Moses: Defined by Choices

Do you ever think about how much of our life is out of our control? You had no say in when or where you were born. You didn’t get to choose your parents, you didn’t get to choose your genetic makeup, so you didn’t get to choose a lot about your appearance and what genetic issues you might have.

You can’t control how your boss is going to act. You can’t make your spouse love you, and you can’t make your kids always be perfect or apply themselves at school.

You may have chosen your major or your classes, but you can’t control how much work the professor gives you.

Although you can and should vote, you personally can’t change the hearts of our elected officials or the decisions they will make. You can’t control the economy or wars or disease.

If you are one who is given to being anxious, or if you like to be in control, then just hearing that list has made your blood pressure spike.

You want everything to play out just like you have it planned, but life doesn’t go that way.

So, then, what do we do? Just give in and go with the flow?

Perhaps we need to be a little more flexible.

However, I would suggest instead that we focus on one area that we do have control over: our choice to honor God with our lives.

That is why we are going to look at Moses over the next few weeks.

He often found himself in situations that were beyond his ability to control, yet most of the time, we see him choosing to honor God, and those choices enabled him to see God work in more amazing ways than you or I could imagine.

Although Moses’ life was defined by the choices he made, all of those major choices came back to one central choice: Choosing to trust the God he couldn’t see.

That one defining choice determined the course of the rest of his life.

We are going to look at an overview of some of the choices surrounding Moses this morning, so turn over to Hebrews 11:23-29.

As you are turning over there, let’s acknowledge that there has only been one Moses in all of history. He was certainly a man who was used in extraordinary ways, so I am not going to say that if you choose to trust God, next thing you know, you will be leading a couple million people across a dry lake bed.

What I will say, though, is that choosing to trust God daily will redirect the way you look at life, and the things you see and do.

You may not have a burning bush experience, and you may not cross the Red Sea on dry ground, but you will be privileged to join the God of the universe as he weaves his story throughout human history.

I can’t think of a greater way to live life than choosing to live by faith, honoring the God whom we cannot yet see.

As I mentioned last week, I know that for some of you, this is going to raise a bit of tension.

When it comes to salvation, there is debate over how much of me getting saved was God’s responsibility, and how much was my choice.

The Bible makes it clear that God is sovereign over salvation. He is the one who draws us to himself, and he is the one who gives us the gift of eternal life.

However, when you see this described in Scripture, you see that there is also an element where we choose to surrender to God and follow him.

I am not going to attempt to go deeper into that tension in this study.

We acknowledge that in all of the events we will see in Moses’ life, and all the events in our lives, God is sovereignly moving behind the scenes to glorify himself and accomplish what he desires.

At the same time, we are faced with the real choice of whether or not we will go on with God or stay where we are.

Our study this time will be focusing on that aspect, of our choice to obey, to follow, to believe, to trust, and so on.

This morning, then, as we look at this passage, we are going to use this summary of Moses’ life to challenge us to choose to live a life of faith, trusting the God we don’t see.

Read with me...

As we look through this passage, we are going to notice at least four different areas in which Moses and those around him chose to live by faith, trusting the God they couldn’t yet see. To make it a little easier, all three of these begin with the letter ‘f’.

As we go through each of these, why not take a moment with each one and stop to commit to life your life by faith in that area?

The first area of life where we see the choice to live by faith in this passage is...

1) Family.

Look back at verse 23.

You will notice that the focus here isn’t on Moses’ choice, but rather the choice his parents made.

We will look at this story in greater detail next week, but in case you aren’t familiar, let me summarize it for you.

God had move his special people, the nation of Israel, to Egypt 400 years before Moses was born. When they first got there, they had favor with the Pharaoh, so they were protected and safe.

Over the years, though, the Israelites grew to a size that made the Egyptians nervous. The Egyptians enslaved the Israelites, hoping that would help keep them from continuing to grow as a nation.

When that didn’t stop it, the Pharaoh commanded that all the Israelite baby boys be thrown into the Nile River and killed at birth.

Moses’ mom and dad were people who loved God and honored him, so when they saw that their baby was a boy, they chose to hide him instead of carry out the king’s command.

This act was an incredibly courageous choice to stand up against a wicked society and stand for life.

Had they not obeyed this way, then we wouldn’t be using the life of Moses as an example this morning. He would never have had a chance to grow and become the man God would use to deliver his people from slavery.

Again, I don’t want to take too much away from next week, but do you see here how Moses’ choices to honor the God he couldn’t see started with his mom and dad’s dangerous act of obedience?

They chose to trust that the God who gave them that child was greater than the king who would take him away.

Did you see their defiance here? Look at that last line again…“they didn’t fear the king’s edict.”

They saw that God had a plan for their child, and for them, that was enough to push back against anything the king would have said.

Their family was radically defined by their strong faith in God.

Is yours?

For many of us, we aren’t choosing to trust God with our families. In fact, we may even be trusting our families to be our god.

How can you tell? Perhaps by honestly answering a few questions:

Is your hope in the God who can save you and your family through every disaster, or is your whole life oriented around what you can to do provide for your family or protect your kids?

Do you, in faith, make decisions about how you will spend your time as a family based off what God commands, or are you keeping up with the Joneses and making sure that your kids are in every activity you can think of so they don’t miss out on anything.

How would I define success for my marriage? Is it certain number of kids, a certain standard of living, or certain patterns in my relationship? In God’s eyes, a successful marriage is one where each spouse sacrificially loves each other with the love they have found in Christ. Each spouse encourages the other to grow to look more like Jesus, and together, they seek to help others come to know him and grow the kingdom of God. That may also include God giving them the gift of children, either through biological children or opening their home through adoption or foster care. It may also include not having children and graciously giving time, resources, and love to others in a unique way.

It is good to want your kids to succeed! It is wonderful to keep your kids safe. It becomes a bad thing when your spouse or your children becomes the ultimate thing in your life.

How would I define success for my kids? Is it playing a certain sport or making it into a certain college? God defines success in raising children as training them up to follow him and then sending them out like arrows, serving him and taking the Gospel as they go.

Do you act like the well-being of your family is all on your shoulders, or do you do what you can to protect and encourage them, all the while understanding that ultimately, they belong to God?

Make wise decisions about keeping your family safe, but realize that ultimately, that is up to God!

Moses’ mom and dad were willing to make the hard choice to honor God, not do what the society around them was.

Because of their choice to live by faith, trusting the God they couldn’t see, God used their son to deliver his people from slavery.

In case you wonder how much of an impact they had on Moses, read that last line of verse 23 again. Now, look down to verse 27. Where did Moses learn to fear God instead of Pharaoh? From his parents, who by faith chose to trust God with their family.

Continuing on, we see that Moses chose to live by faith, trusting the God he couldn’t see with his own life.

If we are going to choose to live by faith, then we are choosing to trust God with our...

2) Future.

Read verses 24-26 with me again.

As we will see when we look at these in greater detail in the weeks to come, Moses was eventually taken into Pharaoh’s household and adopted as Pharaoh’s daughter’s son.

He would have had all the luxuries that palace life could offer. He would have been trained in battle, educated under the best tutors Egypt had to offer, and was set up likely as an heir to the throne, possibly becoming Pharaoh himself one day.

What did he choose to do instead? He chose to suffer with God’s people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin.

Man, what an incredible choice this was.

Think about the options here: Become Pharaoh with entire nations as slaves, or stand with God’s people and be treated like a slave.

Why would someone give up something like that?

It goes back to what we have just been talking about in our study through 1 Timothy: he chose to focus on what comes in the next life, not in this one.

He could have had all the pleasures that this life could have afforded. He likely would have had access to all the wealth of one of the strongest empires in the world in that day, yet he chose to give it all up because he knew it would never last.

He trusted that the God he couldn’t see could give him greater rewards than all the money in Egypt.

Look at how deeply Moses understood this. Read verse 27 again...

He “persevered as one who sees him who is invisible.”

Isn’t that an incredible phrase?

Moses’ choice to leave behind the pleasures of Egypt wasn’t a one-and-done decision. He had a long and difficult battle to deliver God’s people from slavery there, yet he persevered because he saw something that no one else could see.

As some have said, he looked at life using the eyes of faith, not the eyes in his head.

Paul, in talking to the church at Corinth about issues of eternity, said this,

2 Corinthians 5:7 CSB

For we walk by faith, not by sight.

That same faith carried Moses and Israel through the challenges they faced, including the one in verse 29.

As the Egyptian army was closing in behind them, they were faced with an insurmountable obstacle: the Red Sea was in front of them.

After complaining to Moses, they stood back and watched as God did one of the greatest miracles of the Old Testament, parting the sea and immediately letting them walk across on dry land.

When the Egyptian army tried to go after them, the water collapsed back over top of them, killing many of Pharaoh’s greatest charioteers.

They chose to trust that God could do the impossible, even though there was no physical way it could happen.

The Israelites grumbled, but Moses continued to choose to live by faith, not by what he could see.

The idea of looking beyond what this life has to offer and towards all God has promised has come up now 3 out of the last four messages. Are you hearing it, or are you still living your life as if this is the only thing that matters?

Are you out to get everything you can because you only get one shot, one opportunity in this life to make all the money you can or leave your mark on the world in whatever way you feel like you want to?

Or, are you living by faith, trusting God that if he calls you to change majors or to move or to change jobs or to follow him on a mission trip or as a full-time missionary or to be the weird guy at work that doesn’t join get drunk in the afternoons with the guys—are you trusting that whatever you give up, whatever reproach you bear will be nothing in light of the reward that is to come?

That’s the mindset that all great servants of God have had:

philippians 3:

Philippians 3:13–15 CSB

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus. Therefore, let all of us who are mature think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you.

It is the same mindset that his driven men like Jim and Elisabeth Elliot to be willing to put their lives on the line so that others can know Christ. Jim was killed while trying to take the Gospel to a group of people who hadn’t heard of Jesus. Years before, he penned these words in his journal:

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” (Jim Elliot)

Moses, Paul, Jim Elliot, and countless others have all chosen to trust God with their future.

They have seen God do greater things in and through their lives than they ever thought possible.

So, are you? Are you willing, by faith, to trust God with your future, even if it is costly?

Choose to trust the God you cannot see.

There was more to Moses’ trust, though. Not only do we see that there was a choice to trust God with family and with his future, we see that Moses also trusted God for his...

3) Forgiveness.

Read verses 27, 29.

God’s people had been enslaved in Egypt. They were beaten, forced to do impossible tasks, and in incredibly difficult circumstances.

The greatest freedom that Moses and the Israelites found in trusting God, though, was in trusting him for...

4) Forgiveness.

Verse 28 talks about Moses and the Israelites instituting the Passover.

Just before God brought his people finally and fully out of Egypt, he afflicted the Egyptians with one last plague.

One night, God sent an angel to take the life of every firstborn in Egypt, whether it was an animal or a person.

The only ones protected from this plague were those who had followed the command of God, slaughtered a lamb, and spread its blood on the doorpost of their house.

The blood of the lamb caused the destroying angel to pass over their home, sparing all those inside.

Every year, to this day, Jews around the world commemorate that night with a special feast, remembering God’s deliverance of his people.

As Moses and the Israelites observed that Passover, they were acknowledging that God could use the blood of a spotless lamb to protect his people from death.

However, we know that the Passover is just a picture of an even greater deliverance that God offers to us.

The Bible says that Jesus observed a Passover meal with his disciples on the night he was betrayed. In a matter of hours, after commemorating the blood of the lamb that protected God’s people, Jesus would be beaten and crucified.

As his blood was spilled for us, and his body was broken for us, he was dying to offer us greater protection than Moses and the Israelites could have imagined that first Passover night.

Jesus, as God in the flesh, is the perfect Lamb of God whose death took away my sin and made the way of forgiveness available to all.

If I am going to live by faith, then I must first choose to accept the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus, and trust in him for forgiveness.

You and I cannot earn our forgiveness any more than Moses could have protected people from the death angel himself.

However, if we choose to trust the God we can’t see, and we place our trust in his gift of salvation, surrendering to him as best we know how, then we can be saved.

Moses’ life was defined by choices.

Whether you like it or not, so is yours.

So, what is your choice?

Are you going to choose to accept his offer of salvation, or are you going to try to do it on your own?

Are you going to trust the God you can’t see with your family, or are you going to carry it all on your shoulders?

Are you going to trust God with your future, or are you going to live life your way?

Are you going to find freedom in obeying him, or are you going to keep living in slavery to sin?

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