The Resolve of Faith

February 2, 2025 ()

Bible Text: Hebrews 11:23-31 |

Series:

The Resolve of Faith | Hebrews 11:23-31
Brian Hedges | February 2, 2025

Well, turn in your Bibles this morning to Hebrews 11.

While you’re turning there, remember the context of this letter. This is a letter that was written to Jewish believers who were facing persecution and suffering because of their faith in Jesus Christ. They are under pressure, and they are now being tempted to turn back, turn away from Jesus, to go back to the practices of Judaism and to forsake their faith in Jesus Christ. This letter is written to remind them that Jesus is better, that Jesus is the one in whom all of the promises of God are fulfilled, and it’s written to call them to an enduring faith that will continue to be faithful to Jesus.

And we’ve come now to Hebrews 11 in our study through this letter. Hebrews 11 is really a gallery of faith showing us the example of saints who went before, who lived by faith in the promises of God, and it’s really just a series of illustrations in this letter, which in many ways is like a sermon. So this is a series of illustrations of those who lived by faith as the author now calls for his readers to continue in faith, firm to the end, to be imitators of those who through faith and through perseverance inherited the promises of God. He wants them to be like the just who live by faith. So that’s the call in this letter.

Today we come to a new section of Hebrews 11, Hebrews 11:23-31, where the focus now is on Moses and the exodus generation, that first generation of Israelites who were delivered from Egypt, and really taking us up into their entry into the promised land. Hebrews 11:23-31. Let’s read the text. It says,

“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. By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.

“By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.”

This is God’s Word.

In many ways, this section of Hebrews 11 highlights the decisions of faith, the choices that people of faith make. We might think of this as the resolves of faith or the decisions of faith, and I think that as we focus on these examples, we see three things about this decisive aspect of faith. We see:

1. The Courage of Conviction
2. The Promise of Joy
3. The Embrace of Grace

Let’s look at each one of those in turn.

1. The Courage of Conviction

Here, I just want to highlight the faith of both Moses’ parents and of Moses himself, who did the courageous thing even when they were faced with dangerous, risky, fearful circumstances. You see it in verse 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.”

Now, you have to remember the original story, which is found in those first couple of chapters of the book of Exodus. Here were the children of Israel, who had been enslaved in Egypt now for several hundred years. They had grown and they had multiplied so much that Pharaoh now had decided that he has to keep a lid on these Israelites, and so there’s an edict. There’s an executive order. We’re going to destroy all of the male children that are born to the Hebrews. They are to be thrown into the Nile.

In a courageous act of civil disobedience, the midwives of the Israelites refused to kill the male children. And among them Moses’ parents refused to kill him, and they hide him for three months. They do that because it’s the right thing to do. They do that even though it’s risky in that they risk being exposed and perhaps being persecuted or even killed. So it is an act of courage, a courage to follow one’s convictions about what is right even in the face of danger.

Then Moses imitates that same courage, and you see that in verse 27 when it says, “By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.”

So, again, you have Moses who, as we will learn in the course of the sermon, gave up so much and was willing to suffer so much and sacrifice so much for the children of Israel, and he did that fearlessly even though he was risking the anger of Pharaoh.

It just reminds us of one aspect of biblical faith, that faith calls us to obey even in dangerous circumstances, even when it requires great courage. It’s not simply enough for us to theoretically believe in God if we’re not willing to put that faith into practice when we’re under pressure. And when we are being tested, that’s when courage is really necessary.

In fact, C. S. Lewis one time said that “courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.”

Now, we know this. We know that it’s easy for us to be honest when there’s no pressure on us to be honest. But what about when you’re asked to do something that’s unethical in your job? Well, then the virtue of honesty is being tested, and it takes courage sometimes to stand up to an employer or a supervisor who’s asking you to do something that is dishonest or unethical.

The same thing can be said of purity. It’s one thing for us to have pure thoughts when we’re in church, but what about when we’re tempted to pursue some forbidden desire? That takes courage. That takes fortitude.

Or justice. It’s one thing to say we care about justice, but what about when we are actually in a situation where we need to stand up for the rights of the abused or the overlooked or the oppressed? That’s when courage is necessary.

Of course, we can reflect on the examples of some of the great saints through history who showed that kind of courage in the face of danger. We think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who stood against the Nazi regime even though it eventually cost him his life. We think of Harriet Tubman, who risked her safety to lead the slaves to freedom. Or Elizabeth Elliott, who, even after her husband had been brutally murdered by the tribal people they were trying to reach in Ecuador, she went back to the tribe and she lived with the very people who had killed her husband—took her daughter Valerie with her—and spent months and months there, learning their language and sharing with them the love of Jesus Christ.

I mean, these are some of the great examples of courageous faith in dangerous circumstances.

Now, most of us are not necessarily called upon to do something that’s quite that great, quite that glamorous or well known, but our courage is also tested, and our faith is also tested in the small circumstances that we encounter every day. So think about the kid in school who needs courage to stand up to a bully or to do the right thing even when it means losing popularity with the other kids.

Think of a dad who needs the courage to turn down some kind of opportunity in his work that may be good for his career but would actually be detrimental to his family and would compromise their well-being.

Think of the single person who, as a follower of Jesus, is committed to abstinence and is avoiding the hookup culture even though it means facing nights of loneliness.

Or think of the frantic, frazzled parent who just wants to veg on Netflix but needs a great deal of fortitude and courage to face his or her own dark thoughts and then make space for spiritual discipline, spiritual practices, when the easy thing to do is just kind of numb out.

Those are the kinds of situations where we need the courage of our own convictions to live true to faith in everyday life.

Now, where do you find that? Where do you get that kind of courage to live out your faith and to put it into practice? I think the answer is found in the second half of verse 27. “By faith Moses left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king…” Here’s how. “...for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.”

Now don’t pass over that too quickly. Remember the definition of faith that this chapter began with. Faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” And here is Moses, again, a paragon of faith, an example of faith, who endured as seeing the unseen one, seeing him who is invisible.

This is showing us that the root of courage is faith, faith that anchors us in a deep trust in what is unseen but what is certain. And it is faith of this kind that gives us courage, because it lifts our eyes beyond the immediate dangers and losses that we may face in walking with God to the unseen reality of God’s power and God’s promises.

This means that courage is rooted in the soil of a compelling vision of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. And that means our greatest need is to see Him with the eyes of faith. That’s what Brad was praying for this morning, that our blind hearts would be open and that we would see the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

How does that happen, folks? How is it that we actually see him? And the answer is we see him in the gospel. We see him in the revelation of his Son, Jesus Christ, and what he has done for us in dying for our sins, rising from the dead, and his continual faithfulness to His people today.

One reason I love these old authors that I love to quote is because they saw God revealed in the gospel in just that kind of way, and their exhortations call our hearts to a similar kind of vision.

You hear these words from John Newton, famous author of that hymn “Amazing Grace.” Newton said,

“In Jesus alone is my everything. To view him by faith as living, dying, rising, reigning, interceding, and governing for us will furnish us with such views, prospects, motives, and encouragements as will enable us to endure any cross, to overcome all opposition, to withstand temptation, and to run in the way of his commandments with an enlarged heart.”

How does faith endure? How do you stay courageous and maintain a kind of fortitude and strength in the face of suffering and temptation and danger and when you feel afraid? This is how. You see him who is invisible. You see Christ crucified and risen and reigning on your behalf. That’s what we need, folks. We need this vision of the Lord in his grace and in his power in our lives, and that’s what sustains the courage of our convictions of faith.

2. The Promise of Joy

We need also to lay hold of the promise of joy, which leads us to the second point, the promise of joy, or we could word this as the promise of reward. But I think sometimes we’re uncomfortable with the language of reward. We don’t know quite what to do with the language of reward in Scripture, but I want you to see in this passage that this is exactly what sustained Moses and all of the sacrifices he made.

You really see it in Hebrews 11:24-26. It says,

“By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.”

Once again, we have to remember the original story here. We don’t know a lot about the first forty years of Moses’ life. We have to remember the Bible isn’t really giving us biographies of characters; it’s giving us the story of redemption with just little glimpses into the lives of these key figures.

But we do know this: we know that Moses was adopted into the family of Pharaoh. And we get just a little glimpse into what his life was like from the sermon of Stephen, recorded in Acts 7. It says,

“At this time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God’s sight, and he was brought up for three months in his father’s house. And when he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own. And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in words and deeds.”

Now for forty years, this was Moses’ life. He was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. That means that he went to the equivalent of Yale and Harvard in Egypt. He was mighty in words and deeds. He was an eloquent speaker. He was living in the courts of Pharaoh, in the courts of Egypt. He evidently had a great deal of prestige, and he had opportunity, he had privilege, he had pleasure. And then something happened to him. At forty years old—in the middle of his life—something happened to him that completely changed the course.

Acts 7:23 says, “When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel.” And he sees their plight. He sees their oppression. Here he is with all of his privilege; there they are, enslaved, oppressed. They are his kinsmen. They are the people of God, and he begins to feel burdened for them, and it changes the course of his life.

Of course, we know it took some time before he became the appointed deliverer of those people, but when he did, forty years later, he chose rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

Now, why did he make that choice? Why choose to be mistreated with these slaves rather than enjoy all of the privileges and pleasures that he had at his disposal?

Hebrews 11:26 answers: “He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.” It was the promise of something better. It was the promise of the reward. It was the promise of this joy that is set before him. He had his vision, his eyes on something greater than what he was giving up in Egypt.

This was so important for those original Jewish believers to hear, because they were being called upon to do the same thing. In fact, some of them had already experienced this, and you can see this in Hebrews 10:34-35. The author reminds them, “For you had compassion on those in prison, you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property…” Now how did they do that? How did they joyfully accept the plundering of their property? Here’s how. “...since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.”

Then in Hebrews 11:6—we read these words in past weeks—“Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must [do two things] believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

You see, genuine faith is not merely a theoretical belief in God. It’s more than that. You can believe that there is a God, that he exists, and not have a genuine faith. The devils believe and tremble, James 2 tells us. Genuine faith is not just a belief in the existence of God, but it’s also a belief that God rewards those who seek Him. It’s the belief that Jesus is better. It’s the belief that God promises something superior to what this world can offer.

Brothers and sisters, this is one of the most important things we can ever learn about the life of faith. The life of faith is not a call to self-denial as an end in and of itself. It’s a call to deny ourselves lesser pleasures for greater ones. It’s a call to give up the fleeting pleasures of sin and the treasures that this world may heap upon us because we find greater treasure, greater wealth, greater joy, greater promise, greater value in Jesus Christ.

No one has expressed this more powerfully than C.S. Lewis, and then after him, John Piper. I really learned this principle for them, and it changed my life when I was in my early twenties. I want to read two quotations to you. First, this one from C.S. Lewis. This comes from his famous sermon “The Weight of Glory.” Lewis said,

“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are half hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea, we are far too easily pleased.”

You see, that’s our problem. Our problem is not that we need to muster up more willpower for self-denial; our problem is that we are so addicted to instant gratification and lesser pleasures that we have lost sight of the infinite joy that is offered to us by Jesus Christ. And we need our eyes on him. We need our eyes on the promise, the promise of reward, the promise of joy.

Listen, this is the key to the pursuit of holiness and Christlikeness in the Christian life. The only way to defeat the power of sin is to believe that Jesus is better than every competitor. This is where John Piper comes in. This is a quotation from his wonderful book Future Grace, which I commend to you. Piper said,

“Faith is not content with fleeting pleasures; it is ravenous for joy. And the Word of God says, ‘In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore’ (Psalm 16:11). So faith will not be sidetracked into sin. It will not give up so easily in its quest for maximum joy. The role of God’s word is to feed faith’s appetite for God. With all eternity hanging in the balance, we fight the fight of faith. Our chief enemy is the lie that says sin will make our future happier. Our chief weapon is the truth that says God will make our future happier. And faith is the victory that overcomes the lie, because faith is satisfied with God.”

Friends, what I’ve discovered in my own Christian life, which sadly, in my own heart I know has been characterized by many fits and starts, many ups and downs, what I have found is that when I lose sight of this truth, the surpassing pleasure of fellowship with Jesus Christ, of obedience to him, of knowing him, of walking with him, when I lose sight of that, that’s when my heart begins to drift. That’s when I struggle with sin. That’s when I begin to grow cold in my heart. I need to keep sight of this truth, that Jesus is better, that he is valuable, that he is worthy, and that I will lose nothing that is worth holding onto if I follow Christ. You need to keep hold of that as well and learn how to flesh that out in the practical pursuit of holiness.

Listen, you can apply this to every sin that you’re ever tempted to commit. If you’re tempted with lust, the way in which you fight against the fleeting pleasures of sexual sin is by holding before your heart the promise of something so much better. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

How do you battle the temptation of greed and covetousness and consumerism? It is to believe the word of Jesus that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

And how do you overcome the temptation of sloth and laziness and self-indulgence? It’s by believing the truth and the promise that the reward to your sanctified effort to pursue holiness and of your labor of love and service to others is greater than the immediate gratification of selfishness.

In William Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice, there is a character named Portia, who is a beautiful and wealthy heiress, an heir to a great fortune, with many noble suitors who are eager to marry her. But her father’s will required that her husband be chosen by a test, and the test was in the form of three chests. There is a chest of gold, a chest of silver, and a chest made out of lead, and an inscription on each one of those chests, and the suitors must determine which chest to choose.

On the gold chest, there was this inscription: “Whoever chooses me shall gain what many men desire,” and inside is a human skull, illustrating the vanity of choosing worldly wealth over that which is really valuable.

On the silver chest, there was this inscription: “Whoever chooses me shall get as much as he deserves,” and inside was the portrait of a fool.

But the true prize, the right to win Portia’s hand in marriage, was hidden in the lead chest, which carried these words: “Whoever chooses me must give and hazard all he has.”

It’s a powerful illustration of the choice that is before every single one of us in this life. Will we choose that which has an appearance of value and a beauty to us as we look with merely human sense? Or will we choose that which the gospel promises is of greater value?

“Hast thou heard Him, seen Him, known Him?
Is not thine a captured heart?
Chief among ten thousand own Him,
Joyful choose the better part.

“What can strip the seeming beauty,
From the idols of the earth?
Not a sense of right or duty,
But the sight of peerless worth.”

To be captivated by the beauty of Christ, to embrace and hold to and trust in the promise of joy, the promise of the greater reward that God gives to all who follow Jesus—that’s at the heart of faith. It is to trust in the promises of God.

3. The Embrace of Grace

Then finally, there’s one more aspect of this resolve of faith that I want you to see and that is the embrace of grace, the embrace of God’s grace. Now I just want to focus for a few minutes on the last several verses, Hebrews 11:28-31.

It’s interesting that at this point Hebrews 11 kind of picks up the pace. So far there’s been a focus on these various heroes of the faith—Abel and Enoch and Noah, Abraham and the other patriarchs, the fathers of Israel, Moses and the children of Israel—but now the focus shifts to some of the great redemptive events that took place when the Israelites were set free from Egypt and as they went into the promised land.

You see this in verses 28 through 30. It says,

“By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.

“By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.”

I’ll just stop right there.

Again, you just have to kind of use your imagination to put yourself back in the sandals of those original Israelites. Here they were, having been enslaved in Egypt for generations, four hundred years of slavery. And Moses comes on the scene and he’s going to Pharaoh and he’s saying, “The Lord says to you, ‘Let my people go.’” And Pharaoh essentially says, “Who is this god that I should listen to him? I’m not going to let the people go.”

If anything, the problems get worse for the children of Israel. They had been making bricks with straw; now they’re making bricks without straw. And so God begins to send these plagues of judgment on Egypt, and every time a plague comes, Pharaoh essentially just hardens his hearts and refuses to let the people go. And the nine plagues come, and there’s one final plague that is going to come on the land, and it is this mysterious angelic figure who will come through the land and will slay the firstborn of every man and beast.

And God makes a provision for his people. He says, “If you will slaughter a lamb and you will smear the blood of that lamb on the doors of your homes, when I see the blood, I’ll pass over you, and you will be spared.” They will not be subject to this judgment of God.

Now, they’d never experienced that before. They’d never celebrated a Passover meal before. They’d never heard anything quite like this before. But by faith they kill the lamb and they put the blood on their doors, and sure enough, they are spared. And finally, humbled and broken, Pharaoh says, “Okay, get out of Egypt.” So the people leave, and there’s a great caravan of people and they’re headed to the land of Canaan, but they come up against this barrier, this great body of water, the Red Sea. Now they’re in another predicament. They’ve got the sea before them, and they’ve got the Egyptians behind them.

Once again, the people are criticizing Moses, and they’re upset, they’re despairing, and there’s a lack of faith. Do you remember what Moses says? It’s a wonderful statement from Exodus 14:13. He says, “Fear not; stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”

Then Moses passes his staff over those waters, and the sea divides in two, and the people walk through on dry ground, and the Egyptians chase them, and the waters close in over them, and the Egyptians are destroyed. The people are saved once more.

Then this passage skips forty years, forty years of unbelief, of not trusting in the promises of God, but Joshua and Caleb with another generation of Israelites finally, forty years later, come into the promised land and they come to that first city, the city of Jericho. But God doesn’t tell them to scale the walls with swords and spears in their hands. Instead, again, it’s a test of their faith. They are to walk around the city for seven days. They’re just to march, and on the seventh day, they’re to march around the city seven times and another great miracle, a mighty deliverance from God, as those walls crumble to the ground.

Now listen, in every single case, it was a test of faith. They had to do something that didn’t make sense to their human reason, but it was reasonable because God had said it, and they have to act on God’s word.

God is trying to teach his people something. What is he trying to teach them? He’s trying to teach them that salvation is by grace alone. It’s not by their effort. It’s not by them fighting the battle. It’s not by what they do. It’s by grace and by grace alone. He’s teaching them that God is the one who will provide the substitute, who will pass over their sins, who will fight their battles, who will defeat their enemies, and will carry them into the promised land.

Brothers and sisters, the whole message of the letter to the Hebrews is that all of this is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In fact, it is the message of the whole New Testament that is telling us that in Jesus Christ the promises of God are yes and amen, that Jesus Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed; that Christ is the mighty warrior who brings us through the waters of death and has defeated the powers of evil through his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, and now leads us into the promised land. And it’s not a plot of land in the Middle East, it’s a new heavens and a new earth, where there will be peace and righteousness and justice once and for all. The call to us today from Hebrews is to trust in, to embrace the grace of God, and to do so by faith.

You might say, “Well, I’m an outsider. I don’t know if this is for me. I didn’t grow up in church. This whole Christianity thing is a new thing to me. I don’t really know these stories you’re telling. And besides that, you don’t know the life that I’ve lived. You don’t know the things that I’ve done. I don’t think God would accept me, certainly wouldn’t accept me by grace. Surely I have to do something. Surely, I have to be a better person. I don’t know if there’s any hope for me.”

Look at verse 31. “By faith, Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.”

And here you have an outsider, a Gentile—and a prostitute besides that—an outsider who is saved in the same way as the Israelites are saved. She is saved by faith as she trusts in the promise of God, and she welcomes those spies, and her household is spared.

Did you know that Rahab becomes one of only four women who are named in Matthew 1 in the genealogy of Jesus Christ? She becomes a great-great-great-great-great-grandmother to the Messiah. The outsider welcomed in.

It shows us that the grace of God is for anyone, anyone who will receive it, anyone who will embrace it. The outsider can become an insider. No matter what you’ve done, you also can be saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, as you embrace the grace of God offered in the gospel.

Friend, if you’re not a Christian this morning, I want you to consider the claims of Christ and the promises of God and to trust in what Jesus Christ has done for you and for your salvation. And if you are a believer, as a brother and sister in Christ, may I encourage you to once again see the beauty of Christ with the eyes of faith, to renew your trust and your hope in him, to embrace the grace of God, to live by faith in the promises of joy and reward, to be true to your convictions in moments of testing, to show courage and fortitude in your faith in Christ, and to live as the people of God did in those old times where they walked by faith? The just shall live by faith. That’s what you and I are called to as well. Let’s pray together.

Gracious, merciful God, we thank you this morning for the promise of the gospel. We thank you that salvation for us, as well as for ancient Israel, was by your redeeming grace and by your grace alone, and that what you call us to today is to trust in your word, to rest in your promises, to take refuge in Christ, who was crucified and raised from the dead for us. Lord, we ask you to work in our hearts to make this a reality, to make it a reality not just in this moment but in the days to come. Because no matter what we may think or feel in this service this morning, there will be tests in the next week, tests of our faith, whether we will believe your promises or believe the lying promises of sin.

So, Lord, would you open our eyes, would you deepen our faith and our trust in you, and would you help us, Lord, to live as people of faith who rely on your word and who cherish your promise of joy and blessing and reward for all who follow Jesus Christ?

As we come to the table this morning, we pray that your Spirit would work in our hearts, that you would draw near to us in your grace, and that you would help us in receiving the bread and the juice to also receive and lay hold of the promises of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to trust in what he has done for our souls and for our salvation. So Lord, work in us what is pleasing in your sight and be glorified in our worship today. We pray this in Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.