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Man, Exodus chapter number 18, the part where I want to begin is in verse number 13 there where it says, and it came to pass on the morrow that Moses sat to judge the people and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening. And when Moses' father-in-law saw all that he did to the people, he said, What is this thing that thou doest to the people? Why sittest thou thyself alone, and all the people stand by thee from morning unto even? And Moses said unto his father-in-law, Because the people come unto me to inquire of God. When they have a matter, they come unto me, and I judge between one and another. And I do make them know the statutes of God and his laws. And Moses' father-in-law said unto him, The thing that thou doest is not good. And what I want to preach about this morning is the subject of delegating responsibility. Delegating responsibility. This is what Moses had to learn in this chapter that he can't do everything himself. He needs to get other people to help him. Now the person that God uses to tell him this is his father-in-law, Jethro. God could have just come to Moses directly and told him this because of the fact that there are a lot of places in Exodus where God speaks directly to Moses as a man speaks to his friend. But in this passage, God uses a human being in his life to teach him this and to give him good counsel and good advice in this situation. If you jump down to verse 23, Jethro says, If thou shalt do this thing, after giving him the advice, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people shall also go to their place in peace. So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. So Jethro says to him, I want to make sure that you're following God's law. So if God tells you that this is a good idea, if God tells you that this is what you should do, then you need to delegate some of this responsibility. And obviously that is what God wanted him to do because later on in Deuteronomy, etc., God reiterates the fact that the authority needs to be delegated to people that are below Moses or below whoever the judge is in Israel at that time. So the first thing we can learn from this chapter is the fact that God will sometimes use people to give us good advice or good counsel or good teaching. We don't get everything just directly from God. Now when we read our Bible, we're being taught directly by God. But often God could use our pastor, our parents, even a father-in-law, or just some other person that God used in our lives to give us advice. So don't be one of these people that doesn't want to ever listen to anybody when they come to you with advice. I mean, Moses could have just said, well, who do you think you are, Jethro? You've been hanging around tending the sheep. I just did great works down in Egypt. I just pulled a few million people out of Egypt. I just withstood the greatest kingdom on the face of the earth. And now you're going to come in here and start telling me how to run things? Well, here's the thing. Yes, Moses had done all that great work. And yes, Jethro, we don't really know any greatness that he's done, but he's still older and he's still wiser on certain things. Because in this case, he's clearly right and Moses was clearly doing it wrong. And so don't get a puffed up, arrogant, haughty attitude where you can't listen to anybody. You know, Moses humbly listens to his father-in-law's advice and he implements that advice. But of course, we should always check it with the Bible, check it with God. Don't just blindly listen to people. And even Jethro says, hey, don't just take my word for it, but check with God. If God commands you that this is something that you should do, then do it. But the way I see it is the way you're doing it right now is not sustainable. You see, Moses, the Bible says, is just spending his whole day listening to disputes and solving problems and he's there by himself and people are just lining up to talk to him. And he's just dealing with one person after another after another. Now maybe Moses could have handled that in the short term, solving everybody's problems, dealing with everybody's issues, but in the long term, this is not going to be sustainable. He said, if you do this, you're going to wear away. Look what it says in verse 17, Moses' father-in-law said unto him, the thing that thou doest is not good, thou wilt surely wear away, both thou and this people that is with thee, for this thing is too heavy for thee, thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. And we need to understand that we can't always do everything ourself. We need to know our limitations and understand that sometimes our responsibilities are too heavy for us and we need to get other people to help us do things and to delegate that responsibility. Now this is something that sometimes is difficult for me and I think it's difficult for a lot of people because we want to just do things ourself because this is what people say, hey, if you want something done right, do it yourself. And that's the mentality. And in a lot of cases, that's true. But what we have to understand is that if we're going to serve God for the long haul, not just in the short term, but if we're going to stay with it for the long haul, we need to get other people to help us out with things and we need to delegate responsibilities so that we don't wear away. The other thing about that is that when we delegate responsibilities to other people, we're actually helping them learn how to do the work. And then we're training up another generation that when we're gone, they can continue the work because I guarantee you when Moses delegated all this authority to people under him, when he passed off the scene, I guarantee you some of those people were still around. The Joshua's and the Caleb's were still around and they were able to continue the work that Moses started. Now a lot of times when we delegate things, it can almost be more work than doing it ourselves in the beginning. And I want you to listen to me, especially mothers out there today, because this is a great lesson for you mothers. Mothers are very busy people. It's a very busy job to deal with kids all day. And especially if you have a lot of kids, especially if you have little tiny kids, that's a full-time job. That's more than a full-time job. And it can be easy to burn out. And a lot of ladies are burnt out today because they're just struggling with keeping up with the housework and the meals and the homeschooling and dealing with the kids. And it just gets to be too much for them. But one of the ways that you can alleviate some of the stress on yourself, ladies, is that you should delegate some of your responsibilities. And no, not to your husband for crying, I'm saying to your children. Delegate to your children. You delegate to people below you on the totem pole, all right? You delegate to your children. Now you say, well, that's harder than doing it myself. Well, in the beginning it's harder. But in the long run, it's easier because eventually they learn how to do it right. And sure, the first few times, it's probably more work to teach them how to do the dishes or the laundry or the yard or whatever. But in the long run, they're going to learn it. They're going to take that responsibility off your hands. And you can actually have a more sustainable lifestyle. Now a lot of people today in 2017, they look down on this philosophy of giving your children work to do. And in other countries, in Europe, it's even worse. You know, when I was visiting in Germany, I had a teenager just tell me in my face, this is just about six months ago, he said, you know, I think it's the parent's job to serve the children. And he said, I don't think I should have to do any housework because if they chose to have me, then that's their problem. You know, they chose to have me and my siblings. I shouldn't have to do the housework. That's their job for bringing a child into this world. I'm here to be served. And he was not joking. He was dead serious and he's not a bad kid. He's just an average kid in that culture where people are only having one or two kids. And the kids are being taught that the world revolves around them. And they're growing up narcissistic, self-centered, and the whole world revolves around them. And my parents are here to serve me. And this mentality is in America as well, where people say, oh, how dare you make your older kids care for the younger kids or making them cook and clean. That's not right. They should just have a childhood of just playing and fun. That's ridiculous. And you know what? You raise a generation of spoiled brats like that that are going to grow up and be unhappy, wicked people. Work makes us happy. Work makes you, unless you're lazy, work makes you happy. You want to find the most depressed men out there? They're men who don't have a job. You want to find depressed ladies? It's ladies who have nothing to do. They get sad. They get depressed. People that have meaningful work in their lives are much happier. So your children are going to be happier when they have work to do. They might think that, oh, yeah, playing all the time would be great. But in the long run, it's a lifestyle that leads to sadness and emptiness and so forth. So don't listen to this junk out there of, oh, it's so abusive to make your kids work. No. You put your kids to work and take a little bit of the load off yourself. Take a little bit of the load off your husband, and you do your work, and your husband does his work, and put those kids to work so that you can have a more sustainable life. If you say, well, I do all the dishes, I do all the laundry, I do all the yard work, and you have older kids, I say, like Jethro, the thing that thou doest is not good. You're going to wear away. Put them to work. Oh, it's just so hard to explain it to them. Yeah, but you're teaching them, and they're learning, and they're growing, and they're becoming a better person. The Bible says this in Proverbs, it says, even a child is known by his doings whether his work be pure and whether it be right. So even a child's reputation is based upon the work that he does. The best thing you can teach your children is how to work. Have them do the yard work. Have them do, and obviously when they're really young, they can't help much. I get that. But I'm saying when they get older, when they get to be 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years old, I mean when they're 12 years old, 14 years old, I mean there's a lot that they can do. They can be doing the dishes. They can be mowing the lawn. They can be doing the laundry. They can be taking out the trash. And you know, there's always this thing about, you know, the cliche about the wife wants the husband to take out the trash and everything. Let me tell you something. I don't take out the trash at my house. Now I took out the trash when my kids were too young to do it, but the rule in my house is that I don't do work that my kids can do. If my wife says, uh, oh, honey, would you take out the trash? I tell her, have one of the kids do it. I didn't sire nine children so that I could take out the trash. I don't feed and clothe a 15 year old, a 14 year old, and a 12 year old strapping young man so that I can haul trash and shovel dog do and mow the lawn. No way. I have better things to do though. You know what? I did my time mowing the lawn. I did my time shoveling dung. I did my time taking out the trash and it's time for the next generation to bear that burden in the youth, uh, in their youth. And you say, oh, you know, well you're just late. No, no, no. I want to do other work. I want to do other. I mean, do you want your pastor just shoveling dung or you want him to do some real work for the Lord? You want me doing my wife's housework or you want me out soul winning and doing work for the Lord? That's what these kids have as their job. Now sure they do learn. Sure they have homeschooling, but you know what? Homeschooling is so much more efficient than the public fool system. It only takes a few hours a day. It doesn't take eight hours. And now the school system might take seven or eight hours to get it done, but that's mainly just because they're babysitting the kids so that their parents can be at work and pick them up when they get up. So they got to stretch things out. But at home we can homeschool them. They're all a year or two ahead academically. They know their math. They know their science. They know their history. They know their English and they know how to shovel dung and they know how to garden and they know how to do dishes and laundry and cleaning and they are learning that the world doesn't revolve around them and that they need to learn how to serve each other and serve their parents and serve other people. Even Jesus Christ said the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. And if Jesus Christ came as a servant, then little Lord Fauntleroy can be a servant too. You know he's not above that. We need to teach our kids how to work. Yes, it's easier to do it ourselves sometimes because we end up having to explain it and show them and sometimes redo things. But in the long run, they're learning how to work and we're going to have less work in the long run. Now this also goes for your job, men. If you're in a position where you have people under you, if you're in a management or an ownership position, you got to learn to delegate sometimes. This is hard for me by nature because I like to just kind of do everything myself. That's really how my dad was and so I kind of picked up that a little bit from him. But over the years, I've had to force myself to change and say, you know what, I need to just take my hands off and delegate things. Even as the pastor of the church, there are people who work here for the church and I'm constantly delegating things to them and sometimes I think to myself, you know, just as easily as I could explain to him how to do this, I could just go do this myself. But then I'm thinking to myself, well, no, because I want him to learn how to do it because then next time it's going to be easier to just say do that again and he already knows how to do it. He's already done it. So we need to learn to delegate things and then that frees us up not to sit around and do nothing but to do other things, to do something different. Let's keep reading the passage here. It says in verse number 19, harken now unto my voice. I will give thee counsel and God shall be with thee. This is verse 19 of Exodus 18. Be thou for the people to God word that thou mayest bring the causes unto God and thou shall teach them ordinances and laws and shalt show them the way wherein they must walk and the work that they must do. Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men such as fear God, men of truth, hate and covetousness and place such over them to be rulers of thousands and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties and rulers of tens and let them judge the people at all seasons and it shall be that every great matter they shall bring unto thee but every small matter they shall judge. So shall it be easier for thyself and they shall bear the burden with thee. So what he's saying here is that Moses is going to be sort of like the Supreme Court where only really sticky issues or complicated issues or questionable things would kind of make it all the way to that top judge there where Moses is only dealing with the stuff that only he could deal with and all of the easier things, the simpler things, the everyday things, there are other people to judge and take care of those things and so forth. It would be sort of like if somebody had a Bible question that was a really basic Bible question, they don't have to come to me with that. They could probably ask anybody in the church that and they could explain it to him or let's say there's an intermediate Bible question, there's probably still a ton of people in the church that have read their Bibles many times and they'd be able to answer questions. Probably 99% of the questions that come in could be answered by Brother Segura, Brother Kirschway, other men in our ministry that could answer things and explain things and then every once in a while there could be a really hard question that could be brought to me or there could be even something that's even too hard for me because I don't know everything believe it or not, no, I'm just kidding, but the point is that there's different levels of questioning. If somebody says, hey, why are we King James only? It's like, well, let's get Pastor Anderson down here to explain it to you because nobody else knows how to explain it. No way. There's a hundred people. There's 200 people that could explain to you. We could bring a five-year-old to come explain to you why we're King James only in this church, right? It just doesn't make sense for me to answer every email, to answer every phone call, to answer every question that's asked when there's hundreds of people here that know the Bible well enough to answer the vast majority of questions that would come in. See what I'm saying? It'd be silly for me to just bring that all to me. Let me take care of all that. Let me handle every email. Look, if I handled every email and every phone call, then that's all I would do. It would literally be a full-time job. That responsibility is divided up amongst three or four people right now of just handling phone calls and emails and letters and things like that. It's still hard to keep up with all of it. There's a lot to do. That's the way it is with every job. That's the way it is with my job, your job, anybody's job. There are all kinds of reasons why we need to delegate things. He said that if he didn't do it, that he would also wear out the people. He said you'll wear yourself out and you'll wear the people out. Why? Because it's going to be frustrating for the people to have to wait in that long line. Think about it. They're going to be in that line for 7, 8, 9, 10 hours, whereas if they go to their ruler of 10, there's no line. If they go to the ruler of 50, there's no line. They go to the ruler of 100, it's a short line. The line for Moses is too long. It's a lot easier to go to someone else first and see if they can get their need met. This is what we try to teach our children too, is that if the little kids have a need, meet their need. You don't have to go, Mom, Boaz needs a drink of water. It makes more sense if you're a teenager, if you're a young child, to just go get him a drink of water. Just fix the problem. Take him to the bathroom. Give him the snack that he needs or whatever he needs. Take him where he needs to go instead of just always running to the parents and being a burden to your parents. This goes to your job too, men. They're the kind of people who just call the boss every day, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? Instead of just seeing a need around them, their coworker has a need, hey, let me meet that need for you. Let's not burden the boss. Let's not burden the supervisor unless we have to. Sometimes it's appropriate to call the boss. You need to get the supervisor or the manager involved, but a lot of times you can just solve things on your own instead of just bugging them every time. Sir, we ran out of toilet paper in the bathroom, sir, what do we do? Just figure it out. Instead of having to invoke him every single time, we need to learn to delegate. It says in verse 26, they judge the people at all seasons, the hard causes they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judge themselves. That's what I want my children to do. That's what I want church members to do. That's what we should want any employees to do, is to do the small things, the easy things. Just take care of it yourself and then just call upon the authority for something that's a little more complicated, something that's a little bit harder. Now, if you would go to Acts Chapter 6. This is a principle that's throughout the Bible. It's throughout the New Testament. You say, why preach a sermon on delegating authority? What is this, a management class or something? Here's the thing. The Bible teaches this and we're to teach the Bible. Half of a chapter is dedicated to this in Exodus Chapter 18 for a reason because it's important and it's interesting how it's coming from a human being also. God's showing us, hey, this is good advice that Moses is getting from his father-in-law. Well, guess what? There's another half a chapter dedicated to this in the New Testament about delegating responsibility. It says in Acts Chapter 6 verse 1, and in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. Then the 12 called the multitude of the disciples unto them, Acts 6 verse 2, and said, it is not reason, that means it doesn't make any sense, that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. What are they saying? You know what? A lesser person could serve tables. We're the apostles. Christ gave us all this power and authority to be apostles. We don't want to leave the word of God. We don't want to stop preaching and praying and serving God and studying and soul winning so that we can serve tables. It doesn't make any sense. Wherefore brethren, look you out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business, but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word and the saying please the whole multitude and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost and Philip and Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch whom they set before the apostles and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them and look at the result in verse seven and the word of God increased and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. So the result of getting organized, getting some coworkers, getting some helpers, delegating some responsibility, getting seven men that would help do the daily ministration and the daily business resulted in the word of God increasing and the number of disciples multiplying in Jerusalem greatly and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. You know the church can only grow if the infrastructure is in place for the church to grow. I mean why would God cause our church to grow by leaps and bounds if we can't even handle the growth? If we can't even do our job and take care of the responsibility of the people that we have and guess what? One person is never going to be able to do that. There has to be help. There have to be people who step up to the plate and take over this responsibility and take over that ministry and all working together we can lengthen our cords and strengthen our stakes and have a bigger church and the word of God can multiply greatly and many people can be added to the faith and the word of God can increase. Go to 2 Timothy chapter number 2, 2 Timothy chapter number 2, 2 Timothy chapter number 2 the Bible reads in 2 Timothy 2 verse 2 and the things that thou has heard of me among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. So in verse 2 of 2 Timothy 2 Paul is telling Timothy that he needs to commit the things that he's been taught unto other faithful men who can then teach others also. Now obviously it's faithful men that things need to be committed to. We want to make sure that we delegate things to people that are faithful. Now sometimes we might delegate to somebody who's not going to do quite as good of a job as we do but that's okay as long as they're getting it done, doing their best, they're being faithful, as long as they're open to correction when we tell them hey here's a way to improve, here's a way to fix that or don't do it that way that's the wrong way but we need to delegate things to faithful men. Now the word commit there means to entrust something. In that idea of committing something to someone you're basically trusting them to take care of it okay and obviously whenever you delegate things there's a little bit of trust there. You're trusting that person that they're going to do what you've told them to do. Now this is where you have to be careful with delegating things number one don't delegate to the wrong people and number two you have to sometimes follow up and check up on people because here's a saying that I often think of you don't get what you expect you get what you inspect. A lot of times you just expect people to get things done the right way but you need to look at it often because you don't get what you expect you get what you inspect. So number one we need to make sure we're delegating to the right people. Now here's something that you should not delegate mothers the training and teaching of your children don't delegate that to the public school system. That's not a faithful instructor down there. You're not delegating that to faithful men who are able to teach others also you're delegating it unto the devil at that point okay so don't just take your little Johnny your little five year old your little impressionable young daughter your impressionable young son and just put them on the public full bus and send them down there to be taught atheism and wickedness. I mean I can't even believe it when I see a little toddler being dropped off at these places and look it's 2017 we're living in perilous times you know you need to you need to not delegate that you that's your job all right you need to take care of that so make sure you delegate to the right people right and and delegate things that are not something that only you should be doing okay but also you need to check up and make sure that that what you've delegated is is being properly done and properly taken care of commit those things he says to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also now obviously if you think back to the story in Exodus if you would flip over to Luke chapter 10 obviously the best guy to solve people's problems would have been Moses I'm sure Moses was better at judgment than the people that he delegated to all those rulers of 10 and rulers of 50 and rulers of 100 now some of them might have even been better than Moses right because Moses is human Moses isn't perfect some of them might have even done a better job than most but probably by and large we know Moses was a great man of God by and large Moses probably would have been the best person to handle those situations but it's just not possible there's only one of him it's not humanly possible he had to delegate that it just didn't make any sense for him to do it all himself and so it's a lesser evil if basically they get a lower guy on the totem pole judging their thing then to wear out Moses and ruin the whole church and ruin the whole thing you know when they came out of Egypt with a couple million people you can't expect one guy to handle a couple million people it's just too much you know if you ever try to organize groups of people you realize it's a lot harder than you think and it gives you a whole new appreciation for these stories in the bible where they're taking a million people out in the wilderness or millions of people you know it really opens it up to you because even just organizing a soul winning marathon with 150 people even just feeding 150 people lunch it gives a whole new appreciation to the feeding of the five thousand even without the miracle just feeding five thousand people even if you had enough food is difficult and takes a lot of work but you know what I learned a long time ago is that the only way to do one of these soul winning events effectively is to break it down into groups of fifteen people each and so whenever we have a soul winning event if we have ninety people show up we have six teams of fifteen if we have a hundred and fifty people show up we're gonna have ten teams fifteen people each because fifteen people is about how many people one person can effectively organize and shepherd and take out soul winning and knock doors with even thirty people is too many you know you show up at a neighborhood with thirty people you're on top of each other soul winning and you spend a lot of time just trying to line these people out and these people out and then everybody's just waiting way more effective way more efficient to show up and that's where you get your rulers of tens you know we do it in fifteen and the number fifteen just comes from the fact that there's a fifteen passenger van and then so that just kind of makes you think in fifteens when you're doing soul winning so we take a van full of people out to a neighborhood and it seems to be about the right number of people to do soul winning in that neighborhood so you've got to delegate that and break it down into other team leaders and so forth so that you can be effective and focus on things that are important now look at luke chapter ten because another thing when it comes to delegating responsibility is you have to have priorities in your life priorities like the apostles they had a priority they said we're not going to leave the word of god so that we can serve tables we got to get our priorities right here okay so we got to delegate some menial things so that we can do that which is truly important okay look what the bible says in luke chapter ten verse thirty eight now it came to pass as they went that he entered into a certain village and a certain woman named martha received him into her house and she had a sister called mary which also sat at jesus feet and heard his word but martha was cumbered about much serving and came to him and said lord does thou not care that my sister had left me to serve alone bitter therefore that she helped me and jesus answered and said to her martha martha thou art careful and troubled about many things but one thing is needful and mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her so mary here has the right priority according to jesus martha does not have the right priority now mary's priority was to listen to the words of jesus christ that was important to her this is not an opportunity that she's going to get every day jesus is not always going to be with her he's traveling all over the place doing tons of soul winning he's doing uh he's preaching here preaching there his ministry only lasted for three and a half years this is a special opportunity i mean if you were there knowing what you know now would you want to be in the kitchen cooking or would you want to be sitting at the feet of jesus listening to him teach so obviously mary chose the right thing here that's what jesus said and what we can learn from this is that we need to make sure and prioritize that we're reading our bible because that's basically the equivalent of what mary's doing listening to the word of god listening to christ so we need to make sure that we make time oh i'm just too busy to read my bible you know it's time to prioritize differently oh i'm just too busy to get to church and listen to the preaching hey time to get different priorities oh i'm too busy to ever go soul winning i'm too busy to pray i'm too busy to do you need to restructure and prioritize and maybe that might involve delegating some responsibility of some other because you can't delegate your bible reading i can't tell my wife hey would you read my bible for me can you go ahead and you know no no you got to read the bible for yourself hey can you go to church for me as my proxy as my ambassador as my representative i'm going to stay home and caught up on some work around the house no you need to be there and so we need to get our priorities right we need to decide what's really important in our lives and we need to make time for what's important make time for what's important and here we see of course that the word of god's important we know that there are a lot of other things in our life that are important and we need to sit down and re-examine the way we live our lives if we're really spending time on what's important and delegate the stuff that can be done by someone else the waiting of tables and so forth delegate some of that now when you when you delegate things some people are going to pick you apart and they're going to get mad and they're going to they're going to not like the fact that you're following this advice there's always critics right that want to pick you apart and here we see martha being critical of mary who actually had the right priority but another great example of this is in the story with david and absolom what was the big criticism that absolom used to literally destroy his father's kingdom i mean to literally overthrow the government to overthrow king david to send king david fleeing into a foreign country as he took over illegitimately the kingdom what was the big complaint that absolom used oh you know david's too busy for you he doesn't want to talk to you he doesn't have time and he didn't delegate properly and you know if i were king though man i here come here let me give you a kiss and that's what he would do they'd come to him and he would schmooze them and he would he would uh they'd put out their hand to shake his hand he'd grab him give him a hug and a kiss and they're like whoa this is the king's son i mean this is a prince of the kingdom he's really treating me good he's got time for me he cares about me he loves me not like david who i've never seen yeah that's because there's millions of people obviously he can't just come and talk to you about every issue because he's running a kingdom so when you delegate things obviously there are going to be people that that criticize that or attack that because you're not there to do everything personally you got to do everything personally and you know even little kids will do this even in your home you know we'll we'll tell our kids you know hey go go do this or go go feed so and so or go dress so and so or i want mommy to do it who's ever heard that before i want daddy to do it no i want dad to do it i want mom it's like no your brother's gonna do it no your sister's gonna do it because otherwise we're all gonna wear away we need to delegate things to get things done and you know there are people like that at the church too they want me to personally do everything and it's like no i can't personally do everything because i'm one person and i don't want to burn out i don't want to wear away and so sometimes it's going to be either an employee of the church that does something for you or it's going to be just another godly church member that steps in and and and fills a role or fills a responsibility it's not always going to be personally done by me i want it's like a babe in christ thing to be like a little bratty toddler i want pastor anderson to do it you know it's like well sorry i'm busy he said well i you know i don't like the fact maybe the church is just too big for you that if you can no no maybe you just need to get a little bigger and be able to handle having someone else do something for you and not just always has to be pastor anderson i want pastor anderson to do it no because of the fact that i am planning to serve god for a lifetime i'm not trying to be this roman candle christian that shoots up in the air and then i'm gone and that's how a lot of people's christian life is it's a lot of noise it's a big bang and then it's over you know i've been soul winning now for 19 years virtually every week for the last 19 years i've been pastoring now for 11 and a half years but you know i don't want to just be a guy who who lasted for 12 years in the ministry i want to last for 20 years god willing i want to be pastoring 20 years from now 30 years from now 40 years from now i'm not going to run myself into the ground just to make people happy you know i'm going to work hard and do soul winning and preach my sermons and run this place the best i know how by god's will but you know what at the end of the day i'm a human being i know my limitations and i'm not going to i'm not going to just run myself in the ground burn the midnight oil burn the candle at both ends i'm not going to do it because i want to still be here a year from now two years from now five years from now ten years i'm in it for the long haul it's a marathon it's not a sprint so you know that's the way i'm going to live my life and you know what that's the way you should live your life too i don't believe in this and look i don't believe in this philosophy of we got to run ourselves into the ground and and and like it's a contest to see who can sleep the least and who can be the most unhealthy and who can just run themselves into the ground and who can neglect their their health and neglect their house and neglect their family the most and just be gone all the time you know what that is not the style of christianity that i believe in i don't believe in it i don't think i think a lot of people make a mistake when they do that the bible says in ecclesiastes be not righteous over much neither make thyself over wise why shouldest thou destroy thyself now when he says be not righteous over much i don't think he's saying sin a little bit god doesn't want us to sin at all it's never right to sin he's not telling us have a little sin in your life that's not what he's saying when he says be not righteous over much neither make thyself over wise why shouldest thou destroy thyself he's talking about people who are just all work and no play and they just do and do and do and work and work and work and study and study and study until their head explodes until their life explodes and i've seen people who are on that crash and burn trajectory and i've seen them crash and burn and often they're the marthas who are telling other people that they need to step up their game and you need to be more like me i'm going soul winning every single day i'm doing you know i'm doing it's like well buddy let's see where you're at five years from now now at the same time i want to be careful that if somebody is running really fast we don't want to judge them either right you know let let you know i'll put it this way i i really love to run i run almost every day running is one of my favorite activities and you know just because i'm a human being we're all human and we all have the flesh right when i'm running because i'm i'm a long distance runner okay i don't run fast i'm running long slow distance running so when i'm running and somebody just goes blowing by me you know what the first thought that comes into my mind just as a carnal human being is well they're not going as far as i am you know what i mean when somebody just go you know somebody just blows by me i'm thinking like yeah but i've been running for 45 minutes i bet you they probably just started like five minutes ago or two minutes ago or you know just because that's how we are human right so we want to be careful that we don't have that prideful attitude that let's say somebody is doing a lot for the lord and they're winning a lot of souls and they're they're really just tearing it up we don't want to get this attitude that says oh yeah well let's see where you're at in two years buddy i'll still be here you're a flash in the pan you're on a crash and burn trajectory we don't want to have that attitude to judge other people the sermon is about judging yourself don't worry about other people i mean look because some people they would blow your doors off and guess what they are running for two hours and they blew your doors off because they're just a better runner that's life i mean there are people who can run fast for a couple hours they're called olympic marathoners right and they're running way faster than me and they're doing it for more than two hours so look there are people like that so this isn't to judge other people and pick other people apart but you need to know your own limitations and don't compare yourself amongst yourself and say well mrs so-and-so is is doing this and and she's getting up at three in the morning and doing x y and z and you know i gotta i gotta step up my game i'm getting up at 255 you know you need to run your own race live your own life and i'm not saying to try to drag other people down because i've had people people told me ten years ago oh you're going to crash and burn at the rate you're going but here i am ten years later i know my limitations and i'm not running myself into the ground i'm running the race as fast as i can at a sustainable pace that i can sustain and that's how you have to live your life you don't want to be righteous over much you don't want to crash and burn but this isn't to pick apart other people but you need to make sure that you are living your life in a way that you can sustain for the whole race so that you can run with patience the race that is set before you and what does it mean to run with patience okay well let's think about the opposite because hebrews 12 tells us to run with patience what does it mean to run with impatience you're doing what you're going too fast wouldn't that be running with impatience in a sense right you're going too fast no you got to be willing to be there and to plug away and to stay with it and to be in it for the long haul and not to worry about too much what other people are doing or try to keep up with the joneses or try to match their pace run your own race don't be on a crash and burn trajectory take care of yourself and you say well i just don't have any time to take care of myself well then delegate something delegate something else so that you can make time to charge your own spiritual batteries to fill your own tank spiritually and emotionally and physically and look you know a lot of people they they want to live a john the baptist type lifestyle and here's the thing there are there are some john the baptists out there in this world and praise god for them praise god for the john the baptist and the apostle pauls who are out there living in the wilderness eating locusts and wild honey and living an austere life right praise god for him but you know what jesus came eating and drinking the bible says you know john the baptist came neither eating nor drinking and they say yeah the devil the son of man came eating and drinking and they say behold a man gluttonous and a wine bibber a friend of publicans and sinners so you know you're damned if you do and damned if you don't quit trying to please everybody around you look unto jesus and run with patience the race that is set before you you know what i am not going to go out in the wilderness and live an austere life so i can be just like john the baptist and the apostle paul when the son of man himself came eating and drinking i'm going to eat and drink and sleep and i'm obviously we're not talking about drinking alcohol talking about drinking water and and milk and whatever else but we need to live a life that we can sustain and there's nothing wrong with sleeping and eating right and getting exercise and reading your bible and praying and making sure that you don't run yourself into the ground on a crash and burn type of a lifestyle there's nothing wrong with that in the world and you know what far too many preachers of the last generation have not taken care of themselves and they're all sick they're all unhealthy and they end up doing less for god in the long run by not sleeping and then because they didn't sleep they got overweight because if you don't sleep enough that also makes you gain weight by the way you lose weight in your sleep they they get diabetes from not sleeping enough they don't eat right they're in such a hurry to go out and save the whole world that they're just it's just fast food all the time because that's what's fast that's what's easy you don't have time to sit down and eat a normal home-cooked meal but you know what in the long run is it really helping them when they're in their 40s and 50s and they're a physical wreck so you got to stop and think about taking time for yourself especially ladies mothers don't run yourself into the ground and obviously we all need to work hard and stay busy and I'm not for idleness at all idleness an idle mind is the devil's workshop is what my mom taught me when I was growing up and and honestly we need to stay busy we need to stay I stay busy I stay busy within the limits of what I can do for life and I stay busy around things that are important things that matter and things that are not important thing you know I either neglect them or I delegate them to someone else and so when we study the Bible we see this principle even in the Old and New Testament that tells us delegate responsibilities to other people and so I want to encourage every mother who's here today delegate work to your children it's better for you it's better for them and if your job allows you you know it's like Jethro said to Moses you know if God commands you so you know hey if your boss at work commands you so and if the owner commands you you know learn to delegate things and teach other people how to do things so that you can be more effective at the things that only you can do there are certain things that only I can do there's certain things that only my wife can do for the children there's certain things that only you can do that's what we should be focusing on and delegate the other stuff to someone else that's that's why I don't put out door hangers and hand out tracks because I could delegate that to the post office I want to just send things out right but only we as God's people can actually win a soul because only the good tree can bring forth good fruit only we as Christians that are truly saved and understand the gospel can open our mouths and preach the gospel to people so why don't we just delegate the door hangers to the post office you know why don't we just delegate and people say well you know why don't you make a ministry printing bibles unsafe people can print bibles let the unsafe people print all the bibles right let me do all folk I'm gonna focus on soul winning I'll get my Bible at Barnes and Noble just make sure it's the King James Version I'll pick it up I'll buy it on Amazon I could buy it anywhere right what what can we do that only we can do the only the one one of the things that only we can do is win somebody to Christ you know only we can preach doctrinally sound sermons and and teach the Word of God that let's focus on the things that only we can do and let's let's let's let's hire somebody to take out the trash or whatever you know or or have somebody who's younger and more inexperienced do those things so that they can learn those things and learn how to work and come up through the ranks like we all did like we all did and don't you be a prideful person that thinks that you're too good to take out trash and stuff that's not it at all if you have people below you that you can legitimately have take out the trash then have them take out the trash but when your boss tells you to take out the trash don't you better go take out the trash and I don't care if you're a nuclear engineer if your boss to tells you to to clean the toilet you clean the toilet if he wants you shoveling dung out in the yard you go shovel some dung I don't care how many degrees you have but you know what if you have an assistant have him shovel the dung and you crunch the numbers on those nuclear physics let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer Father we thank you so much for this important lesson in the Bible about about delegating responsibility Lord help us not to make the most the mistake that Moses made where where he was trying to do too much Lord and and thank you for that godly advice that he received Lord help us to heed to that same godly advice and realize that we need to delegate some things we need to teach people around us how to do things to help us especially our children teach them how to do work so that it can free us up not to sit on our rear ends Lord but to actually do important work for you and and to actually spend time studying and soul winning and going to church and doing things that are important for us as your servants Lord give us wisdom and help us to take heed to the godly counsel and advice that we get in our lives from both you and from the people that you've put in our lives to teach us and help us in Jesus name we pray amen