Title: The Decisions of Faith -Part 2
Text: Hebrews 11:24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. - NIV
Intro: We’ve determined that decisions indeed determine destiny! Moses has some difficult choices to make that determined the spiritual and eternal effectiveness of his life!
Proposition: As we consider Moses’s decisions, let us compare ours to his! Do we think along the lines of eternal effectiveness and rewards, or do we seek the temporary creature comforts? Moses in fact modeled the former!
Let’s consider first of all:
I. The Preference of Moses:
A) Preference?
1. It was far from a convenient decision it was a faith decision!
a) By that I mean he:
2 Corinthians 4:18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
b) Our passage states:
Hebrews 11:24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.
c) That is a big decision!
d) Consider his story:
II. The Privileges of Moses:
A) Became the son of Pharaoh’s daughter:
Exodus 2: 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.
Exodus 2: 5 Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.
1. She was compassionate toward him!
Exodus 2: 7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” 8 “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him.
2. She financed his care!
Exodus 2:10a When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son.
3. She adopted him!
Exodus 2:10b She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”
4. She names him!
Acts 7:22 Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.
5. She educates him – in the finest schools Egypt had to offer.
6. Some say that Moses was the heir apparent to the throne!
7. He was powerful in speech and action before the Egyptians, he had “a future” in Egypt!
III. The Possibilities before Moses?
A) Possibility #1?
1. Wealth, prominence, prestige, ease, power?
B) Possibility #2?
Hebrews 11:25a He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God
1. Mistreatment, suffering, hardship, why?
Acts 7: 23 “When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites.
a) He had a concern for them
Exodus 2: 11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?” 14 The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”
b) STEPHEN IN HIS MESSAGE ABOUT MOSES IN ACTS MAKES AN INTERESTING POINT:
Acts 7:25a Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them,
c) He would be called to deliver them.
Acts 7:25b but they did not.
d) Just like Jesus!
"the stone which the builders refused is made the head of the corner" (Ps 118:22).
Exodus 2: 14 The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”
C) Prompt?
1. Fear!
Exodus 2: 15 When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.
Acts 7:29 When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.30 “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.
Acts 7:31b he heard the Lord say: 32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.
2. Again as we saw in our last message fear of God will ultimately defeat fear of anything and everything else!
Acts 7:33 “Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’
Exodus 3:10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
Exodus 4: 10 Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” 11 The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.” 13 But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”
14 Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses and he said, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. 15 You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. 16 He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him.
3. SO WHAT WOULD MOSES ULIMATELY DOES IS BASED ON THE ETERNAL PERSPECTIVE OF MOSES!
VI. THE PERSPECTIVE OF MOSES:
Hebrews 11:26A He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ…..
A) Disgraced - BY WHOM?
1. BY HIS OWN PEOPLE!!!
2. The argument could be made – BY GOD HIMSELF!
a) When he goes to Pharaoh the following happens:
Exodus 5:2 Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.”
Exodus 5:6 That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people: 7 “You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw. 8 But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don’t reduce the quota. They are lazy; that is why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ 9 Make the work harder for the people so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies.”
Exodus 5: 19 The Israelite overseers realized they were in trouble when they were told, “You are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day.”20 When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, 21 and they said, “May the Lord look on you and judge you! You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”
3. And it turn Moses said:
Exodus 5:22 Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? 23 Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.”
4. If you know the story you know that things did not go the way Moses had hoped or planned!
Isaiah 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts
5. But what was the perspective of Moses?
a) An eternal one!
Hebrews 11:26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. - NIV
6. THAT IS TRUE OF ALL OF THE HEROES OF THE FAITH IN HEBREWS 11!
Hebrews 11: 13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
VII. THE PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS REGARDING THE LIFE OF MOSES:
(Illustration) THERE WAS A MISSIONARY NAMED JAMES ELLIOTT, WHO DIED AT THE HANDS OF THE EQUIDORAIN PEOPLE– HE KEPT A JOURNAL IN WHICH THE FOLLOWING WORDS WERE WRITTEN…
JAMES ELLIOTT - "he is no fool, who gives what he cannot keep, to gain that which he cannot lose.”
Jesus lays out that principal in Matthew 16 :
Matthew 16: 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done
Conclusion: What are you eyes fixed on, what do you treasure? I pray you will make the same decision that Moses and multitudes of others have!
Matthew 6:19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20“but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
