This morning we're going to continue in Hebrews chapter 11. If you would open your Bibles up there today, we're going to start talking about Moses. We've worked our way through this hall of fame of faith, person by person, kind of story by story as we're following the writer of Hebrews who's telling us about what faith looks like by giving us the examples of faithful saints. from the Old Testament. Today we come to Moses, and we've got to say this up front, it's very important, I think, for the writer of Hebrews to get on with talking about Moses in this Hall of Fame. Because in many ways Moses was the most revered, most important historical figure in Israel, probably more so even than Abraham as we discussed in the last couple of weeks. Abraham was the first of the patriarchs to whom the promises were given concerning a land and concerning a nation and concerning the blessed offspring. But as much as there is about Abraham there, first century Judaism During the time of Christ and the time when the writer is writing this letter to the Hebrew Christians that were converting out of Judaism, so much of the focus of Judaism was on the law. And that law really came through Moses, right? It was given to them by God, but through Moses. We can understand his relative importance when we consider just how much of those early books of the Scripture tell us about the life and ministry, so-called, of Moses. They tell us about the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt under Moses' leadership, about the law given to him at Mount Sinai. I mean, so closely is that law associated with him that it's referred to in the New Testament as the law of Moses. This is the relative importance of the man for the Jews. Moses embodied the legalistic system. The legalistic system of commandments and ordinances that separated them from all the other nations as the people of God. What really differentiated them was the law and its effect on the temple life, its effect on things like the Sabbath, its effect on their diet. Everything was dictated in this way. And by the time you get to the time of Christ, it was super legalistic. All about that. The first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, were then the most important and most sacred of all of the Jewish scriptures. All five of those books were written by Moses as given to him by God, including the history of Genesis going clear back to the creation of the world. Moses authored those things as inspired by God. The Hebrews, looking at Moses, they didn't quite elevate him to the status of God. They knew better than that, but they revered him most assuredly as the most holy and the most righteous man in their history. the best of all of the examples. Now the writer of Hebrews knows that he has to correct their thinking about Moses to help them to continue trusting in Jesus as the Messiah who's already come. We've already discussed the commentary about Moses in chapter 3. Hebrews 3, the writer of Hebrews introduced us to Moses in the context of Jesus being superior. Jesus is superior to Moses. Now, admittedly, Moses was faithful. He says, in all God's house, Moses was faithful. But he was faithful as a servant of God in the house, like all the rest of us. Moses is just another servant of God. But Jesus, he says, far exceeds him as the Son who rules over God's house. Thereby, Jesus is Lord over even Moses, who was really a servant of Christ. Moses is a part of God's house like we are. A house whose construction is being overseen by Christ Himself. Now the writer of Hebrews wants to emphasize something different about Moses here in chapter 11. He's demonstrating to us in Hebrews 11 how Moses is a part of the house of God. How is it that he's a part of the household of faith? Give it away. Faith. That's how he's a part of it. He's in the household, the family of God, the same way we are by faith. Moses is a member of that. And as such, he makes what's really kind of a dramatic appearance here in this 11th chapter of Hebrews as one of the important examples of faith that are brought to us forward from the Old Testament. Moses pleased God, but it wasn't by his works of the law. It was by faith. So let me read these with me today. Our verses are going to be in Hebrews 11, starting in verse 23. We'll get through verse 27 today. So Hebrews 11.23-27, here's our text today. It says, By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king's edict. By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith, he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible." Lord God, we pray today that you would make yourself visible to us. That we might learn to endure in faith. Though we can't see you, we know you. Like Moses did. Lord, I pray that you would teach us today how to increase in our faith. How to do what Moses did. To consider the cost, to make the calculations of faith, and to choose. to follow You and to refuse the world. I pray, Lord, that You would bring this to us today in a way that's helpful and encouraging, that would grow our faith. Lord, we want to benefit from this in this way. I thank You for Moses, the life You gave him, the man You made him. Lord, may he be an example to us. Help us to see him as such today. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Now look back at that first verse I read there, verse 23. I want you to notice that this first verse isn't really about Moses as much as it is about his parents. See verse 23, it says there, "...by faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king's edict." Like I said, Moses, if you look at the sentence, Moses is the subject of the sentence, but the action is entirely passive for him, right? By faith, Moses was hidden. By faith, he was hidden for three months by his parents. Whose faith is on display there? Is it Moses' faith? Did he have faith from zero to three months old to trust in the Lord that when his parents hid him that that was the thing that the Lord wanted? He's not even aware at this point, right? He was hidden for three months because of his parents' faith. You remember why they were hiding him? What were they hiding him from? Now the verse says that it has something to do with the king's edict. If you want to see it, we'll be in and out of Exodus chapter 1 and 2 a little bit. But in Exodus chapter 1, we read this about Pharaoh, that after many generations, after Joseph had been in the land and the next pharaohs forgot about him and began enslaving the people, and the numbers of the Jews in Egypt as slaves was multiplying, and the pharaoh, that powerful king of Egypt, made a command concerning the Hebrew slaves, that they multiplied too much in the land, And I don't want them to become too numerous, so in Exodus 1.22 we read that Pharaoh commanded this, that to all of the people in Egypt, that every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live. It's likely that he had plans for a generational intermarrying to dilute the people of Israel by getting rid of the boys and getting the girls and the Egyptians were supposed to intermarry, but it doesn't actually go into all of that because it didn't last long enough after this for multiple generations to come, because the Lord's about to be done with Egypt and lead the Israelites out. So that's not really part of the story, but it's sort of what might have been on his mind. It says in that chapter that the Jewish midwives were commanded to kill all the sons born to the Hebrew slaves. And the parents themselves were to abandon their sons in the Nile, to let them die. But the midwives lied to protect those sons, and Moses' parents hid him instead. Keep in mind that they're slaves. They're watched by their Egyptian overlords. I mean, how long do you suppose that her pregnancy was? Do you notice an eight-month pregnant woman? They notice. They know. They're paying attention. They've got to be paying attention. Is she going to have a boy or a girl? What's going to happen? Thanks for being an illustration for me. If they had been caught hiding a son, they would have been severely punished, if not executed, for blatant disobedience. Somehow they managed to hide him for three months. Three months is probably the time when he started crying too loudly. They couldn't hide him anymore, as babies tend to do. But our verse in Hebrews 11.23 says that they did it for two reasons. Why did they hide the baby? One, because they saw that the child was beautiful. And second, because they did not fear the king's edict. That first point, he was beautiful. I mean, what do you suppose was so stunningly beautiful about the baby that made them decide to risk their lives to keep him? The idea here of this beauty in Hebrews 11 is the same idea that's expressed in Exodus 2 in the story that he was very fair or that he was beautiful. But it has the understanding behind it that it's not so much focused on how physically attractive he was, which may have been the case, but the idea is that he was beautiful in the eyes of God. Stephen, before he was martyred in Acts chapter 7, as he's presenting kind of the history of Israel in a speech before the Sanhedrin, Stephen says in comments that Moses was beautiful in God's sight. That's the interpretation of this. He was beautiful in God's sight, indicating that God had a special purpose for him. Moses was destined for some great work that the Lord had planned and would do through him. He was beautiful in the eyes of God. Somehow that was communicated by God to Moses' mom. This kid is beautiful in my sight. It makes him worthy of protecting, maybe more than most. It's evident that the Lord had communicated something like that. How do we know that? How do we know that God had communicated something like that? We know because of Hebrews 11.23 tells us that she hid him by faith. I mentioned this in the Bible class earlier, but I'll say it again today. In Scripture, faith always has God and His Word as the object of trust. Faith rests on someone and what he has said. And if she's doing it by faith, it's because God told her something that she's trusting in. She's counting on. That's what faith is. Faith is not some mysterious force, you know, that just we sort of obtain and do things with or something. It's always about trusting in what God has revealed. Whether it's about Himself, about the future, about ourselves, about sin, about righteousness, about redemption, whatever it is. So because it says that she had faith, they had faith. It actually says both of his parents had it. They knew something. What it was, we don't know. But they understood that Moses was beautiful in God's sight, and it was a revelation worth risking their own lives for. And because of that faith, Moses' parents were not afraid of the king's edict. That's the second part. There's something remarkable about this story for those of us who are parents, who endeavor to be parents, who are grandparents, or whatever. Don't miss this point. It matters to our kids that we live by faith. Even in the face of fear, even in the face of death. In his commentary that I spent time in about Hebrews, Richard Phillips wrote this. He said, this is how we pass on the faith to our children, by our words, but more pointedly by our actions. Children are either hardened by the hypocrisy of their parents, or like Moses, they are inspired by the consistency between word and deed. If we're unforgiving with our children, show an unwillingness to admit our own sins. then we communicate a lack of grace to them. If we spend all our money on ourselves, begrudging the church and those in need, or if we speak harshly of people, seeming to rejoice even in their failures and follies, then we communicate a religion other than that of Christianity. But when we're quick to repent, ready to forgive, When we trust the Lord for our own provision and freely give to others, and when we speak graciously of other sinners, to just list a few practical applications, when we do that, we show our children our belief in a God who is merciful and kind and mighty to save. We see this in the example of Moses' parents here. I mean, they surely must have been concerned about getting caught. There must have been some level of fear, but it wasn't such a fear that overwhelmed them and caused them to take little Moses and chuck him into the river like they were supposed to. They defied Pharaoh's command despite being reasonably afraid. It's reasonable in light of that. Long before the apostles said this to the Sanhedrin in Acts chapter 5, Moses' parents were living by faith, obeying God rather than men. Long before the apostles said any such a thing, Moses' parents demonstrate that to us. And they demonstrated it to Moses. You remember how that all worked out? How did it work out for them? When they could no longer hide him, they made a basket, put Moses in it, set it afloat out on the river Nile, and it sort of followed the reeds on the bank. By the providence of God, not by chance, Pharaoh's daughter at the same time is coming down to bathe in the river. She saw the basket, sent a servant to pull it out of the water, and found Moses. She knew that he was one of the Hebrew baby boys, and she should have killed him on the spot. But the scripture says she took pity on him, decided not to drown him. And by God's providence, Moses' older sister Miriam happened to be along the river and came and talked to her and said, would you like me to find you a Hebrew woman who could nurse that baby for you? Oh, that would be wonderful, thank you. So who'd she go get but Moses' mom. Moses' mom comes and says, oh yeah, I suppose I could nurse this strange baby I never met before, right? And she goes, great, I'll pay you to do it. Pharaoh's daughter paid her to do it. She's a slave. She could have just told her to do it. She paid her to do it, the text says. This is how God works, right? This is how God operates. This is how God blesses faithful parents who trust in the Lord and defy what they should not be afraid of. They defy men who dare to stand against God. This is the kind of thing that the Lord does. The text doesn't tell us how long this arrangement lasted, but it had to be at least a couple of years. Some commentators suggest that it would have likely been until he was mostly, almost like through his adolescence, maybe as old as 10 or 12, but it definitely had to be at least two to three years. We don't know for sure, but what's going on for Moses with his parents, before he's given back to Pharaoh's daughter to become her son. There can be no doubt that his parents taught him much about living by faith. Living by faith in the promises that had been given to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. They knew him, they trusted them, and there's no way they didn't tell him. I think it's pretty likely that when they recognized he was beautiful in the sight of God, God may have been telling them exactly this. He's the deliverer that was promised to Abraham after 400 years Of slavery, God promised Abraham that there would be a deliverer and they would be set free in Egypt. It's time. She can count. They may well have taught Moses that's exactly who he was. But recognize this. This is where the faith of Moses came from. was his parents. I mean, it came from God. But God was using the ordinary means of believing parents to teach it to him. And maybe for just a couple of years, maybe somehow they instilled this to him before he's three years old. I tell you that the Lord can make a child learn exactly those things that he wants to know even at that age. But recognize this, that is the only place that it was possible for him to learn about God and faith in him. His parents knew enough to trust God that if they trained Moses in the way he should go, he wouldn't depart from it when he was older. Parenting by faith. This is definitely what it looks like. Trusting God that when we teach of faith and teach by faith, that it can be used by God in the lives of our kids. Our kids just might be beautiful in God's sight too to be used by him someday in some particular way to further his kingdom. I mean, teach your kids, teach your grandkids the way they should go and trust the Lord will keep them when they're older. Because that's what happened with Moses, isn't it? Look back at Hebrews 11, now in verse 24. It says, "...by faith Moses..." Now we're talking about Moses, not his parents. "...by faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward." Here's where we see the new facet of faith. As we've worked our way through all these biographical sketches of all of these saints, there's something new that we see here. Up to this point, just thinking back to the beginning of the chapter, we've seen how faith affected Abel's obedience in his worship, right? We've seen the faith that was on display with Enoch in his walking with God. that life of walking with God. We've talked about Noah and how by his faith he worked in building the ark. And he worked by faith. We've seen the faith of Abraham that he had in the promises of God. Even going to the extreme of putting Isaac on the altar when God put him to the test. Last week we talked about that kind of faith that was displayed. And those patriarchs, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, even though their lives were mostly a mess, at the end of them they still trusted God. They still believed that promise. And by faith, we're told, they passed that from one generation to another. But now, we see how faith should affect our choices. Hope you see that in the verse here. About the things that we decide. Our faith is really defined by the decisions we make in the way that we live our lives. This is not isolated to these few verses about Moses. We see this in a regular way through several stories even in the Old Testament scriptures that demonstrate the necessity of making right choices. I mean, after telling the Israelites all the commands of God, Moses would put the choice before them in Deuteronomy 30. Deuteronomy chapter 30 and verse 15, Moses said to the people, see I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command to you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess." And here, Deuteronomy 30, 19, he says, "...I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring may live." How important was the choice they were making that day? It was about life and death. I mean, it could hardly get more serious. It could hardly be more consequential than what Moses tells them that day. Choose now, life or death. Which do you want? Of course, they said life, but then they didn't really live like that. But, you know, the choice is there nonetheless. Moses knew this in his own life. That's how he's able to put it in front of these guys this way. And then in the next generation after that, Joshua would put it similarly to those as they're entering the promised land, right? Joshua 24, 15 says, Choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of your fathers that were served in the region beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Choose you this day who you'll serve. Who's it going to be? Elijah said something similar to the Israelites just before he won the battle of the prophets, right? With the prophets of Baal up on Mount Carmel. In 1 Kings 18, 21, Elijah came near to all the people and he said, how long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if it's Baal, then follow him. Figure it out. Think about it. Consider it. Watch what I'm about to do. I mean, they figured it out after the fire of heaven came down and took up all the wood and the water and everything after the prophets of Baal cut themselves and made idiots out of themselves. And he mocked them saying, is he going to the bathroom or where is he, right? That whole scene, that's this scene. Once they saw God work, they, oh, we are for God, for the next 10 or 15 days. But still the choice is there, right? We can tend in our theological outlook to minimize choice. Right? We can minimize free will because we're all about God's sovereignty, all about God in His providence. And it's right, it's true. God is sovereign. I'm not minimizing that in the least. God is the one who chooses us concerning salvation. And as He chooses us, He puts this to us. Now you choose. I chose you, now what are you going to choose? Those who are really His choose life. Me and my house, we will serve the Lord. We will. We see that Baal's not it. You're it. We're in. This is how it works. I mean, these are just a few examples of God putting the choice in front of people, and we have those choices to make today. Literally this, will we reject the world and follow God? I mean, Jesus is the one who said we can't serve two masters, right? That's what Elijah said, don't go limping between two opinions. You can't serve two masters. That can't happen. You will choose one or the other. You will, even if you don't mean to, even if you think you don't have to, even if you think that you can, you know, sort of balance on top of the fence, eventually, you're going to land on top of it with a leg on either side. It's not going to feel good, but you will choose. There is no way that that's not true. In 1 John 2, verse 15, we read that, "...do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." See the choice? Love the world, love God. You can't do both. For all that's in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. See the choice? Life or death. You want to abide forever with God? What are you going to choose? What are you going to refuse? This is what Moses is up against. Notice in the text he says that he refuses one thing and he chooses a different one. And this is faith. That's the lesson of Moses. By faith. Faith is about making the right choice to reject the world and to actually follow God instead. Like all the other examples in Hebrews 11, Moses believed God, chose to follow Him instead of continuing in the world, and because he did, he decided to be identified with the people of God, even if it meant being mistreated with them. The decisive moment for Moses back in the text of Exodus 2 for a minute. The decisive moment for Moses when he's 40 years old, he went out to look at the people, his people, he recognized the Hebrews as his people, and he went to see the burden that they were under, and Exodus 2.11-15 tells us the story of how he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. He looked around to make sure nobody was looking, then he killed the Egyptian, buried him in the sand. With that decision, Moses stepped out of the Egyptian palace and into the people of God. Consider for a minute what he was giving up. Look at these verses again back there in Hebrews 11.24, 25, 26, right? He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated. rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ of greater wealth and all the treasures of Egypt." What's he giving up? I mean, first, he was known to be Pharaoh's daughter's son. He was a prince in Egypt. Now, that probably didn't equal a claim to the throne, because he's kind of adopted. It probably didn't mean that. But it certainly meant that he was afforded every luxury of his position as prince of Egypt. At this moment in time, Egypt was the world's most powerful nation. The richest of all of the peoples in the history of mankind. It's a little bit like being the prince of here. Ridiculously powerful and wealthy. He had access to all the pleasures of every kind of indulgence of the flesh. Life for Moses could have been one feast after another, a life of leisure, entertainment and pleasure. Verse 26, he said he had all the access to all the treasures of Egypt. He could have had anything. He could have had everything. He could have had that mansion up on the coast, that Italian super chariot, you know, any of that stuff. Women, food, feasts, all of it. It's all His. Could have been. But He gave it all up. Why did He give it all up? To be mistreated and to be reproached. I mean, why would He do that? Who does that? give up everything to get less than nothing. It's not just that he lost it all, it actually became harder to be mistreated, to be reproached. Who wants to be mistreated and abused? Who wants to be ostracized and reproached? I mean, he chose the life of suffering over the life of pleasure. Who does that? The answer of the text is those who live by faith. The answer to that is only found in the calculations that are done by those who calculate by faith. Notice that it doesn't say he traded pleasure for pain. That's not really what it says. It says more than that, right? He recognized that the pleasure was both sinful and fleeting. Temporary sin that was an offense to God, that's what he was giving up. Temporary pleasure that was offending God, that's what he was giving up. But not just to be mistreated. It doesn't just say that he gave it up pleasure to be mistreated. It says he gave up the fleeting pleasure of sin to be mistreated among the people of God. That makes all the difference. To be counted as a child of God. That's the calculation that Moses was making. That's what I mean by calculation. He was trading fleeting sinful pleasure for being included as one of God's people, even if he'd be mistreated because of it. The end of verse 26 tells us why he was looking to the reward. He knew that there was a reward. He's calculating, he's counting the cost, and he's determining the eternal benefits that far outweigh whatever he might have to suffer, the eternal reward of knowing God in his eternal kingdom." You tell me, is that a good trade? I want to trade the temporary pleasure of sin for the eternal favor of God. Giving up the pleasure for being one of God's people. Is that a good deal? That's a great deal, isn't it? This is how he's calculating. Spurgeon referred to these kinds of calculations as sanctified common sense. What idiot would give up eternity for the fleeting pleasures of sin? Well, every idiot who doesn't have faith, that's who. All of them. And I would too, if not for faith. If not for Christ coming and revealing Himself to me. As He did to Saul of Tarsus on that road to Damascus. He comes and He reveals Himself to us. Why would Paul give up everything he had? He's another example. Like Moses. He did the calculations of faith. He sat down and figured it out. Think about the missionary Jim Elliot. He's credited with saying this, that he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. The reverse is also true, right? It's only common sense. If I could get something that I'll have forever, why would I trade that for something that I'll only have for a little while? Common sense, but it's sanctified common sense. It's sanctified by faith. It was that faith that caused Moses to leave Egypt for 40 years. Look at Hebrews 11.27, it says, Exodus, back in chapter 2 again, verse 15, tells us that when Pharaoh heard about Moses killing the Egyptian, he was so angry that he sought to kill Moses. And because of this, Moses fled from Egypt into the land of Midian. I mean, it's pretty clear in Exodus 2 that Moses feared the anger of the king. That's why he fled. But yet, that fear didn't last. It didn't overtake him. Once he got to Midian, the fear didn't cause him to fall away. I think that's what you read there in verse 27, that it's by faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king. I mean, he left because of the fear, but he didn't abandon the whole plan. He didn't leave the whole thing. He didn't run so far away that he'd never return. Moses endured in faith, continuing to trust in God who was invisible to him for the next 40 years of his life. He was 40 years in Egypt, 40 years in Midian. I think that's right. A long time he stayed there. He didn't hear from God. That's what verse 27 says, right? He endured as seeing Him who is invisible. He endured by faith, trusting that what his folks had told him about God, who had promised things to his forefathers, that he was still counting on those things. And because of that, he didn't give in to the fear that he had for the anger of the king. He trusted in God who was invisible for all those years of his life. That was at least until God made himself visible in the burning bush. This is where another turn happens. It's not mentioned in Hebrews 11, but it was there that God called Moses back to Egypt to go lead captive Israel out of its slavery. I mean, Moses expressed all kinds of concerns about, how will they receive me? Will I be accepted by the Hebrews? I lack eloquence. I can't talk good. Kind of all these excuses. But at the end of the day, he packed up and went back to Egypt. And without fear of Pharaoh, you know where he went? to Pharaoh. What did he have to say to Pharaoh? Gee, I'm real sorry. No, God has sent me to tell you to let these millions of slaves who are building all of your fancy pyramids, let my people go. From the very beginning, he associates himself with the people of God, knowing that he's going to be mistreated by it because of it. He trusted in God to lead him and use him exactly as God told him he would. Now that gets us up to the point of Moses' return to Egypt, the plagues, the Passover, the Exodus, all that we will continue with in the next verses in Hebrew 11 next week. But before we sort of close this down today, I wanna go back into the passage we've looked at and make sure we don't overlook what I think is the most interesting statement in these verses. It's in verse 26. You see in verse 26 it says that Moses considered the reproach of Christ to be of greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. I want to ask you, how does Christ come into this discussion? How is Christ associated with Moses? Why is he here? How does he come into this discussion? If you look through Exodus, Exodus 2 and the rest, there's no direct mention of the Messiah and the story of Moses at this point when he chose to kill the Egyptian who was abusing his Hebrew brother. How are we to understand all of this? I think there's multiple ways of understanding it. First, the first one we want to remember is the immediate purpose of the book of Hebrews. For the writer of Hebrews, who is he writing to and why is he writing to them? He's writing to first century Christians who had converted from Judaism. They were in a position where he feared that they would fall back into the old Jewish system, that they would abandon Christ and go back to Moses and the law. It was originally written to them, and the writer was concerned that because they were facing persecution and they were fearing the mistreatment and the reproach, that they would fall away, return to the empty religion they left behind, but he wants to encourage them that the reproach they might suffer for their association with Christ was of more value than all the treasures of the world. Moses made that calculation. I want you to make that calculation also. Like Moses, they needed to look forward to the reward that would be theirs for persevering in the faith. But the writer of Hebrews isn't just trying to convince them that they shouldn't retreat. He's also drawing our attention to Moses as a type of Christ himself. The word, notice, is used here as Christ, not Jesus. Christ, the title, which could be properly translated in a more general sense as the Anointed One, the Anointed of God, the Chosen One. It's the Greek version of the Hebrew word Messiah, the Anointed Chosen One. And what he says here is that the abuse Moses suffered as the one chosen by God to lead the Israelites out of their captivity in Egypt is a foreshadowing of the suffering of Jesus, the one anointed by God to lead us out of our captivity of sin. There's a picture at play here. Remember, Moses wasn't just despised by Pharaoh and the Egyptians, was he? He was reproached by his own people too. He shows up and he goes, I'm here to deliver you guys. And they go, who are you? Why should we listen to you? He goes and tells Pharaoh, and Pharaoh says, make them make bricks without straw. And they go, Moses, you did this to us, what's wrong with you? Get out of here, you're making it worse. The plagues come, quit with the plagues, you're making it worse. Finally, they leave, they get across the Red Sea, the Egyptian army is done. And this is where you go, yeah, they're gonna be all for Moses now, they finally see it clearly, right? And what do they begin doing? Grumbling. That marks 40 years in the desert with Moses. Moses has to put up with these guys reproaching him for 40 years. Why did you take us out of that place that was so awesome where we had all the food we wanted and bring us out here to this desert where we just have to eat whatever this manna stuff is and drink muddy water and it's so hot and it's so miserable? I want to be a slave again. I mean, Moses is putting up with their reproach in the most unbelievable way. Who else was reproached by his people who didn't recognize him when he came as the Savior? I mean, Jesus is not only reproached by the world, by the Romans, he's reproached by the Jews. He's despised by them. He was rejected by his own. They complained about him until Pilate finally agreed to crucify him just as they demanded. like Moses, but in a much greater way, Jesus was the supreme deliverer, despite the reproach he suffered. But there still seems to be something more in the passage, doesn't it? There's got to be something more. Yes, the writer wants them not to fall away. He wants them to count the cost like Moses did, and to consider the reproach of Christ of worth more value than everything in the world. He wants us to associate Moses in some way as the deliverer, the redeemer, the anointed one of God, assigned to this task of bringing people out of slavery. He's a picture of Christ in the Old Testament. But there's something more, I think. Like all the other examples of faith in Hebrews 11, Moses believed God and chose to follow Him instead of continuing in the world. Because he did, he decided to be identified with the people of God, even if it meant being mistreated. That decisive moment when he was 40 years old, what happened then? Moses was deciding to be associated with this way. But we've already discussed all of that. Where does Christ fit into that? Moses considered his options and concluded it was all worthwhile because of the Christ who would come one day. We read this, however, in Deuteronomy 18.15, which I think gives us great insight into this. Deuteronomy 18.15, Moses said to the people, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen. Moses knew that he wasn't the last prophet. He knew that there was a prophet coming. And in the words of John the Baptist, whose sandals I'm not even worthy to untie, he knew it. He knew that there was a different Messiah, a different prophet, an anointed one who was going to do something more than even he was able to do. One to whom everybody should listen because he would come with the very words of eternal life. That was actually a common thought amongst the Jews in the time that Jesus was there. When they thought about the Messiah, when they talked about him, they knew because of Moses that he was going to come. In John 1, verse 45, after Jesus spoke to Philip about how he saw him under the tree when he didn't see him, and he sort of demonstrates his deity, Philip goes and finds Nathanael. And you know what he said to Nathanael? We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Who's he saying Jesus is? He's the Messiah. He's the Christ that who wrote about? They all knew that Moses wrote about him. They all knew that Moses knew this. They knew it. It was common. It was a common thought. We see it later in the transfiguration in Luke chapter 9 that when Moses appeared with Elijah on the top of the mountain and Jesus is transfigured. Remember what they were discussing? Stuff that Moses knew about. Like Jesus' coming exodus from Jerusalem. His departure could be translated exodus. They were talking about Jesus' exodus. that was going to be more meaningful, more spiritually beneficial to the people than even Moses' exodus out of Egypt. Moses knew that. You see it in the way he's talking up there with Elijah. They were discussing that stuff with Jesus. Jesus himself told the Pharisees in John 5, verse 46, that if they had believed in Moses, they would have believed in him because Moses wrote about him. And they all had to say, yep, but it's not you, it's a different Messiah. One more powerful that does more miracles and lives a better life and is better than you. At least he can't be born in Nazareth. You know, all that sort of stuff. They rejected him, but they knew it. They knew it. Everybody knew this. This is what was known about Moses. What's kind of lost a little bit in our day about Moses because we don't live in that culture. We don't see Moses that way. We see Moses as the giver of the law, the Ten Commandments, the old guy with the long beard holding Charlton Heston, right? Holding the two tablets of stone and that's all he is. But Moses is the man of faith. And he always was. And who did he have faith in? That's the point of this verse. He had faith in the coming Christ. In some divinely inspired supernatural way, Moses knew about the future Redeemer. He knew Jesus the Christ. And he considered sharing his reproach of the utmost value. It seems that Paul may well have been echoing Moses' faith when he wrote the statement Philippians 3.8. Paul says, He considered their approach of Christ to be of more value than anything in the world. He sounds just like Moses. I bet he learned it from Moses. God through Moses. I mean, like Moses, Paul had a lot to lose, didn't he? But he did the calculations of faith, and he was able to recognize the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus. I mean, it's sanctified common sense. that tells us that all that the world has to offer is, as Paul determined it, to be rubbish. Temporary. Faulty. Most of it sinful. None of it will last. Rubbish. That sanctified common sense that tells us that temporary pleasure cannot satisfy the eternal soul. If only we can just gain Christ instead. That would give us satisfaction. My question is, do you believe that? You'll know if you believe it if you consider things and make the calculations of faith like Moses did. Refusing and choosing. Refusing the world and choosing rather to be one of the people of God. That's the only way you can know is if you choose to do the right things by faith. Think about it. Think about it. Do you choose to follow what the Bible teaches even when it doesn't seem to make sense? Even when you've tried it for a while and it doesn't seem to work? Do you choose that? Are you willing to be mistreated for following Christ? Do you consider the reproach of the wicked and sinful world to be of any value to you, if only you could have Christ? Have you actually done anything to refuse the fleeting pleasures of sin? These are the kinds of questions that we have to consider if we want to have faith like Moses. Of course, remember that Hebrews 11.6 tells us that without this kind of faith, it's impossible to please God. It's a faith that chooses both to forsake the world and to embrace Christ in all the decisions we make, even on a daily basis. I'm going to repeat to you the charge of Moses, which Joshua used to challenge the people of Israel, choose you this day whom you will serve. What's true about you? What's true about you and your house? Who are you going to serve? I mean, choose life. It's easy. It's common sense. Sanctified by faith. Choose the living God like Moses did. Live by faith like he did. Amen. Lord, I thank you for your word. I thank you for, as I prayed before, Lord, I thank you for the life of Moses. But I thank you for this text which really brings him to life in a new kind of a way for us to see him operating as a man of faith, choosing to do these things that were costly But what he gained was infinitely more valuable than what he gave up. Lord, help us to see that we have the same opportunity. We have the same opportunities to recognize that if we will choose to follow you, to be your people, to do what you tell us, to be obedient, and to trust in you in all of the things in our lives, no matter whether we can rationalize it, whether the world makes fun or any other thing, Lord, that we too can gain something of infinite value. eternity with you. Lord, I thank you for giving us a foretaste of that in some ways now. But Lord, make this more real to us that we might have that kind of that it would be for us common sense, it would be first nature to us, not second nature to trust you, to follow you, to take these things and to live by them. Lord, help us. Help us to be people of faith. Help us to lead our families by faith. Lord, thank you for these examples. I pray that you would work them into our lives, that we might be like Moses, like his parents. in all the days of our lives to follow you and love you and trust you. We thank you and praise you for what you've given us in Christ. It's in his name we pray. Amen.