Faith - Hebrews 11:27

Faith doesn't fear man

We did hike Old Rag Mountain one time. When we started the hike, my siblings and I were running around, chasing each other up the mountain, and jumping off of rocks and dead tree limbs. When we got to the top, we thought it was so cool that we could look down and see the forest below us. And at the end, we were absolutely exhausted. From that day forward, Old Rag became the standard for us for climbing mountains. Well, about 10 years later, right after I graduated college, I hiked Mount Bierstadt. Bierstadt is one of Colorado's 14ers, meaning its peak elevation is over 14,000 feet above sea level. This hike, I was breathing heavy within minutes of us starting. When we got to near the peak, I was having to take a breath after breath. I had to take a break after every single step because the air was so thin. At the summit, we couldn't just see, or we didn't just see mountain peaks. We saw the tops of clouds. Two years after Bierstadt, I hiked Old Rag again and it became really clear that I knew nothing about hiking as a kid. The journey up Old Rag instead of this massive feat, it felt just like a casual walk. I had two completely different views of Old Rag because of my encounter with Mount Bierstadt. And tonight, we're gonna look at the two journeys that Moses took out of Egypt. We're gonna see how his view of Pharaoh changed after he encountered God. With that, we will consider how our faith is affected by, or how our faith affects our fear and our sight. So our passage tonight is Hebrews 11, 27, which says,

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, Moses, left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who was invisible.

" Our main idea is that faith doesn't fear man because it sees the invisible God. With that, we'll break this down into three different points. One, that faith obeys. Two, that faith doesn't fear man. And three, that faith sees God. So point one, faith obeys. First part of our passage tells us that Moses, by faith, left Egypt. Our passage is not referring to Moses' first departure from Egypt, because before he left Egypt by faith, Moses first left Egypt by fear. In Exodus 2, Moses one day killed an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew, and when he found out that others knew, it says he became afraid. The news of the murder reached Pharaoh, and Moses then fled Egypt for fear of Pharaoh's wrath. Now Exodus 2 is far from the departure that our passage describes. This backdrop is significant. Moses' fear of Pharaoh's wrath drove him to run away from his home and settle down in a foreign land. When God meets Moses at the burning bush, Moses isn't plotting his return home. He's dwelling contently in Midian. But after the burning bush, Moses returns to Egypt in obedience to Yahweh so that God's people, the children of Egypt, would be brought out of slavery. And as we know, the exodus wasn't a result of a one-time act of obedience. Moses didn't just waltz into Pharaoh's court, make his request, and then immediately live happily ever after with freed Israelites. No, Moses obeyed God with endurance. Over and over again, God said, go, and Moses went. God said, speak, and he said the words. He endured a vicious cycle of appealing to Pharaoh, facing hard-hearted rejection and sending plagues. After the 10th plague, Moses led the entire nation, 600,000 men, along with women and children, out of Egypt after 430 years of slavery. When Moses left Egypt a second time, he left by faith that proved itself with enduring obedience. And like Moses, Hebrews 12.1 calls us to

run with endurance the race that is set before us.

Faith requires enduring obedience. If the Christian life is like a race, then we're called to take step after step of faith with constant unbroken strides and as quickly as possible. Does your faith run like this? Or does it do the hokey pokey? Does it put one foot in and then take it right back out? If our faith's not marked by during obedience, we should pause and examine ourselves. We should ask, what's hindering my faith? Or in the case of our passage, the better question might be, who's hindering my faith? This leads us to our second point. Point two is that faith doesn't fear man. Hebrews 11, 27 tells us that Moses, by faith, not only left Egypt, but he left Egypt unafraid of the Pharaoh's wrath. When God met Moses at the burning bush, his life had been controlled by a fear of Pharaoh's wrath. But the faith that compelled Moses to obey God was also powerful enough to eliminate his fear. Moses didn't obey God despite a fear of Pharaoh. He obeyed without a fear of him. True faith eradicates a fear of man. Fear of man is often beneath the surface of much of a struggling faith. Simply put, a fear of man is what happens when we replace God with people. People-pleasing, peer pressure, social anxiety, these are all labels of the same root problem. When someone else claims the throne of our heart, we're not being driven by faith. So what does fear of man look like? For some, it may look like overcommitment. You don't want to let anyone down, so you take on any and every request that comes your way. For others, it may look like you wear various masks. You need to be accepted so you will do or say whatever is necessary. You don't just strive for peace and unity with all, but also attention and approval. For some, fear of man may dictate your emotions. Your boss's harsh rebuke, or your spouse's unkind gesture, or your kid's disobedience drives you to anger or self-pity. One prominent way I think fear of man plays out is when we predict someone's response. So have you ever refrained from correcting someone because you're just sure that they won't take criticism? Or have you ever shied away from sharing the gospel with someone because there's just no way that they'll take you seriously? How often do we forego a conversation with someone because we already had it with them in our own minds? And lastly, for some, fear of man may look like isolation. You may convince yourself that you're just introverted. But does being alone take priority over loving others? Fear of man isn't solved by removing people from your life. Sometimes it's how it presents itself. A fear of man is a weed in the garden of our hearts. Unchecked, it will take over until there is no soil left for faith to grow. And the only solution, the only repellent that causes a fear of man to wither and die, is a vision that continually sees God by faith. That leads us to our third and final point, is that faith sees God. who is invisible. Our verse tells us that Moses's endurance wasn't fueled by a single encounter with God, but that Moses endured because he was constantly seeing God with the eyes of faith. We cannot conclude here that Moses was seeing God physically because no one has ever seen God. But as Moses left Egypt, God may as well, may as well has been walking beside him in the flesh. And Pharaoh, standing next to Yahweh, was no longer a king to be feared, but merely a means for God to get glory. All of this vision of God was not just reserved for Moses. It is available to anyone who looks to him in faith. Hebrews 12, two and three says that this vision starts with us fixing our eyes on Jesus Christ. We are to