Moses' Parents

Is “a bird in the hand worth two in the bush?”
You have all heard that expression. But what it doesn’t say is this—those who go for the two in the bush may wind up with one more bird than those who settle for the one in hand.
Going for the two in the bush requires boldness and willingness to risk. You must believe in your ability to catch birds. If you fail to catch the two, you might catch one. If you fail altogether, at least you’ve learned an important lesson in catching birds which may help you later.
A bird in hand is fine for those who don’t know how to catch them. But for those who know how to catch birds, it is no enough. The only thing that makes that lonely bird better than the other two is if you are not convinced that you can catch the other two.
That’s what faith is—going for the two in the bush.
Sometimes we take risks because we have no other choice. Usually, though there is a choice. We can choose to be cautious or to act boldly. If we are cautious, we risk little. We may survive today. But the more cautious we are, the more likely we are to achieve nothing in the end. We cannot keep our lives, our property, our relatives, our friends, or our fortunes. Eventually, we lose them all. If we never take risks, we may keep what we have in the end, but in the end, we will lose everything else.
Faith is trusting God enough to take risk. If we really trust in God—I mean really—there is nothing we cannot do. If we really trust in God—I mean really—we can move mountains, defeat armies, stop storms, walk on water, and win the prize.
But if we don’t trust God enough to try, we will achieve nothing.
As believers, we have put our trust in Christ as our Lord and Savior. That is called Saving Faith—the faith the Jesus has forgiven or sins and that we will go to heaven when we die. Saving faith is vital to every Christian.
But Saving Faith is not the only kind of faith we need from God. We need living faith. too, to use in our daily walk with Him on earth. Saving faith is for the future. Living faith is for today.
Living faith is trusting God enough to take bold and decisive action. Living faith is not being satisfied with surviving, but is interested in thriving. Living faith is the willingness to take God at his Word that He created us for greater things than the ordinary.
We may be believers, but that doesn’t mean we have a living faith. We know we have a living faith when we are ready and willing to sacrifice our present comfort for future blessings. Living faith is when we give our money sacrificially to God’s work, instead of holding onto it ourselves, because we believe that God is capable of providing for all our needs. Living faith ins being willing to try a new thing for God, instead of fretting that we don’t have the time, or don’t have the training, or because we’ve “never done it before.” Living faith is crossing social, ethnic, or class barriers, without fretting that we might have our hand slapped when we do. We trust God that we can handle how others respond, and we trust God to bring results from our sacrifices.
Living faith is not being satisfied with just a bird in the hand. It’s going for the two in the bush as well.
The next exhibit in the Hall of Fame of Faith is a splendid example of living faith. Their real names were Amram and Jochebeb. They are better known as Moses’ parents.
Without their faith, there would have been no Moses, no Exodus, and not Jewish people. In fact, if it were not for four people and three bold acts of faith, Israel would be no more than a memory.
The first act of faith happened before Moses was born. Look at Exodus 1:6-22.
Moses was born four hundred years after Joseph, when God’s people had become slaves in Egypt. They had been slaves for almost ten generations—or the same length of time between us and the Pilgrims.
What happens to people after they’ve been prisoners for a long time? The longer we are in bondage, the harder it is to imagine ever being free. Multigenerational slaves lose all hope for rescue. Their captors appear all-powerful. They not only believe it, but they also teach it to their children. Their hopelessness travels from one generation to the next.
But no matter how docile a group of people become, there are always limits in what they will tolerate. Pharaoh went one step too far when he ordered the death of all male Israelite babies. Pharaoh was smart enough to know that if he sent his troops into the slave villages demanding their little boys, not even his might could protect him. So he hit upon a much more subtle and devious kind of genocide.
Pharaoh called the Hebrew midwives together, probably in secret. He told them that it was their responsibility to kill the male children. “Do it quietly” Pharaoh would have told them. That way, there would be no riots, just a lot of grieving parents. In a generation, the Hebrew women would marry outside their tribe, and the Israelites would simply disappear.
But there were two midwives who resisted. Their names were Shiphrah and Puah. These two could not have been all the midwives there were—after all, there were over a million Hebrews! They were just the two who resisted.
There must have been other midwives, too. The reason we don’t hear about them is probably because they went along with Pharaoh. These other women had a choice to make, and they chose the other way. They must have had their rationalizations for doing it. But there would only be one real reason—they were afraid for themselves. Proverbs 16:2 says “All a man's ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the LORD.” In other words—we can rationalize anything.
But Shiphrah and Puah stood their ground They refused to kill children. If it weren’t for these two women, there would be no Israel.
But two greater acts of faith would follow it.
Hebrews 11: 23 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.
One of the children they saved was Moses. After his birth, Moses’ parents kept him hidden for three months, I violation of Pharaoh’s orders.
How do you keep a baby quiet for three months? They did not live in a palace. They lived in a slave village, with no glass on the windows, where every house was up against every other house. They had little or no privacy. How many times did his mother have to get up in the night to shush a baby that was not supposed to be there? How many narrow escapes must they have had when some overseer came down the crowded streets just before feeding time? If they were discovered, then the whole family would have been put to death for the sake of the children.
Moses’ parent risked their whole family for the sake of one boy. They did this because they believed that God had a special destiny for him, and that He would take care of the family.
But the greatest faith was yet to come.
After three months, Moses’ parents realized they could not keep the boy hidden. At the same time, they came to believe that this boy was the promised deliverer. We do not know how they came to that conclusion, but they did. If this boy was called by God, then he must be saved.
Mrs. Moses wove a basket. Mr. Moses covered it with pitch. Mrs. Moses got her finest blanket out of her chest. She wrapped her little baby Moses in that basket. Then they both kissed him goodbye, and set that basket in the Nile River.
The Nile river! Along its shallow banks live crocodiles, hippos, rats, and wild animals. The cities upstream from them dumped their sewage in that water. Yet somehow, these two people had such faith in God that they took their precious baby and let him loose in the wild waters of the Nile. Could there be in our wildest imaginations a greater act of faith than that?
The suffering of that woman and man must have been horrible. She cried because she believed she would never hold her baby again. He wept to think his son-his future—just floated off down the river. There was earthly reason to believe that anything would happen to that little reed basket except sink in the Nile. Even if by some miracle he survived, they would never see him again. They had just released their baby boy. All they to cling to was a feeling that God was in charge.
Some parents today make similar sacrifices. When a man or woman sees their child go to war, they do not know if they will ever return. When mother or father waves goodbye to their child going off in a mission trip, they put them in God’s hands. They may have saving faith, and know their child is saved. But they need more—they need a living faith to sustain them for the moment. They must believe that God is in charge, and that He is a rewarder of those who believe in Him.
God has other calls and other sacrifices that require the same living faith—when we move to a new home, when we leave a for a new job, when we decide to take a woman’s hand in marriage. We have no guarantees. But God is in control, and that He will honor our willingness to step out on faith.
Moses parents and the midwives all had choices. What if his parents or those midwives had acted differently? Suppose they decided to go along with authority, or to try to keep that baby boy all to themselves? What would have happened? Perhaps nothing. But there would never have been a Moses. There would never have been a deliverer. The Hebrew people would have been just a memory, and their God a distant but fading light.
Faith is required for living. Nothing is required for dying. Faith is required to find success. Failure may be achieved without it.
The problem with us is that we follow the path of least resistance, fight only the battles we are sure we win. If we encounter opposition, we shrink away, because we do not have faith. When we take the safe path is that we are content to exist rather than live.
In the next chapter of Hebrews, the writer says “Therefore, being surrounded by such a cloud of witnesses, let us run the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, he author and finisher of our faith.” Moses’ parents are two of those witnesses. Moses is another. And all those other people mentioned in Hebrews 11 are on the sidelines, too, cheering us on. “Fight, run, persevere!“ They shout at us. We are the latest of their generations. We have been passed the baton. It is our time to run out race. One day, we will receive a crown of life, but only if we run with bold and fearless faith.

Isaac and Jacob

Heb 11:20-21 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.

By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.
Hebrews only wants to show us examples of faith, choosing to highlight what seems to us to be a seemingly insignificant detail of Isaac and Jacob’s stories--the blessing of their sons. Isaac blessed his two sons Esau and Jacob. Jacob blessed his twelve sons before he died.
These blessings were not fatherly affection. Some were not affectionate at all. Look at the blessing Isaac gave his sons: To Jacob he said.
Gen 27:27 May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. .Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed."
But to Esau he said. Gen 27:39-40 "Your dwelling will be away from the earth's richness, away from the dew of heaven above. 40 You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother.But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck."
An underwhelming blessing, t o be sure.
Jacob's blessing to his children in Genesis 48, this is even more blunt. He predicts the future of each tribe. Some get bad news, like Simeon and Levi
Gen 49:5-7 Cursed be their anger, so fierce, and their fury, so cruel! I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel.
Some got good news, like Judah in Gen 49:10 The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.
Imagine if we talked to our children that way. They would probably have to answer to the Department of Social Services! Not only would it be cruel, it would also be presumptuous!.
Yet Isaac and Jacob blessed their children, and everything they said came true. How did they know?
They knew by faith. Faith is "The substance of what is hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Faith is looking beyond what appears to be with our eyes, and predict seeing with God’s eyes. Faith is not about how things look today, but how they will look tomorrow. Faith is believing that God is in charge, and that He hears and listens to the words we say. Then he grants us a future according to our faith.
Isaac and Jacob knew his voice. They heard His sayings. Therefore, they knew That God’s will would be one. The world would proceed according to the rule He sets. Nothing is up to chance. It is all in the hands of God.
We do not know what tomorrow hold, but we know who holds the future. This is true in the future of the world, the future of our children and family and our own future.
Right now, the future of the world is uncertain to us. Secularists are prophesying that in a hundred years or so, religion would cease to exist.
Recently a writer in Russia predicted that within a year, the United States would break apart. Twenty years ago climatologists warned us that we were approaching an era of global cooling, a new ice age. Now they say we are experiencing global warming. Either way, they are covered.
Yet Isaac and Jacob blessed their children, and everything they said came true. How did they know?
God will not let us down. Religion will not pass away. Evil will not triumph. Heaven and earth will pass away before God’s word passes away. We may not understand Revelation, but w know its central message--we win in the end. Our faith is based in the fact of God’s eternal Word.
We do not know what will happen to those we love, either. We have no guarantee that they will survive us, or that we will survive them..
It is appointed that a man die once and after that the judgment. But the time or our death and the length of our lives are unknown. Stephen, the first martyr, died young. Methuselah died very, very old. Good people die young and sometimes bad people hand on forever.
We may not be able to predict the length of a life, but we can see the things that will lengthen it or shorten it. They blessings of Isaac and Jacob may have been based on divine knowledge, but they also rest on God-given knowledge about where sin will lead. If we see a man who is filled with violence, the man will never see one hundred. If we see a man who lives according to God’s word, then he has every reason to believe he will have a long and fruitful life. If he does not, then something better awaits him in the next life. This man will probably live longer than the man who doesn't. The results of righteousness are all around him.
You cannot control what happens to your children, but God can. Trust God for them. Worry is a failure of faith. We trust God for them while we go on and live.
Faith is the confidence of our children’s welfare, the evidence of their unseen survival. No matter how things may seem, they are still in His hands, and He will never let them go.
Faith for the future is not just about our loved ones.. It is also about ourselves.
One of my fathers in the ministry was Dr. Robert Marshburn. When he was the age I am now, he had his first heart attack and almost died. He told me later how he did not know if he would ever come home. Then God laid a verse on his heart--Jeremiah 29:13. 'For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. 'Plans for God and not for evil, to give you an end and a purpose.'" he remembered this verse and knew that God had something else for him. God was not finished with him yet.
Ten years later, he died of a second heart attack at the age of 67. But during those last ten years of life he accomplished wonderful things. He finished raising seven children, the youngest of when went on to fly on the space shuttle. He mentored and several young men in the ministry, including two pastors of this church. Along with them, his ministry produced church planters, missionaries, youth workers and even a professor at Erskine Seminary. He helped start our first Korean church and went on to serve as moderator of Synod. The prediction the Holy Spirit gave to him was true. God was not finished with him yet.
God has a two-fold promise for your life. The big promise is this--you will go to heaven if you trust in Jesus. But the other one is almost as wonderful--that as long as you live, there will always be a future and a hope. We will always have purpose as long as you are willing to find it.

Joseph

Heb 11:22 By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.


Joseph— Of all the characters in the Old Testament, none is more deserving to be called a hero. Strong, handsome, brilliant, and morally pure, Joseph kept the faith under the most difficult circumstances. No matter what struggles he had, Joseph was an example of a good and godly man.
The word that best describes Joseph is resilient. It is the ability to return after setbacks, to adjust to new realities, and to believe in an optimistic outcome. It is the product of true faith in God.
A resilient person resembles the punching clowns we had when we were children. No matter how hard you punched them or kicked them they always came back up with a smile on its face, ready for the next blow. That was Joseph. He sure knew how to take a punch!
Consider Joseph’s story. When he was a boy he had a dream that he was going to rule over his family some day. Then he had a second dream, which told him the same thing. Joseph believed these dreams were the key to his destiny. Even though he was the eleventh of twelve boys, he began preparing himself for that inevitable moment when he would lead his family. His father saw a great potential of leadership in that boy. He even gave him a special coat as a sign of his pleasure in him.
His brothers resented him. Who can blame them? If your dad trusted your little brother more than you, you’d probably resent it, too! But Joseph’s brothers took sibling rivalry to the nth degree!
They were out in the field one day when Joseph was sent home for something. When he returned, they had all moved. When Joseph found them, they tied him up, stole his coat, threw him in a pit, and sold him to a caravan of Egyptian slavers. Then they put blood on his coat and told Dad that he was dead! This was the worst case of picking on a little brother ever!
But Joseph never felt sorry for himself. He knew God had a better plan.
The slavers sold him to rich Egyptian—Potiphar. Potiphar recognized immediately his leadership abilities. He made Joseph the steward of his house—the major domo of a mighty family. Potiphar trusted Joseph with everything he owned. But Potiphar’s wife wanted more from him. The wanted to have an affair with him. When he refused, she claimed that Joseph tried to rape her. Potiphar was furious and had him thrown in jail.
But Joseph did not despair. He never felt sorry for himself. He knew God had a better plan.
Joseph did well in prison—as well as any prisoner can do. The jailor made the head trustee, and gave him the run of the prison. When Pharaoh’s butler and the baker arrested and thrown in with him, Joseph interpreted their dreams for them, and their dreams came true. With the boldness that only comes from an intimate knowledge of God, he told them the truth. The baker would be executed, but the butler would be restored. It happened just as he said. The baker was executed, but the butler was released. The butler promised to remember Joseph when he was back to Pharaoh’s court.
But the butler forgot him. He left Joseph to rot in jail.
Joseph did not despair, though. He never felt sorry for himself. He knew that had a better plan.
Then one night Pharaoh had a dream. He asked his wise men to interpret it, but no one could. Then the butler remembered what Joseph did in jail, and told Pharaoh. Pharaoh took Joseph came out of prison and brought him to the palace. Not did Joseph give him the correct interpretation, but he also gave him a plan to save the country. Pharaoh immediately saw Joseph’s poise and his confidence, and he made him second in command of everything in Egypt.
Then one day, Joseph’s brothers came to town, begging for food. What a perfect opportunity for revenge! For the first time, Joseph had an opportunity to avenge himself on the many people who had abused him—his brothers, the slavers, Potiphar and his wife. He could have them all killed if he wanted to. Or he could make them suffer. But Joseph chose the way of forgiveness instead of revenge, and saved his family, just as his dream told him long ago.
Joseph could have avenged himself. But he didn’t. He knew God had a better plan.
After that, Joseph, his eleven brothers, and his father lived in luxury in Egypt. But Joseph knew it would not last. One day, the imprisonment that happened to him twice before would fall on all his descendants. They would be enslaved in Egypt. So Joseph, when he was an old man, left word to have his bones carried back to the Promised Land, as a sign to them that God always has a plan. There he was, a living symbol, carried on a cart in the heart of that Exodus mob. He was a living symbol of what they had become—one who rises from pison again and again. Even after death, Joseph rose and pointed the way to freedom.
Now that’s resilience!
Joseph’s confidence was not fake. It was real. That is why wherever he went, people made him a leader. There was something about this man that gave other people confidence, too. He exuded faith, and gave confidence to everyone he met. Because Joseph was resilient, then the other people around Joseph could be resilient, too.
Where did Joseph’s resilience come from? It came from his faith—faith in God, himself, and in others.
First, Joseph had an optimistic faith in God. Joseph always knew God was with him, and that he would not forsake him.
I picture Joseph as a little boy, sitting around the fire with his family. His father is telling them stories of the Lord, and how He saved him, his grandfather and his great-grandfather Abraham. Could you imagine what it must have been like to hear these stories from someone who was there?
But just because we tell things to our children does not mean they hear them. Jacob tried to explain to them that they did not have to be afraid or ashamed. God had chosen their family for greatness. As he talked, the older brothers slept or stared out the window. They had heard it all before.
But Joseph listened and believed. Joseph was certain that the same God who rescued his great grandfather, his grandfather, and his father would be with him when he needed it. And God did.
Most of you grew up in church. You went to Sunday School. You’ve logged hours in church listening to sermons. But that doesn’t mean that anything said in Sunday School or church sinks in. We still worry, we still doubt, and we still think that it is only by our efforts we get through in life. In other words, we just don’t get it.
But every so often a Joseph comes along who hears the Word and believes it. That boy is destined for great things, because he will go through life on the shoulders of God.
Joseph also had an optimistic faith in himself. You cannot separate faith in God from faith in yourself. They have to go together. If we have one, we can have the other, if we do not have one, the chances are that we will not have the other.
Last week we heard one of the great promises of the Scriptures--Jeremiah 29; 13. “For I know the plans I have for you, plans for good and not for evil, to give you an end and a purpose.” This verse tells us that God has a plan for our success and happiness. God has such a plan for you, then you must have value to Him. That is the link between our own success and God’s success.
We do not always define success the way God does. It may not be in gaining money or fame. Such things are unimportant to God. Real success is about finding happiness and purpose in life. If we are happy, we might be a pauper, but we we better off than a king. We are fulfilling God’s plan and purpose, and enjoying His favor.
But what if we are not happy? What if we doubt ourselves? Then we will eventually come to doubt God Himself. If God made us, and we think we are no good, then either we have to deny that God made us, or God is guilty of shoddy workmanship. If God made you, and God is good, then you are good as well. You have been given the special gift of life.
Because Joseph had confidence in God and confidence in himself, Joseph had faith that he could do the best he could do, and his efforts would be rewarded. Joseph did not work for Potiphar, he did not even work for Pharaoh. Joseph worked for the glory of God. Joseph believed he was capable of great and wonderful things.
Third, because Joseph had confidence in God, he also had confidence in others. One interesting thing about Joseph is that he was likable. Potiphar like him, the jailer liked him, even Pharaoh liked him. You cannot achieve that level of likability without liking others back.
Keep in mind that Joseph had no reason for liking others. Why should he like a man who enslaves him or one who keep him prisoner? Why should he expect that they will treat him fairly?
Joseph could like others because they were made in God’s image. No one can expunge completely the image of God out of their hearts. People no matter how evil they may be, have some vestige of the image of a loving God within them.
Mostly, though Joseph expected the best out of others because he trusted God. Peopl may not have our best interest at heart, but God does. He can turn the human heart for us r against s. God often works through unbelievers to bless His people.
The Bible is full of such people. Joseph’s Pharaoh, Cyrus the Persian, and Publius Paulus in the book of Acts and many others. They were God’s instruments to protect His people. Joseph had people like this around him, too.
Christians today sometimes think that you can love the world without liking it. But if you don’t recognize God’s beauty in the people you are trying to help, they will soon turn on you. God prefers to help us though other people whenever possible. That is why it is so important to be civil and kind to your neighbors, and to work diligently for your employers. Be at peace with everyone, as much as it is possible to do so. This is not out of trust of people, but as an act of faith in a loving God who holds the hearts of all men.
Finally, Joseph was resilient because he knew his sins were forgiven. We spend far too much time being ashamed of our past. But Jesus came to erase the shame in our hearts, an grant us grace to begin anew the blood of Jesus on the Cross paid the price for al our sin, and gave us the gift of forgiveness.
How resilient are you? You can be very resilient if you have faith in God, and through Him faith in yourself and in others, just like Joseph did.

abrraham

Heb 11:8-19 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

By faith Abraham, even though he was past age — and Sarah herself was barren — was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.
People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country — a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice.
He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.
In the hall of fame, Abraham surely must have the central display. Abraham occupies the central eleven verses of this chapter. He is the greatest example of faith in the Old Testament.
Because of this long discussion of Abraham’s faith, we have an opportunity to see that faith comes in several flavors. It is not just one thing, but at least three. All of these three aspects are found in in Abraham’s life.
Faith has three aspects—Boldness, Patience, and Hope.
Boldness is the kind of faith it takes to take extraordinary risks, based upon the promises of God. Boldness is not being foolhardy, neither is it recklessness, but it is being willing to stand upon God’s promises and God’s promises alone. Boldness is miracle-producing faith. It is the kind of faith seen in Abraham, Elijah, Peter, Joseph, Paul, and (naturally) Jesus.
Most people are rabbits, not lions. They would rather hide in their houses than have adventures. The thought of actually following God outside heri comfort zone, appalls them.
The kingdom cannot be advanced by rabbits. It requires people who are willing to trust God’s promises on the battlefields of life. Abraham was such a lion.
Abraham showed the boldness of his faith in two great actions. First, he left his home and his family and went into a land he did not know, at the age of eighty-seven.
There are few things more adventurous than starting a new life when you are old. The old adage “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is sadly too often true. But when we begin anew in advanced years, then the world gapes in awe at us.
Moses led his people beginning at the age of eighty. Grandma Moses took up painting in her seventies. We still talk about those people because they are true heroes of faith.
Tennyson expressed his admiration for such boldness in his poem Ulysses,
“Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
The second example of this in Abraham’s life is when he took his son Isaac to he mountain, to sacrifice him according to God’s command. Abraham had a radical faith that was willing to follow God wherever He led, even if it did not make sense. Sacrificing Isaac was against everything that God had ever told him. The rejection of human sacrifice was ont of the things that made Abraham’s God better than the gods around him. Abraham thought he knew this. He believed in a God of love and justice. Besides, it appeared that God was asking him to surrender everything he had wanted in his life—a son. But he did it anyway, because he trusted God more than he trusted his own wisdom, his own preconceived ideas, his upbringing, and even his own conscience.
Sometimes we must think differently than or parents or family. Sometimes e must admit that our old notions are wrong. Sometimes we have to put on the line the happiness we have enjoyed for so long. “He who saves his life will lose it,” Jesus said. “But he who give his life will gain it. “He who surrenders houses and family and lands for the Kingdom of God will gain houses and family for Him” This takes bold faith. There is no substitute for it.
Boldness is the hallmark of a trusting relationship with God. Peter exhibited this when he stood before the men who had crucified Jesus and shouted “You crucified the Lord of Glory.” John had it when the the said to a lame man “in the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk.” Missionaries show boldness when they leave their homes. Martin Luther showed boldness when asked to deny the truth and embrace the Catholic church. He shouted “here I stand. I can do no other.” St Francis had it when he stood before the Muslim caliph and preached Christ, even when Muslims and Christians were slaughtering each other. None of these men thought of themselves as bold. They just thought of themselves as being faithful.
Patience is the second aspect of Abraham’s faith. This is the kind of faith that is necessary to achieve long-term goals. Abraham was willing to wait forever, if necessary fo the reward that was promised to him. He was willing to work for days, months, or even years before he ever saw any results because he knew that the rewards would be worth it.
Noah was willing to work on the ark, day after day, year after year while the rest of the world though him crazy, because he knew it would save his family. Moses waited in he desert for forty years, to see his people save through the promised land. Solomon worked for forty years on the temple. No great thing is ever accomplished unless we have the patience to see it through.
Abraham refused to settle down, even though he had the means, because he wanted his family to have the land God’s way. He waited for God to bring a son out of he and his wife’s nonagenarian bodies, even though in the entire history of the world, it had never happened. He had to tell his children to wait for he proms, wait for he ime when he promised would be.
Patience is not just having faith. It is leaning on the faithful one. We all get tired. We all think we need a rest. But there is no glory or profit in rest. We have to be willing to go beyond the ordinary if we are ever to see extraordinary results.
An Asian woman recently wrote a book about the Chinese style of parenting, and how it differed from ours. One thing she pointed out was that Chinese parents often insist that their children play an musical instrument. In America, we think we are doing good when we have them practice a half hour a day. But in China, they make them practice two or even three hours a day. Their theory is this. That the fruit of the practice does not begin until after the first hour. At first learning an instrument is just scales and repetition. It is boring. But it is not until we master the boring things that we can really begin to enjoy what we are doing.
Patient faith brings no fruit until we have endured for a long time. When it does, it brings great fruit and great joy. Without patience, we can accomplish nothing.
Hope is the third aspect of faith. Abraham could not have acted boldly or waited patiently unless he also possessed the ability to see into the future with excitement, believing in a reward that was before him. The second time Abraham showed this boldness was when he took his son Isaac up the mountain to kill him, as a sacrifice to God. Kierkegaard wrote a book about this story. He pointed out that Abraham’s boldness in following God was such that he was willing to stand against his own preconceived ideas, his upbringing, and even his own perceived conscience. Sometimes we must think differently than or parents or family. Sometimes e must admit that our old notions are wrong. This takes bold faith. There is no substitute for it.
Boldness and perseverance are active things. We start upon a bold course and day by day see it though. But hope on the other hand is passive. We do not pursue hope, we have it. It isdoes not come from what we do or say, but from God’s assurance to our heart. Hope is what helps us endure hardships and setbacks, ridicule and shame. We know that one day we will be vindicated.
Hope is not just about what we want to happen. It is about what God says will happen A hope is not a wish. We may wish for a million dollars but we do not hope for it. But we all may hope for heaven, because God says we can have it. If we trust in God, and beliee His promises, then we have hope.
I remember the first time as a boy that I ever saved to buy anything. It was a wooden portable chess set, and it cost seven whole dollars. Every week I saved my fifty-cent allowance until I had enough to buy it. Never in my life had anything looked so beautiful as that chess set when I bought.
There was only one way I could have saved for that chess set. I had to have hope that it would be there for me when I had the money to buy it. We must have a certainty that what we want will be there, if we continue to live on less than they can by. Then one day, greater rewards than we can ever imagine will be ours. Hope is what keeps us denying ourselves when we know we could be indulging. We hope for something better down the road.
Where do we get hope? Hope comes from God. It comes from realizing that there are things larger and more important than what we see with our eyes and ears
Jesus came that we might have hope, not just for this life, but for the next. That hope was the reason people went to crosses and stakes for His sake.
Boldness, patience, and hope. If we are going to follow God, and be used by Him, we must have all three.