a tremendous asset. He almost sounds like Paul writing to Timothy about the qualifications for elders in verse 21. One cannot read this account and not be convinced that this man would have been a great asset. Moses adds another in Numbers 10 when he says that he knew his way around the desert. If we had a man like this today we would be saying God has brought you to us for this moment, and you must serve. This choice is never easy and we need to avoid judging others with regard to the choices they make but as much as possible we need to bring our families and service to the Lord together. Jethro did not. Maybe he should have brought his whole clan along, but Jethro is not mature enough at this point to make that commitment. Contrast him with Moses. Here is a minute fact about Moses that may reveal much. in verses 2-4 we read that he named his sons after his faith, After Moses had sent away his wife Zipporah, his father-in-law Jethro received her and her two sons. One son was named Gershom, for Moses said, “I have become an alien in a foreign land”; and the other was named Eliezer, for he said, “My father’s God was my helper; he saved me from the sword of Pharaoh.” He could not divorce his faith from his family or his family from his faith. He calls one “stranger”, and the other “God is my help”. What a description of the Christian life; we are strangers and pilgrims but God is our help. In the family of Moses and for his family there was a constant reminder of who he was. He could not forget his God nor his family. Christians do the same thing when they baptize their children. They are saying that this little one is part of our family but he or she is also part of God’s family. And we are taught to improve our baptism which means for parents that they must teach the child that he belongs to God. When this is done consistently the child learns that it belongs to both and the child grows up with this profound double sense of belonging. Then the whole family is conscious of its sacred duty to God as well as one another. This makes an enormous difference in our perspective. Frederich Rest writes, “In baptism, the Christian is born. His old self is buried and the new self emerges. Whether in the case of infants or adults, baptism signifies this more as a promise than as an actually fulfilled fact. The direction is indicated rather than the arrival.” But if the whole family recognizes that they are heirs of this promise, then they look for God’s DIRECTION for the family rather than bowing to the tyranny of the urgent. In our society we are in danger of seeing the family as an end rather than as a means to an end. The family is a divinely appointed tool that should together impact society with the reality of Christ. They are in the best position to be salt and light. the family is to be a model of what Christ can do in our culture.

Conclusion

When we speak of family ties we realize that they must not take precedence over our relationship to Jesus Christ, but we really need to work at seeing how our natural family can be integrated into our service for the Lord. Jesus himself spent many years at home with his family and cared for his mother when he was dying on the cross. The apostle Paul defended the right of the apostles to bring their wives with them on their preaching missions. Every situation is unique, but we should strive not to be defeated by this tension but to work creatively together so that the welfare of our families and the welfare of the kingdom of God are both served.