Text: Hebrews 11:20–29
Preacher: Pastor Brian Sauvé
Faith That Defies Kings
If you have your Bible, please turn with me to Hebrews eleven, and put a finger on verse twenty. Now, as we continue in our third time together in this great chapter of the book of Hebrews, I think it would be helpful to remember what we’re doing in this book in general and this chapter in particular.
The book is aimed at a community of Jewish Christians in the very first generation after Jesus strode into history, fulfilled the Law, died to bear the blood-penalty for our sin, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven to take up his throne.
And this generation is located in the last days of the Old Covenant age, just a few short years from the coming judgment of God which will utterly destroy Jerusalem, along with the Temple. But this generation is faced with the temptation to shrink back to Jerusalem, to shrink back to the familiar forms and shadows of Temple worship.
But the author of Hebrews would warn them that to do that is to abandon Christ, and to abandon Christ is to rejoin that which is about to be destroyed.
And so the main theme of the book, especially in the first ten chapters, is that Jesus is better than all of his forerunners and all of his rivals, that his Kingdom is not a small thing in Israel, but an indestructible, global people, and that therefore only a fool would go back.
So what is his message? Look to the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, not back to Jerusalem in unbelief. Their pressing need, then, is what? It is an abiding, persevering faith.
The book turns then into this great eleventh chapter and looks back over the broad sweep of redemptive history, pointing us to look at what this kind of faith has looked like and what this kind of faith has done from the very beginning of God’s work of salvation among men.
We’ve looked at what faith is—namely, trusting in the Person and the promises of God and coming to him in hope of those promises—and we’ve seen that faith in the wild. We’ve seen it in the saints who have gone before us: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah.
This morning, in verses 20–29, we’ll continue tracing out this pattern of faith, looking at Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses. And as we do so, there are two basic ways we can err:
The first kind of error we can make is to look back over our shoulders in history at the saints of Hebrews 11 without looking through Jesus. We could reduce the story of the Bible to one of self-improvement rather than radical redemption.
We are not looking at the saints who have gone before to hear the message: You are bad, and the solution is for you to make yourself better. Here are some heroes you could imitate. No, we even look on their faith in faith. Faith in what? Faith in Christ, who was at work in them, and who will likewise work in us.
Or second, we could err through a kind of mistaken gospel-centrality that is so concerned with not making that first error that we don’t actually listen to and obey what God is telling us here in Hebrews 11. Which is what? To imitate these men and women!
The point of this passage actually is that we would be more like Abraham, Sarah, Enoch, Isaac, and Moses. The point actually is that we would imitate them, copy them, and follow their pattern of life. We imitate them by grace and through faith, yes, but we actually do imitate them!
So we will try to avoid both errors, and look even on the faith of our forefathers by faith, taking care to see Jesus working in them throughout. Look with me at verse 20. This is the Word of the Living God:
“By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.
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.”
-Hebrews 11:20–29
We’re going to handle this text in two parts:
First, in verses 20–22, we’ll see faith at work in fathers blessing their sons and even facing their own death through Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
Second, in verses 23–29 we’ll see faith at work in the story of Moses and the people of Israel and see what it looks like for faith to collide with empire and evil.
Isaac, Jacob, Joseph (20–22)
Look with me at verse 20, if you would:
“By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.”
-Hebrews 11:20–22
What we see in verses 20–22 is simple faith distilled to its essence: Isaac and Jacob and Joseph here simply believed what God had said and acted like they believed it in how they related to the future, even the future beyond themselves.
Isaac believed the promises God had given his father Abraham in Genesis 12 and reiterated to him in Genesis 26, that from his line was going to come a Kingdom of innumerable offspring, in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. That’s the promise, not just of national Israel, but of Christ and his Kingdom. We know that the true sons of Abraham, sons of Isaac, Seed of Promise, is Jesus, and the the true Israel includes all who believe.
So what did Isaac do? He blessed his sons. He pronounced the future blessings of God over his children, Jacob and Esau. And so Jacob continued, imitating his father, and blessed his grandchildren as he was about to die.
Joseph believed those same promises, and even though he was dying in the land of Egypt, he knew that God had promised his family the land of Canaan, and so he looked forward in faith and told his kids to take his bones with them when they left Egypt.
What’s the point? Again that you can see faith at work when it believes God’s promises and acts, talks, and blesses as if they are true. Fathers, are we doing this? Are we telling our sons and daughters about God’s great promises? Are we blessing them? Are we praying for them out loud, instructing them, putting that same, offspring-blessing faith to work? If not, don’t feel guilty; just start!
Here’s a really practical, easy way to start. At the dinner table, before you pray for your meal, make it a practice to bless your kids. There are a lot of kids at my table, so I just do one for my daughter and one for my sons.
“To my daughter, may you become the mother of ten-thousands, and may your descendants possess the gates of your enemies.”
And all at the table say, “Amen!”
“To my sons, may the Lord arm you with strength, make your ways perfect, make your feet like the feet of deer and set you up on high places.”
Amen!
Bless your kids. Remind them of God’s promises. Make it a habit. And then when you’re dying, remind them again. Tell them, like Joseph, “My bones may be going into a coffin, but the Lord won’t leave me there. His Kingdom is coming, and he’ll raise those bones up someday.”
Faith believes God’s promises, and acts, speaks, and blesses in light of them.
Moses & Israel (23–29)
Let’s turn to our brother Moses. 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. 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.”
-Hebrews 11:23–29
There are 4 distinct parts of the story of Moses and Israel that I’d like to point your attention to. First, through his parents faith, we see that…
1. Faith defies worldly powers, knowing the worst they can do is kill you (23; 27).
Verse 23 and 27,
“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 he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.”
-Hebrews 11:23, 27
These two verses are like a theology of Christian politics in miniature—at least, a theology of Christian politics as they collide with wicked decrees. And that is a tremendous gift to us, because it is not obvious that you and I won’t face analogous situations to that of Moses and his parents.
See, as the Egyptians forgot about what Joseph and the Israelites had done for them as time passed, they became frightened of this fruitful people. What started as a family clan of fewer than a hundred people—under the blessing of God—multiplied into a large nation within their borders. They Egyptians became fearful, and so they enslaved the Israelites.
But still God blessed them, and still they were fruitful, and still they grew. So Pharaoh gave a wicked, iniquitous decree: Kill the male children at birth.
What ought we to do when God’s political minister—which is what Paul calls civil leaders—gives us an iniquitous, wicked decree? We learn what through Moses’s parents, who refused and disobeyed. We learn from Moses, who fled the country after the king turned on him.
They knew that the worst thing the tyrannical State can do is kill you. And as Jesus reminds us in Matthew 10, we need not fear those who can kill the body but not the soul, but rather fear God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
And so in fear of God rather than fear of men, we disobey. We look them in the eye and we say, “I must obey God rather than men.” This matters, and it matters deeply, because many of us could face this kind of choice, and it’s often sneaky.
Will the Christian nurse at the hospital obey the instruction to help with the legal euthanasia of an elderly patient?
Will the Christian medical researcher participate in the development of vaccines using the body parts of aborted babies, legally obtained?
Will the Christian police officer enforce the unjust law when he is instructed to? What if he is faced with job loss if he refuses?
These kinds of choices are historically commonplace, and the Church has often failed the test. Something like 54% of the population of Germany identified as Protestant Christians in 1939 Germany, with another 40% or so claiming to be Catholic.
Could the Holocaust have been prevented by Christian soldiers in the German army throwing down their guns and saying, “We will not invade Poland, we will not invade France, without just cause. We will not allow for ethnic discrimination in the marketplace.”
And yet what we so often do, friends is to fear man—the man in the Senate, the man in Congress, the man in the Governor’s office, the man behind the judges bench—rather than God. And so we capitulate and capitulate on what seems like small things, and by the time the “big thing” arrives, it’s too late.
We capitulate on the small disobedience to God and pretend like we won’t capitulate on the large disobedience later. Christian faith creates wonderfully productive citizens of earthly states, yet that same faith will refuse point blank to disobey God, even, number two, if that requires suffering.
2. Faith would rather suffer with God’s people than abound with God’s enemies (24–26).
Verses 24–26,
“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.”
-Hebrews 11:24–26
Often that first decision of faith that we just saw—the decision to say an emphatic No! to men in order to say Yes! to God—will result in what Moses experienced, here: Mistreatment with the people of God instead of the fleeting pleasures of sin.
Faith looks at the promises of sin, and rather than believing them, turns around and looks towards the infinitely better promises of God.
Faith says, “I’m no masochist. I don’t want to suffer loss. But I know that losing the pleasures of sin is no real loss. I’d rather be mistreated now by my identification with the people of God, because it is the people of God who will inherit the world once the wicked are judged.”
We’ll see just that happen in verse 28, then again in verse 29. First, number three:
3. Faith does weird things in obedience to God, and so faith lives when the world dies (28).
Verse 28,
“By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.”
-Hebrews 11:28
Faith looked on the shed blood of the lamb, and so faith watched as death passed over, unharmed. We, likewise, look to the shed blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and by believing sight in his death, we live.
Now think about this Passover moment from Exodus. This is weird, right? To smear blood over the doorway of your household to protect yourself from God’s judgment. But faith is willing to look weird when God speaks. We saw that last week, right?
Faith is willing to be peculiar. Faith is willing to live by the very words that come out of God’s mouth, even when obedience to those words makes it look radically strange when standing next to its neighbors. That’s us. That’s what we’re called to do: Look weird along with the people of God by faith. Finally, number four:
4. Faith is saved through the very waters that sweep away God’s enemies (29).
Verse 29,
“By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.”
-Hebrews 11:29
There is a theme that runs through the Bible, the theme of water judgment. Some of you remember this from our time in 1 Peter where we saw the same thing. But here is the theme: God saves and cleanses his people through the waters of judgment that drown and destroy his enemies.
We see this water judgment in Genesis 6–9 with the flood. God, who hovered over the waters of chaos in the beginning and brought creational order from them, send a de-creating flood to destroy his enemies. Yet what did he do through the flood? He saved Noah and his family through the waters in an ark.
Then in Exodus, Moses is saved through the waters of the Nile in a basket of reeds—what is literally in Hebrew called an “ark” of reeds. Then what? He uses Moses—whose name means “drawn,” as in drawn from the water—to bring the people of Israel through the parted Red Sea, which comes back over the armies of Pharaoh and drowns them as they try to cross.
We see this same theme in the story of Jonah, who runs from God’s commands only to be caught up in the watery storm of judgment, which calms only after it swallows him whole. Yet God saves him through the fish and brings him safely to dry land again.
This is all pictured in our baptism, the waters of cleansing, but waters that also preach: “Do not abandon the God who saves through the waters, lest the waters come down on you like a flood of judgment.”
See, what the author of Hebrews would have us see is that we are saved and cleansed rather than drowned and destroyed—by faith. The Hebrew Christians needed to hear it then: Don’t shrink back and be swept away in the flood of judgment on Jerusalem. Cling to Christ by faith!
And we need hear it today: Don’t shrink back from faith in Christ to the idols of your old ways and your fathers old ways. Cling to Christ by faith and be saved!
Cling to him now through the uncertain times we find ourselves in. Cling to him when things turn around and are looking up again—don’t trust in your health and safety and security then any more than you should abandon that faith now in the trial.