Moses: Faith to Choose Reproach Part 1 (Hebrews 11:24-26)

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Moses: Faith to Choose Reproach, Part 2 | Worship Service

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Hebrews chapter 11, we're going to be at verse 23 and 24 today,

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Hebrews chapter 11. Let's begin with prayer before we look at God's word. Our Father, we have opened your word before us this morning and now we pray that you would open our eyes to your word, that you would send your spirit to do the work of illuminating us by your word, help us to see ourselves and truth and this world and eternity in light of what you have revealed and we pray that by your grace you would strengthen us to be obedient to what we read and study and what we learn and we ask your blessing upon this time and that your spirit would be our teacher and that your word would be to us our only concern for these next few minutes.

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We ask this in Christ's name, amen. The faith of Moses' parents which we looked at last week helps explain

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Moses' faith, how it is that a boy who was born to a slave, a slave nation under Egypt's thumb to parents who were slaves in Egypt, how he would come to be raised in a palace and then end up delivering a nation from that slavery.

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That's quite a story, isn't it? A man born to slave parents who ends up delivering the entire nation from slavery.

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Moses is one of the three most significant of Old Testament characters. In fact, if you were to list those three significant

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Old Testament characters, it would be Abel, Abraham, Moses and David. In Abraham, you have the beginning of the

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Jewish people. In Moses, you have the beginning of a nation and then in David, you have the beginning of an eternal kingdom.

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And so each one of those men moves the redemptive covenant plan of God forward and all three of them, of course, were men at the center of covenants that God made with the

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Jewish people. Abraham being the recipient of the Abrahamic covenant, Moses being there as a mediator of the

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Mosaic covenant and David, of course, the Davidic covenant, which promised an eternal kingdom. Moses was a hero to the

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Jews, known as the lawgiver. He was the one who mediated the Old Testament law and so it is quite appropriate that the author of Hebrews would use

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Moses as an example of faith because it would counter the Jewish objection that law and faith are mutually exclusive.

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So in the mind of every Hebrew who would be reading the book of Hebrews and Hebrews chapter 11 in particular, their minds… the

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Jews would be thinking, wait, live by faith, but we have the Old Testament law. We have Moses. We have the ceremonies.

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We have the sacrifices. We have all of the moral law that we've got to fulfill and to live by.

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And the author is imploring with them to live on the basis of faith. And they might be tempted to think that faith and the law of Moses were mutually exclusive.

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So the author of Hebrews, in a stroke of genius, brings Moses into this list to show that even the great lawgiver, the one who gave the law to the nation, was himself a man of faith.

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And he is a hero of faith and his parents' faith helped explain how it is that Moses ended up being the type of man that he was.

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We looked at Moses' parents' faith last week at verse 23. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw he was a beautiful child and they were not afraid of the king's edict.

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It describes their faith and you can see that they would have had an opportunity to have some influence on Moses, to have some input into his life since his mother was the one who was paid to nurse

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Moses. And then Moses, by the time he had grown up a little bit, was handed over to Pharaoh's daughter to be raised in the court of Pharaoh.

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We can assume that Moses' parents would have had some influence into his life and he ends up following in their footsteps in terms of the faith.

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Moses' faith is described in verses 24 through 26. Let's read verses 24 to 26 together and it goes on into verse 27 through 29.

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Actually all of that deals with Moses, but today we're just focusing on verses 24 through 26. Actually, truth be told, today we're focusing on verse 24.

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By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

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Now there are various ways that we could kind of divide those verses up and consider them. I want you to notice that there are four verbs that are substantial there in that passage.

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In verse 24, he refused. In verse 25, he chose. In verse 26, he considered.

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And in verse 26 at the end, he was looking. He refused, he chose, he considered, and he looked. And that's not how

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I'm going to divide that up because that would make for four different sermons, so we're not going to do that. Instead, I want you to notice that there are three contrasts.

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I'm going to let you off easy with three sermons on Moses. There are three contrasts in the passage that are highlighted. Really, the emphasis is on the two paths that Moses chose.

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By faith, he chose something. He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. That was refusing something, but the flip side of that coin was a choice that he made for something else.

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And then the passage really contrasts three different things that Moses chose. He chose between two people,

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Israel and Egypt. He chose between two positions, slavery and royalty. And he chose between two prizes, reproach and treasure.

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Those are the three choices that Moses made. It actually was one choice, but it had implications.

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He chose Israel, slavery, and the reproach of Christ over Egypt, Pharaoh's treasures, and the people who are enemies of God, the royalty that Moses could have had.

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That was his choice. So, by faith today, we're going to see that Moses chose between two peoples, Israel and Egypt.

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Verse 24, by faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

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The author has an event in mind signaled by his use of that phrase.

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Look at it in verse 24, when he had grown up. That, I think, indicates to us exactly the incident in the life of Moses that the author has in mind as he's describing

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Moses in verse 24. So now the question is, what is that incident? And to answer that question, you'll need to keep your place here because we will be coming back, but turn back to where we left off in Exodus chapter 2.

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Exodus chapter 2. Now when we left off with Moses last week,

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I feel like this is a series that we're doing, right? When we left off Moses last week, when we left our hero last week, he was still in Egypt.

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He had been hidden by his parents for three months. Then his mother and father, feeling the pressure of the king's edict, which was that all

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Hebrew males should be killed, they put him in a basket and covered it over with pitch and set it off afloat in the reeds of the

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Nile River. Pharaoh's daughter just happened to be coming by with her maids to go bathe in the river, and she saw the basket and just so happened to send her maids out there and pick it up and the basket happened to have

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Moses in it, and she recognized that he was a Hebrew boy. So she adopted him as her own and found a nurse to nurse

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Moses, and that was Moses' mother. That's where we left it off last week. We saw that by the providence of God, God delivered

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Moses just in working through not necessarily miraculous things, but very providential things in order to accomplish

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His purposes. And Moses grows up, and you may ask, why is it that Moses was allowed to live?

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Anybody ask that last week? Why was Moses allowed to live? Pharaoh had issued a decree, an edict, that all male

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Hebrew boys should be executed, that they should be killed. And yet, here his daughter brings a

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Hebrew male baby right into his court, and he gives it an exemption. And he had to know that this was a

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Hebrew baby because when Pharaoh's daughter noticed the baby, saw it crying, she said, this is one of the

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Hebrew's babies. She knew this. And she also then would have known of Pharaoh's decree and brought him into the court and expected what?

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That the baby would be executed? She expected to be able to raise this baby. She was rescuing the baby.

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Why was Pharaoh allowed to live? Here's the answer to this. Other than, don't Jesus juke me, come up with a spiritual card and say, well, obviously the providence of God.

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I understand all of that. But physically, temporally speaking, the reason is this.

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Sometimes those in power do not live by the rules that they impose on other people.

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Say law, take a second to process that. We'll just pause. I know that is a shock to you.

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It has happened occasionally in various countries on the face of the planet at only a handful of times in human history that those in power do not impose their ungodly and unjust edicts upon other people who are in that nation.

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It has happened. And shockingly enough, it happened here under Pharaoh. So Pharaoh said all

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Hebrew male children should be executed. Pharaoh's daughter said, but I have a

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Hebrew male child. And Pharaoh said, okay, honey, that doesn't apply to you. If you love him, you can keep him.

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You brought him home. You found him out wandering around the wilderness in the neighborhood. You get to bring him in. And Pharaoh's heart went out to her and he kept him.

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By the way, when that happens, when those who are in power don't live by their own edicts and all the rest of us have to do, just understand that it is always for your own good.

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You just trust the elites. They know what is best for you and that's why that they do that. Never, ever doubt that.

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Exodus chapter 2, this is where we pick up the story in verse 10. The child grew and as she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son and she named him

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Moses and said, because I drew him out of the water. Verse 11, now it came about in those days when Moses had grown up.

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Notice that that's the exact same phrase we found in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 24, by faith Moses when he had grown up.

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This tells me that the author is connecting what it is he is describing in Hebrews chapter 11 to this incident back in Exodus chapter 2.

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When Moses had grown up, he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors and he saw an Egyptian beating a

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Hebrew, one of his brethren. Now, we kind of feel like between verse 10 and 11, we missed some stuff, don't we?

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Like she adopted him and named him and then we fast forward,

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Moses when he had grown up went out to his brethren. You feel like you've missed a space of time.

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It turns out you have missed a space of time. In the book of Acts chapter 7, we find out that we've missed 40 years.

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Acts chapter 7 verse 23, Stephen says, when he, Moses, was approaching the age of 40, it entered his mind to go visit his brethren, the sons of Israel.

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So we did fast forward about 40 years in the life of Moses, four decades, and we're left to wonder what was it that precipitated

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Moses' decision in that instant? What caused him to consider this? Was it something his mother, birth mother, had said?

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Was it something he saw? Was it just a… was it a sudden realization or was it a slow movement of the

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Spirit of God in the heart of Moses? Were there long, detailed talks with Pharaoh and Pharaoh's daughter at that time about the state of the

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Jews and his association with them? Did this come out slowly over a period of time or was this a sudden and rash decision on Moses' part?

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We don't know any of the details, any of the answers to those questions. We might wish that we would, but the fact that he is 40 years old,

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I think, is a significant detail, not one that we get from Exodus, but again, one that we get from Acts chapter 7.

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And I think that the age of 40 is significant, not because of some numerical thing, God always does everything in 40s, you've heard that nonsense, no, nothing like that.

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It tells us something about Moses. Now, some people would look at Moses' age at the age of 40 and say, that really is a fault on Moses' part.

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This tells us that Moses, being 40 years old, he should have come to this conclusion a lot earlier.

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Shouldn't he have figured this out by 20, 18? Shouldn't he have figured this out by the time he was a teenager?

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Why did Moses wait until 40 before he made this decision? Why did it take him so long?

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He probably had at least, what, 20 years in Pharaoh's court to have conversations with Pharaoh about the

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Jews and how they were being treated and the slavery and all of that. And Pharaoh had to have known that Moses was a

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Hebrew, so he had to have some time to have discussions with Pharaoh regarding the state and the plight of his people.

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Why did Moses take until he was 40? I think Matthew Henry makes the point that I think that the fact that Moses was 40 actually says something more honorable about Moses, namely that the choice he made was the choice of a mature, well -considered person.

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I want you to think of it this way. It is easy to get a child or somebody of an undeveloped understanding to make choices where they can't really evaluate the value of two things, right?

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If you have a four or five -year -old in front of you and they understand that money is something they can use to buy ice cream and you offer them 20 pennies or five quarters, they will choose the 20 pennies because they have no understanding at all of the value of these different choices.

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So they will make a choice based upon what they see in front of them and not understanding the value of the two things that they're choosing.

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Or if you were to offer to a four -year -old a bowl of ice cream or a $100 bill, they're going to look at the $100 bill and think,

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I've seen you guys play that little board game with those pieces of paper like that. That's just a green piece of paper with a picture of a dead man on it.

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Why do I want that? I don't want that. I would rather have the bowl of ice cream. But with Moses, his decision was nothing like the decision of a child or a teenager.

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And listen, even though those of you who are 18, 16, 20, 22 years old, you think at this time that you understand enough about the world to make life -altering decisions and that there's nothing left for you to learn,

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I promise you that when you are around 40 as I am, that you will – I said around 40.

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When you are around 40 as I am, you will look back on 18, 20, and 22 -year -old you and say to yourself,

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I didn't know anything back then. I thought I knew everything and I know nothing about how the world works, about what really is valuable.

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Moses was 40 years old. This was not a rash decision. This was the decision of a man who considered well all of the implications and the ramifications of what he was about to do.

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Nothing was hidden from him. He was a man who could give some thought to this. It wasn't a decision that he made from the lust of his flesh like Samson.

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Hey, dad, I really like that girl. Go get her for me. The father says, look, is there no woman amongst all the children of Israel that you can have?

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No, I want that one. Why? Because his lusts were driving him. That's not so with Moses. This is a man of 40 years old who understands exactly what it is that he is choosing and exactly what it is that he is giving up.

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So the decision was made by a man capable of enjoying everything he refused.

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And this is key. Matthew Henry says this. It is an excellent thing for persons to be seriously religious when in the midst of worldly business and enjoyments, listen, to despise the world when they are most capable of relishing and enjoying it.

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Moses despised the world when he was most capable of relishing and enjoying it.

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A 40 -year -old man had the capacity and the position to deny himself nothing that the world had to offer.

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He did the opposite of what Solomon would do. Solomon said, I have all of this. I will indulge and test every last pleasure that I can indulge myself in.

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And Moses saw all of those pleasures handed to him, served up, as it were, on a silver platter, and he turned away from all of that at a point in his life when he was most able to relish it, most able to enjoy it, and best suited to be able to understand exactly what it is that he was choosing to do.

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It's easy to turn away from things that are offered to us that we really have no capacity to enjoy, right? It's easy for us all to sit here and say, who'd want to be a billionaire?

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Who'd want that? Nobody would want that. I would never want to be a billionaire. Solomon says in Ecclesiastes that when wealth increases, so do all of the locusts and the buzzards who hover around you trying to suck wealth out of you, all of them multiply and increase as well.

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That's my paraphrase of what Solomon says, but that's exactly what he's saying. When wealth increases, so do those, so do your friends, basically.

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Your friends increase as well. And so it's easy for us to say, who'd want to be a billionaire? I wouldn't want to be a billionaire, have all that money, all that responsibility, have all those carrions circling around me, all my kids waiting for me to die so they can inherit my billions.

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I wouldn't want that. It's one thing to say that now when none of us here have the capacity to be billionaires, and none of us are billionaires, and none of us are having a billionaire status offered up to us on a silver platter.

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But it's another thing to be in Moses' position and say, I have the entire world offered to me and I can take it.

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He actually had access to it. So for him to say, no, I don't want that, meant far more than us saying, no,

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I would never want to be a billionaire. Moses in his capacity and his age was, he understood exactly what it is that he was choosing, all of the ramifications of it, and yet he still refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

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Verse 11, here's where the die is cast. Now it came about in those days when

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Moses had grown up that he went out to his brethren, looked on their hard labors, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren.

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Notice that is repeated twice, it's one of his brethren. Moses by this point understands who the Jews are, that they're his brethren.

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Notice the phrase, he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors. Now this, we should not understand it this way, that Moses was just out wandering through the

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Egyptian countryside visiting a couple of building projects and happened upon this guy beating a Jew. I don't think that that is what is being described here.

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He intentionally went out to his brethren, he left to his brethren, why? Because they were his brethren.

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He went out to check on them, his heart was already inclined to them, his affections were already aligned with them, he has already felt empathy and sympathy for them, he has already embraced them as his own people.

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He leaves Egypt and he went out from Egypt, from the Egyptians, to his own brethren and that's when he saw this

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Egyptian beating a Jewish slave. And he already considered them at this point one of his people and I think that the phrase there that he went out to his brethren is significant.

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It's not just describing Moses happening upon this incident, but that intentionally he went out to the

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Jews. I think, this is my sanctified speculation, I think it is at this point that Moses had turned his back on Egypt.

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I'll make the case for you here in a little bit. Look at verse 12. So he looked this way and that and when he saw that there was no one around, he struck down the

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Egyptian and hid him in the sand. This was a deliberate act. This was not just a happenstance encounter where things escalated and Moses tried to get involved and things escalated verbally.

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Pretty soon Moses is looking around in a panic trying to find a place to bury the body. This is not

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Thanksgiving table with the two crazy uncles who can't agree on anything and things just get out of hand.

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That's not what this is. No. Moses went out and he saw this and in his mind he made a deliberate decision to do something and that is to kill this

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Egyptian. And notice the Hebrews does not say by faith he killed the Egyptian, but by faith he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

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That doesn't justify the killing of the Egyptian. Moses, at this point, intended, he thought that God was going to use him as the deliverer.

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That's Stephen's commentary on it in Acts chapter 7 verse 24 and 25, when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking down the

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Egyptian. Listen to verse 25, and he supposed that his brethren understood that God was granting them deliverance through him, but they did not understand.

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See, this was not Moses acting in a fit of uncontrolled rage, suddenly deciding to do something rash and then trying to cover up.

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This was Moses determining that as the one chosen by God to deliver that nation, he was going to deliver that nation and he would do it if he had to kill one

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Egyptian slave master at a time. So his motive was clear.

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He intended to bring deliverance for the children of Israel because he knew that he was born for this. So this is a deliberate and well -thought -through act.

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And you might even say that that deliberate and well -thought -through act was itself the refusing to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

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Because Moses had to know that in striking down that Egyptian, that that would forever distance himself from the

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Egyptians and make returning there absolutely impossible. Verse 13, he went out the next day, and behold, two

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Hebrews were fighting with each other, and he said to the offender, why are you striking your companion? But he said, who made you a prince or a judge over us?

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Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and said, surely this matter has become known.

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You can almost hear the Jews' resentment in that, right? It had spread amongst the slaves that Moses had done this to Egyptians the previous day, and you can hear them sort of resisting any attempt that Moses might make to deliver them.

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And you can almost read that, look Moses, you've grown up in Pharaoh's house. You don't know what it's like to be a slave.

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You don't know what it's like to be oppressed. You have enjoyed that privilege all of your life, and now you come out here,

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Moses come lately to the scene, try and deliver us and try and sympathize with us. You know nothing of our plight, and it's taken you 40 years to have anything to do with our plight.

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And now you want to come out here and you kill one guy, and you want to take the whole nation and expect all the nation to follow after you?

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Who made you a prince and a ruler over us? God hasn't appointed you over us. Moses, why don't you just go back to your palace gig and forget all of this?

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We're quite happy to be here where we're at. Thanks for showing up though. But Moses made this decision and his actions had become known to Pharaoh, and once he realized that his actions had become known to Pharaoh, he was fearful.

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You'll notice verse 14, the end of it, Moses was afraid and said, surely the matter has become known. I think he intended for some period of time to go under the radar and that the

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Jews probably would keep it quiet, keep it secret, not say anything to anybody, sort of hide him and come behind him.

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But now Moses realized that he is an outcast in two nations. Don't miss this.

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He's an outcast in two nations. The Jews don't want him. They're not interested in him. Growing up in Pharaoh's court, he privileged a little snob you.

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They're not interested in him being a prince or a ruler. And now he knows that he has done something that he has forever cast to die.

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He can't go back to Egypt. The Jews don't want him. He's a man without a people, without a nation, and now without a family.

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That's why he fled. Verse 15, when Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill

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Moses, but Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well. And that's another one of those fast forward things, right?

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You find out that Pharaoh's trying to kill you, you flee the land of Midian and sit down by a well. That's where we're leaving

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Exodus chapter 2. Notice though that in verse 15, Pharaoh's response, that he tried to kill Moses. That is a telling response.

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Now I'll tell you why that is a telling response. It is because Moses, if Pharaoh had given him the opportunity, probably could have explained himself to Pharaoh and got away with this.

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Because again, I would remind you of something that shocked you earlier. Those in power do not always impose their edicts upon those who are under them, right?

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So notice that Pharaoh's response is not, wait, Moses killed an Egyptian? How is that possible?

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How could my grandson do something like that? There must be some explanation for that. I will hear

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Moses out, see what he says. I'm sure it was an accident. I'm sure it was a misunderstanding.

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I'm sure there's some explanation that would fit all of this. My grandson certainly would not do that.

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But Pharaoh doesn't do that. Instead, he tries to kill Moses. Why that response?

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Because by this point, I think Pharaoh already knew he has cast his lot with the

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Hebrews. And this is proof of where his sympathies lie. And he's not coming back.

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He has told us repeatedly that he wants nothing to do with the treasures. He wants nothing to do with Egypt.

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He wants nothing to do with the royalty. He wants nothing to do with his privilege and his possessions and his position. He wants nothing to do with any of those things.

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Instead, he wants to be aligned with the Hebrew nation, the slave nation. And then when Pharaoh hears that Moses is killed an

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Egyptian, Pharaoh realizes that Moses now has chosen that he is not going to be Pharaoh's grandson.

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Instead, he's going to be a slave with the Hebrews. That is why he sought to kill Moses. This is his attempt now to keep

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Moses from delivering the nation of Israel. Pharaoh trying to kill Moses only makes sense if Pharaoh already knew of Moses' intentions, if Moses had already made that clear.

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And then by killing the Egyptian, he has drawn his line in the sand. He has stepped across that line in the sand, and now he has cast his lot with the

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Hebrews. He has put himself in with them. There's no going back. And I think Moses fully expected the

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Hebrew nation to embrace him, but instead they do the opposite. Who made you a ruler and a prince over us? You have nothing to do with us, grandson of Pharaoh.

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Go back to your palace. Go back to your privilege. Go back to your wealth. You enjoy the treasures. Leave us alone.

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We're not following you out of here. Now Moses has nothing. And there had to come a moment, just put yourself in Moses' place, there had to come a moment, and maybe a long period of time, maybe 40 years before he's wandering around in the wilderness and sees the burning bush.

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There had to have been a period of time in Moses' life when he had to ask himself then, to whom do I belong? I made this choice.

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I went this direction. They don't want me, and they hate me and want to kill me. And so now I am a man without a country and a man without a people.

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This I think is the incident that signals Moses' choice. Now the commentary on this is back in Hebrews chapter 11, so now turn back to Hebrews chapter 11.

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You'll notice verse 24 that Moses' action is attributed to his faith. It is by faith when

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Moses grew up that he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Now again, he's not saying by faith

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Moses killed the Egyptian. That's not what he's saying. He's talking about here. He's describing the choice that Moses made in turning away from Egypt and turning toward the

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Jews, and the signal event in the narrative of Exodus is the killing of the Egyptian, which sort of cast the die.

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That really set it in stone that there was no going back. There was only one way for Moses to go from this point forward, and his motive was faith.

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He was driven by something that was unseen. You see that at the end of verse 26, and we're not going to get to that this week, but in the future, he was looking to the reward.

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Moses was looking to the reward. Moses saw something with the eye of faith that nobody else saw, and he was not motivated by social justice concerns.

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He wasn't motivated by some Marxist understanding of the oppressor and the oppressed class.

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He wasn't motivated by some class distinction between rulers and peasants. He wasn't motivated by injustice or the slavery.

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Instead, Moses was looking forward to the reward. Moses saw something in his future, something that God has promised, that he fixed the eyes of faith on and said, that is enough to cause me to shun all of this and instead embrace affliction.

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He realized by looking forward to the reward that in the long term, it is better to be among God's people as a slave than among God's enemies as a king.

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It is better to be among God's people as a slave than among God's enemies as a king. His position of royalty in Egypt, there's no amount of honor, power, wealth, influence that was withheld from him.

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He had literally everything at his fingertips. It's been suggested that as a prince in Egypt from history, it's been suggested by some commentators that the pharaoh under whom

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Moses was born had no firstborn son, that he only had this one daughter and that this one daughter had no son and therefore the heir apparent to the throne was

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Moses. There's nothing in Scripture that suggests that, nothing at all.

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In fact, I don't think that that is actually the case, but we do know that he had been adopted into a royal family.

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Verse 10 of Exodus chapter 2 says, he grew up and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son.

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That means he was adopted into that family. She named him Moses. That was the only name that we ever know him by.

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God changed Abraham's name, changed Sarah's name, changed Israel's name. He changed names all the way through the

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Old Testament, never changed Moses' name. That was the name by which he is known. And all the honor and power and riches and luxury and prestige that that title, that position would have entailed would have been his.

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He enjoyed privileges. Acts 7 .22 says, Moses was educated in all the learning of the

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Egyptians and he was a man of power in words and deeds, a man of power in words and deeds. As a grandson of Pharaoh, Moses would have enjoyed every luxury that he could have been afforded.

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Pharaoh would have spared no expense to those who were raised in his house. So he would have been educated in all of the religions and the philosophies of his day.

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We would be safe to say that Moses would have had the best education that money could buy in this day.

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He would have been fluent in multiple languages, Egyptian hieroglyph, Hebrew, probably a number of Canaanite languages.

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He would have been well -educated in economics and leadership, culture, art, history, philosophy, music, religion, military, government, and his brethren were slaves.

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Consider this, when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, Moses would have been the most learned, most educated, most articulate, most well -rounded, culturally understanding man amongst all the

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Jews, and there would have been no close second. The man's intellect had been developed far beyond any of his

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Jewish brethren. He was by far the aristocracy of the Jewish nation, as you were, since Pharaoh would have spared no expense in his education.

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He was a man, as Acts 7 says, a man of power in word and deeds.

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Egypt had given him everything, and experientially speaking, he could relate to the

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Jewish people in no way whatsoever. He did not know what it was like to be at the receiving end of that whip to get the lashes.

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He did not know what it was like to be at the receiving end of the labor quotas, to be out there treading clay and making bricks and harvesting straw.

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He didn't know what it was like to be in any of that. But a choice was before him. He could continue as an

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Egyptian and enjoy all that that provided, or he could identify with the Hebrews and align himself with God's people, whatever that would cost him.

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But Moses understood that he could not have both. There was no mediating position. There was no way to be a

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Jew in Pharaoh's court. You either identify as one, and you take all of this, or you lose all of this to have the other.

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Moses had to make a choice. And over time, I think, it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to navigate that, and possibly becoming increasingly tempted to compromise in order to have both of them.

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I think his loyalties were tested over time. Now somebody may argue, why is it then that Moses wouldn't stay in Egypt, embrace the

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Egyptian royalty, and try and use his position of power and influence to do the Jews some good?

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That seems like a reasonable argument, doesn't it? And maybe if you could zip back in time and sit down with Moses before the whole killing the

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Egyptian slave driver incident happened, and you could reason with Moses and say, look, Moses, God has providentially brought you to this place.

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He's given you a position of power and influence. Wait it out. Your influence will increase over time. And then perhaps from that position, you can use that position to do some good to your

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Hebrew brethren. That would have been a really good argument for somebody to make. But I think it would have been impossible for Moses to pull off, because God didn't call

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Moses to do that. They said, what about Joseph? Joseph was able to use his position under Pharaoh, a different Pharaoh, by the way, obviously.

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Joseph was able to use his position under Pharaoh to do the Jews some good, right? Why couldn't Moses do the same thing?

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Because a Pharaoh arose who knew not Joseph. Different Pharaoh, different administration, entirely different environment.

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The Pharaoh of Joseph was fine with Joseph doing good to the Hebrews. The Pharaoh of Moses was not fine with Moses doing anything good for the

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Hebrews. So those were the terms of his choice. Egypt or Israel, where do your affections lie? Idols or Yahweh?

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The gods of Pharaoh or the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Will you be buried in Egypt or will you go to the land of Canaan?

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That's his choice. The covenant with Abraham or comfort with Pharaoh, those are the two options. You could choose between one of those two things, but Moses could not have both of them.

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So Moses, as Joshua would later describe it, had to choose ye this day whom he would serve. That was the choice before him.

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You cannot have her back and forth between these two masters. You have to choose one or choose the other. And whichever one it is that you choose, it is going to cost you the other thing.

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Choose Egypt and you lose the covenant with Abraham, you lose the promised land, you lose everything that is promised to God's people.

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Choose God's people and you lose everything that you now possess in Egypt. Do you see why this requires a faith that can see the unseen?

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A faith that will look at the reward and say, I will live and I will die and I will serve and I will strive and I will be faithful to that even if I get none of it in this life?

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That's the faith that we're talking about. So he had to choose between two people, the son of Pharaoh's daughter or choosing the people of God.

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The people of Egypt or the people of God. And from the human perspective, looking at the children of Israel, from the human point of view, they were an uneducated, oppressed, unenlightened, hated, scorned, poor, slave class in the land of Egypt.

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Everything I just said about them right there is true. That's the world's assessment. But the truth is, they were the covenant people of God.

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And if they are the covenant people of God, then Moses could know that everything that Pharaoh had, everything that Pharaoh offered would eventually be buried in the sand and would be lost to history.

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But Moses will rise and step into an eternal kingdom and possess everything that belongs to Yahweh.

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Which means that the person in Israel with faith in Yahweh was truly richer than Pharaoh.

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That is what Moses could see. The one with faith in Yahweh is richer than Pharaoh.

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So I will be obedient to Yahweh. You and I face similar choices in our day.

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We are called to serve God, sometimes in position of power and influence and authority. And we can do good in those positions.

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We always have to evaluate ourselves and our positions with some simple questions.

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And these questions need to be asked increasingly as the world gets crazier and crazier and things are going the direction that they are.

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We have to ask ourselves these questions. Am I impacting this environment or is this environment impacting me? Which direction is the influence going in this regard?

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Is it having its effect on me? Is this position of power, influence, what I've been called to do by God's providence,

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I've been brought to this? Is it having its effect on me so that it's drawing my heart away from the one true and living God to the things of this world?

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Or am I able to be here and to be faithful in this position and to do what God has called me to do? Sometimes believers are called to serve

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God and labor in ungodly arenas. And if that is the case, then you are going to have to be strong and principled and clear and bold and absolutely unbending in your commitments and your convictions if you're going to be faithful in those environments.

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And you can be. Just so long as you're not like most evangelical leaders today who are more interested in currying the favor of cultural elites, intellectuals, academia, popularity, the support of the crowd, supporting whatever the current thing is.

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As long as you're not one of these evangelicals who wakes up every Sunday scrolling through Twitter looking for the latest

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David French article so you can figure out how to be more respectable and nuanced and winsome and culturally sensitive with the proper tone and tolerance and openness to the culture so as not to offend anybody and show yourself loving and alluring to the world so that they will come to Jesus.

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So long as that is not your concern, then you can serve Christ faithfully probably in the environment in which you are in.

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As long as you don't mind being out of step with the times, then you can serve God in that position. But such people that I've just described, the compromisers that is, they're not willing to give up all and endure the ill treatment with the people of God.

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Instead, they want to be treated well, they want to be respected, they want to be winsome, they want to be approved and applauded by men.

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They think that they can be among God's people and yet be loved by the world, but I promise you the world never courts the approval of the church.

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Inexplicably, the church courts the approval of the world. The world never seeks an alliance with the church, never, because the world never compromises its convictions.

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Always calls upon the church to do that though. Moses knew that if the

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Hebrews were his people, then he could not wear Egypt's uniform. If affliction were his calling, then he could not pursue comfort.

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He knew that he could not have the treasures of Egypt and have the reproach of Christ, which itself was a greater treasure.

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He could not have those two at the same time. By faith, Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

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I don't want you to think for a moment that that was an easy thing for Moses to do. I hope I've described this in such a way that you can appreciate and understand just how significant of a decision that was.

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Just how much of a sacrifice that was for Moses. I'll give you two other devil's advocate reasons why

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Moses could have been allured from making that very choice and making that very decision. First of all, somebody could have reasoned with Moses, look, you're not the only person affected by this decision.

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Who else would have been affected by it? Pharaoh's daughter. Whoa, we haven't even put ourselves in the mind of Pharaoh's daughter yet, have we?

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After all that I've done for you? After all that I've given to you? I loved you like you were my own.

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I saved your life. I preserved you. I lavished grace upon you. I was there when you scuffed your knee.

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I provided for you all of this education. I have given you everything that a little boy could ever possibly want in all of his life.

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And I would offer all the more of it right up on a platter if need be in order to keep your affections. And now you're going to choose instead to be identified with this slave class of people, the

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Jewish people, when they have nothing? You're going to turn your back on everything that I have given to you and betray your family like this?

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You see, it wasn't just Moses who was affected by this decision. He would have to spurn the love of an adopted mother if she was still alive when he made this decision.

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And you're right, I am assuming that. But certainly Moses had brothers and sisters or people inside of the royal family who would have assessed his decision in exactly those terms.

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A second argument, devil's advocate argument, that could have been made against Moses leaving was this. What about divine providence?

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I mean, Moses, can't you see how the providence of God has put you in this position? By the providence of God, your parents hid you for three months and they were successful at it.

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By the providence of God, they trusted God and put you in that basket, floated you out on the Nile River. By the providence of God, it wasn't one of Pharaoh's henchmen.

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It wasn't one of Pharaoh's army or his slave masters who happened upon that basket. But instead it was Pharaoh's daughter.

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By the providence of God, she rescued you. By the providence of God, she made you a prince in Egypt. By the providence of God, he brought you to this place and put you in this position.

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And now what, Moses, you're going to kick against the teeth of divine providence and spurn all that God has done in your life and reject the goodness that God has shown you by choosing instead to go that path?

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That's a pretty good argument, isn't it? And in doing so, you're going to spurn the love of an adopted mother and a grandfather who's lavished everything upon you?

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You're going to do that for those people? Undoubtedly, the hand of God's providence had brought him to that place and none could argue against that.

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But listen, the reason that Moses was brought to that position, I submit to you, was so that he could choose to walk away.

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That's why God put him there. So that Moses could choose to walk away and thus demonstrate the superiority of God's covenant over everything that the world had to offer.

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God brought him to that place so that he could make that decision and be faithful in a difficult position.

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God used Egypt to shape Moses into a leader. He was trained in all of the education of the

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Egyptians. Moses was to lead a nation. But God, by his providence, put Moses in that position so that he could be trained to lead a nation.

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By God's providence, the nation that he would lead was not Egypt. It was Israel. That's how the providence of God works out.

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So Pharaoh and Egypt end up training the very one, the very leader, who would cripple their influence, destroy their nation, and bring the judgment of God down upon a wicked people.

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God always has the last laugh, every last time. Let's pray. Father, we are so grateful for your goodness, grateful for your mercy to us in Christ.

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We thank you for the examples of Scripture which show us what it is that we should hope for, the things upon which we should set our hearts and our affections.

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We long to be set free from the constraints of this world, to be with you in glory, to see you face to face, to receive the kingdom and to receive all the blessings of the reward that belong to those who are yours.

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And we pray that by your grace you would set our mind, our hearts, and our affections upon those unseen things so that we may live in obedience as Moses, following that example of faith.

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We pray that you would create and do this work in our hearts so that we might honor and glorify you and demonstrate to a watching world that it is better to be hated as one of your people than to be loved and adored by the world as one of your enemies.