Well, good morning. If you have your Bibles, be turning to Hebrews chapter 11. And as we read a moment ago, we're going to be in the 24th through 26th verse as we continue to look at Moses and his life of faith. Now we've been looking generally at examples of faith found in the Old Testament and specifically at Moses starting last week. And we saw that in his life there was a story of faithfulness even from the beginning, even before Moses could be one who exercised faith in a way that we could recognize. We see his parents exercise faith. They look upon this child and they see in him something unique. We spoke about the difficulty of both the Hebrew and the Greek saying that he was beautiful and how to take that, but they recognized there was something unusual about him, something striking as a word that we used, something that told them that this child was important. Now, we know all children are important, but I think it's telling us they recognized that God's hand was upon him in a unique way, that God had a purpose for him, a mission for him. and that Moses himself will come to realize that, as we will see in today's text. But in hearing this, in knowing this, excuse me, they knew the king's edict. The king's edict was that all the children, all the male children of Israel should be put to death. And his parents, in realizing that this child was precious and should be protected, stood against that edict and in fact refused to obey it. and in fact protected their child for three months until they came to a point at which they weren't able to do that any longer for whatever reason and then took him to the Nile and basically turned him over to God's providence. and said, Lord, we're putting him in your hands. They build a basket, as we often call it. The Bible calls it an ark. And I think for good reason. It is the thing that will protect this child and God's mode of delivery. As God had delivered Noah in a previous era, now he will deliver Moses, his deliverer in this age, in the same way through this ark. And we saw just a little bit last week about the amazing way that God saves this child. You know, the irony involved. that Pharaoh is wanting to destroy any potential threat to his own household, to his own kingdom, to his own palace and his rule, and yet in God's providence, and I think sometimes sense of humor, this child will be raised in the household of Pharaoh. I think that very much is a statement on the providence of God that whatever Pharaoh seeks to do, God is poking at him and saying, you know, you will not thwart my purpose. It will not come to pass. And so, again, that's where we left off last week in seeing the example of these parents who were courageous and stood by faith. But we see that story continues today in the life of Moses himself. Our text says, By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward. Amen. As we think about this text, I want us to look at three points. First of all, a line of great divide. Second of all, an identification with God's people. And lastly, a view to great reward. Let's have a word of prayer as we get ready to talk about it. Heavenly Father, help us now to proclaim your word, that we might hear your word, Father, and understand it. Help us to believe what You tell us in Your Word and understand the reason it's given to us. Father, help us to grow in our faith, to be like Moses, standing by faith. If there's a person here this morning, Father, that needs Christ, we pray today would be the day they would recognize that need through a working of Your Spirit. So, Father, to all these ends, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Beginning first with this line of great divide, it's immediately in the text we see this line of divide. We saw the rescue of Moses was spectacular. I don't know how much the mother of Moses, Jochebed, and maybe his sister would have anticipated that maybe it would be a daughter of Pharaoh that would rescue this child, but whatever the case, God has worked it out this way and Pharaoh's daughter finds this child in the basket hearing it cry and immediately we are reminded of God's providence for all this because it says that as the child cries, her heart is moved with compassion toward the child. In other words, the child finds favor with this daughter of Pharaoh, and so she intends to keep this child and raise this child, and we might wonder immediately, how's this going to work? Moses will be separated from a very early age from his people, and there'll be no contact, and he'll be raised in an Egyptian education, an Egyptian religion, and how will this work? Well, the first thing we need to recognize is that God is not restrained by human conditions. He tells us that immediately because we see in the text an amazing thing happen of providence here. Pharaoh's daughter has compassion upon the baby, desires to raise him, but she realizes there's a problem. She can't nurse this baby. And immediately the sister of Moses sees an opportunity here to intervene and offers to find a Hebrew nurse to nurse the baby for Pharaoh's daughter. And so she says, yes, come take the baby, take the child, take him and nurse him and then bring him to me at a later date. I think Stephen says it's several months. But whatever the case, this is what happens. And so there's a connection there. We don't know what connection Moses had with his mother and his sister by birth from that point forward, but there probably was some connection if we understand the way those sort of situations worked. But whatever the case God is showing us, that he works in ways that we don't understand or anticipate. He works in ways that by his providence, these things will work out. So we shouldn't be deterred by the fact that Moses will be raised in Pharaoh's palace. But it does remind us that there is a line of conflict in this story, isn't there? And Moses standing right on the line. On the one hand, you have the oppressor nation of Egypt. Remember that's the entire background of the first chapter, introductory chapter of this letter, if you will, of Exodus in the fact that at the end of Genesis things are going well for the people of God, right? They found refuge in the land of Egypt. They're being taken care of. They're given the land of Goshen. They're living in a wonderful place and they have plenty to eat and they are seemingly a favored people, but as the change happens into exodus, something radically changes, doesn't it? It says a new pharaoh rose who did not know Joseph. He didn't remember him. He didn't know why the people of Israel were there. He didn't realize that they'd been delivered by God from their own famine by God's working through this people. They weren't appreciative any longer. And so now they saw them as a nuisance and maybe even worse, a threat. And so they said, we need to cripple this people. We need to put them under hard labor, oppress them, make them weak. make them do our bidding. And that's what they do. And as they continue to multiply even through that, the answer of Pharaoh is be harder upon them. Make their labor worse. Make it more strenuous. Be harder upon them. And when that still doesn't work, he says we need to kill off the male children. We need to do that. The midwives won't cooperate. That was our history last week. And so he says, then my own people will do it. But this is the situation into which he's born. The nation of Egypt is oppressing the people of God, treating them like slaves. And it's an interesting situation for Moses to be in. Probably Moses alone has his feet in both camps, doesn't he? He is an Israelite. Now we might wonder, what does he know of that? Does he know that he's an Israelite? But he is an Israelite. He has an association with the people of God who he knows are oppressed, but he also lives in the king's palace. Lives in Pharaoh's palace. He, for all real results, he is in the royal family. He's living as if he's part of Pharaoh's household. He's living as if he's a prince of Egypt. And so he has his feet in both camps. We might wonder, well, what's this going to mean? Well, as he's raised, we want to recognize that Moses is raised as an Egyptian in Pharaoh's household. If we didn't know that in the text of Exodus, it doesn't give us a lot of details there. Stephen clearly says it in his sermon in Acts 7. Here's what Stephen says. Pharaoh's daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son. He wasn't treated as a servant in Pharaoh's household. He was treated as if he were her natural-born child. And more than that, listen to what Stephen says. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in word and deed. He was educated just like any other prince of Egypt. He was given the best education the Egyptians knew, brought forth in all Egyptian knowledge and probably Egyptian religion. And God preserved him through all of that. He saw the bankruptcy of all of it, all of it. Because we see from a very early age as a young man, he identifies more with his own people than with Egypt. We're going to see that in just a second. But it isn't for want of trying at the hands of Pharaoh's family. They try to raise Moses up as an Egyptian. They give him everything. And Moses is really living on a fault line between two people, oppressor and oppressed, powerful and powerless, rich and poor. He's living right there on that fault line. And where will he stand? It's not the only time in the Bible that it uses this kind of picture as an analogy of something spiritual. Where do you stand? Remember when we're going through Thessalonians, Paul speaks about the evident token of the righteousness of God. And what does he mean here? He means these lines of divide that are going on in your culture around you in Thessalonica are evident tokens. What does that mean? A token is something by which you regard something greater, right? I give you a token of my friendship. You put it on your mantle, right? And the idea is every time you look upon that token, you remember something greater than that token. You remember, oh, my friend Rick, who gave me this thing? Maybe you have things like that that somebody gave you as a token of their friendship or a token of their love. Maybe you have something from your mother or your grandmother that's like that for you. And every time you look upon it, you don't remember the brooch or the piece of jewelry, whatever it may be. You remember your grandmother and how much you loved her. Paul says that these divides that are going on in Thessalonica are an evident token. They're a token which makes evident something that would be hidden, the righteous judgment of God. that there are spiritual sides in this world. And sometimes where you stand in those divides shows where you are not just now, but eschatologically. If you oppose Christ now, what does that mean other than you are not amongst his people, right? If you stand there on the day of judgment, you're lost. If you stand with Christ now, it's an evident token that eschatologically you're with the people of God. That's what Paul's argument is there to the Thessalonians. And in the same way here, I think we see an evident token now in Moses. Where will he stand? Will he stand with Egypt and the world or will he stand with God's people? The people that God has called out and led into Egypt and has promised that he will bring them out of Egypt. Where will he stand? With the lowly people of God or with their enemies. And you think about it for a moment, that might not have been an easy choice in one sense for Moses. You know, it's nice living in a palace. And I haven't lived in a palace, but I'm sure it's nice, right? As you think about what all that he would have that his people did not have. Not only a nice bed in which to sleep, but also food to eat. Imagine he never had to scrounge around for food. He had food brought to the table and he sat at the table with kings. with princes, with princesses. He sat at the table of Egypt with the best that Egypt could give and offer. He was full every time he got up from the table. And he wasn't going around in rags, was he? He was dressed like a prince of Egypt. He had the best of everything. Those things are really nice. How do I know that? The world fights for those things. The world will kill for those things. Moses had them handed to him. Handed to him. So where will he stand? Well, looking, if you will, at the text of Exodus, go back to the second chapter of Exodus. Beginning around verse seven, we see the events of last week. We'll skip over those. And we come to verse 10. It says, and the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. Again, adopted into Pharaoh's family. So she called his name Moses, that's a royal family name of the house of Tutmoses, saying, because I drew him out of the water. Now, it came to pass in those days when Moses was grown that he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens. Now, before we continue, I want you to notice something that this text is telling us immediately about Moses. It says immediately that he was raised as if he were Pharaoh's grandson, I mean, in the household of Pharaoh, but that when he was grown, and that's the same language more or less Hebrews uses, when he had grown large, the word means when he became great, but it's talking about in size, like when he'd grown up, right? He went out to his people. I want you not to miss this for a moment. that even in the account of Exodus it says that he went out to his people. He wasn't out just wandering around and happened upon some Israelite being abused. He went out to his people to go to his people to see what they were doing, see how they were being treated, to identify with them. Even from this early age Moses recognized that he was truly a child of Israel and he was drawn to his own people. And when you realize that you'll understand the story of what happens. in that case a little better. Moses goes out and sees his own people what? Gravely mistreated. He sees an Egyptian beating one of his brethren, according to the flesh, beating him mercilessly and Moses intervenes and driven with anger, maybe even in some sense of just anger, depending on how you would view it and what's going on there. He strikes out at the person and the person dies. Now, how badly was this man being beaten? Was he being beaten nearly to death? We don't know. We often glibly say Moses was a murderer. The Bible doesn't necessarily call him a murderer there, but certainly Pharaoh treats him as if he's a murderer. He does take this man's life, there's no doubt about that. But why does he take this man's life? It's not just because he sees the opportunity, but because he identifies with him in his misery. He sees in this evident moment the debate that's probably going on within his heart. Am I with Pharaoh or with my people? Am I with this person who's beating this Israelite? Or do I identify more with the Israelite who's being beaten? For those of you who were here on Wednesday nights last fall, we were going through medieval church history. We talked about this a little bit, but much more in early church history the year before. The early church were put in these situations all the time. You'd be walking somewhere, minding your own business, and you'd see a person getting abused because they were a Christian. Maybe by the authorities, maybe by the people from the synagogue, whoever it was, you had a choice. You could walk by them and just ignore what was going on, or you could walk over and join them. And I don't mean join on the abusing side, right? Join in in being abused. And that's what the early church did. They came and said, I stand with this guy. He's my brother. I stand with him. If you're going to abuse him, you're going to abuse me." It's a powerful testimony in the ancient world. It would be again today, don't you think, if people saw Christians stand together? People always accuse us of arguing all the time with each other. Imagine if they saw Christians standing together, loving one another, saying, if you're going to treat him that way, you're going to treat me that way, too. We're together. We're brothers. We're brothers in Christ. Moses is in a moment just like that. He sees this abuse happening. He says, who am I with? Am I with the Egyptian or am I with the Hebrew? Who am I with? And in that moment, maybe with indignation, whatever it was that motivates him to really just see that through, all appearances are gone and he just reveals who he is. He's an Israelite. He's with the people of God. And he strikes out in anger. Strikes out maybe defending the person. But whatever the case is, he strikes out. And we shouldn't think it doesn't cost him anything. We know Pharaoh immediately says that he's to be captured and he's to be dealt with and he has to flee. But in fleeing, think of where he goes. He goes into the desert, right, to live as something like a shepherd in the desert. A man who had before lived in palaces and the greatest clothes, the greatest accommodations, having the greatest food, all that gone. All the wealth and treasure of Egypt gone. at least his access to it gone. It cost him something. Now we're going to ask you to think about that differently in just a moment, but don't think that when he's in that moment it didn't have consequences. It had great consequences and if he had been caught, which of course was not going to happen because God had willed that Moses would be his agent of deliverance, but if he had been caught it would have cost him his life. It would have cost him his life. And so we see this. We might ask ourselves, why would Moses do that? Why would he identify with the people of God? Well, Hebrews tells us, doesn't it? It says in the verses we just read, that when he became of age, he refused to be called a son of Pharaoh's daughter. It's not just that he fell out. He said, I don't want to be called Pharaoh's child. I don't want to be a child of Pharaoh's daughter. I don't want to be identified any longer with Egypt. I want to be identified with my people. It says in verse 25, he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. Now, we should realize that there were many pleasures being offered to him as an Egyptian. But Moses had insight that all these pleasures are passing away. All the glories that we think of in this age that men kill for and die for, they're here today and gone tomorrow. And your enjoyment of them is only for a time. And they are gone or of no use to you. Jesus said much on this, didn't he? And we often use the phrase, you can't take it with you, right? And in fact, if you understand the theology of Paul in Romans 8, you're going to get far more down the road anyway. Don't worry about it, right? All things will be yours. That's one of the blessings that God gives us as a son of God. But people fight for these things and desire them so much because they think that it's all that matters. And Moses came to realize it isn't all that important. I would rather identify with the people of God and be in God's will and plan than to have all those things if it draws me out of God's will and plan. That's where I want to be, Moses says. I want to be in God's will and in God's plan. Now what did he see that he would be gaining? Well, he says this. Not only does it say that he would rather suffer affliction with the people of God than enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, and they are passing. I don't know if I hit that point strongly enough. They are passing. I often think about in Narnia, in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, you know, Edmund, all he wants is Turkish delight, and the White Witch gives it to him. She gives him that Turkish delight. And before he knows it, it's all gone. He ate it all. And what's the effect? He's sicker than he was, right? He's made sick by it. And my friends, that's what this world can do to you. It can fill you up and it's all gone and you're left ill and sick. And Moses recognized that. He said, I'd rather be with the people of God than to have those passing pleasures. But notice what else it says here in verse 26. He esteemed the reproach of Christ. The reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. He said, all the treasures of Egypt are great. They're wonderful. But you know what's greater? Being identified with Christ. It's interesting that he would choose to say Christ, isn't it? Being identified with Christ, though what that brings is reproach. I think what the author of Hebrews is trying to tell us is Moses always had a messianic view to what God was doing. He wasn't looking forward to just the idea of the land. If you've been with us on Wednesday nights and our covenant theology, you'll recognize it wasn't the land. Even for those that understood in the days of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and so forth, they weren't just looking for a land. They were looking for what went beyond that land, what that land pictured, which was the eternal promise of God. They weren't just looking for deliverance from Egypt. They were looking for that ultimate deliverer who would deliver them from sin and death and give them life eternal with God. That's what they were looking forward to. And you say, I don't know, you know, using Christ here might be just a little bit too much New Testament for an Exodus story. I don't think so. I think the Bible's telling us over and over again, they were looking forward to the promise of God, and they recognized the promise of God was a deliverer. From Genesis 3, the one who would come and crush the serpent's head, they were always looking forward to the deliverer. And if you don't think that's true, let me challenge you to think about Moses' story a little bit differently, because Moses saw himself directly as a part of that story. What do I mean? We often hear that story of him slaying the Egyptian in the desert, and we think Moses just lost his temper, but the Bible tells us differently. If we go again to Acts 7 and to Stephen's sermon, listen to what it says. Now, it was when he was 40 years old, It came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel, and seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed and struck down the Egyptian." Now if we just leave it right there, we say, well, we already knew all of that. That's what you told us in Exodus. But listen to what it says next. For he, meaning Moses, supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. Moses thought his people would say, how in the world do we understand Moses' life story? What in the world's happening here? He's rescued as a baby. He's raised in Pharaoh's household. God has given him every privilege, every bit of education, and everything he might need to know. He knows the ways of Pharaoh. He knows how to negotiate with Pharaoh. He knows all these things. But I guess it's just chance. It just all happened by circumstance, right? Moses didn't think they'd think that. Moses thought they would look at the circumstance and said, surely we can all see God's doing something. We may not know exactly what it is, but God is doing something. My friends, the Bible challenges us over and over to look at things that happen with eyes of God's providential hand, that he's at work around us. In the life of Moses, they erred because they didn't look that way. They didn't look at these spectacular developments and think God's doing something. And so when Moses emerges as this leader, ready to lead his people, they're not ready for it. Why? They haven't seen that's what God's doing. They don't recognize it. But Moses did. Even as early as this story, Moses recognizes God is going to use me to deliver his people. But my friends, Moses in that was always pointing to Jesus, wasn't he? He Himself says that another prophet will come like Me. Unto Him you shall listen. There'll be another great deliverer. There'll be another great prophet. There'll be another great mediator of a covenant. There'll be another great leader of the people of God. Be ready for Him and listen to Him when He comes. They weren't ready on that day either, were they? He came unto His own and His own would not receive Him. My friends, over and over again we see this. So Moses wanted to be identified with the people of God because he was willing to suffer the reproach of Christ, the world's opposition to the work of God, which is to deliver sinners. So I want to have us think about that just for one more second as we consider it, as we close with this idea of a view to a great reward. That's the great reward. If you need the CliffsNotes, there it is. That's the great reward. the deliverance of Christ. Moses saw that he had a part of that story. His story wasn't the whole of the story. If you think that the land of Canaan and a kingdom in that land is all that God ever was interested in, then you miss what Moses is telling you. You miss what Abraham told you before and what Hebrews interprets all of that to say. They were looking not for an earthly Jerusalem. They were looking for the glorious heavenly Jerusalem. They were looking for a city with foundations whose builder and maker is not David, but God. David's awesome. And Jerusalem was great. I guess I probably shouldn't say awesome. That's probably overselling a little bit. But David was a great leader and a great man of God, a man after God's own heart. We can love David and we can love Moses and we can love Abraham and all these great men of God who God raised up, but we should always recognize that they themselves said, don't look at me, but look at the one God is going to bring, a redeemer, a deliverer, a great king and priest and prophet, one who is able to do what all of our work just pictured, just shadowed. What did Moses do? He did something pretty great, right? I mean, we think about it. All the rest of the Old Testament is proclaiming what Moses was gifted by God to do. The Psalms are full of imagery from the Exodus. Over and over again, the reminder to a people who are rebelling against God is, have you forgotten what God did when He, by His mighty arm, led you out in a single night out of Egypt? Over and over again, it is the picture of God's love and redemption. But it isn't the end of the story. Moses tells you that. Abraham tells you that. All of the Old Testament tells you that. There is a coming deliverer of the people of God who will deliver them from a worse slavery than the slavery they experienced in Egypt. The slavery of sin and death, He will deliver them from it. That He will be the Son of God. He will be God incarnate, God in flesh, the God-man. Moses looked forward to Him. I could just re-preach Hebrews every week, can't I? The entire book. Moses was a steward, but he pointed to the Son who reigned over him. So my friends, as you think about this, recognize he was looking to the reward. In that sense, he didn't lose anything. He didn't give up anything. I'd remind us what the Bible says over and over about this. Jesus said the same thing. Yes, from earthly eyes, Moses lost it all. He lost the palace, he lost the clothes, he lost the sumptuous feast, he lost the allowance, whatever amount of money he got to carry around in his pocket, whatever it may be. He lost it all. But Moses never thought he lost anything at all. Moses said he would gladly trade those things for the reward that he would receive. We need to recognize something when we talk about sacrificing to follow Jesus. We're not sacrificing at all. The Bible tells us this over and over again. Jesus said it. He said, you wouldn't call a man a fool who walking across a field stumbles upon a great treasure, realizing how much more valuable that treasure is than everything he owns. He goes home and sells everything that he owns to receive the funding that he can go back and buy the property and receive the treasure. Jesus is speaking about the gospel, isn't he? Whatever you would give up to receive everlasting life and all the glories attendant to it in the gospel is no sacrifice. You haven't given up anything. You've received so much more fold. We can't even put a number on it. It's infinitely greater what you receive back from Christ and whatever it would cost you to follow him. So my friends, Moses just realized that. It's nothing to give up all the wealth of Egypt if it means I'm counted amongst the people of God and amongst what he's doing. So my friends, in conclusion, how do we tie this into Hebrews? It's not hard. Again, we're talking about people who have come into some difficulty. They're despised because of their Christian faith. They think if we just go back to Moses, everything will be better again. And he says, how can you go back to Moses when the example Moses gave you was of enduring hardship for the Christ to be counted a part of the mission and glory of what God was doing through Christ. And now Christ has come and revealed to you and the entire Christian community what it is that he's done for you. And you're going to say, for comfort's sake, I'm going to walk away. I'm going to walk away and just go back to Moses. Again, these are not just picked out of thin air, are they? They're all building the argument, faith means standing where you are in Christ, trusting in Him for deliverance, believing in Him, being like Moses and choosing, if it means it's going to cost me something in the here and now, so be it. Let me be counted with Christ. let me be with Christ." My friends, we're called to make the same decision.