Fearless Faith: the faith of Moses’ parents

The present harm: There is a danger in the world.

The great faith of Moses’ life did not start out with him. It started out with someone else that had the faith to save his life. Moses’ parents had enough faith to give Moses’ faith a chance to grow.

The commanding rival: Pharaoh was the one that was putting forth the command to kill all the Hebrew boys in Ex. 1. Notice the powerful position of the man that wanted to cause harm to the people of God and the force that he used to carry out his will. He commanded people to hurt the children of God.

Application: The enemies that we have in this world are formidable. They are not some weak group of people that are merely an annoyance and whom we need to ignore. They are not merely sitting by the wayside disagreeing with us, but these people are actively giving commands to harm us.

For the lost, this enemy is the world and the devil.

The catastrophic result: Pharaoh did not want to just harm or hinder these people, he wanted them to die. Pharaoh wanted to end their lives and take them out of the world.

Application: The world that we live in does not just want to hinder Christians, it wants to take us out of the race and kill their spiritual lives.

For the lost, the result is an eternity in Hell. That is the end of all their sin.

The protective hiding

The responsible seeing: Moses’ parents were aware of what was going on around them.

The serious problems: They saw that there were dangers in the world. They saw the harm that they would cause for their son. They were paying attention. They were not claiming that ignorance is bliss while the world killed their children. They were actively looking out for the good of their son.

Their son’s potential: They saw that this child God had given them was “special”: he was not like all the other kids. The Bible says here in Hebrews that he was proper. In Exodus, it says he was goodly, but his momma probably just said he was special. They saw something in Moses that to them was worth saving. What they saw made it worth going against the rules, made it worth fighting the king, because this child they knew had a chance to do something for God.

The required saving: Because they knew that Moses could not survive without their help, they did something about the problems. The Bible says that they “hid” Moses… Moses was sheltered, and he survived. In fact, sheltering saved Moses’ life rather than destroying it. They knew that Moses had no chance of surviving if they did not hide him from the persecutors and problems in the world.

Application:

Parents, it is okay to shelter your children from the filth of the world. Obviously, there is a balance with the sheltering, but I would say handing your 5 year old a cell phone so that they can watch as much YouTube as they want is probably not too much sheltering.

Kids, you will not die from being sheltered. If you have parents that are willing to try to protect you, you should praise God rather than trying to talk them out of what they are doing for you. Moses survived a sheltered home, and you can too.

For the lost, do we care about the problems that they have and the place they are heading? If we do nothing, they will go to Hell. They could have a walk with God. They could do great things for the Lord, but they will not if we do not have the faith to give theirs a chance.

The persecuted helpers

What did Moses’ parents get in return for this hiding? Persecution. Moses’ parents did not have the support of those people around them while they did what they knew had to be done for their son, but they had the faith to look past the trouble it was going to cause for them and instead focus on saving their son’s life. They had to push through all the persecution of others so that their son could make it.

Application: There are people that will not understand what you do for your children. If you try to protect them from the world, you will not get away with it.

Persecution from your children. Your children may think that you just don’t want them to have any fun, but you must keep your eyes on the prize and have the faith to give theirs a chance.

Persecution from other parents. They will not understand why everyone else can be doing it yet you simply will not comply. They may try to make you feel bad and change your opinion, but you will have to keep pushing through.

Persecution from the world itself. They are not going to tolerate your going against their commandments, and they will let you know about it and put pressure on you to change.

Why should you push through all this persecution? Why should you in the face of everyone else hold to what you think is right? I answer your question with a question. Do you not see what God can do with them? Do you not see how God wants to use them? Are they not proper and goodly to you?

I answer your question with a question. Do you not see what God can do with them? Do you not see how God wants to use them? Are they not proper and goodly to you?God wants to use them and do something with them, but if you don’t have the faith to stand up and protect theirs, they may never get that chance because they will be dead before then.

God wants to use them and do something with them, but if you don’t have the faith to stand up and protect theirs, they may never get that chance because they will be dead before then.

Moses’ parents said, “We don’t care what it takes. We don’t care who stands against us. We don’t care how far we have to go. We are going to protect our son if we have to die to do it.” That is the fearless faith of Moses’ parents.

You may say, well I am not a parent, so this does not apply to me. But all of us can point to some time in our lives when God used someone else in our lives. Those people had the faith to do something for God that had an eternal effect on our lives. These people did what they could to save us from the doom that they knew was coming. Their faith gave ours a chance to get started. Is there anybody that we can do that for?

For the lost, is it worth the “persecution” and the misunderstanding to see them come to Christ? Sure, it is not easy. Sure, it is not comfortable to go out there and tell them about Jesus, but we have what they need and if someone just goes out there and tells them, that may be all they need to get their life of faith started.

You may say, that is all great for the big Christians and the people that have huge faith in their lives. God made those people to do those great things for Him, but I am not that great. I don’t have amazing faith to move mountains like that. We don’t know many things about Moses’ parents. We do know that they were not wealthy people. They did not seem to be particularly powerful people

We don’t know many things about Moses’ parents. We do know that they were not wealthy people. They did not seem to be particularly powerful people; in fact, they were slaves. But that did not stop them from doing great things for God. You do not need to be talented or wealthy. You do not need to be influential to

You do not need to be talented or wealthy. You do not need to be influential to give other people a chance. You just need to see what’s going wrong and do something about it.

We don’t know much about these parents, but we know that their greatest work of faith in their lives was setting up their child to have a walk with God.

You may think that God will never do great things with you, but will you let Him use you to do great things in someone else? Can you let Him use you to do that?

One last time, why should we go through this persecution as parents and as witnesses to the lost? I think back to a time some 2,000 years ago that looked at me some 2,000 years later, just a lost sinner dying and on my way to Hell. I am thankful that He saw my needs, but He did not just see my needs. I am thankful that He came down from Heaven and died for my sins so that He could save me from my fate, so that He could reconcile me to God. I could not save myself. I didn’t have the faith to get out of the place I was, but He was willing to do whatever it took to save me even though that meant dying on the cross. He saw something in me that was worth dying for. He saw something in you that was worth dying for.

That is the fearless faith we find in Heb. 11:23, the faith to help someone else.

Can you have the faith to give someone else’s faith a chance? Can you let God use you like that?