The Best is Yet to Come

Posted on Feb 28, 2010 in Sermons | Comments Off

Speaker: Andrew Brown
Key Passage: Hebrew 11:23-30
Date: 28 Feb 2010

Elevator: We can stand up for Jesus when we do it together

Many of you will have heard the story of the Emperors new clothes.  According to the story the Emperor loved new clothes.  He wanted to wear the very latest fashion.  Some fraudsters came along and said they could make the most beautiful clothes for him, but that they would be invisible to the unsophisticated and only the most trendy people could see them.  They pretended to make the invisible clothes and put the king’s money straight in their own pockets.

The Emperor then put on a parade to show off these brand new clothes.  No one wanted to appear dumb and unsophisticated so they all went “Um” and “Arh.”  But there was one child who had the courage and the honesty to cry out “The Emperors got no clothes (on).”  He broke the spell and people burst out laughing as they realised how dumb they had been.

That tale, of ‘The Emperor’s new clothes’, shows us that it took the courage of just one young boy to show the people that they had believed in a lie.  I believe that we need young people like that in every generation who will challenge the predominant lie.  -Because in NZ we have swallowed an enormous lie.

When I was growing up there was a kids’ rhyme that went, “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly… perhaps she’ll die.”  It talked about all the things the woman swallowed because of that fly –a frog, a bird, a cat, a dog, so that she eventually died.

Well, many of the people around us at work and at school have swallowed the lie that there is no God, and if there is one, He doesn’t matter much at all.  As result parts of our beautiful land are a spiritual wasteland.  Many people’s lives are like husks.  They look pretty good on the outside, but on the inside (in God’s eyes) they have spiritually died.

And we need to ask who is going to stand up in this next generation and tell them that they have believed the world’s lie and that God has a much better plan for their lives?  Who is going to tell them that they do not need to miss the boat and spend an eternity separated from God in hell -and what can we do to support them?

Strangely enough Moses in today’s reading faced a similar situation that many young people face today.  You might think of him as an old Sunday School character or even a cartoon figure.  We watched a DVD about Moses at Socket just recently, but he was one of the most outstanding men of his day and age.  Even though he was adopted, he was what you would call a ‘most promising young man.’

He had power.  Moses was adopted by the Egyptian royal family, which made him royalty –a bit like Prince William or Prince Harry.  He would have been like the Obama’s daughters, Malia and Natasha, used to going in and out of the Whitehouse each day.  Except that the Egyptian royal family was considered divine, so he might have been considered a descendant of the great god Amen-Ra.  You would have to bow down before him.

He was immensely wealthy.  Egypt was one of the world two or three great superpowers of the time.  He was in one of the richest families in the world –a bit like being one of Bill Gate’s kids.  He was bright.  His education would have been second to none.  He would have attended one of the world’s greatest universities with all the best tutors –the Harvard or Oxford of his time.

And on top of that he had opportunity.  As a teen or a young person in his twenties he had shares in all the ancient cultural treasures of Egypt.  It was all that any young person would dream of.  The world was his oyster!

Yet the Bible says, “(24) By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.  (25) He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. (26) He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.”

In effect Moses understood that amazing as Egyptian society was, it had been laid on the wrong foundations.  Sure it had impressive achievements, but in its heart of hearts it did not know God or understand Him.  In fact you could say he was a bit of a rebel.  Something inside him told him that Yahweh (God) had a greater purpose for his life.

And today many young people still face the same choice.  Do I chase after all that this world system has to offer or in the end ‘do I want what God truly has to offer –eternal life in this world and the next?’

Now that’s not to say that Christians can’t be very rich and influential, and have happy lives.  Some of the greatest leaders in the Bible and in the world today are followers of Jesus, but they’ve learnt is to march to a different drumbeat.  The world whispers its promises…“You’ll be happy.  You’ll be safe.  You’ll be secure, if you play life our way.”

There’s no guarantee of course that the world will ever deliver.  But Moses simply had the courage and the honestly to say, “Stuff you.  I think you’re wrong.  So I’m going to play it God’s way from here on in.”  And so the Bible says, “By faith Moses refused…” and he identified with God’s people.

Moses risked an enormous amount for following God.  Ultimately he gained so much more, but what could cause a young man to make this momentous decision?  What could empower a young person asking himself ‘who do I follow’ to choose God instead of the ‘beautiful people’?  There were two things.

1. Firstly Moses had a family who had faith. Moses had a family who understood that his identity as a Son of God was far more important than his identity as a son of Pharaoh, and they were prepared to overcome every human obstacle in order to help him know who he was.  Look at verse 23.  It says, “By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.”

Here in only a few short words is what tells us is that they risked their lives for Him.  They did not kill him when they were meant to thereby breaking Pharaoh’s law.  They dedicated him to God and released him upon the Nile.  They followed the vulnerable little craft away from their home.  They boldly approached the Pharaoh’s own daughter to offer to be a wet nurse for him, and in secret they instructed him and told him who he truly was.  Stolen moment by stolen moment they instilled in him his spiritual sense of identity.

Now few of you parents have ever had to go to the same kind of lengths that they did.  A few of you do battle with ex-spouses and with sports to have the kids with you on a Sunday so that they can at least attend worship, but the important thing is that they took some risks.  They explained to him the faith, and in doing so they carried on a tradition that the followers of God have always followed.

For example, Christianity first arrived in Japan in 1549.  Within 50 years it was completely banned.  Ministers were executed or exiled.  The Japanese Emperor killed 40,000 Christians in order to wipe out the faith.  But it survived underground.  200 years later when freedom of religion was granted, around about 200,000 people were still following Christ.  How had they survived without ministers and churches?  They had passed it on –father to son, mother to daughter for over two centuries.

Likewise in New Zealand.  When the UK settlers first arrived in NZ, they didn’t all have churches and priests.  Many people lived miles from town centres on farms.  So who what was one of the strongest Christian movements?  It was the Brethren.  All you needed was a man to speak from his Bible and a few folk to gather and sing, and that’s how many farming folk passed on their faith to the next generation.

So those of you who are parents and grandparents today –you come from a long line of families who have passing on their faith.  You come from that background and you need to uphold it.  Moses had parents who went to great lengths to teach him who he was.  So should we.

2. But the other thing that Moses had going in his favour was the presence of a real faith community. In addition to his family he knew people who passionately believed in God.  This is not that obvious from the text, but Moses had people of God to look up to and to learn from.

You see it’s one thing for a young person to think yes, I’m from a Hebrew or a Christian background and that’s a part of me.  It’s another thing to actually say, “That’s who I want to be.”  So put yourself in Moses shoes.  Moses must have looked at the greatness of Egypt and then at the Hebrew community and thought, “You’re crazy!”  Is this what I’m supposed to be?  -Because if we are honest they did not have a lot to offer.  Really!

The Jews were poor, oppressed manual labourers.  Their lot in life wasn’t particularly attractive.  They were the scum, the untouchables, the bottom feeders of Egyptian society.  Think of it this way.  In some periods of Egyptian history, personal pyramids or tombs were very popular.  Every nobleman had them.  Did Moses want to associate with the people who were having pyramids built for them, or with the slaves who suffered building the pyramids?

There’s a saying that people usually shout their support for the underdogs (you’ve probably seen that at rugby matches), but they choose to run with the top dogs.  Moses was no different.  He was only a teenager making choices, so what convinced him to go with God?

Well, the Hebrew people might have been oppressed, but they had one thing going for them.  The Bible tells us that the Hebrew people had been changing over time.  They were becoming more devout.  So as the workload increased ‘did they cry out to their supervisors?’  Yes, but they stopped when they weren’t listening.  ‘Did they cry out to Pharaoh?’  Probably or a while, but then they figured out that Pharaoh wasn’t listening they stopped that too.

So in the end who did they cry out to?  You can read the answer in Exodus 3:7. “The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt.  I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.” The Hebrews cried out to God!  The only good thing they had going for them was that their faith was real, and that’s what Moses saw faith loud and clear.

And it’s very similar today.  A young person who is considering where to go in life spiritually has only one critical question to ask of each of you, “Is it real?  Is it real?”  That’s why children and young people need relationships with you, to hear your stories, to hear about the good times and the bad times and how you meet God in them.  They need you.  They need to see how your faith in God works out in your life.  They need to hear about your faith experiences to help them make the right decisions about God.

And look, you don’t have to be a super-saint to do this.  Goodness knows the Hebrew people weren’t saints.  They even fought with and killed each at times, but they let Moses see their living faith.  Do you think you can do that with our young people?

So Moses made His decision to identify with God’s people.  He had his defining moment when an overseer attacked a Hebrew slave and Moses retaliated.  It was there that he made his choice.  Later on as a result he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel, and he lead the people through the Red Sea as if on dry land leaving the Egyptians far behind them.  What can we learn from all of this?

For the young people here today -Moses is often remembered in churches and synagogues as a colossus in world history.  He is in one sense the founder of Judaism, the creator of the ancient nation of Israel and is one of the ancient world’s greatest leaders.  He is respected by three major world faiths, that’s by over 1 billion people, but there was a time in his life when he was uncertain and confused as anyone else about himself, about his direction in life and whether he would believe in God and or not.  Like you, two paths lay open at his feet.

Moses could easily have chosen to serve the ways of this world and surrendered to its lies, but he was made of stronger stuff.  If he had, today some insignificant archaeologist would be saying somewhere, “this mouldy old mummy was some stepson of Pharaoh Rameses.”  But instead when Moses took hold of his faith and decided to go with God and His people he entered the pages of God’s book of history.

From that day his life began to make a difference, and that decision, believe or not, as impacts even upon your life today.  So choose life; choose significance, choose to follow God.

Now to you parents, sometimes I know it’s easy to become discouraged.  The world and the media have got a lot more money than you with which to tempt your children.  There is a lot of anti-God talk at times.  Sometimes when your children’s hormones are kicking in, you can feel like the whole task facing you is impossible.

The word to you from this passage is “Don’t.  Don’t.”  Don’t be dis-empowered by your own lack of belief.  Don’t give in to the opposition.  Moses parents overcome their enormous obstacles to show Moses the right way to go.  You can too.  By faith decide to do whatever it takes to train your family in the ways of God.  By faith be determined to see that God will bless your kids in your family and in this church.  By faith believe that God has a better plan for their lives, and like Winston Churchill do whatever it takes and never, ever give up on that dream!

And finally to the church –our young people need your stories.  Our young people need your wisdom.  Our young people need to see into your lives (even if they deny it).  If they go off to a youth based church, the statistical odds are that they will begin to believe the worlds lies within the next three years and drift away from God.  It is actually in an intergenerational church that welcomes them that young people have the best chance to flourish and grow in Christ.

The thing is that you get to decide if PBC will be that kind of church.  So open your lives.  Open your hearts to our children and our youth.  Just get to know them –they’re fabulous people!  But you get to choose.

Just to finish, next Sunday at 9:30am we are having a half hour worship service followed by an International Children’s Day festival.  Some people understand why we are doing this.  Others do not.  There are a number of reasons why we are doing this such as community outreach and the kindergarten families, but for me one major reason is this.

The Bible believes that the young people in here and out there have a special purpose and destiny as children of God that higher and more important than anything else that the world has to offer.  They were made to serve the living God and Him alone.  It’s the highest calling there is.  Let’s make sure they know that!