Title: The Meaning of Faith #3
Purpose: To move Christian to Total Faithfulness
Intro:
- Review: Faith is assurance of things hoped for, conviction of things unseen, moves
you
- to believe in what you can’t see
- to worship by honoring God your very best as Abel did
- to walk with God every moment as Enoch did
- to work for God faithfully and obediently as Noah did
- to move closer to God away from the world (as Abraham did in moving from UR)
- to trust in God’s ability not your own (As sarah & Abraham did in having Issac)
- to look forward to a permanent home with God, not back at tents (as Abraham did & Jacob)
- to be 100% devoted to God, ready to give what is most dear to us (as Abraham did Issac)
- Faith is not mysterious, but is something decisive and moving
I. Faith moves you fearlessness (v.23)
- Begins with the faith of Moses’ parents
- Explanation
- Pharoah became afraid of the Hebrews and tried to weaken them by affliction
- Exodus 1:15-16 - Ordered midwives to kill males
- Midwives disobeyed the Pharoah & let them live (God good to them)
- Heb 11:23 - Moses’ parents didn’t fear the kings edict either
- Parents saw that Moses was a beautiful or goodly child
- This was seen as a blessing from God among Jews
- They knew that this was no ordinary child
- Ps 127:3 - “Children are a gift of the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them”
- One exception to “fearlessness in faith”
- Ex. 1:16-22 - Moves you to “fear God”
- Heb 11:28 - In the passover they feared God
- Ps112:1,7“how blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandmnts”
- How can you be fearless and fear at the same time?
- Who do you fear?
- Those who work High tension wires seem to be fearless
- They fear the voltage - they respect it.
- So how do you fear (revere) God?
- Start by not letting the “orders” of Pharoah come between you and God
- ILL: Had a weiner Dog that could do tricks. Never responded to me but would
respond to one of my friends. Didn’t thank much of me. Stupid Dog.
- That is the way it is when we heed the voices of Pharoah instead of God
- The voices of the Pharoah still call today to try and come between you and God
- What do they tell you to do? (Sometimes it is so subtle)
II. Faith moves you off of the fence
- Moses was 40 years old before he came to a decision in his life
- Explanation:
- Acts 7:25 - Moses at 40 already envisioned himself as a deliverer
- Ex 2:9-12
- Moses was given to his mother to raise him
- When he grew, he came to live in the palace as Pharoah’s daughter
- Moses grew up and went out to his brethren & looked on their hard
labors
- Moses faced a decision when he saw slave being beaten
- Remain Pharoah’s daughter (rich, education, palace, respect, servants)
- Stand with his brethren (contempt, affliction, suffering, slavery)
- Couldn’t just straddle the fence any longer
- Looked around, struck down an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew
- Moses had a lot to learn
- God wasn’t going to deliver the Hebrews through Moses’ strength
- Moses fled and spent next 80 years in rugged wilderness
- Why? He recognized three things (v. 25-26)
- That pleasure of sin is fleeting (chose not to emjoy passing pleasures of sin)
- Reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.
- Moses knew Christ (not according to the flesh) I Cor 10 read
- How? He was looking beyond the struggle --
- He was looking to the reward
- “looking to” means to look away from all other objects to look at
one
- As result, he “left” (forsook) Egypt not fearing Pharoah (the
Exodus
- He fixed his eyes and heart on the prize
- . You cannot have one foot in heaven and the other on earth (no one can do splits like that
- Faith will move you to make a decision once and for all
III. Faith moves you to March
- Now the text has moved from faith of Moses’ parents, to Moses and now to the people
- See two victories listed here. Remember the stories?
- Crossing of the Red Sea by faith
- Marching around the walls of Jericho by faith
- Even when it seems it doesn’t make any sense march
- There may be a great in-passible sea, but God will part it for you
- There may be a great wall, but God will cause it to fall for you
IV. Faith brings you Salvation (30-31)
- The final example is of salvation through faith
- Remember 10:38 - My righteous one shall live by faith
- I think it interesting that the last example here is a harlot
- She is mentioned several times in the New Testament
- James uses her as an example of faith as well
- She is in the geneology of Jesus (was David’s great-great grandmother)
- Joshua 2
- She hid spies in her house
- Heb 11:31 - By faith did not perish along with those who were
disobedient
- Insinuates that they were disobedient, and she was not
- How?
- Notice 2:8-11
- The whole city knew of YHWH and were fearful
- What could they have done? (Remember Ninevah)
- Notice Rahab’s confession: Josh 2:11
- Rahab believed in God when she heard and acted on it by protecting the men who came from God.
- That was “healthly” fear or reverence
- The rest of the city had unhealthy fear, they were going to resist
- The only way to run from God is to run to God
Concl:
- Remember that without faith it's impossible to please him
- What kind of faith do you have?
- Saving faith is a moving faith
- to fearlessness
- off the fence
- to march
- and ultimately to salvation
- Do you want the benefits of this faith?