MOSES –
Exodus 2:1-10
1.
Want to begin by reading to you a statement about a
biblical character...as I read, see if you can guess the person being
described...
"He was the child of a slave,
and the son of a queen. He was born in a
hut, and lived in a palace. He inherited
poverty, and enjoyed unlimited wealth.
He was the leader of armies, and the keeper of flocks. He was the mightiest of warriors, and the
meekest of men. He was educated in the
court, and dwelt in the desert. He had
the wisdom of Egypt, and the faith of a child.
He was fitted for the city, and wandered in the wilderness. He was tempted with the pleasures of sin, and
endured the hardships of virtue. He was
backward in speech, and talked with God.
He had the rod of a shepherd, and the power of the Infinite. He was a fugitive from Pharaoh, and an
ambassador from heaven. He was the giver
of the Law, and the forerunner of grace.
He died alone on Mount Moab, and appeared with Christ in Judea. No man assisted at his funeral, yet God
buried him."
[Dr. I.M. Haldeman,
quoted by Arthur Pink, p.16]
Of course, that statement is a description
of the life of Moses.
2. Except for Jesus, Himself, there is no person
in the Scripture more important than Moses...
·
He is one of the few people in the Bible whose life-story
is given from birth to death...
·
He was the one through whom God communicated the law to
the nation Israel...
·
He was prophet, priest, and king all wrapped up in a
single person...
·
His life previews the life of Christ from the unusual
events surrounding His birth, to his leading the Israelites from the bondage of
Egypt as Jesus has led us from the bondage of sin, to his unusual departure
from this world, to his appearance with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration…
The
importance of Moses in God’s redemptive plan for humanity cannot be
over-emphasized. While Abraham is often
described as the father of faith, in Moses we see an beautiful picture of a
life lived in faith.
3. In Hebrews 11, the great faith chapter, the writer
of Hebrews highlights five (5) times when faith played a significant role in
the life of Moses...
--v.23 -
When he was born and hidden by his parents from the Pharaoh who wanted him
dead...
--vv.24-26 -
When he chose to identify with the Israelites rather than the Egyptians...
--v.27 -
When he fled Egypt fearing the wrath of the Pharaoh...
--v.28 -
When he led the Israelites in observing the first Passover...
--v.29 -
When he led the Israelites through the Red Sea to safety...
4. Over the next few weeks we're going to
explore some things that each of these five events in the life of Moses to see
what they can teach us about living by faith...Hebrews 11:23 simply says “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.” The story is told
in more detail in Exodus 1 & 2.
T.S.- The faith being highlighted in this story is not the faith of
Moses but of his parents --his mother, Jochebed, and his father, Amram. Verse 1 kind of glosses over Moses’
ancestry. Interestingly, Exodus 6:20
tells us that Jochebed was Amram’s father’s sister. Therefore, Moses’ father actually married his
aunt. While such activity would
certainly be frowned upon today, it was a rather common practice in some
ancient cultures. As God began to reveal
to the Israelites His will, such practices were specifically forbidden (cf.
Lev. 18:12). However, at the time of
Amram’s and Jochebed’s marriage, it was not forbidden. The focus of Exodus 2:1-10 is on the actions
of Moses’ mother, Jochebed. From her
actions, we can learn some significant things about faith.
I. Faith causes a person to see what others
don't see
1. There's an interesting statement in v.2 about
the mother of Moses...middle part of the verse tells us that when she looked at
her baby "...she saw the that he was beautiful..."...now
that doesn't sound very unusual because all mothers and fathers think their
babies are beautiful...truth is new parents aren't very objective about the
appearance of their babies...when our children were born I thought at the time
they were the most beautiful babies in all the world...but now when I look back
at those pictures of them when they were just a few minutes old and see their
bald heads, wrinkled skin, and spotted complexion I realize they weren't all
that beautiful...
2. But when Bible says that mother of Moses "saw
that he was beautiful" it means more than just that she thought he
was physically beautiful...the word translated "beautiful"
literally means "not ordinary"...it implies that she
saw that Moses' was not merely a handsome or physically beautiful child, but
that he was a gifted or unusually promising child...
3. The Jewish historian Josephus, in his
Antiquities, suggests this means that Moses' parents received a revelation from
God concerning their son's destiny...and this revelation, which they accepted
by faith, caused them to see things others didn't see...
1.
And that's certainly one thing faith should do in our
lives...
·
Our faith will invariably impact how we view
people…instead of seeing merely what they have been or what they are, faith
should cause us to see what they can become in Christ…faith should remind us
that no person is outside the scope of God’s love and grace…
·
Our faith will invariably impact how we view
situations…for those who view life through the eyes of faith, there is no
situation that can utterly defeat us...I think that is something of what Paul
meant when he penned the amazing words of Romans 8:37-39 – “But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer
through Him who loved us. For
I am convinced that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing,
will be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
2.
A famous politician of several decades ago said, "Most
people see things as they are and ask why.
I see things as they could be and ask why not." That is how people of faith view life in
general.
II. Faith causes a person to do what others
don't do
1. One of the principles which permeates the
Scripture is that real faith, genuine faith always results in action...right
belief leads to right living...if we don't live right, if we don't do right,
that is strong evidence that, regardless of our claims to the contrary, we
don't really believe right...
2. Because Moses' parents had faith in God, they
did some things that others were afraid to do...
·
First, they defied the edict of the Pharaoh...Exodus 1
tells us because the Pharaoh was concerned about the swelling population of
Hebrews in Egypt, he had ordered all male babies thrown into the Nile
River...while other parents apparently obeyed this hideous command out of fear
of the Pharaoh, the writer of Hebrews tells us that Moses' parents "were
not afraid of the king's edict"...
·
Then, their faith caused them to do very strange thing...
instead of taking the baby and getting as far away from the Pharaoh as
possible...they placed him in a basket on the very river in which the children
were to be thrown...and even more incredibly, at the very place the daughter of
the Pharaoh who had given the decree would be sure to see the child...
3.
That was something no-one else would dare do...but they
clear implication of the story is that they did those things at the direction
of God and as result of their faith in God...
1. Sometimes faith results in our doing things
which seem foolish in the eyes of the world...for example--
--for
Abraham to leave his homeland and began to journey toward some unspecified
place...
--for Moses
to have the audacity to stand before Pharaoh and demand freedom for the
Hebrews...
--for young
David to do battle with Goliath...
--for Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego to go into the fiery furnace...
--for Daniel
to go into the lion's den...
--for Peter
and John to defy the powerful Sanhedrin court...
--for the
early church to attempt to evangelize the entire world...
--for Jesus
to go to the cross for the sins of the world...
was foolish, unless viewed through the
eyes of faith...
1. And what was true for Moses' parents and many
other biblical characters should be true in our lives as well...faith causes us
to do things other people don't do...the Bible tells us in Romans 12:1 that we
are not to be conformed to this world... people of faith should have different
priorities from the rest of the world...we should use our time differently...we
should use our financial resources differently...we should have different
values...
2. Often, as a result of our faith, God's people
are called to live in a way which cuts across the grain of our culture...in
addition to causing us to see things others don't see and do things others
don't do, there's third thing we can learn about faith from Moses' parents...
III. Faith causes a person to experience things
others don't experience
1. Because of faith, Jochebed, Moses' mother,
and Moses were privileged to experience things other people did not
experience...
--in one of those twists of irony in which
God seems to delight, Jochebed got to rear her own child...she got to instill
in Him a strong sense of his Hebrew heritage and teach him about God's plan for
Israel...
--Moses got to be raised in the court of
Pharaoh and had access to all the learning of the Egyptians...he was the foster
son of the king and all the privileges of royalty were his...
And, of course, in all that God was
preparing Moses for his future mission of leading the Israelites out of
Egypt...
2. That is a reminder that God has a plan, a
purpose for our lives ...and as one writer put it, "Trying to
improve on God's plan is more pretentious than taking a felt-tipped pen and
trying to improve the Mona Lisa. Our
scribbling would do nothing than ruin the masterpiece." [MacArthur,
p.349]
3. God's plan for us is that we live by faith in
Him...and as we do we--
--see things
others don't see...
--do things
others don't do...
--experience
things others don't experience...
