The Gathering Surf City

We are in the book of Hebrews,

still talking about the
object of our faith.

The book of Hebrews just
points us to Jesus.

The Old Testament points
us to Jesus.

The New Testament reveals
Jesus to us,

and the book of Hebrews kind of
ties it all together for us.

And as I read these things,

I've got a quiz for you this morning
and a bit of a scavenger hunt.

So get ready.

Here we go.

Hebrews, chapter eleven,

starting in verse 23,

says, by faith,

Moses, after he was born,

was hidden by his parents for three
months because they saw that the

child was beautiful and he didn't
fear the king's edict.

By faith,

Moses, when he had grown up,

refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter and chose to suffer

with the people of God rather than to
enjoy the fleeting pleasure of sin.

For he considered reproach for the sake
of Christ to be greater wealth

than the treasures of Egypt.

Since he was looking ahead
to the reward,

by faith,

he left Egypt behind,

not being afraid of
the king's anger.

For Moses persevered as
one who sees him,

who is invisible.

By faith,

he instituted the Passover and the sprinkling
of the blood so that the

destroyer of the firstborn might
not touch the Israelites.

By faith,

they crossed the Red Sea as though
they were on dry land.

When the Egyptians attempted
to do this,

they were drowned.

All right,

we get to look at Moses today.

So pray with me.

Father, we thank you and we praise
you again for the morning and the

opportunity we have to
hang out together.

And, God,

we hang out with purpose.

We gather in this place that
we might worship you.

We can sing to you and
sing about you.

And we can come before you
in prayer and understand,

God, that our conversation with you
isn't just a starting point,

an ending point.

We have a continuous conversation
with you.

And as we look into your word,

God, you speak to us.

So, God,

we want to hear from
you this morning.

We want to hear your voice,

not mine.

God, we want to hear what you
would have to say to us,

reveal to us that which you
would have us to know.

And we ask,

God, that we just simply be surrendered
and willing to obey you.

And we pray it in Jesus name.

Amen.

And so here's the test.

What are the two most important words
in that passage I just read?

By faith.

By faith,

by faith,

by faith.

Five times.

I've got it circled five times.

By faith,

by faith,

by faith,

by faith,

by faith.

And we're all in Moses this morning.

Remember I told you last week that I've
become so struck with chapter

eleven of Hebrews that once
we get through Romans,

in a year and a half or
two years from now,

I'm going to preach chapter eleven.

Just telling you,

for all these folks that like to talk
about where we're going and that

sort of thing,

I was sharing with Justin over there.

My job these days is really to think
out yonder somewhere what lies

ahead. You know,

Nick and Jordan and Kyle
and Jared and Scott,

as the lineup of pastors
here at the gathering,

you know,

they do.

When I'm not in town,

they do it all.

And so I tell people
my job's to think.

I just get to think.

And so I'm thinking about Easter,

and I'm thinking about next year and
thinking about where we're going.

And that's all cool,

because that's one of those things
that we do by faith.

Cause the Bible tells us that
why do we plan for tomorrow?

Because we don't even know that
tomorrow's gonna come.

So by faith,

we look ahead and we go,

all right,

a year from now,

I wanna be this much closer
to God than I am today.

By faith,

I want to be this farther
along in my Bible study.

By faith,

I want to have grown in serving
God and in walking with him.

So the scavenger hunt
looks like this.

You ready,

ladies? Need you to be ready,

because first one that
holds this up wins.

I need an eyeliner.

Anybody got an eyeliner?

Nobody's jumping.

Nobody's carrying an eyeliner.

Not one of pencils or the
little paint ons,

none of them.

You think you got one?

Well, I did that.

I wanted to point that
out for a reason,

because we know the pictures we've seen
of the Egyptians and the way they

would make up their faces and
all that kind of thing.

And think about Moses growing
up as Pharaoh's grandkid,

right? If he's growing
up as Pharaoh's son,

Pharaoh's daughter's son,

you know,

he grew up in the king's household and
had the benefit of everything that

Egypt could offer.

And so,

so probably.

Can I just go ahead and say it now?

It wouldn't be anyway.

I believe he wore eyeliner.

I think he probably did.

He probably had all the fancy stuff hanging
around his neck and headwear

and makeup and eyeliner and
all that kind of stuff.

And I think he was all up in the
egyptian culture at the time.

But when we read these statements,

we see that his life didn't
begin that way,

because it says,

by faith,

Moses, after he was born,

was hidden by his parents for three
months because he was beautiful.

He didn't even need eyeliner.

But that word beautiful really is,

it reflects something in Hebrew of
the countenance of his face.

There was something about him
that pointed people to God.

There was something about his countenance
that made people think beyond

just this baby.

And we know that by faith,

Moses was hidden by his parents.

Whose faith?

That wasn't Moses faith.

That was mom and daddy's faith.

Mom and daddy hid him.

And the pharaoh.

And I love this.

Somebody I was listening
to this week,

getting ready for this morning was
kind of splitting hairs for us.

Pharaoh said for,

for the israelite people to throw all
the male children in the Nile

river. So Moses parents threw him
in the Nile river in a basket.

So, I mean,

they obeyed the edict.

They just put him in the Nile river in
a basket and had his sister watch

out for him,

right?

Until Pharaoh's daughter comes along
and sees the baby in the basket and

says, I'm going to adopt this child.

I'm going to raise him like mine.

And so Moses grows up in Pharaoh's
household as a son to Pharaoh's

daughter. That was mom and dad's
faith for protecting Pharaoh,

not protecting Moses.

Now, why,

though?

Let's consider them by faith,

there on the morning
that Moses is born.

You know,

mom and dad already know
what the king has said.

Do what Pharaoh is said to do.

They already know what they're
supposed to do.

By law.

They chose to break the law.

Why? By faith,

right? They chose to defy
Pharaoh's order.

Pharaoh's order was ungodly
and unrighteous.

Pharaoh's order was unholy.

You see?

And so Moses mom and dad said,

fine, we're not killing this child.

Matter of fact,

we're going to hide him.

We're going to preserve his life and
let it float down the river anyway.

But you see,

they didn't fear the king's edict.

And then we see this one.

By faith,

Moses, when he had grown up,

refused to be called the son
of Pharaoh's daughter.

Can you?

All right,

let's make this as real as we can make
it the morning that Moses got up

and he stood in front of the mirror
and he picked up his,

his eyeliner,

and he went,

not today.

I'm not living in all this anymore.

I'm not going to enjoy
the sin for a season,

the fleeting pleasure of sin.

I'm not going to indulge in
my own selfish pleasure,

wants and desires.

I'm not going to be what the world
has made me out to be.

I'm going to choose to suffer
with my people,

God's people,

in slavery.

Can you imagine going from the
palace to slavery in a day?

By faith,

Moses chose not to be pharaoh's grandson
and chose to be a slave.

It's a big deal.

Think about that morning,

right? Get up,

eat your bacon,

eggs, your oatmeal.

That's what I ate every
morning growing up.

Just so y'all know.

Get up,

you eat your breakfast,

and then you decide,

I'm not going to do what
I've always done.

I'm not going to do what's been
handed to me by others.

I'm not going to do what,

quite honestly,

is really the easy thing to do.

I'm just going to keep being
pharaoh's grandson.

I'm going to keep eating
at pharaoh's table.

I'm going to keep participating
in the things of the.

The kingdom of Egypt,

right? I'm gonna keep doing all the things
that the world says is what we

want and need and need
to identify with.

Moses got up one day and went,

nope, I'm gonna be a slave today,

and I'm gonna be a slave from now on.

And he did that by faith,

for he considered reproach
for the sake of Christ.

Now, did Moses know the name Christ?

I mean,

we make it a first and last name,

right? Jesus Christ.

He is Yeshua.

God is salvation.

The anointed one.

That's what his name means.

Moses knew somehow,

right? If we go back and work
our way in Genesis,

Moses knew of God's
promised salvation.

Moses had an awareness of
the anointed one of God,

and he considered reproach.

He considered being a slave in the
kingdom of Egypt better than the

treasures of Egypt,

since he was what,

looking ahead to the reward
of being obedient to God?

Now, I warned y'all two weeks ago,

this is gonna get hard on us,

okay? And it has a whole lot more
to do than just eyeliner,

just so you know,

by faith,

he, meaning Moses,

left Egypt behind,

not being afraid of
the king's anger,

for Moses persevered as
one who sees him,

who is invisible.

All right?

So now let's go back and tie this
into the beautiful face,

kidde, all right?

The kid with the beautiful face.

Because that word beautiful,

that refers to Moses face will be reflected
on later when it says God met

with Moses as one who
meets face to face.

Isn't that cool?

I mean,

that's the inference of Moses beautiful
face is that his future would be

meeting face to face.

With Goddesse.

You see,

by faith,

Moses did these things.

By faith,

he instituted the Passover and the sprinkling
of the blood so that the

destroyer of the firstborn might
not touch the Israelites.

What's he talking about right there?

For almost a year,

God just completely destroyed Egypt.

He destroyed their river,

he destroyed their crops,

he destroyed their animals.

God destroyed it all,

even to the last one.

He destroyed the families of Egypt
by taking the firstborn child.

And yet,

by faith.

Now, listen,

Moses gets up among the
israelite people,

says, okay,

guys, look,

we're about to do something tonight.

We're going to kill a lamb.

And you got to cook it and
eat it all tonight.

But take the blood and put
it on your doorpost.

Can you imagine Moses never going,

what? Why?

Because God's sending death
through the country.

And if God sees the blood
of the sacrificial lamb,

your family will be spared,

by faith.

By faith,

to do that which God has commanded
for them to do.

All right,

by faith,

they crossed the Red Sea.

Now, this is one that even.

All right,

so I grew up watching Charlton Heston
standing on the side of the and

pronouncing the departing
of the Red Sea,

right? And how they did it.

You know,

CGI wasn't a big deal back then,

but anyhow.

And so they walk in between
these walls.

Moses is standing there
with his rod,

and he point,

all right,

y'all go.

And I'm going.

You go first,

right? I mean,

there's a song out there right now
says he makes seas into highways,

right? I don't know the
name of the song.

I just know I've heard the lyric
make seas into highways,

that.

That God established the path through
the Red Sea as though it were dry

ground, wasn't muddy,

wasn't soppy,

wasn't Sandy.

They walk through.

I'm trying to figure out who
the first one through was,

right. You know,

I mean,

it's like,

okay, here we go.

But they got through.

And then it says this.

When the Egyptians attempted
to do this,

they were drowned.

It's the two most important
words in this passage,

in this whole chapter.

By faith.

By faith,

we see Moses mom's faith.

We see that she was trusting something
of God's leadership in her life to

protect the life of her son Moses.

Why? Because God had something
in store for Moses.

God had a plan for Moses.

God revealed it.

And probably not the fullness
of the plan,

but somewhere in the birthing
room of Moses,

Moses mom and dad were like,

no, we're going to defy
the king's edict.

And we're going to save this child,

because God has a plan
for this child.

The morning that Moses woke up and
looked in his mirror and went,

not today,

I'm going to be a slave.

Now, understand that Moses had already
attempted to take some charge on

his own power.

What did he do?

He went out and killed
an egyptian guard,

right?

I'm Pharaoh's grandson.

I can go kill me an Egyptian.

And then he hit it.

But so finally,

he steps out of his
life of privilege,

the benefits of the world,

the benefits of Pharaoh's household.

To be a slave,

see, rather than enjoy the
fleeting pleasure of sin,

because he knew that God.

God was revealing something.

That's why I want to go back and study
all of these genesis characters

here. To go.

What.

What do I need to do?

What step of faith do I
need to make a today?

How can I live by faith,

walk by faith,

live out my faith today.

What do I need to do?

Right.

He left Egypt behind.

Understand how.

How dependent on the israelite people
was the egyptian economy.

They had to know that if we go,

if we leave,

Egypt's gonna.

They're not gonna like
it in the end.

And we've seen all the movie
depictions of this.

They're standing on the
edge of the Red Sea,

and they see the dust cloud of the
egyptian army coming after them,

right? I don't know what it
actually looked like,

but I'm thinking to myself
that they know,

they're.

They're threatened at this point.

Point, see,

and by faith,

they step into the red sea
with walls of water.

By faith,

God has a plan.

God's accomplishing something.

God's doing something.

See, so when I look at these things
and I start to consider from the

beginning of chapter eleven,

now, faith is the reality.

And we do things that we
don't see before us.

We do things with regard to the
things that we hope for.

You see,

we believe by faith that everything
in creation was spoken into

existence. We believe that
none of us were there.

We believe it.

We have dominion over God's creation
because it's what God said,

and we believe it.

We live in a world now where there are
those that would teach us that

creation is supposed to
have dominion over us.

That's not by faith.

You see,

Abel offered a sacrifice.

Enoch walked with.

God was taken up.

Noah built a boat.

Abraham left his place.

Sarah trusted God for a child.

These all died in faith.

We read last week,

get to Moses life,

and we realize that Moses is one guy.

One guy.

His mom and dad chose to hide him.

Why? Because God had a plan.

He got up one day and chose not
to be Pharaoh's grandson,

but to be a slave.

He listened to God and initiated
the Passover celebration.

He listened to God and left Egypt.

He listened to God and
crossed the Red Sea.

Faith movement forward.

All right,

suppose now there are those who
don't like me to do this.

I'm doing it anyway.

What if Moses mom and dad said,

oh, no,

we got to kill him.

What if Moses,

in his dressing room
with his eyeliner,

said, oh,

I kind of like the riches of Egypt.

I don't.

I think I'll live in the castle.

I think I'll do what's
popular in the world.

I think I'll engage in the sin,

in the sin that pleases
me in this season,

right, Moses.

Mom? Moses.

Faith. Moses deliverance.

Not just at birth,

but through the Red Sea and on
toward the promised land.

This is faith movement forward.

I asked you this question last week.

Consider the day that you moved
your family sometime.

Where was your faith?

Okay.

Did you move the family
because of a job?

Did you move your family because of,

I don't know,

a location?

We're going to move to the beach.

I remember the Sunday that Eli said
we were coming back from.

I think we were coming back
from Daytona on vacation,

1 August,

when Eli was five.

And Eli goes,

dad, can we move to the beach?

I said,

son, we live in the mountains.

We ain't moving to the beach,

right? I said that to him,

you know,

I remember coming to Surf city
and them telling me that,

you know,

surf city Baptist church.

And Harold's in the room.

He's the only one in the room.

That was a part of this
conversation,

Harold, you know,

they said,

well, we need a rebirth.

I was like,

okay. I said,

it's going to be harder
than you think it is.

And guess what?

It's not going to look like what you
think it's going to look like.

Remember that?

He's nodding his head back there.

Guess what.

It's been some years ago.

I didn't have a clue.

This is what I said to them.

They said,

we have people that visit,

but they don't come back.

I said,

well, you got to ask
yourself why then,

right? They said,

there's 65,000 marines and families just
north of us up at Camp Lejeune.

I said,

let's suppose we could
reach 1% of them,

600 people.

What if we'd have to
build something?

We'd have to do something.

So what do we do?

We just preach a lot,

that's all.

Just do many,

many, many.

Right. See,

folks, I am not smart enough to plan
what God has done in this place.

I'm not Glenn Batts.

He pastors life walk church
right down here.

Glenn sat with me on the back porch
over here by the kitchen after we

built that porch.

And he said,

bobby, he said,

how did you do this?

I said,

I don't know.

I don't have a clue.

But when God presented
an opportunity,

we stepped into it.

We weren't afraid of it.

We weren't afraid of the opposition.

We weren't afraid that I should one
day tell the story of the pulpit

furniture.

But some of y'all would get
mad about that story.

I just want y'all to know that,

folks, what is God presenting
to us in this text?

Here you go.

What step of faith will you take today
that will have an impact for

generations?

Moses got up one morning and said,

no more of this.

I'm going to go be a slave
with my people.

What step of faith will we,

me and you,

not. Not collectively,

what will I do today that will ring
through the generations to come?

Cause remember last week I
asked you the question,

I said,

when you moved your family,

and then I said,

I asked this question.

The whole idea of taking
steps of faith.

Yeah. We're sitting in a nice,

pleasant, wonderfully air
conditioned room,

right? Remember?

I was.

I was very sarcastic last week.

Did y'all know that?

Sure you did.

I said,

what did you do by faith?

And they say,

well, we sat in worship.

Yay.

What did you do by faith?

Well, I walked down that
aisle and got baptized.

Yay. Do you know what?

Every day we as believers and folks
who believe in the holiness of God

and God's command to holiness,

make choices about what we're
going to do with the sin.

For a season,

we make choices with how we will identify
with the world or how we will

identify with God,

with whether or not we're going to believe
what God has said in his word,

or whether we're going
to believe some late,

great philosophies of culture.

See that,

folks? Every one of us in this room makes
decisions by faith every single

day.

What faith decision will you make
today that has an impact for

generations to come?

Two weeks ago,

I told y'all there's a tough
question in store.

And this is it.

This is it.

I warned you.

Told you not to come back if you
didn't want the tough question.

What decision of faith
will you make today?

Now, can I make it more personal?

You ready?

Yes, I can make it more personal.

What faith decision are you making each
day that has an impact on your

home, on your children,

in your workplace,

on your street?

See that?

And guess what?

You don't have to answer
me or answer to me,

but we're all going to answer to God
when we are told in scripture to

walk by faith.

And then we read a chapter,

like chapter eleven that says,

by faith.

By faith.

By faith.

By faith.

I think we're supposed
to ask ourselves,

what is it that I do by faith?

To be faithful,

to be surrendered to God.

All right?

It all starts with Jesus.

There's some folks later today that are
going to take a step of faith and

go out into the ocean and
trust me to dunk them,

but they're trusting me
to bring them back up.

All right.

Jesus is the beginning of the walk,

folks. We look at Jesus as
the end of the walk.

Okay, I got Jesus.

I'm going to heaven.

No Jesus every day.

It's faith every day.

And I'll give you some personal
action points.

You ready?

There's something in your life that
you're asking God to take away.

What do you need to do first for
it to get out of the way?

What step do you need to take so that
God can bless that step of faith

for the future?

Now, this doesn't get any easier.

Just so y'all know,

we're gonna make our way
through chapter eleven.

Then we're gonna get
to chapter twelve.

When we get to chapter twelve,

we're gonna talk about all the cloud
of witnesses that are watching what

they're watching.

Faith be lived out.

Okay, there's your warning.

If you don't know Jesus
this morning,

we want you to know Jesus.

Okay. Pray with me.

Father, thank you for today.

God, I thank you for your word.

And I thank you,

God, for the way you convicted me with
this little bitty passage right

here. Moses decisions.

Moses mom and dad's decisions.

The people's decisions.

By faith,

to be obedient to you and
not to be obedient.

Obedient to this world,

not to be obedient to selfish
desire to the what I want.

God, you have called us
to walk towards you.

Actually, we heard it
in the last chapter.

Draw near with boldness
to the throne of God.

God, help us to step in
faith toward you.

Not our own pleasure,

not our own wants,

not our own preferences,

not our own whatever this
world would say.

But, God,

what you have said and help us to surrender
to you as we sing this song.

God, convict our hearts nobody has
to walk forward but if they do,

God, we're going to pray.

But, God,

convict our hearts that we will be obedient
to what you've said to us.

And we pray it in Jesus name.

Amen. I.