Moses' Parents

Alright, by a show of hands, in this room or in the East Worship Center or any of our campuses that are watching or if you're online or if you're watching us on TV or if you're on Neptune somehow on a satellite or whatever, show of hands. How many of you, in your life have had an actual fear, like a real fear of something? Just put your hand up in the air, okay, that pretty much everybody. Good. Everybody had probably fallen into one of those categories, right?

In fact, psychologists have actually determined there are over 530 clinically diagnosed, actual delineated phobias. Like over 530 of them. That's a lot. Some of you may have some familiarity with some of these, and if that's you just raise your hand if any of these are you: arachnophobia, which is the fear of spiders - I don't even have to get it out of my mouth and people are going yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, right? Alright. How about acrophobia, which is the fear of heights? Oh wow, man! I'm never having a worship service on the top of a tower! Claustrophobia, the fear of close spaces, right? Some people are freaked out by that, right? Nyctophobia, which is the fear of the dark. Okay, these are the people who brought their pacies and their blankies with them to church! Kidding, kidding, kidding, kidding, it could have happened at any point, right, in their life.

And then there's also something actually that they have identified called phobophobia, it's an actual delineated, clinically diagnosed deal and it is the fear of fear. Let me tell you how it works. Let's say, for instance that you are afraid of clowns. Like everyone is, alright? Let's say we're afraid of clowns and you heard that the circus was coming to town this summer and you were scared thinking about how scared you're going to be. That's phobophobia.

Now, with any of these kinds of fears usually the prescription is this, face it. The only way to overcome your fear is to face it, right? That's what we hear and that's, in part that's pretty much true. But here's what I've found. In almost all of those cases, you overcome your fear by putting your faith in someone. For instance, you're scared of heights and so you have to put your faith in your friend who is taking you on a climb. You're like, but I'm scared of heights and they're like trust me, I've got you, right? Or you're scared of the dark or you're scared of tight spaces and you have to trust that guide that is taking you through those dark caves that have very narrow openings. You're having to put your faith in that guide to be able to get you through, right? That's the only way you're going to be able to deal with it. Or, you're scared of clowns, as everyone is. You're scared of clowns and so you have to trust, you have to put your faith in your friend who's inviting you over because he wants to introduce you to his friend, Mr. Giggles, right? That's what you have to do.

Here's what I'm trying to remind us of. Faith overcomes fear. That's what I want you to get. Faith is what overcomes fear. In fact, that's the lesson that we're learning today in Hebrews chapter 11 as we continue on in our series about faith, that's the lesson that we learn today through some, maybe what we would consider unlikely candidates to make this list but nonetheless, some really good teachers for us, Moses' parents. That's what we learn from them, that faith is what overcomes fear.

Listen to how the writer of Hebrews puts it in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 23 it says: "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." Alright, this is what we get in verse number 23 of Hebrews chapter 11. So before we get the next six verses, which are all about Moses, right? Moses gets kind of a good chunk of material, before we've got all of that, we've actually got a verse that is spent on Moses' parents.

Now what the writer of Hebrews does is he talks about Joseph right before that, and he jumps from Joseph's faith to Moses' parent's faith. Before we understand what Moses' parents faith consisted of, it's probably helpful that we understand a little bit of the gap between Joseph and Moses and what transpired. So the book of Genesis concludes and then the book of Exodus opens by telling us that now the Israelites had grown in the land but they were in a position now where in Egypt, they were growing in the land of Egypt that there was a king or a pharaoh who was overseeing Egypt who didn't have really any connection to Joseph.

You see, at this point now Joseph and all of his brothers and that generation had died off, and now there was a new pharaoh who had come to rule. I don't know what exactly the timeline was in between those time frames, but this was the pharaoh, a king, in Egypt who didn't really have any loyalty to Joseph. He didn't necessarily care about the story of Joseph and he didn't care about Joseph's people. And so now this king sees that Israel is growing and multiplying in the land and he doesn't like it at all, because he's thinking to himself if they continue to grow, they might be able to put on kind of a rebellion and take us over here in Egypt, and we can't let that happen.

So what Exodus 1 just keeps telling us is that he devises these plans to oppress the people of Israel. The first plan was he's going to subject them to hard labor and basically it was an oppressed, forced labor that he subjected them to. But as much as he oppressed them in that forced labor, they continued to multiply even more and he thought this isn't working out and so he goes drastic. And he says well, then here's what I'm going to do, you Hebrew midwives who are helping give birth to these babies that the Hebrew women are having, I want everytime there is a male that's born, I want you to kill him. But here's the thing. Those Hebrew midwives, they feared God and they wouldn't do it. And the Pharaoh was like, hey, they keep growing and they keep having all these male babies, what's the deal with you, I told you to do something! They were like, well, I'll be honest with you, these Jewish ladies, they're really efficient. They pop those babies out before we've even got time to get there, that's literally what they were saying. They get these babies out of there before we've got time to do anything! We can't really do much about this! But the real reason was they feared God and they wanted to honor the Lord.

But the Pharaoh is not happy with any of these kind of developments, and so he decides and sends out an edict that his lynchmen would have full access to and he would require of the Jewish people that when they have their babies, if they were male you throw them in the Nile River. It's barbaric, isn't it? Just throw them in the Nile River where they would drown. Crocodiles are in the Nile River, as you recall. So that was what the edict was. It is a fearful time in Israel, because the ruler doesn't care anymore about Joseph or Joseph's people, he's oppressing them, threatening them.

And now this is where we meet Moses' parents in the narrative. We meet them in Exodus chapter 2, here's what it says beginning in verse number 1: "Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. And this baby, or this child's sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent for her female slave to get it. And so Pharaoh's daughter opened up the basket and saw the baby. The baby was crying, and she felt sorry for him. 'This is one of the Hebrew babies,' she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter,' in other words, Moses' sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, 'Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?' 'Yes, go,' she answered. So the girl went and got the baby's mother." Which was also her mother. "And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, 'take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you'. So the woman took the baby and nursed him. And when the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. And she named him Moses saying 'I drew him out of the water.'".

So that's the context from which our writer in Hebrews is taking his idea of by faith, Moses' parents did what they did. He's drawing that from the story of Exodus chapter 2. But he pulls out a very small piece of that in Hebrews chapter number 11 verse 23, a really small piece of it. How did they show their faith, well it's right here in the text. "By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born," Why? "Because they saw he was no ordinary child", so the reason that they hid him according to the text of Scripture is because they saw he was no ordinary child. Now that phrase when it talks, that word that we translate kind of no ordinary child or the kind of child could also be translated good or fair or fine or beautiful, beautiful to people or beautiful in the sight of God, it has all of those meanings.

In fact, if you picked up on it in Exodus chapter 2 you saw it actually played out in there, it says..."She became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child," same idea, that's kind of the same in the Hebrew as it would be in the Greek language. Kind of the same root word that we're talking about there in terms of the description.

And in fact, the other time in the New Testament when this story is mentioned about Moses and this idea is pulled out of the story, Stephen uses the exact same phrase. Stephen was the first martyr of the church, if you remember and right before he died he was preaching the gospel to the Jewish people and to the religious leaders of that time. And he was preaching a message about Messiah and he was chronicling Israel's history so that they would be able to see that Jesus was the promised Messiah. And Stephen actually said this in his sermon in Acts chapter 7: "As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had greatly increased. Then a new king to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.' And he dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our ancestors by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die." Stephen is summarizing Exodus chapter 1 and Exodus chapter 2. "At that time Moses was born," here's what Stephen says, "And he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for or hidden by his family. And when he was placed outside, Pharaoh's daughter took him and brought him up as her own son." So the reason that we have here that we're talking about the reason for them hiding Moses was because he was beautiful. He was fine, he was no ordinary child.

Now let me pause here for a second. Am I to understand that what's being said here is that Moses' parents decided to put their lives on the line because Moses was a beautiful baby? Now, yes to the answer of that question, that's certainly the case. But doesn't every parent think that their baby is beautiful when they're born? Right? Would this be something that was just Moses' parents would be the only people when their baby was born to go "wow, what a beautiful baby." I think every parent, even if our child comes out looking like a monkey, even if that happens, we still go, "what a beautiful baby, that's my baby." There is a natural affection that every parent would have, and by the way, all of these Israelite parents that were having babies, remember no sonograms back then, when they got pregnant they didn't know male or female, they were waiting right, to see. And so when that baby's born they all think that their baby is beautiful, certainly. Now, was Moses? Yes. There was something about Moses' appearance that was extraordinary, there's no question. That what the text actually teaches us.
But I also tend to think that there is something even more going on here. For instance, as Stephen talked about in his sermon that we read just a moment ago, out of Acts chapter 7, he talked about the idea that it was coming time for Abraham's promise to be fulfilled and I guarantee that Moses' parents knew that and so did all of Israel. What was that promise that was made to Abraham, that the people of Israel really knew about and were holding out hope for? Well, we find it in Genesis chapter number 15 and it says this: "As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to Abram, or Abraham: "Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own" which would end up being Egypt, "and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions."

This is a promise from the Lord to Abraham and from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Joseph and all the way in to the time of Moses, the people of Israel knew this promise. And here's what they knew. They knew that this promise had to be happening reasonably soon, maybe even within the next eighty years. So, they were probably thinking how was God going to do this? How was God going to fulfill His promise where his people had been in captivity in a land not their own, just like He told Abraham they would be and that they would be there for four hundred years but that God would deliver them and He would punish the nation that had done this to them. How was God going to do that? Was He going to do it through some supernatural miracle? Maybe. Was He going to do that through some kind of deliverer that He raised up from among their people? Maybe. Would it be a combination of the two? Maybe. Who knows exactly what they were thinking and the text doesn't exactly tell us that information.

But, I did some digging. Just historically, because sometimes what you do when you read the Scripture, when you interpret it properly is you have to understand the history surrounding it. That you read the words on the page, but you also understand the context into which that is spoken. So I looked at a historian who looked at the Jewish world for a long period of time, his name was Flavius Josephus. He actually existed just a little bit after the time of Jesus but his history, like his book called "Antiquities of the Jews" and other works that he wrote chronicled a lot in the history of Israel that had been passed down from generation to generation because as you know, for a very long period of time these people lived in an oral culture. They weren't just documenting everything at the time, right? This was an oral culture. And in his book "Antiquities of the Jews" in book 2, if you're looking it's chapters 210 through 217 if you wanted to go back and look at it, you may have been listening to it on audio before you came to church today. I'm sure you were. Here's what Josephus says: He says that many of the Jewish people and many of the rabbis had passed along that God had actually spoken to Moses' parents through a dream with his dad and said that his son was going to be a deliverer of Israel. True or not, I don't know. This is outside the context or the boundaries of the Scripture, true or no I don't know. But, this was something that the Jewish people actually believed.

There was another rabbi, Rabbi Ben Ishmael and he wrote a book called Mekilta and in that particular one, there was a tractate within that writing and here's what he concluded. He said that God had actually spoken a word of prophesy to Moses' sister Miriam that Moses would be a special son. Now you do know that Miriam ended up becoming a prophetess, the Scripture is very clear about that. Whether it was one of those two things or whether God confirmed it through both, here's the idea. What we do know for sure is that Moses' parents acted by faith. That's what we know for sure. We also know that the New Testament tells us that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So I probably have a tendency to believe that God had in some way revealed to Moses' parents who Moses was going to be, confirming that through Moses' physical appearance, whether that was just the sheer beauty of the baby, whether that was a mark on him, I don't have any idea what that may be and the Scripture is silent on that. But what we do know for sure is that Moses' parents acted by faith on what they sensed that God had spoken to them in whatever way that God had chosen to do that.

Now, why is that important for us? Well, it's important for us because faith is what overcomes fear, and in Moses' parents day this was a time of fear. And it was their faith that was being highlighted here in the midst of that fear. I want to actually pull out two quick things for you and for I that I think will be very pertinent, but they're coming from Moses' parent's life. Their life of faith teaches us some things, instructs us about some things that I think if we can grab hold of we can also learn about that in our own life, of how faith can overcome fear.

Here's the first way that I want to pull out. It's that faith overcomes the fear that your life doesn't really count. Faith overcomes the fear that your life doesn't really count. Let me toss out a couple of names for you that are kind of off, not off-topic, but kind of off the beaten path. Amram and Jochebed. I'm sure you were thinking about them on your way over here. Anyone been to coffee with them before? Anyone know them, right? For many of you, maybe there's a handful of you that those names sound familiar but most of you may be going I don't know who Amram and Jochebed are and why are you telling me this? Here's why. Because they're Moses' parents. In fact, when you read in Exodus chapter 2 they're not even named in that story. We read it, right? They're not even named. It's not until a few chapters later in the book of Exodus when there's just this genealogy that if you skipped over it you wouldn't know, but if you read it you'd find out oh, that's their names! And interestingly enough, what does the writer of Hebrews do in Hebrews chapter 11? "By faith Moses' parents". Now this is incredible because in the line of what he's writing in this kind of Hall of Fame of Faith in Hebrews chapter 11 you've got Enoch, right? It's like wow! You've got Abel before that. You've got Noah. You've got Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, and Moses' parents. Everybody has a name and they're not even named. I find that fascinating because of what it teaches us and says to us.

Moses' parents, listen to this, were basically in the way that most people would view it at that time, were basically nobodies with no power, who were in no position to really change anything. They were just Jewish parents who were under oppression like everybody else. Nobodies, no name, no power, no position to change anything.

Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt in your life of faith that you've had the fear that your life of faith really doesn't count? Because you're a no-name nobody who has no power and you're in no position to do anything. You feel like I can't, I can't stand up in front of people and talk, I can't really teach, that's not really my thing. I don't have any real special talents that set me out from the pack or whatever. I'm just kind of a no name nobody that has really no power and I'm in no position to make any real, lasting significant change in the world. Oh, yes you are!

Your life of faith, it really counts, because your life of faith may have an effect on the lives of people around you in an absolutely far more, exponentially more extraordinary way than what you think. Just because you don't think that you've got a name and you've got power and you've got position and you've got all of that stuff, you think man, I'm kind of scared that my life of faith doesn't count. I promise you it does, Moses' parents life counted.

In fact, you can see this through the course of Scripture, I won't go into other details except to say you remember the name Timothy? Sure you do. Timothy man, like Paul's protégé. Timothy, Timothy. I've got a book named after me. Timothy. Paul wrote me a letter and it's there for you to read forever. Timothy. We've got Timothy and we all know who Timothy is, but what we often fail to remember is Timothy's mom and his grandmother. You know what Paul said about Timothy's faith? Listen to what he said in 2 Timothy chapter 1: "Timothy I'm reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also." He's saying Timothy, man, I love your faith. But I know where it came from. It came from your grandmother and your mother. Their faith effected yours. That is encouraging, even if nobody really knows their names.

We don't ever think about who Billy Graham's parents are, do we? Martin Luther King's parents. We don't think about those things, right? But we know that there is faith that has affected them. Maybe it was friends. Maybe it was other people. We know that there is faith that has affected them. And those people may be relatively unknown. Those people may be relatively unnamed. Those people may not have felt that they had the power in the world to do anything. But God will use you, just like he used Moses' parents.

Now, Moses' parents' faith affected Moses, because they had him for a while when he was a child. And they taught him how to love God, the God of Israel and the God of the world. That he was the one true God, and that the gods of Egypt were not gods at all. But that God was over and above every god. He was the God of every god. The King over every king. They taught him that. They taught him to love his people, Israel, God's chosen people, through whom the promise would come. And ultimately, they would be delivered out of the hands of the slavery of Egypt. They taught him those things.

And so, when Moses was finally handed over, and he grew in education, and all the things that he did in Egypt, ultimately he comes back to his God. He comes back to his people. And he is the one that God raises up to be able to lead his people out of the land of Egypt, and making their way toward the land of promise.

But do you know that Moses even knew that Moses wasn't the end. Moses was actually a picture of one that was to come - Jesus. In fact, if you listen to Moses' words, you would hear that. Because in Deuteronomy chapter 18, that's what he says. He says, the Lord your God, this is Moses speaking. The Lord your God will raise up for you, Israel, a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him.

We actually know that was Jesus that he was talking about. In fact, Stephen, in that sermon that I told you about in Acts chapter 7, he quoted this, referencing it being Jesus. We know that from the New Testament that he was actually talking about Jesus.

And when I think of Jesus, I also think of two parents who were relative nobodies that were living in a backwoods town, that got a revelation from God, and did what He said by faith. In fact, Moses' life and Jesus' life have so many similarities, because Moses and what he did for Israel, prefigured what Jesus would ultimately do.

And in fact, when you just look at the parents, here's what we know. Moses' parents and Jesus' parents were living under a cruel emperor. One was living under the Pharaoh, one was living under Caesar but slash Herod. And, we also know that Moses' parents hid Moses in Egypt. And Jesus' parents hid Jesus in Egypt. Why? Because in both cases, there was a price on the head of male children.

And then you start to the see the life of Moses and the life of Jesus and how similar they are in trajectory. Even though Moses knew, this is not about me, this is one who's going to come, who's going to be the fulfillment of everything that I am prefiguring. Listen to him, Moses said. He's going to come from among us.

Could you imagine that Moses' parents and Jesus' parent in their faith in God, would have thought they would have been caught up in such a glorious narrative as they were being caught up in? Probably not.

You see, when you look at the life of Moses and the life of Jesus, you see one that prefigures and one that actually fulfills. Moses sent out twelve spies into the land of promise. Jesus sent out twelve disciples to tell people about God's promise. Moses married a Gentile bride named Zipporah. Jesus married a Gentile bride called the Church. Moses' face radiated with glory when he was on Mount Sinai, and Jesus' whole person radiated with glory on the mount of transfiguration, because he was the glory of God. Moses' mission was to redeem Israel from the slavery of Egypt. But Jesus' mission was to redeem humanity from the slavery of sin. Moses told his people that they needed a Passover lamb, and Jesus himself was the Passover lamb. Moses subdued an attacking army by lifting his hands with two people by his side. And Jesus subdued the attack of sin and death by lifting his hands on a cross with one on each side. Moses held up a bronze serpent in the wilderness and told all of Israel that if you will look to it, you will be healed. And Jesus was lifted up on a cross that everyone who looks to him will be healed. Moses at the crossing of the Red Sea sang a song, and led Israel in a song of victory. And Revelation chapter 15 tells us that when Jesus returns, and the victory is won, that we will be singing that same song, except about the Son of God.

You see, who would have thought that Moses' parents and Jesus' parents coming from relative obscurity, not having power to change the world, or so they thought, who would have thought that by their faith, they would have been caught up in so great a narrative of God.

Your life counts. Your life of faith matters. Maybe that's your investment of faith in your children. Maybe it's your investment of faith in your grandchildren. Maybe it's the investment of faith that you're making to your friends or to your cousins or whatever. And maybe nobody really knows about who you are. God does. He knows your address. He knows your faith. And He knows what He wants to do with it, whether or not we get named. Maybe we can just be Moses' parents. I would be thrilled if my kids were world changers for the glory of God, and I just became known as Trace and Tanner's dad. Because faith, at it's core, can make the world hear of God through unheard of people. That's what we see in Moses' parents' life.

So that's one thing. Faith overcomes fear that your life doesn't count. It does. Your life of faith matters, and it has an effect on the people around you.

But there's a second fear. It's the fear that faith can overcome the consequences. Faith overcomes the fear of consequences. Let me explain what I mean. Back to our text in Hebrews 11. Here's what it says. 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. They were not afraid.

You see, they had put their trust and confidence in God. They had determined that God is so good, and God is so trustworthy, and God can be counted on to fulfill his promises, that whenever He asks me to do whatever He asks me to do, I can have a full and complete confidence in Him. And I don't have to fear the consequences of my obedience. Even though, for them, it could have cost them their lives.

Have you ever been afraid of your consequences of your obedience to God? Have you? I have. Have you ever been afraid of the consequences of that? It happens this way all the time, right? Jerry, I just I'm struggling to surrender myself to God, because I'm fearful that if I do, if I really surrender myself to God, He's gonna tell me that I got to move to this hut in the middle of I don't know where, and eat cockroaches and grasshoppers. And I won't have any running water, toilets, toilet paper. That's where we go in our minds.

We fear, listen, we fear the consequences of obedience, usually because we have a warped view of God. That we just don't believe He's good. We just don't believe that He's really trustworthy. We don't believe that he's really got our best and the purposes of His own heart in mind.

So we fear the consequences of obedience. But here's my problem there. Why don't we fear more the consequences of disobedience? Why? We seem to be perfectly fine with the consequences of disobedience. But we're scared to death if what may happen if we obey God.

God is good. God is trustworthy. God fulfills every promise He ever makes. And regardless of what it costs us on this side, faith will always be rewarded. Don't you remember earlier in our text when we were looking at that weeks ago? Without faith it's' impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him.

Moses' parents knew that God was their reward. And that God was going to take care of whatever. It didn't matter what it cost. Whatever the consequences are, we can get over the fear of consequences by faith! That's exactly what they did. We have to let faith overcome our fears.

By the way, it doesn't mean that we don't get scared. The reason we need faith is because we're scared. If I'm never scared, I don't even think about faith. I think about living in my own power. Do you? But when we're faced with things in life, we start to realize, we need God. We lean on God, we depend upon God.

You see, fear is always going to be a part of this thing called faith. But when faith and fear collide, faith wins the day. Faith wins the day. It demonstrates our dependence upon God.

Students. You're in high school. You're in college. You're in grad school. Have you ever feared honoring God among your friends? Because your friends might think that you're goofy or crazy or whatever. They may be like, I don't really want to hang out with you. You're not really as cool as I thought, because you're all about God, whatever. You've got to let your faith in a God who's good, and a God who's true, and a God who's righteous, and a God who fulfills his promises, you've got to let faith overcome your fear. Because God will honor a life that honors Him.

Sir, ma'am. Maybe it's your office. You've been fearful to actually honor God in your business dealings. Maybe you've shrunk away. I'm not talking about walking around your office complex between cubicles with signs. I'm not talking about that. Right? I'm talking about, maybe you've backed away, and gotten concerned and nervous, and really not communicated your faith in Christ. And you've kind of gotten back here, right, because you're scared. Honor God. Let your faith overcome your fear. Because that's what faith does. Faith overcomes the fear of what we conceive of as the consequences.

Or maybe you think we live in a scary world. And I'm concerned that if I keep walking with God, the way that this world is going, man I'm scared to death. Cause although we're not experiencing it so much in the United States, our global brothers and sisters are in places where if they choose to name the name of Jesus, and they walk with God by faith, their head could get separated from their shoulders. They can die. It may cost them their lives.

Do we have a faith in a God who's good and a God who's trustworthy, and a God who may be able to use our lives. Do you realize when ISIS started cutting the heads off of those coptic Christians, do you realize how much it empowered the body of Christ over there? Because they saw their faith, and their faithfulness even unto death. That they would not deny the name of Jesus. And it brought them an encouragement to walk with God, even if it cost them everything.

You see, what the enemy means for evil, God can turn around and bring good for His own glory. But sometimes, we're so scared of the consequences of obedience, that we get comfortable with the consequences of disobedience, and as a result, our witness of faith is dulled and muted in the world. We live in a fearful time, just like Moses' parents did. In a different way, but like in their time, it was a fearful time. We live in a fearful time, which is the perfect time for faith. Because faith is what overcomes fear. Let's bow our heads together.

Before you get up, and before we're dismissed, if you're here and you never before put your faith and trust in Jesus, for the salvation of your soul, I want you to understand that God loves you and loves this world so much that he sent his Son to die on a cross to pay for our sins because we could never save ourselves. We have no ability to be able to somehow pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and force God's hand into letting us into His presence. We cannot do that ourselves. We have all sinned, the Bible says, and come short of the glory of God. We cannot save ourselves.

But how then can we be saved? By grace through faith. That's how. By what grace God has shown us by sending His son to go to a cross, pure and spotless, to take our sin upon himself, to die, to rise from the dead, conquering our sin, conquering the grave, conquering hell, all on our behalf. And that if we put our faith in what this gracious God who's done for us in this act of grace, when we put our faith in Jesus, we can be forgiven for our sin. Changed and made new. Transformed and born from above.

And if you've never come to that place in your heart in your life, when we're dismissed in just a moment, I'm going to ask you to come right across the atrium into the room marked the Fireside Room. We're in there every week. We got pastors and prayer partners who are in there. All we'd like you to do is come and say I want to by faith put my trust in Jesus for my salvation. If that's you, come by. We'd love to be able to talk to you for a moment. There will be no more important thing you do in your life. Nothing will be more important than this.

For those of us maybe who've walked that road. We have put our faith and our trust in Jesus, and we've been transformed. There are still things that emerge in our lives that we are scared of. And I don't know what that may be, and what the Spirit of God may put his finger on in your heart and in mine. But I would ask you to surrender it to the Lord by faith. Because ultimately, God has plans for us, plans to encourage us.

In fact, I want everybody in the room to look at me for a moment. I want to show you something, two passages of Scripture real quickly that I want to encourage you on as you leave. One is through the prophet Isaiah, and one is through the apostle Peter. And I want this to wash over you and strengthen you in your faith.

Listen to what Isaiah says in chapter 51. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies. But my salvation will last forever, my righteousness will never fail. “Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have taken my instruction to heart: Do not fear the reproach of mere mortals or be terrified by their insults. For the moth will eat them up like a garment; the worm will devour them like wool. But my righteousness will last forever, and my salvation through all generations.”

And then listen to what Peter says to us. Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.” But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord.

We need more of that kind of faith. The faith that Moses' parents had in a fearful time. Because that, when we set apart Jesus as Lord, our minds and our hearts will be at peace, and we'll be able to live out the reality of obedience to God, not fearing the consequences of obedience, but knowing that God will use our obedience for His glory in the world.

So Father, would you do that in our hearts. Would you help to enliven and inflame our faith, because you're good. And Lord Jesus, you can be trusted. May we listen and obey with our hearts. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

God bless you folks. Have a great week.