Fearless Faith, and a 'Fair' Child (Heb. 11:23)
By Faith Moses • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
Call to Worship:
Call to Worship:
14 Satisfy us in the morning with thy steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. 15 Make us glad as many days as thou hast afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil. 16 Let thy work be manifest to thy servants, and thy glorious power to their children. 17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish thou the work of our hands upon us, yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.
Reading #1, for perspective:
Reading #1, for perspective:
22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.” 1 Now a man from the house of Levi went and took to wife a daughter of Levi. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. 3 And when she could hide him no longer she took for him a basket made of bulrushes, and daubed it with bitumen and pitch; and she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds at the river’s brink. 4 And his sister stood at a distance, to know what would be done to him. 5 Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, and her maidens walked beside the river; she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to fetch it. 6 When she opened it she saw the child; and lo, the babe was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” 7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” 8 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 9 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. 10 And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son; and she named him Moses, for she said, “Because I drew him out of the water.”
Reading #2, main text:
Reading #2, main text:
23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful; and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.
Intro.1
What does it mean this morning to have “Faith, over Fear?”
You probably saw the yard signs around the area. And though I know the church who sponsored those signs didn’t mean it this way—did “Faith, over Fear” mean not wearing a mask anywhere you went—or not wearing the mask “correctly” wherever you went?
Some took it that way.
Ignore the “science,” violate any mandates, “just trust God’s providence,” and you remember the rest.
(COVID was a time for all kinds of people’s nastiness. Even in the church…)
Intro.2
So what is it—“faith, over fear”?
For those hiding the Jews from the Nazis, “faith over fear” meant something entirely different: when the half-tracks drove up the driveway and the Gestapo unit demanded to search your home.
Or for those hiding runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad, and the sheriff’s posse came snooping. Or you were met by the local chapter of the Klan.
What is it, then—“faith, over fear”?
I.
This morning we consider a portion of Hebrews 11, the so-called “Hall of Faith” chapter—and Hebrews 11:23 particularly has us consider a pair of people who are probably the least-known and least-famous out of the whole list of Old Testament saints and characters who are mentioned in the storied hall of those who (even in the old covenant) “received divine approval” (says Heb. 11:2), who followed “invisible things” (Heb. 11:3 ESV) rather than “things that are seen.”
And who we consider this morning, starting a 4-week miniseries on the faith of Moses—is the faith, first, of Moses’ parents.
Hebrews 11:23 again, “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.”
You see it there. The operating focus is easy to glaze over—but it’s there nonetheless. — The operating focus is on Moses’ parents. And Moses here is passive.
Moses here is a baby. Certainly we gather from Exodus 2 he’s an infant and no more than a toddler.
But the focus is on his parents.
II.
So in a Hall of Faith chapter where the readers already have been considering these big names—of Abel, and Noah, and Abraham, and Sarah, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph:
Coming now to Heb. 11:23, it could (of sorts) be a “buzz kill.” It could kind of be like going to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown—and, if it could be the case, seeing Gehrig, and Ruth, and DiMaggio, and Banks, and Aaron, and then (in the midst of all those) you come across a plaque for a ballpark organist or a storied hot dog vendor.
Or you come to a team owner’s plaque—and you skip by it, hoping to find Ted Williams is somewhere nearby instead.
Or you find an umpire, or instead the shortstop, George Stacey Davis: whom Cooperstown themselves says may be “the best ballplayer you’ve never heard of” before Davis was inducted to the Hall of Fame in 1998, long after his death in 1940.
And you move past all these to get back to the big names again—of Jackie Robinson, and Harold Baines, and Minnie Minoso.
III.
Well, we have the remarkable feat this morning to consider Moses’ parents in the “Hall of Faith” chapter.
“By faith Moses” all the English translations say in following the original Greek—but the emphasis here is actually on the parents of Moses. And they’re parents of Moses who, here in Hebrews 11 AND in Exodus 2, never are mentioned by name.
Abel, Abraham, Sarah, and the rest—eventually adding Samuel, David, and many others by the end of the chapter—all get their names recorded in Hebrews 11. — But in Hebrews 11 and in Exodus 2, both of Moses’ parents are involved: and yet they’re involved anonymously, without record (in those accounts) of their names.
IV.
So it’s true while I was researching that I was noticing pastors and commentators mentioning Moses’ father and mother with names, “Amram” and “Jochebed.” — And that threw me. Where did they get these? —
And if they’re all using the names uniformly, was it a tradition that these names came to us? Or how did we get them?
And I found it actually comes from 1 Chronicles 6:3, as well as Exodus 6:20 and Numbers 26:59. And we find from these places:
Amram is the father of Moses, and Jochebed is Moses’ mother;
They’re also the parents of Miriam (who may very well be the sister in Exodus 2 getting the baby Moses into the care of Pharaoh’s own daughter), as well as the parents of Aaron (who is three years older than Moses, and apparently who also was spared—though we’re not told the account of how it happened—from being annihilated in Pharaoh’s policy against the Hebrew boys).
But we don’t get their names in Hebrews 11 or in Exodus 2. Nor do we get them either in the listings of Jesus’ ancestors, either in Matthew 1 or in Luke 3—the lines of David, or the lines of Jesus.
(Which is interesting as well, in that so much of the rest of Hebrews 11 is involved in Jesus’ line and lineage—except for Moses, Joshua, and Joseph, otherwise these very prominent and well-known Old Testament names…)
(But remember that Moses and Aaron are of the tribe of Levi, of the temple-workers and priests: and they’re not of the tribe of Judah, where the Messiah would be...)
(Even Rahab, of her “reputation,” is in Hebrews 11 and in the line and lineage of Jesus—but Moses is not, and neither are his parents, who are in Hebrews 11:23!)
V.
I want to concentrate here though on the nature of this “faith” that the author of Hebrews here is recounting, regarding Moses and his parents violating the decree of the Egyptian Pharaoh.
The author of Hebrews, of course, already has been building up ideas (and benefits) toward a working definition of this faith.
Faith gives rest (Heb. 4:2),
it opens “promises” to those who have faith and patience (Heb. 6:12),
it’s the assurance and permission to “draw near” to God (Heb. 10:22), and
it means life for the soul that presses on (Heb. 10:38-39).
Then Hebrews 11:1 starts off this Hall of Faith chapter:
1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the men of old received divine approval. 3 By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.
And Hebrews 11:6
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
* * *
We see life here attaching to faith, which recalls Heb. 10:38. (Moses is condemned by Pharaoh’s decree to be killed—but his parents hide him, and we see he’s rescued and saved into life by the currents pushing him to Pharaoh’s own daughter.)
Yet what throws me is the—is it the motivation? or the correlating factor? of the parents’ faith. “Because they saw that the child was beautiful.”
Or Exodus 2:2, “she saw that he was goodly” (other translations: he was “fine,” “beautiful,” “special,” “not ordinary”).
Acts 7:20 too correlates here: “Moses was born, and (he) was beautiful before God.”
What is this “faith”??
* * *
Say you observe your child picking up a violin for the very first time, and your child is pretty good at it. So you start looking into lessons.
Is that “faith”??
VI.
Moses’ rescue is ironic.
He’s taken out of a Hebrew home, hidden, and sent away in a basket (the Old Testament word is the same as that for “ark”, as in the Noah account).
He’s taken out of a Hebrew home, caught up and discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter, at the very same palace (presumably) where Pharaoh himself had made the edict outlawing the existence of this baby boy now discovered.
He’s taken out of the Hebrew home—but then he gets sent back. He’s not exterminated by Pharaoh’s daughter, who also interestingly seems unmoved by the order and decree made by her very own father.
And instead of following the decree and exterminating this child as she’s supposed to do—instead she puts the child back into the Hebrew care, right back where he had come from.
One daughter to another daughter—Pharaoh’s daughter promises pay to the Hebrew family to care for the child.
(The family gets their child, and they get some income (lit. “succor”; or “wage,” or “reward”) as if Pharaoh’s daughter was inconveniencing them by returning the baby and needed to make restitution or pay a fee!)
VII.
Moses in all this though is passive. He’s acted upon—passed back and forth—handed this way and that way.
He’s even carried by the river. He doesn’t swim!
So “by faith” it’s his parents here who are in view; and their “faith” is in an insight that they share with God: who, together, all see the child as “lovely” (“fair,” in some translations; “delicate,” “special,” “set apart”).
And this wins them favor—and many steps ahead of time, it also sets in motion a huge, astronomical, epic plan that will redeem and free the Hebrews from the clutches of Pharaoh and will set them free, liberated from earthly captivity, so that they will be conscripted and preserved to live as the holy and set-apart servants of God, whom they were always meant to be.
* * *
ILLUSTRATION:
Jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman is scurried out of the lines for a Nazi train bound to the concentration camps, and is instead hidden away in different Polish safehouses around Warsaw—until the houses can’t take him anymore and his handlers hide him in an abandoned German army hospital instead: right across the street from a German, Gestapo police headquarters. They tell him “it’s the safest place to be, right at the heart of the lion’s den.”
That’s like Moses’ scurrying, too. Scurried and hidden in plain sight, of sorts, in the heart of the lion’s den. In the home of the daughter of Pharaoh, the Pharaoh who had demanded that boys like Moses be put to death!
VIII.
So if you’re wondering this morning which way to go or what decision to make—take heart. You’re in good company.
Even pastors, my wife is finding out, don’t always get clear lightbeams from heaven in order to make the decisions they need. (And instead their decisions can seem very “earthly” or “human,” and they’re not always 100% certain that they’re doing the right thing or going the right direction.) But they go, they move—usually not having all the answers. But still they move.
Moses’ parents noticed something beautiful in their child—and so, despite a king’s command, they acted in a way that ended up being important. — They acted in a way that brought life. And in the end, they acted in a way that would see the Hebrews, as a nation, freed and brought out of captivity.
* * *
It’s a remarkable story, requiring just the right river currents, and just the right disposition and response of Pharaoh’s daughter.
And it took the parents of Moses and the daughter of Pharaoh both to be unafraid and unmoved by the ferocious edict and command of the king.
And Moses’ parents would receive their son back, and the son would have his own home and an adopted home in the very house of Pharaoh.
IX.
And this morning, your faith adopts you as a brother or a sister into the household of God, as well.
And our king, King Jesus, also was hidden away from his own people (Matthew 2:13) and was taken to Egypt, where he would spend his young years escaping persecution: i.e., King Herod’s persecution of all babies born, two years or younger, in Bethlehem.
Our Jesus was not necessarily “beautiful” either so that we would follow him on appearance. Isaiah 53:2,
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.
No. Follow it with Isaiah 53:3,
3 He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
And the Son of God would face death, “even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). But then he was raised to life—not in three months, but in three days—and “by faith,” in his life we too are also brought to life.
X.
This, and the other references in Hebrews 11 of Moses, was to remind the New Testament people of God that their God indeed is unchanging—that in Jesus Christ, God is the same “yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8).
They were to remind the New Testament people of God that their God had once overcome a superpower as mighty as, once, the mighty Pharaoh of Egypt had been.
But the pharaohs, by the time of the New Testament, had all passed away; and all of them, by then, were buried and lain to rest in their pyramids.
So Hebrews reminds us, “by faith,” to press on. To carry on. To continue living by faith, and trusting and resting in the God who—to this day—continues carrying us and giving us life.
We don’t know what currents and winds are blowing or leading us to where we should go.
We don’t know what reception our word or our presence will receive from those we encounter.
But our God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.
And Jesus is alive, still giving life and rest and strength to all who look to him by faith.
And it is by faith in him that “no weapon formed against you” (Isa. 54:17) will prosper or succeed.
The apostle John says similarly elsewhere, John 20:31,
31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.
Or Psalm 118:6,
6 With the Lord on my side I do not fear. What can man do to me?
* * *
So go now, and live fearlessly in faith: trusting in your Savior, Jesus. Your solid rock, your sure foundation. Your “ever present help in time of trouble.”
You are special to him, and dear.
He loves you—and he is the only-begotten, very-beloved (Mk. 1:11) Son of God. And he is given for you: so that your faith is brought to the full. Your faith will, one day, be brought to the full expectation of eternal life for which it waits.
Amen
Parting blessing:
Parting blessing:
23 May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
Translation/notes:
Translation/notes:
23. By faith Moses, being born*, was hidden/covered/kept secret/protected/made-cryptic for three months by his parents (Amram and Jochebed, Ex. 6:20, Num. 26:59), because they saw the child was beautiful (fair/delicate; i.e., not ordinary), and they were not frightened/seized-with-alarm/terrified by the edict/ordinance/commandment/mandate/decree of the king/sovereign.
*In Egyptian “moses” is “born,” but Pharaoh’s daughter uses Hebrew meaning, “drawn from the water.”