Faith For Every Season

The Old Testament reading this morning will be Exodus chapter 2.

Please stand.

Starting in verse 1, now a man from the house of Levi went and took his wife, a

Levite woman.

The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him

three months.

When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed

it with bitumen and pitch.

She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds of the riverbank, and his sister

stood at a distance to know what would be done to him.

Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river while her young woman walked beside the river.

She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it.

When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the child was crying.

She took pity on him and said, this is the one of the Hebrew children.

Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call a nurse from the

Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?

And the Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go.

So the girl went and called the child's mother, and Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse

him for me, and I will give you your wages.

So the woman took the child and nursed him.

When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son.

She named him Moses because, she said, I drew him out of the water.

The New Testament reading is in Acts chapter 7, starting in verse 17.

But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in

Egypt until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph.

He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants so that they would not be

kept alive.

At this time, Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God's sight, and he was brought up for three

months in his father's house.

And when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son.

And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds.

When he was 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel,

and seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian.

He supposed that his brothers would understand God was giving them salvation by his hand,

but they did not understand.

And on the following day, he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, men,

you are brothers.

Why do you wrong each other?

But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, who made you ruler and judge over us?

Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptians yesterday?

At this retort, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father

of two sons.

Please remain standing.

You may be seated.

Would you take your Bibles?

Turn to the book of Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews chapter 11, and I'll be reading verses 23 through 28.

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.

By faith, he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood so that the destroyer

of the firstborn might not touch them.

Let's pray.

Father, I pray that you would help us as we give ourselves to your word, to

your voice as you speak to us through this word.

Lord, many are fatigued this morning.

We're tired.

We have many distractions that just come intruding during the holiday season.

I pray that today you would help us by your grace and by your spirit to give full attention to

the word of God.

We pray for that grace that would strengthen us to that end.

Lord God, we are thankful for the fact that your word can tell us in

detail what we ought to be and who we ought to trust.

We're thankful that it is filled with all that we need in order

to serve you today.

Thank you now for your sufficient word.

Help us now as we give ourselves to it.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Here we are on the threshold of a new year on the day that the new year begins.

What should we consider on a day like this?

What should be our meditations?

What should we look at?

I would suggest that a good topic for us as we look into the new year is living by faith.

Now, frankly, we have no idea what the new year is going to bring.

We don't.

None of us do.

We stand at this day every year not knowing what's going to happen.

It could be an easy year.

It could be a prosperous year for us for which we should give thanks.

It could also be a very difficult year where Christians maybe lose more freedom.

And we're used to it.

It may be that it will be a year where we face more.

Christians face more marginalization as what we believe becomes more and more

unacceptable to the world around us.

Whatever comes, whatever comes, we need a faith that does not give up or give

in to the pressure of avoiding pain by abandoning Jesus.

Now, remember why our writer in this great chapter on faith, why he concentrates on

faith.

It's because we face pressure to abandon Jesus, to abandon our profession of

faith in him.

Because following Jesus will always cost you.

Following Jesus, let me say that again, following Jesus will always cost you something.

And so there's this temptation to abandon Jesus, to avoid the pain of

following him, the pain of being unacceptable to the people who really matter

in society, or even the pain of becoming unacceptable to our family or unacceptable to our

friends, the pain of ridicule or even imprisonment, the pain of

persecution.

There's always that temptation to abandon Jesus to avoid the pain.

Now, you can't produce such perseverance on your own.

It's not a matter of gritting it, of gritting it out.

I'm going to be strong enough in order to persevere.

Rather, rather, you will persevere if you believe in the person

and the promises of God.

We must be filled with the promises of God and give ourselves to believing those promises and the person of God.

These are the things we're assured of, the things we hope for, that we're sure of them, the things that we're convinced of,

even though we haven't seen them yet.

But God has promised them.

And that is what produces the perseverance that our writer is trying to help us to see.

In order to persevere in the difficult times, in order not to abandon Jesus, we must think of his

promises, we must make those promises part of our lives, and we must believe those promises.

And when it comes by living by faith, there's no greater example than Moses.

And so he turns our attention to this great forefather in the faith, Moses, as we see

in our text today.

Let me read it again as we go over it.

Verse 23, 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 growing up, refused to, 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.

By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn

might not reach, might not touch them.

Here you find a man who believed God at every important juncture of his life, a man who believed God

in every season of his life, faith at his birth, faith when he was grown up, faith when he fled

Egypt, faith at the Passover.

Those four markers are given to us, and they're given to us so that God would communicate to us some truths that

we need to know today.

It's not just about Moses, in fact it's primarily about you.

What does Moses tell you about living by faith?

What does Moses tell you about endurance?

What does he teach us?

What does God want us to know?

Here's the first thing, verse 23.

Your faith must face hostile authority.

Your faith must face hostile authority.

Of course you see here the faith of Moses' parents.

He's not old enough to be exercised faith, but he begins in a household of faith.

This is the faith of Moses' parents.

Now you remember the story.

The Egyptians are becoming more and more afraid of the Hebrews, this nation within their nation, who are proliferating

and getting great in number.

And you remember the story that the pharaoh said first of all to the Hebrew midwives, you need to kill

all the male babies.

Well of course they didn't do it.

And so he issued an edict to all Egyptians that said, you see a Hebrew male, you throw him in the Nile.

Leave the girls alone, but any Hebrew male baby that you see, throw him in the

Nile.

Well what do we read of his parents?

We read it this morning.

They hid him for three months.

And then you remember the rest of the story.

What did they do?

His mother puts him in that waterproof basket and puts him what?

On the Nile.

And who should discover him but the daughter of Pharaoh himself.

There's the providence of God.

We talked about providence in Sunday school today.

There is God accomplishing his purpose through some means that you would never imagine.

Now also consider the fact that at this point Satan is trying to destroy the

promised seed.

He's trying to destroy the promised seed that was given to Eve in the Garden of Eden.

And that was promised through Abraham to be a blessing to all the nations.

Satan is busy seeking to destroy the seed.

Hence the edict to kill all the male Hebrew children.

Trying to destroy the seed.

And how did Moses' parents respond?

They disobeyed Pharaoh by protecting their child.

They did not fear the penalty that might come upon them on account of their defiance.

They were living by faith.

Now where does faith come in here?

Where does faith come in?

It's possible that they understood the promise of the seed.

In fact I'm sure they did.

This is now 400 years after Abraham.

And they have talked about this covenant with God.

Now what we have to see here is that Israel is the promised seed.

Israel is going to bring blessing to all the nations.

At this point Israel is the promised seed.

And they knew that.

Now of course that promised seed of Israel culminates in a person called Jesus.

We know that from this side of Calvary.

But here is the promised seed.

And they knew those promises.

And so they did what was consistent with that promise.

They sought to protect the baby.

And there was no guarantee.

There was no guarantee that their son would survive.

But they still believed God.

They still believed in the promise that he had made to their fathers.

Now they might also, and I believe more to the point, they may also have acted fearlessly

because they saw Pharaoh promoting evil.

And they trusted God to care for them and their boy as they responded with righteous

actions.

They faced hostile authority with righteous actions.

They defied that authority by faith.

Now God calls you to exercise the same kind of faith.

You may face authorities that seek to enforce evil.

Now listen, that may happen.

That may happen.

In fact, it's more than on the horizon, it is happening.

You know, in some states, in some states, if you're a nurse, you are required to assist in

abortions.

Even if you say, my conscience won't allow it, my faith won't allow it.

There's a lot of, there's states now that say, we don't care about conscience provisions any longer.

It doesn't count.

And you may be faced, and people like this, you may be faced with a situation from

civil authorities where to give in, as in this case, these nurses, to give in might mean the

loss of your livelihood.

It might mean the loss of all the benefits that you get.

But will you trust God to take care of you?

Right?

Will you trust God?

Will you be faithful to Jesus and trust God?

It may come from an employer.

Your employer requires you to fudge the records in some fashion.

So, and so you don't invite inspection.

But you won't do it since you're a disciple of Jesus, and he requires honesty from his disciples.

Will you give in?

Or will you trust?

Just like Moses' parents faced a hostile authority.

They did not give in.

They acted by faith.

The question is, will you resist the pressure to avoid the pain of following

Jesus?

Will you resist the pressure by believing his promises?

Again, let me emphasize with you, it's not just a matter of resisting the pressure.

It's resisting the pressure, not in your strength.

It's resisting the pressure by remembering the promises.

Remembering what God has said.

Do you believe his promises?

By that, you will be able to endure.

He goes on in verses 24 through 26.

Your faith must choose mistreatment.

Now, I want you to note carefully that I did not say face mistreatment.

I said, you choose mistreatment.

By faith, you choose mistreatment.

That's what Moses did.

Moses exercised his faith when he was grown up.

Our writer puts it that way in verse 24.

By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the daughter of Pharaoh.

Let's turn back to Exodus chapter 2 again.

Let's continue reading.

We'll start in verse 11.

Watch what he says here.

One day when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an

Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brothers.

He looked this way and that and seeing no, and he struck down the Egyptian and hit him in the sand.

When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together.

And he said to the man in the wrong, why do you strike your companion?

He answered, who made you a prince and a judge over us?

Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?

Then Moses was afraid and thought, surely the thing is known.

When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses.

But Moses fled from the Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.

Now notice that term there, when he had grown up.

When you look at the writer to the Hebrews, our writer says that Moses exercised faith when he had grown up.

There's a connection.

He's talking about this particular story.

He's using the same words.

All right.

When he had grown up.

Moses chose mistreatment.

At this point, Moses took the step of identifying with his Hebrew kinsmen and

renouncing his position in the royal family.

You've got to understand what Moses is doing here.

Consider the fact that Moses was part of the reigning elite.

He was in the most powerful family in the world at that time.

Egypt ruled over a vast empire at this time, and Moses was part of the royal family.

He had all the perks and the privileges that belong to this powerful family in the world.

At that time, any comfort, any pleasure was his whenever he desired

it.

But he chose instead to identify with the slaves.

Do you see this?

I think sometimes we get so used to these stories, we don't see the depth of them.

Here is a guy who's part of the most powerful family in the entire world with all the perks, all the power,

all the privileges that come with that.

And what does he do?

He chooses to identify with slaves.

He goes from the top to the bottom.

By the way, does that remind you of somebody?

It should.

And by so identifying himself with his kinsmen, he chose mistreatment.

With God's people, rather than the fleeting pleasures of sin.

Well, you say, what kind of mistreatment?

Oh, things like backbreaking labor and whippings and social isolation, not to mention

persecution, that sort of thing.

And the pleasures of sin that are fleeting, what are those pleasures?

Well, right off the top, avoiding the pain of whippings

and backbreaking labor and isolation and persecution.

Just avoiding all of that all together, right?

And do I really need to enumerate all the pleasures that are available to the rich and the powerful?

Do I need to enumerate that those were all his?

No pain, all pleasure, right?

He could avoid the pain that came by identifying with the

people of God.

He could have avoided all that, but he chose it.

He chose mistreatment at that point.

The moment he got involved, he identified with his people and he had renounced

everything that he had.

Now, remember what the readers of this epistle are experiencing.

Do you remember what the writer says in chapter 10, verses 32 and 33?

Remember what he said to them?

You endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach

and affliction, and sometime, what?

Being partners with those so treated.

Like Moses, they were identifying with people who were being mistreated and thus

would be subject to mistreatment.

They're facing the same thing that Moses did.

And here's the question.

Will you choose mistreatment with your brothers and sisters?

When the crunch comes, you know, abandoning Jesus, you know what it also means?

It's turning your back on your brothers and sisters.

If you're going to be identified with Christians, a portion of us may come under intense persecution.

To be identified as one of them would be to invite that kind of mistreatment.

Will you do that?

Will you, by faith, choose to be mistreated?

He says to that to these people, remember how it was when you first entered persecution?

You were partners with those who were being mistreated.

Well, where does faith come in here?

Where does faith come in?

He chose mistreatment over pleasure.

Why?

Notice, because he was looking to a future reward.

Do you see that?

He considered the reproach of verse 26.

He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of

Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

He chose mistreatment over pleasure because he was looking for future reward.

This is what he hoped for because of what God promised.

And he was sure of it because of God's faithfulness.

He had not seen it yet, but he was convinced God would deliver.

That's the definition of faith we see in verses one and two.

You see it played out right here with Moses.

He's looking for this treasure.

He believes it's going to be his.

And because of that, he had the ability to evaluate reproach in the proper

way.

Because he was looking to that reward, he was able to evaluate what reproach was.

And because of that future reward, he was able to evaluate earthly treasure.

He was able to evaluate those two things, earthly treasure and pleasure

or mistreatment.

He could make a proper evaluation of that by means of looking

forward to that reward.

With God's future reward in mind, you can

see the reproach of Christ is more valuable.

Do you notice what it says?

Notice what it says in verse 26.

He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth.

The reproach is greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was

looking to the reward.

By the way, you remember what our writer has told us in chapter 10.

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a greater reward.

We're in the same place as Moses.

He points you to Moses who had such confidence, who kept that reward in mind.

So here he is.

He understands there's a future reward.

And he sees the reproach of Christ more valuable than avoiding the pain of

faithfulness and gaining the pleasure by abandoning what he knew was right.

If you look to the future reward, you will be able to see the reproach of Christ is

more valuable than gaining the pleasure that comes by abandoning

Jesus.

Now, there's one little thing here that may catch our attention.

He says the reproach of Christ.

Where is Jesus in this story?

I don't see him.

It's a good question.

Always remember this, that identifying with God's people will bring suffering.

It will inevitably bring suffering.

You're following Jesus.

There's always a cost.

Identifying with his people will also cost you.

And anytime you bear reproach and suffering for your faith, you share in the reproach and the

sufferings of Jesus.

All of God's people, all of those who have come to Christ are in Christ.

They are so united to him that there is this mutual sharing of our sufferings.

Okay.

He, although it's not clear from the Old Testament, the New Testament, we know that all those folks

who lived by faith belong to Jesus.

Do you remember the story of Paul on his way to Damascus, and he is stopped

by Jesus in the road?

You remember that?

And he's blinded, and he hears some speaking, and he says, who are you, Lord?

Or at that point, he's saying, who are you, sir?

And here's Jesus' response.

I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

Now, wait a minute.

Jesus wasn't even around, right?

He's been ascended.

Why is he telling Paul, I'm Jesus who you are persecuting?

You know why?

Because when we're persecuted, that's the same thing as persecuting Jesus.

We're that united to him.

And so his sufferings are ours as well, right?

When we suffer, we're suffering because we're united to Jesus.

The readers of this are indeed suffering the reproach of Jesus, like Moses.

Now, here's what I want you to see.

As I meditated on this passage for a couple weeks, this struck me.

And I hadn't seen this before.

It says that he considered the reproach of Christ of greater wealth.

Do you get it?

The reproach that you suffer, the suffering you go through is of greater wealth than the earthly treasures that you

could have.

How in the world is that possible?

How is reproach more valuable than that?

You know what?

See how Paul viewed his suffering for Jesus as valuable.

Turn over to 2 Corinthians 4.

Probably say, oh yeah, pastor, I knew you were going there.

You go there all the time because I love this chapter.

And it really says this well.

Here is Paul considering the reproach of Jesus of greater wealth than anything he could have had.

2 Corinthians 4, verse 1.

By the way, can I say something to you?

I call this my losing heart chapter.

When you start losing heart, read this chapter.

This is the chapter.

This is your go -to when you're losing heart.

Go to this chapter.

Anyway, that was a freebie, okay?

That's not in my notes.

2 Corinthians 4, verse 1.

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.

And again, you've heard me say this.

Compare this to chapter 11.

Chapter 11, he says, well, let's see.

I was beaten with rods three times, right?

People taking rods and smacking the living daylights out of me.

I was stoned three times.

Have you ever thought about what it feels like to get stoned?

Now, I'm talking about first century stoned, okay?

Having people throw rocks at you, all right?

He goes on.

He says, I've been shipwrecked, right?

I've been whipped.

I've had the flesh torn off my back.

I have, sometimes I'm hungry.

There's all kinds of things.

And you look at this and you say, this is your ministry and you call it the mercy of God.

What?

Right?

Again, you've heard me say this, but I think it, oh.

It's the mercy of God because he could have been a well -established pharisaic scholar who's living at the

top of the world of an international reputation and just living the life of ease,

but ending up under the judgment of God.

It's the mercy of God that he gets to be beaten like this, all right?

Now, turn over to the end of the chapter, the last three verses, 16.

So we do not lose heart, though our outward self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by

day for this light.

Again, this is the guy that's whipped, beaten, stoned, you know, all that,

shipwrecked.

For this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an

eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are seen,

but to the things that are unseen, the reward.

For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

That is why reproach is of greater wealth.

Look what you have in Jesus compared to the easy life that ends in

judgment.

You have a life now of joy and peace in the midst of suffering.

You can face death like no one else can.

All of these things are yours in Christ.

The reproach of Christ has much more value than the treasures and pleasures of this life.

So faith sees the promises and gives suffering for Jesus the proper

value so you can choose mistreatment.

You can give the proper value to your suffering so that you can choose that suffering over

what the world has to offer.

And with God's future reward in mind, notice, not only does he assign the right value to suffering, he assigns the right

value to earthly treasure.

He says such treasure and pleasure that comes by abandoning

Jesus, first of all, is sin, is sin.

To avoid suffering by avoiding Jesus is sin.

Make no bones about it.

And he says, not only is it sin, but notice, it is fleeting in

comparison.

With that reward, assured of that hope of the reward, convinced even though you haven't seen it,

you now can choose mistreatment because you value, you're giving the right value to suffering and

you're giving the right value to earthly treasure and to earthly pleasure.

And he says earthly treasure and pleasure cannot compare with the heavenly reward that awaits.

You remember what Jesus or what Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 1?

He says that you have an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and

unfading, kept in heaven for you.

Let me ask you, how much of your earthly treasure?

Look at all the things you have.

Some of you have more than others, doesn't make any difference.

Look at all the things you have.

It rusts.

It burns.

It wears out and you throw it away.

All that stuff that we have.

All the pleasures that you might have, right?

All the pleasures.

Listen, don't see I'm not rich, so I don't have access to lots, any pleasures.

My goodness, folks, you middle -class

people, you have access to more.

What is it?

It's fleeting.

Your phone, so you can't look up things on

your phone, right?

Your car rusts, your house burns down or falls apart.

What?

It's fleeting.

And when you compare it to the eternal treasure that awaits us, why do we want it?

Why do we want that?

And so he says you'll be able to choose mistreatment as you believe the promises of God.

The promise of heavenly treasure that far outweighs what pleasure can offer.

By faith, your faith will choose mistreatment.

Verse 27, your faith must face danger.

Your faith must face danger.

It says in verse 27, by faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king,

for he endured a seeing him who is invisible.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Okay, let me get this straight.

How in the world can this writer say that Moses was not afraid when we just

looked at chapter two of Exodus where it says he was afraid?

What in the world is going on here?

Didn't you just, didn't we just read that Moses was afraid?

Yes.

What do we do about that?

I think the first thing you have to see is that all the heroes of the faith are

not 100 pure in their faith.

Would you agree with that?

I mean, who have we looked at so far?

Abraham.

It said over and over, Abraham believed God.

But at one point, what?

In his weakness, he lies.

He lies.

At another point, he takes a shortcut with a servant woman named Hagar.

And yet God calls him a man of faith.

Isaac.

Isaac believed the promises of God, but he got the recipients mixed up.

God, by his providence, made sure the right one got it.

But it's not 100%, right?

And what about Jacob?

Most of his life was faithlessness.

It's only at the end of his life that you see faith and faith that grows.

So we're not talking about 100 % pure faith here.

The same is true of Moses.

He was afraid, but faith wins out.

Faith dominates.

Here's what happens.

He kills an Egyptian to rescue his Hebrew brother.

And when it's discovered, he is afraid.

Where does faith come in?

I think Moses was afraid because he was in danger.

He was in danger.

Now put yourself in his place.

You've just defended somebody.

It may cost you your life.

What are you doing right now?

You're saying, where in the world am I going to go?

Where am I going to find refuge?

What's going to happen to me?

What do I do about this?

Right?

I don't think Moses had a pre -plan.

Now it's over.

It's done.

He's afraid, but he's also saying, where am I going to go?

Oh, what am I going to do now?

And so I believe he leaves Egypt trusting God for protection

and provision.

He doesn't know where he's going.

He's getting out of town.

That's what he's doing.

But he's a man of faith.

In fact, he's able to endure because he saw him who is invisible.

That's how he endured.

The eye of faith can see what is invisible to the eyes of others.

Moses was aware of the presence of God.

Moses could see the power of God.

Moses could see God's providential work.

I have no doubt in my mind that Moses knew what happened to him as a baby.

Right?

He had seen God work.

He had seen what God was like.

You too, by the way, can see the invisible God.

How so?

You look at him as he's revealed in this world.

You have centuries and centuries and centuries of the record of what God does.

And so many people today say, show me a sign.

It's like, why would you need a sign?

What do you got here?

You got a history of God showing up and being faithful.

Of centuries and centuries and centuries of that.

You just open this word and you will see God's faithfulness on every page of the scripture.

God reveals himself in his word.

God reveals himself in his works.

Look at your life.

Look at the, from this new year's day, look back.

Can you see the faithfulness of God in your life?

You see, you can see the invisible God.

So look, remaining faithful to Jesus often means facing danger.

I remember my trips to Azerbaijan, one in particular.

One in particular.

So one night we're out in the country.

We're not in Baku, the city.

One night we're out in the country.

We're staying in this house.

We walk into this house and it is stacked with books, all Christian

literature.

Which literature was illegal?

We're staying there that night.

Okay.

All right.

Next day, we're going to go into Baku, the city.

What do they do?

They load up the car with that literature and we drive into the city.

We drive to a prearranged point where there's another car by which they take all the literature out of

our car and put it in another.

All right.

All this is illegal.

You're thinking, wow, this is an interesting trip.

I may end up in jail, right?

Now, look, we did not have banners on our cars saying,

we're carrying Christian literature.

Right?

The Christ car, we didn't have anything like that in this Muslim country.

We took precautions, just like Moses did, getting out of town.

Right?

But even taking precautions, you got to trust God.

You have to trust God because the precautions may not work.

And I think that's where Moses is.

That's where Moses is.

He's facing danger.

It's entirely possible that following Jesus means danger for you.

Now, look, I don't want to be a Dan Downer here.

Okay.

But let's be honest with ourselves.

Danger may come to us.

Let's be honest.

Let's quit saying, let's quit putting our hope in the fact that we live in a great nation and we're never going to suffer for our

faith.

I'm not going to put my hope in that because it may not true.

In fact, I see things happening in our culture that maybe legally, we're not going to get

thrown in jail, but we sure are going to be marginalized and we're going to pay a price.

And so let's just own up to it.

We may face danger.

And you have to decide, will you let danger dictate your faithfulness to Jesus?

Or will you trust your father to protect and provide?

What are you going to do?

Will you see him who is invisible?

You can face danger by faith in the person of God.

You see?

All right.

One last thing.

Verse 28.

You must, your faith must face deliverance and judgment.

Verse 28.

What happened to Moses?

By faith, he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood so that the destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.

40 years after, here's the story.

Remember, 40 years after leaving Egypt, Moses returns to deliver his people from the hands of their oppressors.

In accomplishing his task, God uses him to bring nine plagues down on this country, on

this nation.

And now the final plague will arrive.

The death of the firstborn, by the way, the firstborn of the cattle as well, but the death of the

firstborn from the highest place, from Pharaoh's household to the lowliest slave girl,

the death of the firstborn.

And Jehovah is going to make a distinction now between his people and the Egyptians.

A distinction so that the Egyptians will say the God of the Israelites is the true God and

he's omnipotent.

He's going to make that clear to them through this last plague of death of the firstborn.

But in order for any firstborn to escape, including those of Israel, they had to

take a Passover lamb.

They had to observe Passover and take the blood and put it on the doorpost and the

top of the door.

So you got blood splattered up here and on the doorpost.

And by that sign, the destroyer will pass over your house.

Where does faith come in?

Put yourself in Moses' place.

The only way to escape death is to be in that house, observing the Passover, a house that

is marked with those blood marks on the door.

Had anyone ever seen anything like that before?

No.

But Moses believed that God would bring judgment and deliverance by this means.

He believed that God would do what he said.

He was convinced of what he had never seen.

But God had said it would happen.

God was no one had ever seen this.

He hadn't seen it.

But if God said it, he believed that there was safety in doing

what God had commanded him to do.

Now, what about you?

Do you believe that judgment and deliverance are on the way?

Do you believe it?

I mean, have you ever seen the cataclysmic events that God

says are going to take place when Jesus returns?

You ever seen any of that?

No, you haven't.

Have you seen yet the beautiful existence that's ours forever after

God comes in judgment, Jesus comes in judgment?

Have you ever seen it?

No.

The answer is no.

You have not seen it.

You have not seen it.

Are you convinced that God's judgment is coming, even though you've not seen it?

Are you sure of the hope that Jesus offers, even though you've never seen it yet?

Do you believe?

Then like Moses, you stake everything on what God has promised.

You stake everything on what God has promised.

Now, look, there is one who by faith

faced hostile authorities.

He faced danger.

He actually brought about salvation.

And he chose mistreatment.

You know who that is?

It's Jesus.

And the only way you can do the same.

Is if you're united to him, because by the mistreatment he suffered by his faith.

He's able to deliver us and has delivered us from the power and the

tyranny of sin.

So that we can make the right evaluations.

So that we can face these things by faith only because he suffered for us.

That's the only way we can do it.

If you've never trusted Jesus, then look.

Hard times are going to come and you're going to melt away.

But we can endure because of his endurance.

We endure if by faith we believe what God has done or what God has

said he will do.

Father, thank you for your word that just opens up a whole world of meaning

to us.

Thank you that you have told us about Moses and

his faith.

That you revealed a greater faith in Jesus himself.

And that through all of what Christ has done, we can endure.

God, help us to believe the promises that you have made.

Help us to believe that you are the person you've revealed yourself as.

Help us, we pray in Jesus name.

Amen.

There has been a change in the bulletin.

Instead of singing the communion hymn, I'll be singing all glory be to Christ, which is in page 133 of your hymnals.

Please stand.