Written by Paul J Bucknell on February, 11, 2023
Hebrews 11:23-29 Faith’s Eternal Trophy
23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. 24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, 26 considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them. 29 By faith they passed through the Red Sea as though they were passing through dry land; and the Egyptians, when they attempted it, were drowned. (Hebrews 11:23-29 NASB)
What would you think of a man who felt he needed something else when entering his living room and went out, bought a lovely table and a trophy for it? Trophies can be very nice looking and impressive. When you visit this friend, he asks how you like his new trophy. You ask him where he got it, and he answers, “At the trophy shop.” What do you think of this? Why?
A trophy gains its value from what it symbolizes rather than its inherent value. I suppose this man’s action would be similar to buying a degree but never having studied for it, boasting that “I have a MA” or “I have a Ph.D.” It is self-contradictory. A trophy finds its true importance only in the excellence of the person’s achievement. The question is not whether you have the trophy but whether you possess a distinguished character or earned achievement.
Jesus said, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” (Mat 6:1)
Those saints mentioned in Hebrews 11 didn’t play religion or self–adoration. They didn’t get their names on that list because of what they did but how they did it. Faith was the signatory mark for those in Hebrew 11 and, hopefully for us. Our names will appear on an updated listing; our heads will be crowned only if we live by faith.
I’d like to share three stages in getting your name on this list and gaining an eternal trophy from God. This trophy doesn’t perish with time, wear, rust, or disease but continues to radiate God’s glory.
A. Lacking Faith
This first step is hard to swallow. And frankly, it is only because we are sinners that we need to be concerned with this step. But since we all qualify as sinners, we must go through this first step.
Five times in our passage of Hebrews 11:23-29 it says, “By faith.”Before we begin to get anywhere, we must recognize that our accomplishments are in vain, as far as we are concerned, if they are not done in faith for the glory of God. Religion gets in our way.
You might feel comfortable with what you have obtained. You might like those trophies you bought from the store. But they are vain and despicable. Esau traded in what was so crucial for a bowl of soup. When we begin to be proud of what we have achieved, we can be sure we have achieved nothing to be commended on by God. Isaiah 42:8 says convincingly,
“I am the Lord, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, nor My praise to graven images.” (Isaiah 42:8)
God is jealous of His glory. The only way He will be glorified by what we do is by living by faith. Our activity then is not man-oriented but God–oriented. We do things not because of what we see around us but by the One we cannot see.
He is not interested in what you can do on your own. Even the notion that you have done it on your strength or wisdom is foolish. What do we have without Him giving it to us? He is not only the Creator but the Sustainer. When we exalt ourselves, our wisdom, our strength, and our riches apart from Him, it’s like spitting at God Almighty. We have nothing unless it is given to us.
Most of the things we have done have not been because of faith— maybe nothing has. One can go from church to church, position to position, but never meet God. There is a 40-year-old deacon, a 55-year-old choir member, a 30-year-old youth advisor, and a 10-year-old giving his offering. Religious activity or charitable giving can never substitute for action derived from the love for God.
Notice the different things Moses did. Could he have done these things in the flesh? Sure, he could. Many others left Egypt, kept the Passover, went through the Red Sea, and had no faith. Many did and died in the wilderness. See Heb 3:12-17.
When Moses left all those riches, that could not be of the flesh. But indeed, if God had not changed His focus in life, it would have been for any other reason than God. Remember Gautama, who left his palace and later formed Buddhism? We might not understand asceticism in our materialistic world, but it can be a form of religious activity.
Instead of patting ourselves on our backs, we must recognize our lack of faith. We need to confess the problem with being comfortable around religion. God wants to break into our lives and wake us up. When we look at our stocks, insurance policies, year goals, etc., He wants us to think about Him. He wants us to live differently because we have finally awakened to acknowledge God’s presence in our lives.
It all starts with faith and, at this point, recognizing the lack of faith. “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mat 5:3).
Application
What about our worship today? Is it done with the recognition that God is the great one? Do we sing and pray to Him? Do we hear God’s Word as if He is speaking to us? Do we have mere religion or the Christian faith?
We might be happy with our ways because we are comfortable with them. But dare we be comfortable when God says it is not done in faith? Would it make a difference in your faith if God was not real? Is it possible your life here is comfortable, but you haven’t met the source of your life?
B. Obtaining Faith: Orient your life around God
If we acknowledge we don’t have sufficient faith, then the vital question is how to gain this faith. We must address this on two levels.
Level 1: Possessing Faith
At some point in your life, you need to come to faith in Christ. This sounds simplistic or boring to some, but it remains the most remarkable change in a person’s life. He goes from having no faith in God to faith in God. She, at one point, lives her life without God, but now lives as if He is real. God’s person makes a real difference in that person’s life.
Now many people say they believe in God. We are not talking about those who accept the existence of God. Romans 1 says that is very clear. Atheists must struggle to keep their atheism because the evidence is so overwhelming; they must continually feed lies into their minds. However, faith here is different.
This faith demands a different kind of life, a reorientation to life. This faith is so evident that it changes one’s life. In other words, awareness of God’s person and purpose influences our lives. He is as essential in getting to work as my car. We don’t want church anymore unless He is there.
The saddest thing in the Old Testament was when the Spirit left the temple. So-called worship continued, but it was idolatry. In the message to the churches in Revelation, God challenges each church to maintain its true worship, or He will leave it. The signs of prayer meetings and church business meetings without God are arguing, selfishness, lack of prayer, insensitivity to people, over–sensitivity to people, and lack of carrying out God’s will.
If you have found yourself calling yourself a Christian without a fundamental life change, then you have not met God. You aren’t what they call a Christian and must be born from above. Moses couldn’t tolerate an Egyptian killing a brother. He couldn’t stand there doing anything. His response was overkill, but at least he responded. He exposed himself when he did this, and his whole future as Pharaoh fell apart before his eyes. He was no dummy. He knew the consequences.
If you look in scripture, one will find that he looked every different way first to make sure nobody would know. He knew his response was one of faith in God rather than compromise, which would have given him a respectable and paying job with excellent benefits.
Level 2: Gaining a Stronger Faith
This introduces us to the second level. Christians need stronger faith. I wish we would get more restless of this world. Our comfortableness disturbs me and makes me think that we belong to a world that is perishing rather than God’s kingdom. We see the immorality around us and accept it. We watch it. We are entertained by it. We are entertained by violence, blood, and cruelty. We don’t cry when we hear about the one million children being slaughtered in America alone yearly by abortion. No, we are too busy to protest, to pray, to call.
We are respectable people keeping our respectable jobs. We get so involved in making provisions for our life, that we don’t have time to love one another.
Do we forget our roles as husbands and dads, wives and mothers? What are we training our children to be? God’s people or politically correct machines make good money. Faith alone can open our eyes to the living as God’s people in this dark world.
Application
We need to learn from Moses’ parents. They lived as parents by faith. It took more than just what comes typically. This is true today. The problem is exaggerated today because parents aren’t even concerned with doing good. I think the way the parents have given up on their children for their careers, peace of mind, lusts, and so-called freedom from strife is one of the greatest signs of judgment.
Often the parent says they are concerned about their children, but they lie. If they cared, they would pray. They would listen in to the concerns of their life. They would peek into the world and see the temptations the youth face. They would closely monitor the programs they watch or the computer games they play. Neither would they dare hold their child as an idol.
A parent with faith’s most significant concern is not good grades for their children but a love and passion for serving God. They would want their children’s names written down in the book of life. They would make it their great purpose to assist their children in having their names written in this appended list.
C. Living By Faith
When we meet God, our life changes, His will becomes ours. We are no longer asking about being fulfilled but about how to help others. And like Moses, we will sometimes feel out of sync. We are not doing things acceptable in other peoples’ eyes but what is acceptable in God’s eyes. This is called the fear of God rather than the fear of man. We believe so much in God that He will destroy us if we don’t obey Him. We get serious with His Word. We get serious with Him.
Genuine faith changes one’s life. Wycliff spoke out against the unjust things the church was doing and against false teaching and translated the Bible into English. It cost him his friends and his professorship at Oxford. But he left behind a movement of people called the Lollards who set the way for the Reformation just over a century away. Paul left his religious and prestigious practice because there was another calling.
Moses wasn’t on a racial kick where he went anti-religious and pro-Hebrew. He wasn’t trying to heal his rough childhood, or be the big he-man, rescuer. Moses would have been content without leading the people out of Egypt, but he was willing to go where God told him. For Moses, that meant he was ready to leave Egypt’s fame, known for the very great structures as the intriguing pyramids, as well as the very delicate such as found in the 1600 threads per inch material.
Faith and works should travel side by side, step answering to step, like the legs of men walking. First faith, and then works; and then faith again, and then works again–until you can scarcely distinguish between which is the one and which is the other. –William Booth in the Founder's Messages to Soldiers: CT 10/5/92
Moses said he couldn’t speak. God said it didn’t matter. God wants all of us to come with our lives before Him. Anything we keep from the excellent throne of God becomes our idol. We must bring our hopes, dreams, traditions, jobs, families, and friends before God. We must not rely on experience but grow in faith right now.
Application
I wonder if you are living in the presence of the awesome God. Have you seen Him? Has He met with you? If you keep a part of your life from Him, then you are not dead to yourselves. Is your mind on the reward ahead or the compliments right now? God is calling His people to come out of the world and serve Him. There must be a separation of heart and changed behavior to prove that we are not deceiving ourselves. I sometimes think the church is too involved in being like other churches to do what God wants of her.
Thoughts on FAITH suggested by Hebrews 11
- Either we are walking by FAITH or we are depending on our own resources.
- FAITH is the means God has devised to bring His resources into our daily lives.
- FAITH enables us to face fear.
- FAITH enables us to make the right choices.
- FAITH enables us to wait for the ultimate reward.
- FAITH is God's way of turning our weakness into His strength.
(From notes on a series of messages by Dr. Daniel W. Bacon)
Summary
When we meet God, we gain faith. The word faith in this context speaks not to what one acknowledges but to what one responds and relies on. There is so little talk of heaven today. How many have their hearts there? Would you rather read the listings of stocks and funds or meditate on heaven? Men and women of faith have a firm hope in heaven, not just as an insurance clause in case something doesn’t work out here on earth.
It acts as the founding hope for all they do here on earth. You see, if you are making your trophies now, then on that judgment day you shall have none. Only God can give you trophies when you live by faith, but you won’t have them now to show off. You will be too busy understanding and doing God’s will to get caught up in the 3-ringed-circus on earth. How do you get that eternal trophy? In trying not to be over-simplistic, there are three steps.
1) Confess Our Lack of Faith
2) Obtain Faith in God
3) Live by Faith
James says that we cannot be friends of God and friends with the world. Jesus has called us to love Him with all our soul, mind, and strength. The consequences of accepting living a false confession are drastic, but the joy of following God and obeying Him is eternal joy.
