Exodus Chapter 18 Verse 1

• This is the person that Moses had lived with while he was in the wilderness himself for 40 years…after he was forced to leave Egypt for killing the Egyptian. He is probably not a priest of a pagan god but most likely he serves and worships the true God.  Moses is a decedent of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob and into the tribe of Levi while Jethro is a decedent of Abraham through Keturah who had a son name Midian. 
• So he hears of what God had done through Moses (not sure how, but we are about to find out why)…and apparently Moses’ wife Zipporah and two of his sons were back living with Jethro…

Exodus Chapter 18 Verses 2 – 6

• Moses learned plenty under Pharaoh. He learned how to be served.  He learned how to lead from on top of the people. He learned how to rule with explicit and ultimate authority…and he learned how to kill.  Perhaps the most important years of leadership training had actually come while he was tending the flocks of Jethro as an outcast.  Jethro wasn’t a dictator…he was a shepherd, a father and a priest.  And what we see here is that he is a  
• Moses had issue with Zipporah but instead of drawing his daughter back to himself…here Jethro is, bringing her back to Moses…seeking to reconcile them and the situation. This is the first piece and display of Godly character we see from Jethro but there is certainly more to come. 

Exodus Chapter 18 Verses 7 – 12

• I love this picture. Moses is the leader of a nation of over 2 million people and yet in honor of God, in honor of his wife and simply in honor of a Godly man, he bows himself to the ground, sets himself lower and greets him with great respect and service.  How wonderful it is to be greeted with honor and service.  Not only to be greeted in that manner, but to greet as well.  If you are a person that perhaps doesn’t find yourself doing that because you say the person is not honorable, then may I suggest, that is a pretty good reflection of you, not them.
• It’s also a fact that the things God brings you through are not only for you. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:3-5, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.” 
• It’s an amazingly graceful, God-honoring and Christian thing to allow God to comfort you…because the result of that is you become someone who abounds in comforting others. But, if you just are only about tightening your bootstraps and powering forward, or handling things according to your emotions and sight, not mindful of what God is doing in your life, perhaps at least part of the why being to grow you up, mature you, then many times even Christians become those that easily and quickly and perhaps default to slapping a brother or sister when they are in any trouble…why?  Because they themselves did not receive comfort from God…when God was ready and had it the whole time…the God of all comfort.
• Moses shares with Jethro all that had happened. Both the hardships and how the Lord had delivered them…and the result is a share in the comfort…

Exodus Chapter 18 Verses 13 – 14

• You see!? The DMV was a bad idea even then!  HA!!

Exodus Chapter 18 Verses 15 – 16

• Some folks, for some, what we just read strikes a nerve. An uncomfortability…maybe even a “whatever,” why…because there is something innate in us, well – truly it’s the flesh – that does not like to receive direction or correction.  The entire nation would come to Moses to discern the will and direction of God.  He sits as their   I just want to share with you a couple of Biblical truths and ask you, who in your life has authority over your own thinking?  Someone that you trust even over your own self…which means that they give you direction perhaps even contrary to how you think or feel…and you obey them.  No one?  Hmmm…
• Proverbs 12:15 says, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who heed counsel is wise.” Proverbs 28:26 says, “He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered.”  Proverbs 15:31-33 says, “The ear that hears the rebukes of life will abide among the wise.  He who disdains instruction despises his own soul, but he who heeds rebuke gets understanding.  The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom, and before honor is humility.”  If you receive instruction, guidance, counsel, correction…here is the proof.  You obey in the midst of forsaking your own impulses, emotions and thinking.  If you’re not seeing or doing that, then you are not heeding or walking in (and most definitely will not benefit from) the counsel you are receiving.