Moses: A Faith that Endures | Heroes of Faith | Trinity Sermons

You see all of us get knocked down in life from time to time.

But the goal is not to dodge the punches in life.

The goal is to figure out a way to endure, to keep getting back up time and time again.

And we're going to look at the life of Moses.

Moses got knocked around and beat up and knocked down so many times in his life and yet he

endured.

How did he do it?

Let's take a look around and let's learn together so that we too can become people of endurance.

Our first reading is from the book of Exodus chapter 2 verses 11 to 15.

Exodus 2:11–15

One day after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched

them at their hard labour.

He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.

Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the

sand.

The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting.

He asked the one in the wrong, why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?

The man said, who made you ruler and judge over us?

Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?

Then Moses was afraid and thought, what I did must have become known.

When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses.

But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian.

Our second reading is from Hebrews chapter 11 verses 23 to 29.

Hebrews 11:23–29

By faith, Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born because they saw

he was no ordinary child and they were not afraid of the king's edict.

By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures

of sin.

He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of

Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

By faith, he left Egypt not fearing the king's anger.

He persevered because he saw him who is invisible.

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

would not touch the firstborn of Israel.

By faith, the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land.

But when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.

This is the word of the Lord.

One of the most famous superheroes out there has got to be Captain America.

But Captain America wasn't always a superhero.

Actually Captain America was Steve Rogers.

And Steve Rogers was this scrawny kid from Brooklyn who was constantly getting picked

on, constantly getting beat up.

He was smaller than everybody else.

He was weaker than everybody else.

But the thing that made Steve Rogers different is that every time he got beat down, he would

get back up again.

He just kept getting back up again.

In fact, there is a scene in one of the movies, the Captain America movies where there is

Steve Rogers.

He's in an alley.

He's beaten up again by his bullies or whatever.

And anyways, he gets up off the ground.

He wipes the blood off his face.

He looks his opponents in the eye and he has this great iconic line.

He says, I can do this all day.

I can do this all day.

It's a great line.

And he says this line a few times throughout the various series of movies.

I can do this all day.

And what this teaches us actually about Captain America is that his real superpower is not

that he drank super soldier serum.

His real superpower is that he's durable, that he has endurance, that he keeps getting

up again and again and again.

Well, I don't know if you can believe this, but we're in now week seven of this teaching

series called Heroes of Faith.

And we've been looking at the book of Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

And in that chapter, we see the stories of ordinary people who lived by faith, trusted

God and overcame amazing and incredible obstacles in their life.

And as we read through all those stories, I don't know if you've noticed, but the word

endurance keeps coming up again and again and again.

And it's no surprise because here's why.

This whole book, the book of Hebrews, this letter was written to a group of people who

kept getting knocked down and kept getting beat up again and again and again.

They were being persecuted at the time by Emperor Nero, and they were suffering a great

deal.

In fact, in Hebrews chapter 10, we read that they endured great suffering.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

They were publicly insulted, persecuted, imprisoned.

They even had their property confiscated.

Now after all of these knocks, after being knocked down this many times, I'm sure that

the community was like, okay, that's it enough.

It's not worth it.

I'm not getting up again.

You know, this faith is not worth it.

But the author of Hebrews is saying, no, no, no, you got to keep getting up.

You got to keep enduring because it is worth it.

Get back on your feet.

In fact, it's interesting.

The Greek word for endure is this compound word, it's a Hupo Menno, Hupo Menno.

Hupo means under or beneath and Menno means to stand.

So to endure is to stand no matter what's coming down on you, to keep standing, to keep

getting up to Hupo stand.

I think that to endure is, you're just, you're keeping getting up.

You keep getting up and you keep saying, I can do this all day.

That's what endurance is.

And the world needs more people who don't quit, people who keep enduring.

I mean, we live in kind of a throwaway culture where, you know, people quit their marriages

and they quit the faith and they quit their jobs.

They quit anything that feels hard.

But those who endure, those who can Hupo stand are the heroes that change the world.

And if there was ever somebody who knew what it was like to endure, it's gotta be Moses.

Because throughout his life, Moses endured all sorts of things.

He was constantly knocked down by rejection and hardship, but he kept getting back up.

That's the amazing thing.

He's like Steve Rogers, but better.

And I want to tell you today both what Moses endured and I want to tell you how Moses endured.

And if you picked one of these up on your way in, these are the sermon notes for today.

So you can keep some notes.

And if you're again watching online today, you can visit the website, go to Sundays at

Trinity.

You can download both the sermon questions and you can download the sermon notes for

today.

I would encourage you to do that.

But let's start.

In Hebrews 11, there are at least four things we are told in particular that knocked Moses

down throughout his life.

The first happened when Moses got knocked off his throne of privilege.

You see, Moses was a Hebrew and the Hebrew people were enslaved by the Egyptians.

But Moses was different though, because when Moses was a baby, he was adopted by the daughter

of Pharaoh.

She found him and she raised him as his own, her own, which meant that that now Moses was

like the royalty in the very family that was oppressing his own people.

And what that meant is he had everything he could ask for, right?

He had privilege, he had power, he had education, wealth, status, he would have eaten all the

finest food and so on and so forth.

By all accounts, Moses would have been one of the most privileged people in the ancient

world.

Okay.

All his fellow Israelites were slaves though.

But when he grew up, we are told, he refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter

and he chose to be mistreated along with the people of God.

So you see what Moses did is instead of aligning himself with the Egyptians, he said, no, I'm

going to suffer with my own people, with the Hebrew people.

He could have stayed in the lap of luxury, he could have stayed in all that comfort and

ignored the pain, but something happened that just actually tipped the scales and forced

him to make this decision.

Here's what's happened.

Here's what happened.

One day after he'd grown up, he went out to where his own people were working and he watched

them hard at labor.

And then he saw this Egyptian, a Hebrew slave, an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, sorry,

one of his own people.

And looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and he hid the

Egyptian in the sand.

I want to suggest to you that as soon as Moses knocked that Egyptian down, he also knocked

himself down off of his throne of privilege.

He was declaring, I am no longer an Egyptian, I am a Hebrew and there is no going back from

that.

I want you guys to think about the fact that that is often where endurance starts for us.

It's not by surviving something really, really hard, but it's by choosing to walk away from

something that is really comfortable or walk away from something that is really easy because

it's not what God wants you to do.

Have you ever stepped out?

Have you ever stepped out out of your comfort zone because you sense this is what it takes

to obey God in this moment.

If you'd have, then you know what it felt like Moses to be knocked off his throne of

privilege that day.

But that was that he was just getting started.

Here's the irony, the deep irony is that the very next day, Moses suffered another knockout

blow and that is he was knocked aside by his own people.

You see, he thought, oh, once I've kind of declared that I'm no longer an Egyptian and

that I identify with my Hebrew brothers and sisters, then they're going to welcome me.

But that is not what happened at all.

Instead, they rejected him.

He goes out and he sees two of his own people now fighting and he tries to intervene.

He says, hey, guys, guys, cut it out.

Let's not do this anymore.

But their responses, who made you ruler over us?

So what?

You're going to kill, you're going to kill me like you killed the Egyptian.

This guy basically just risked everything he had in order to stand with his own people.

And they basically say, who do you think you are?

In a single day, Moses went from having two people, Egyptians and Hebrew people to having

none.

He had no home now.

He had no people.

He had no safety.

He has nowhere to go.

I think we'd all agree.

It's easy to stand up and keep getting up off the ground when you've got people cheering

you on, when you've got friends in the background saying, you can do it.

We are with you.

But what happens when you feel alone in your faith?

Right.

You've lost your family and you've lost your friends because of your commitment to Jesus

or your commitment to God.

Some of you maybe have experienced that being rejected by friends or family members because

of your faith.

That is a knockout blow for sure.

That's what Moses experienced.

But no sooner had Moses gotten up off the mat, then he is then sent flying again, not

just being knocked down from his place of privilege or knocked aside by his people,

but now he is knocked right out of his homeland.

He has to go.

He has to flee.

He has to leave everything behind.

We're told that by faith, he left Egypt, not fearing the King's anger.

After killing the Egyptian soldier, right, word started to get around.

And then we're told that actually Pharaoh, his grandpa is now like wanting to kill him.

When Pharaoh heard of this, tries to kill Moses, Moses fled and went to live in this

Hick town called Midian.

Moses is now in exile.

He's got no home.

He's been knocked out of his home.

He's had to leave everything behind.

And I know that some of you know how that feels because you have had to leave your home

and you did not want to.

You had to leave a city that you did not want to.

You had to leave a country and you really did not want to leave, but you had to.

And it felt like a punch to the gut.

So Moses knocked down from his place of privilege, knocked aside by his people, knocked out of

his own country.

Now let's fast forward a little bit here.

Forty years go by, 40 years later, God calls Moses back to Egypt to rescue the Hebrew people

from slavery.

I'm not going to be able to go into all this story, but even in that moment, Moses is going

to get knocked for a loop one more time because Moses now gets knocked by God into the world.

The waters of the Red Sea.

This was actually Moses's ultimate test, if you will.

This was a test to say like, Moses, if you stay down, this is going to be the thing that

caused you to stay down because I'm about to throw you into an ocean of trouble.

But maybe Moses will hypostand through that as well.

He will endure and show that he actually has this kind of endurance that really, really

lasts.

Here's how it happens.

After the Israelites were set free, guess what?

Pharaoh changes his mind and chases after the Israelites and then traps them.

And it's a real trap because on the one side, what you've got this big mountain, we're told.

And then on the other side, you've got this huge obstacle called the Red Sea.

And on the other side, you've got this army, one of the most powerful armies on earth bearing

down on you.

There's no way out.

You are about to be crushed.

But even then, Moses got back up and he hypostood.

He did not collapse.

He did not retreat.

And he said to the people, he said, don't be afraid, everybody.

Stand with me.

Hypos, stand with me and you will see the deliverance that the Lord is going to bring

today.

So he lifts his staff and he puts his staff over the water.

And then Hebrews 11, 29 says that by faith, the people passed through the Red Sea on dry

land.

Guys, this is amazing.

God knocked Moses literally into the Red Sea.

And amazingly, even there, he stood on dry ground and passed through the waters.

Moses took the first step.

Yes.

But then God created a way.

Some of you are right now feeling like you're in a Red Sea moment.

You are trapped.

You do not feel like you have any place to go.

You want to go back in fear, but you don't know the way forward.

But like Moses, maybe God is saying to you, just, hey, take that first step and I will

make a way.

I am not sure that Moses could have done this 40 years earlier when he was still a kid back

in Egypt.

I don't think he was ready then.

But now he had been, he had endured all these other things.

He had been knocked down so many times that he had built up this resiliency that now he

could Hypos stand even in the middle of the Red Sea.

And I wanted to say that because some of you have endured great hardship in your life.

And perhaps that is because God is equipping you for even tougher things still to come.

There's something about hardship that shapes us and grows us.

My whole point in all of this is simply this.

Moses kept getting knocked down and he kept getting back up.

I can do this all day, Moses said.

The question is how?

How does he muster the strength to keep getting back up?

How do you endure?

Well, we're going to look at how he did it, but there's also a few fake ways of endurance

that I think we should look at.

And one of them is what you might call emotional suppression.

People say, oh, the way to get through tough times is you, you detach yourself emotionally,

you suppress your feelings, bury your feelings.

But that's not how Moses endured.

He didn't shut down emotionally.

That wasn't the secret.

Or, or some people think that endurance is about sheer willpower.

If I just try harder, I can push through anything on my own.

But that's not what Moses did.

He didn't just grit his teeth and push through.

Some say, no, endurance comes from optimism.

You just got to stay positive and you got to believe that everything's going to work

out and better days are ahead.

But Moses did not necessarily believe there were better days ahead.

He didn't necessarily think things were going to get easier for him.

And finally, other people say the way to, to endure this life is to just avoid hard

things altogether.

And Moses, of course, as we already said, he had the option to stay in Pharaoh's palace

and to avoid suffering, but he obeyed instead and he stepped into the difficulty.

No, no, none of these are the pathway to real endurance.

These are not going to enable you to keep getting up off the floor when you get knocked

down.

Moses had a different strategy.

So just as we, in the time we got left, I want to show you there was actually three

verbs in the reading that Rita read for us this morning.

These three verbs in Greek, they all start with the sound H and they teach us what Moses

really did to really endure.

Okay.

So the first verb is found in Hebrews 11 26.

And we read this.

Moses regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than all the treasures

of Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward.

Now that word right there that is translated as regarded comes from this Greek word, which

actually translates better as calculated or measured.

So what this maybe would read is Moses calculated that any disgrace he suffered for the sake

of Christ was of greater value than all the treasures of Egypt.

He calculated, he thought it out.

In other words, he looked at all the treasures of Egypt.

Yes, here they are.

And then he looked over here at the reward that God had for him and he calculated it

out.

He looked at this disgrace that he would suffer for siding with his own people, but he also

then looked at the promise that God had for him.

And he weighed it out and he calculated it out.

And then he made a choice.

He calculated what was the most valuable thing.

And that's why he kept getting back up because he knew it was worth it.

Egypt's treasures were nothing compared to the worth and value of what God had in store

for him.

If he would only obey, I can do this all day, he said, because I know it's worth it.

And this is where real endurance starts.

What it really comes down to is calculating what is most valuable to you.

And you are only as durable as that thing in your life that you think is most valuable.

So the reason that many people collapse and do not get up from the ground, the reason

they get hit and they stay down is because they don't think it's worth it.

It's not worth getting back up again.

If Moses thought that comfort was the most valuable thing, he never would have left Egypt.

No.

If he thought status was the most valuable thing, he never would have sided with his

people.

But because he calculated that God's reward was the most valuable thing, he was able to

endure.

He was able to get up again and again and again.

It's like what the apostle Paul says.

Paul said, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ.

Paul said, here's everything and here's Jesus.

Which one's worth more?

I choose Jesus.

And that enables us to endure.

All of us have decided, you've already decided what's most important to you.

What is most valuable to you in this life?

Right?

If comfort is your greatest value, then you will give up as soon as life gets hard.

If your greatest treasure is approval, then you will quit when people reject you.

If your greatest value is success, then when you fail, you will be constantly tempted to

compromise who you are.

But if your greatest treasure is God, then you will hypostand.

You will stand and you'll keep getting up no matter what knocks you down.

So that is the first thing Moses teaches us is that he had just placed his value and he

had counted the cost and God was worth it.

God was worth it.

Getting up was always worth it.

But the second secret to endurance is found in the second verb we want to look at and

that's in Hebrews 11 25.

It says that he chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy

the fleeting pleasures of sin.

And the key verb there chose is this other Greek verb, heretomai, which is a deliberate

selecting of something.

Moses didn't just have suffering thrown upon him.

He didn't just accept suffering when it came to him.

He chose it.

Obedience wasn't forced on him.

He chose it.

Moses.

Yes, we just heard he decided what was most valuable, but then he had to choose it.

He had to act on that decision.

And again, Moses, he could have stayed in Egypt.

He could have had the comfort, but he didn't.

He chose to stand with God's people.

He chose to suffer for the sake of obedience.

And it wasn't just a one time choice.

Every day he had to get up and choose it again and again and again.

Every time he got knocked down, he had to get up and choose again what was most valuable.

And the thing is that when we do this again and again, endurance gets built.

Whenever we choose obedience, even when it hurts, that is how we become durable people.

And I know I struggle with this.

I'm sure you struggle with this too, but we actually only really want to obey God when

it's easy.

And we want to follow Jesus when it doesn't cost us too much.

But obedience and suffering often go hand in hand.

It's a hard choice.

It's a hard, it should be a hard choice to choose faith in God.

But every time we choose it, every time we obey, it's like we're like we're Steve Rogers.

We're getting a little stronger.

We're building muscle.

We're growing in our endurance.

If one chapter later in Hebrews, the author is going to say, no discipline seems pleasant

at the time, but it's painful.

Later on, however, later on it produces this harvest of righteousness and peace for those

who've been trained by it.

Guys, what are you choosing?

Those of you watching online, what are you choosing today?

Are you choosing comfort?

Because you don't want to suffer?

Are you choosing safety?

Because you don't want to risk too much?

Moses chose obedience and he chose to stand with God's people, even if it meant suffering

for him.

And every time we choose obedience, his, every time he chose obedience, he grew stronger

and we can make the same choice.

Growing in our strength as we obey.

So Moses, first of all, he hegetomide, he calculated the cost, what was most valuable.

Secondly, he hegetomide, he chose obedience over comfort.

And that brings us to the third key verb that Moses did.

Let's read it here.

It says that by faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger and he persevered because

he horoad, he saw him who is invisible.

Now that Greek word horoad does not mean just to glance at something.

Oh, I see you.

It means actually to focus on it, to fix your attention on it, to set your eyes on it, which

means that Moses endured because he kept his focus, he kept his attention, he kept his

eyes fixed on God.

I'm sure on the one hand, you can't help but notice when there's an ocean in front of you

and an army coming toward you and a mountain beside you, he saw all his problems.

He saw that too.

He saw the threats.

He saw his people suffering.

He saw it all, but he fixed his eyes on God.

We're told that he saw him who is invisible.

One of the greatest truths about endurance is this.

What you focus on will shape how you stand.

If you focus on fear, you're going to be shaken.

If you focus on circumstances, you're going to be discouraged.

If you focus on your own strength, even, you're probably going to collapse in the end.

But if you focus on God, if you focus on his presence, if you focus on his love, then you'll

be able to get up and you'll be able to do it again and again.

You can do this all day.

That's why David wrote in the Psalms, he said, I have set the Lord always before me, always

before me, always.

My eyes are on him because he's at my right hand and therefore I will not be shaken.

Oh my gosh.

Moses had so many chances where he was shaken, but he wasn't shaken.

He had no power.

He had no influence.

He had no resources, but God told him, go and do all these things.

And he did.

Why?

Because he didn't focus on the visible circumstances.

He focused on the invisible God.

And don't you know that we have an even better opportunity to see God at work than Moses did?

Because look, Moses was able to endure because he could set his eyes on the invisible God.

How much more reason do we have to endure when we can set our eyes on something that

Moses never saw, which is Jesus Christ.

Jesus said that whoever has seen me has seen the father.

When we're overwhelmed, put your eyes on Jesus and see the risen Jesus saying, I am with

you always.

Whenever you feel afraid or fearful, put your eyes on Jesus and remember him saying, I will

never leave you or forsake you.

Moses, yes, he saw the invisible God, but we see the God who was made flesh and blood,

Jesus Christ.

So are you only seeing the struggles that are in front of you or are you fixing your

eyes on this God who never fails?

Endurance isn't about what you face.

It's about what you focus on.

And if your eyes are fixed on your problems, you're not going to have the courage to get

back up off the ground.

If your eyes are fixed on yourself, you're not going to have the strength.

But if you regard what is most valuable, if you choose obedience and if you fix your eyes

on Jesus, you will endure, you will hypostand and you will get up off the ground and you

will say, I can do this all day.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Amen.