Hebrews 11:23-28

Good morning Saylorville Church! Whether you’re here in the room or watching online, thanks for joining us. We’re in Hebrews chapter 11 again this week, so grab your Bibles and join me there.

My family went to the State Fair on Friday. And that’s pretty much the most Iowan sentence anybody’s ever said. And if you’re watching online and you live somewhere else and you’ve never been to the Iowa State Fair, then I’ll just say what everybody here is thinking: What are you doing with your life? What’s great about the fair is that it’s basically one giant social experiment. How many people can we trick into pretending they love the smell of manure? And people come from all over the country to act like farmers for 10 days and it’s fantastic. 

But the best part of the fair is the food, obviously. Anybody agree? It’s pretty much a progressive buffet. You wait in line to buy this thing on a stick, then you eat it while you’re waiting in line to buy the next thing on a stick. The hardest part is choosing what to eat, right? Because you can’t possibly eat everything, so you have to decide. And if you’re like me, you stand in the middle of the main concourse and you look around at all the options and it feels like you’re about to make the most important decision of your entire adult life. It’s a major crisis every time.

And here’s a life lesson that fair food teaches us: Every time you say “yes” to something, you’re saying “no” to something else. You’re actually making a value statement with every decision you make. So, if you choose to eat a deep fried Oreo, you’re saying “yes” to your taste buds and pretty much “no” to living beyond the age of 40. Okay? That’s life. That’s facts baby.

But let’s be honest, there are choices that are much more important than what you eat at the fair, and with much more serious life consequences. 

Some of you right now are looking at critical decisions and you’re about to say “yes” to something and “no” to something else. 

“Should I go all in on this marriage, or is it time to find someone new – someone who really understands what I need?”

Maybe you’re trying to figure out whether or not you should take that new job. It pays more, but it will take you away from your family more often.

Or maybe you’re struggling with an addiction. And you think you can handle it, so just a little bit here and there won’t hurt. But you’re getting deeper and deeper and feeling more and more numb and it just seems hopeless. 

You’re at a fork in the road. A point of decision. Big or small, we’re all facing crucial choices right now. 

And here’s something we’re going to see all throughout this morning, and I think we know this instinctively, but it will be a good reminder for us. Here it is: The decisions you make reveal the depth of your faith.

Today we’re looking at the story of Moses and what his life tells us about God and about us. And the story of Moses’ life takes up a huge part of the Old Testament. We’re introduced to him at the very beginning of the book of Exodus, and he’s sort of the main human character until the end of Deuteronomy where we read about his death. So it takes four long Old Testament books to tell his epic story, and in this passage in Hebrews 11, we’re sort of getting the cliff-notes. 

So it’s as if the writer of Hebrews looks at the storyboard of Moses’ life and picks four scenes that encapsulate the very essence of his character and then describes these moments in ways that help us find ourselves in the story. And each of these scenes pictures a choice Moses made – and that’s key to our discussion this morning. They all give us a glimpse into a specific critical moment where Moses had a decision to make.

Hebrews 11:23-28

So the writer of Hebrews is giving us these little glimpses into the life of Moses, and each scene starts with this phrase, “By faith.” And what comes after that phrase is a specific choice Moses made because of his faith. Remember, Faith is the obedient response to God’s revealed Word. We’ve seen that all along in this series. Every time you see that phrase, “By faith” in Hebrews 11, it means that someone is responding in obedience to something that God had already said or already shown them. Abel makes a sacrifice. Enoch walked with integrity. Noah built a boat and waited for rain. Abraham followed God’s leading, even though He didn’t know where God was leading. And they’re all like that. Sometime, when you’re reading Hebrews 11 on your own, just circle every time you see that phrase, “By faith” and then underline all of the actions that come after it. And I think you’ll be encouraged and this is what you’ll see: Genuine faith believes and obeys God. And that’s what we notice in these four highlights from the epic life of Moses.

You’re in Hebrews chapter 11, but flip back to Exodus chapter 1 because there’s some context here that we need to get before we can understand the Hebrews passage. It’s sort of Moses’ origin story, if you will.

So the Book of Genesis ends and Joseph has just died and his whole family is living in Egypt and you can listen to last week’s sermon for a review of that story. And the book of Exodus starts by telling us that there’s a new Pharaoh, who wasn’t around when Joseph’s family moved to Egypt. And Pharaoh realizes he’s got a problem. There’s a whole bunch of Hebrews living in Egypt and they’re all part of one big family. And they’re strong. And they’re multiplying like crazy. So he puts them to work making bricks and building cities, but the more he oppresses them, the more they multiply, and the more they multiply, the more nervous the Egyptians get. So Pharaoh says, “Okay, from now on every Hebrew baby boy is killed. Let the girls live, but kill the boys. No boys means eventually no men. No men means no more babies. No more babies means the Hebrew population slowly dies. Problem solved.

And so the original readers of the Book of Hebrews would have known all this, and they’re on the edge of their seats listening as the stories of their greatest heroes are being read here in Hebrews 11. And we finally get to Moses – their favorite superhero – there was never another human prophet like him – and the writer of Hebrews starts off by saying, the first great act of faith in the life of Moses wasn’t done by Moses at all – it was his parents. His father, Amram and his mother, Jochebed.

Look at how it unfolded in Exodus chapter 2:

Exodus 2:1-3

Moses’ parents, Amram and Jochebed, find themselves faced with an incredibly important choice. This is a critical moment, and there’s a lot at stake, right? I mean, they can choose whether or not to obey Pharoah, essentially choosing to kill their baby and save themselves, or save the baby and put their own lives at risk. If they do keep him alive, what are they going to do to hide him? Babies aren’t exactly quiet and people would find out pretty quickly that they had a newborn in their house. So if they didn’t kill him, but couldn’t hide him, where would they put him? These are huge decisions with a lot of serious consequences. And the decision they made revealed the depth of their faith. 

And what was that decision? By faith, Moses’ parents chose to disobey Pharoah’s command and keep their baby boy alive, and then to hide him from the world for three months, and then to put him in a teeny tiny ark and send him floating down the Nile. Why? Because Faith chooses to follow God rather than fear man. They chose faith in God over fear of man. 

How do we know this? 

The Bible says that Moses was a “fine child” or a “beautiful baby”. The New Testament says something like, “he was lovely to God.” Now listen, every parent thinks their baby is beautiful. Sometimes you look at someone else’s kid and think, “Yikes!” (of course you don’t ever say that out loud!) but you never think that about your own kid, right? 

So we might look at Amram and Jochebed here and think, well of course they hid him because he was such a cute kid and they loved him so much. I don’t doubt that Moses was a cute baby, but that’s not the motivation behind his parents’ choices. Remember, faith is the obedient response to God’s revealed word. I think his parents remembered the promises of God. Promises that YAHWEH revealed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Promises that God would one day deliver His people out of Egypt and into a land of their own. A promise that clearly hadn’t been fulfilled yet. I think Moses’ parents believed God would be true to His word and that somehow God made it clear to them that their son would be part of that promised deliverance. Somehow, God revealed to Amram and Jochebed that His hand was on their baby boy in a very special way, and by faith (because faith acts in response to God’s word) they chose to follow God rather than fear man. 

I’ll never ever forget the feeling I had when Meredith and I dropped Judah off for his first day of kindergarten here in Ankeny. We cried – Okay, I cried…HARD when he walked through those doors and out of our sight. He looked like a giant backpack on two tiny toothpicks. And as he disappeared, Meredith and I had a choice to make. Everything human inside of us wanted to throw that car into park and run through those doors and pick him up and never let him out of our sight again. Because, after all, isn’t our job to protect him and make choices for him, and control his surroundings so nothing unknown ever happens to him? Is that our job, parents? (No, it’s not.) You know what that comes down to in my own heart? Fear of man. Fear of what people might do to my son. Fear of what my son might do without me there. Fear of what people will think of me if he does something I don’t want him to do. It’s all fear of man. Living by fear, not by faith.

In a few days, some of you parents will be sending your kids to school, off to college, to the military, some of you will be watching your kids get married, get their first jobs, or move into their first home without you. 

And you’ll put your beautiful little boy or girl on a bicycle, in a car, on a school bus, or in an airplane and watch them float away down the Nile River and into the unknown.

And in that moment, and all the parenting moments before and after that one – you have a choice to make – will you choose faith in God or fear of man? 

And there it is. The first picture of faithful obedience in the life of Moses is actually a picture of the faithfulness of his parents. And why not. Parents, don’t ever underestimate the impact of your prayers and your example on the life of your kids – whether they are in your home, or all grown up. There’s no formula, and there’s no guarantee in parenting, but you always win when you parent by faith rather than fear.

Parents, I’m praying that God will give you great faith in the next few weeks. And Meredith and I are in it too, so pray for us!

Let’s look at the next critical moment in the life of Moses recorded here in the book of Hebrews:

Hebrews 11:24 – By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. 

So verse 24 picks up the story several years later, and here’s our first real introduction to Moses. And some of you know the story, and if not, you can check it out back in Exodus 2, but here’s the quick version. Moses’ parents put him into a little baby ark and send him down the river, and Pharaoh’s daughter sees him, picks him up, actually gives him the name “Moses” and then hires Jochebed (Moses’ birth mom) to raise him. So, Moses gets to grow up in his parents’ home, learning from them, being trained by them, and when he’s a teenager he goes to live in the palace with his adopted mom, the Princess. And verse 24 drops in when Moses is grown up, and he’s starting to realize that there’s a big difference between the way he was raised as a child by his Hebrew parents and the way he was raised as a teenager in the Egyptian culture. 

And so, Moses, drawing on his parents’ example, stands at a fork in the road with a critical decision to make. Am I going to choose the lavish life of Egyptian royalty, or should I give it all up and join my people and suffer as a slave? And verse 24 tells us exactly what Moses chose:

He says “no” the title and the wealth and the position of being identified as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 

And instead says “yes” to torture and the poverty and the anonymity of being identified as a son of God.

He says “no” to the fleeting pleasures of sin and the treasures of Egypt.

And says “yes” to the pathway of suffering and ridicule and reproach.

See that? Moses said “no” to everything that seemed convenient and immediate and expected. And he said “yes” to everything that wasn’t that! He chose to give up everything that most normal people would chase after for everything only crazy people would want. And maybe you can tuck this little phrase in the back of your minds for later: Faith in God often looks like foolishness to the world. 

A few days ago, I got to spend some time down in Winterset with some of our Engage Network Pastors. Jaysson Gurwell – who pastors Redeemer Church – was showing us around the brand new building they are putting up right on the edge of town. It’s pretty exciting because they have been meeting in schools and office buildings and community centers for almost 10 years and they are putting up this sweet building completely debt free. No borrowing at all. 

I was asking Jaysson if people in town have noticed the building and are asking any questions, and he started telling me about all the conversations he’s been able to have already because of the construction. At one point in the story, he stopped and said, you know, I grew up around here and people know me from those years. I had a great job at a really good company and I was kind-of rising up the ranks. And one day I was reading Hebrews 11 and the story of Moses and it just struck me – I am Moses. I looked around and I had everything I always wanted, but my people – the people of Winterset – were suffering without Jesus. They were lost in the darkness of addiction and greed and pride – and I knew God was calling me to bring them the Gospel. So, I quit everything, gave it all up, and became a Church Planter. And the friends I ran around with, and the people I knew from business, and all the people in town – they thought I was crazy. They even told me I was crazy. And guess what, some of those same people, now ten years later, are part of Redeemer Church and they’re crazy just like me.”

I love that story, don’t you? Because that’s what faith does. That’s the decision that faith makes. Faith chooses the path of suffering over the pleasures of sin. 

You know, you might be here visiting this morning, or maybe you’ve been around this summer and you’re thinking about getting plugged in here at Saylorville. Or maybe the whole church thing is completely new to you and you walked in already on edge a little. I want you to know something right out of the gate – we love you. If you’re here this morning and you’re searching, you’re exploring, you’re questioning. Thank you. Sometimes the doors of a church building are the toughest to walk through and we believe God brought you here for a reason. 

But we want you to know the truth. And the truth is that the Bible doesn’t say that being a Christian is convenient. Giving your life to Jesus isn’t just saying a prayer and then continuing to live the way you want. The call to accept Jesus as your Savior is a call to accept suffering. The gift of the Gospel is free to receive, but it may cost you your life. 

Look at how Jesus Himself said it in Mark 8:34 – “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

The choice to live for Jesus is a choice to die to yourself. It’s a choice to accept the reproach and ridicule of Christ on yourself. It’s a choice to hold on loosely to the stuff of this temporary life and grab hold tightly to the things of eternity. It’s a choice to focus on the unseen of eternity rather than the seen of today. It’s a choice to live by faith, not by fear. 

My friend Jaysson is a real-life Moses! And just like Moses, he’s looking to the reward. Why in the world would people choose the path of suffering over the pleasures of sin? Because the reward is a full and overflowing life on earth and eternal life in heaven with Jesus! That’s what Pastor Pat called “far-sighted faith.” Looking beyond the temporary treasures for the eternal reward. 

The Apostle Paul puts it this way: “Our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal glory that is far beyond comparison.” 2 Corinthians 4:17

And friends, I believe we’re at a critical moment in our lives right now. And we’re faced with a choice – to settle in Egypt and gain temporary pleasures and treasures, or to suffer as a follower of Jesus and gain eternal rewards in heaven.

Moses chose the path of suffering over the pleasures of sin. What will you choose? When it all comes down to it, what will you choose?

Next, the writer of Hebrews gives us the third critical decision in the life of Moses. Look at verse 27, and once again, the motivation for Moses’ action is faith:

27 By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. 

So now we’ve pressed fast-forward again and we pick up the story when Moses is 40 years old. By faith, he’s already decided to renounce his position as Egyptian royalty and to suffer instead with the people of God. And one day, Exodus 2 says, “He went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, Moses struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.”

And the next day a couple Hebrew guys are fighting and Moses shows up and says, “Hey guys – seriously, you’re on the same team.” And these two guys turn to him and say, “What are you going to do, kill us like you did the Egyptian yesterday?” And they actually get upset with Moses, and are like, “Who made you boss?” 

And if I’m Moses, I’m like, “You ungrateful jerks! Do you even know what I gave up to be an Israelite again? Plus, yeah, I killed an Egyptian guy yesterday. Because he was BEATING on one of your buddies. I’m here to help! What’s your problem?”

And poor Moses – he’s trying to live by faith. He’s trying to do the right thing, and all of the sudden he looks around and he’s alone. He doesn’t have a people. He can’t go back to the palace. That would be awkward. And he doesn’t fit in with the Israelites either because they see him as an outsider. His choice to live by faith has left him standing alone. 

So he leaves. But he doesn’t just move across town. He LEAVES leaves. The word in vs. 27 literally means, he turned his back, renounced everything, and went far away. 

And for the next 40 years he’s a shepherd in the wilderness of Midian. Far away from Egypt, far away from his own people. But right where God wanted him. Because it was there that God would eventually come to him in the burning bush and commission him to lead the Nation of Israel out of Egypt and into freedom once and for all. 

And what was Moses doing for those 40 years away from everything he once knew? He was waiting faithfully. He was persevering. He was doing the next right thing. My Bible says, “he endured”. By faith, Moses endured. But why? Because he was seeing what was still unseen. He could picture in his mind what he still couldn’t see with his eyes. And that’s what faith does: Faith chooses to endure in light of eternity.

I don’t know about you, but I love the Olympics. USA! Our family was watching highlights every day, cheering on the athletes and waiting to see where Snoop Dogg would show up! Everybody has their favorite events, and of course, soccer is the greatest sport in the world, obviously. 

But what we really love about the Olympics is the stories of the athletes, right? It’s incredible. For years, they train, they sacrifice, they just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And just like Moses, here’s the word, the “endured.” They persevered. Why? Because these athletes had faith. In their mind, they saw the assurance of that gold medal, that they couldn’t hold onto yet, but it was as good as theirs. So they endured.

It shouldn’t surprise us that the first step on the path to suffering took Moses into the Wilderness. After all, that’s often where God meets us most intimately. I’ve got several friends right now who are choosing by faith to endure in light of eternity, and God is meeting them in ways they could have never imagined. Friends who are in the wilderness of cancer, financial uncertainty, family upheaval. And God is there – not just at the finish line, but every step of the way.

For 40 years Moses babysat a herd of sheep. Patiently. Quietly. Humbly. And all the while, he was looking toward something, fixing his eyes intently. Putting all of his hope on the unseen. The eternal. 

How about you? Are you choosing to live for the temporary, or the eternal? How are you using your life on earth to invest in eternity in heaven? True faith chooses to endure in light of eternity. 

There’s one more scene in this passage that we haven’t talked about yet – and it’s a good one to end with this morning. I’ll just mention it here and then maybe we’ll cover it more in the podcast this week. Here it is in Hebrews 11:28 – By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. 

Moses is back in Egypt, God has sent 9 brutal plagues on Pharaoh and the Egyptians. And still, Pharaoh won’t let the Israelites go. So God tells Moses that there’s going to be one more plague. God will send an angel – Hebrews calls him “The Destroyer” – to take the life of every firstborn child. Unless the angel saw the blood of a spotless lamb on the doorposts of the house. If that house was covered by the blood, the Lord would “pass over” the house, and the family would be safe from the terrible judgment. In essence, the life of a lamb in exchange for the life of the firstborn.

So, by faith, Moses obeyed and kept the Passover along with the rest of the Israelites. Sprinkling the blood of a spotless lamb over each home, and they were saved. And for Pharaoh and the others that didn’t respond in obedience to the revealed word of God? Who didn’t have faith? Who didn’t trust in the blood of the spotless lamb? Their firstborns were killed, just like God said they would be.

And here’s why this is important for each of us today, thousands of years later. Because, just like this tenth plague, it’s only by responding in faith to the sacrifice of a sinless lamb that you and I can be saved from judgment. The lamb is Jesus, the judgment is Hell, and the response in faith is salvation. By faith, Moses chose to put his trust in a lamb. Will you? Today, admit that you’re a sinner and there’s no hope for eternity on your own. By faith, put your trust in the Lamb of God – Jesus Christ, who shed his innocent blood on the cross for you. Who died a death to pay a price you couldn’t pay. And was raised again to life for you so you could spend eternity with Him. That’s the Gospel – and it’s for you, but you have to accept it by faith.

Faith chooses to trust the Lamb for salvation. Have you made that choice yet?

This week, some of you will be standing on the midway of life looking at all the options in front of you. A crisis moment. And you’ll have a choice to make. Your decision will reveal the depth of your faith. How will you choose?