How Long Will You Take?
Jim Clements · Tidal Church Miramichi · August 16, 2026 · Heroes of the Faith series
Jim Clements walks through Moses in Hebrews 11, showing four choices of faith: identity in Christ over status, eternal reward over temporary pleasure, courage because God is with us, and obedience without seeing the outcome. He asks how long we will wait to put Christ first.
More from Jim Clements · The Heroes of the Faith series
Topics: Faith, Identity, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] Because when we first had our children, it was anything but a holiday, I can tell you that. No users manuals, no anything came with it to tell you how to do things and you just learned. So I'm Pastor Jim, I'm the lead pastor of Tidal Church between our locations in Moncton, Shediac and Miramichi. And I've been blessed today because I started my day in Kokan where I live and I got to go to Shediac and then come to Miramichi. So this has been a great day so far. There's often time in our lives that we have what's called defining moments. Times in our life when we we come face to face with making a decision or doing something that begins to define the next step. It defines part of our journey, part of our path that will stay with us for a long time and we'll reflect on it and look back. And it's how do we navigate through that. And I think for my wife Giselle and I, one of those times, we've had many times over, we've been married 35 years this year and so we've had many times over those 35 years.
[1:06] But there's one in particular when both of us were, we were attending church and I was sitting like where you all are. I wasn't a pastor always, worked in business and trucking in oil. And we were sitting out there and when we first found out, I came home from a business trip and she had taken a chair and put it right inside the front door with this stuffed monkey on it. And when I came through the door, I knew immediately what that meant because we wanted to have a family. That was like she found out that she was pregnant and it was lots of excitement, right? And we went through weeks of thinking about, oh, like back then you didn't find out a boy or a girl like you can now. And you just think about, oh, I wonder what the baby's going to be.
[1:52] We thought about all the things we would do, the room, we'd prep the room and how we would decorate based on a girl or paint it based on a boy. We're going through all this thinking and excitement and joy. And we went in for a checkup at about 28 weeks or so. And as I sat there and I saw the ultrasound, and I knew immediately what had happened. And we begin to be told by the doctors that there's been a miscarriage and that the baby had passed. And the baby's name we had picked out was Gabriel Miguel. And at that point in time, the doctors and the nurses and they go, is there anyone you would like to talk to? We have counselors here, we have chaplain. And I said to them, I said, we don't need to speak with any of them.
[2:41] What we need to do is to speak to our pastor and to make the right decision. His name was Jack Fancy. And I spoke with Jack and I told him what had happened. And I said, so when Sunday comes, we're going to show up and I'm going to rededicate my life and put my faith back where it needs to be at the level it needs to be. And Gisele is going to give her life to Christ for the first time. And Jack goes, you can't plan it like that. And I said, oh, yes, you can. I said, when God meets you in the defining moment and you make that decision, you have to place your faith. And that's what we did. We had the blessing to be baptized together. Gisele and I did. And when I say together, I mean locked arms and put back the exact same time. And the poor pastor, he was like this pulling me up and he said, just pull her with you.
[3:36] And I just pulled her up. So that was a defining moment for us. And today we're going to learn about Moses. And we're going to learn that through faith, it's not enough to simply believe in God. Like faith has to encompass so much more. And a lot of times now, there's people that come to church, they're just checking the box. This is what I've done. Or this is what I'm starting to do. This is what I think I should do. They check the box. And that's such a small part of our faith. And even when we understand and we give our life to Christ and we experienced baptisms here a few weeks ago, that's just the beginning. Like there's a whole nother, I don't know how many steps to faith as you grow.
[4:21] And it's just the beginning for us. So we're going to walk through four different faith situations through the life of Moses in Hebrews. And we're going to start in Hebrews 11, 24. It says, it was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. See faith chooses God's identity over worldly status. And we think about what Moses has done. Think about it. I mean, at that point in time, he was a baby and his mom wanted to save, didn't know what to do, set up a drift in a basket. Like you'd probably be arrested if he did that now, right? Like I'm going to take my baby and set it in a drift and hopefully finds a good spot. And Pharaoh's daughter finds Moses and raises him as his own.
[5:11] Moses has everything. I mean, he lived in the palace. He had wealth, he had power, he had education, he had influence. He had everything that even in the world today, people would want to have. And we remember the Exodus story that I just shared. In humanly speaking, we would say, man, Moses was rescued from the life he would have had to the life that he got. He was rescued from that. Yet he came to one day, the astonishing decision that he made, to say, I no longer want to be of Egyptian royalty, that I no longer want to be of all these riches and influence. I will begin to identify myself with God's enslaved people.
[5:57] And the decision that he made cost him everything to follow his faith. It cost him everything. See, Moses understood that his identity had to be lived out in his faith. It wasn't determined where he lived, it was determined how he lived it out. It wasn't determined by his title, it wasn't determined by his success, it was determined by God's calling on his life. That's where his identity was. Many people today, we build our identities around our careers, our possessions. We build them around politics, achievements, and popularity. And let me come back to politics just for a second. It's a touchy topic, I know. And last week, I had the chance to be in Chicago at a leadership conference.
[6:46] And we're going to be hosting on October 29th at the Moncton campus, the Global Leadership Summit. And I got to go there to listen to the speakers ahead of time and to give input of which ones we wanted to have. And as I'm sitting in Chicago, it was all assigned to a 7,000-seat room. I was like, wow, I guess this is huge. And sitting next to me were two federal MPs from Ottawa, both men in Christ. One had brought his wife with them and sitting there. And one is from the Northern New Brunswick, and the other one's from the Niagara region in Ontario. And I went, God, you're so good. And I sit next to these guys and we're talking about things. And then we got seated together for lunch.
[7:32] And I'm like, you're getting away from me, right? And we had conversations and I said, how can we help as a church? Like the church universal, how can we help? And they both said, stand up and be heard and not to be quiet. He said, so often we push and we push. And he said, and the church tends to be quiet. And he said, we need you to stand up and be a voice. So what I'm saying is your faith has to go above your politics. I know there's family heritage of what party you voted for, or what person you voted for, all that kind of stuff. And I want to tell you right now, and they would say it too, they did say it, there's no perfect person running in politics.
[8:17] So you got to take your faith and your belief and you hold it up and you kind of go, okay, which person, based on research, conversations, is closer aligned to the faith that I live, right? So I'm going to leave that with you. But these two men, it was good to see, there was people that I told that to in Moncton and they're like, there's Christian people that are MPs. I guess there is, I met two of them, Richard and Dennis. So they were very, very good. We had lots of conversation. But the thing is, in our culture, as I've traveled around the world in that, if you live in North American culture and someone comes up to you and they say, oh, tell me about yourself. Do you know what we do as North Americans, the first thing you tell them about our job? I do. And I never realized this until someone pointed out to me.
[9:07] And that's how we define ourselves is by our job. And I've been to the Middle East, I've been to India, I've been to Africa, I've been all through the Europe and everything. And when I say that question to someone now, since I go, tell me about yourself. And they go, you know what, I'm a huge follower of Christ, or they may say, I love being outdoors. Like they tell you about themselves, not the job they do. And I went, huh. So our identity is so important, but our identity has to be as children of God first above anything else. Before God changes what we do, he changes who we are. And that means putting our faith first. And we think like we got to give everything up. I got to like, I got to change everything. Maybe you do. Maybe there's some situations where it's not God-like or it needs a little tuning or just a little change.
[9:57] There's some people that need to like a wholesale change because their legacy, their upbringing wasn't as good as some of us have had the benefit of. So I want you to think of yourselves the next time you think about that, you got to change everything. Think about the trees that lose their leaves in the fall. It's the same trunk. It's the same branches. The leaves fall off. And next year, new leaves come. So maybe you don't have to give up everything. Maybe that's something the enemy's been telling you. And you just go, God, you know what, I'm going to stand firm where you've placed me. I'm in church. Give my life to you. I've been baptized, but I need some new leaves and let the old ones drop and let them grow new ones and new branches for you. Think of it that way. The greatest question is, what do I do? The greatest question is, who do I belong to?
[10:47] Faith begins when we recognize we belong to Christ above everything else. We belong to Christ above everything else. We'll even think about, we're like, well, thank God for this thing. Or we say, Hey God, could you help me like work through this situation at work? It's a bad situation at work or at school. And you know what? Like you're breathing because he tells you you can breathe. You walk because he's designed you to walk. Like we're asking him to take this little bit of our life and fix it. Like that's how much we have control of. He has the rest of it. And so we should be at all times going, thank you for the air I breathe. Thank you for the ability to walk.
[11:32] Thank you for the friends that I have. Thank you for the job that I have. Even if you don't like it, like thank you for that. I've got a gentleman who works at the Costco and every time I see him and go in, we like bust it up long enough so they didn't get in trouble because I don't puke. Cameras are watching all that kind of stuff, but he's so thankful for his job at Costco. Do you know why? So he doesn't have to pay for gym membership because he lifts everything. He's like, I can get a workout every day and I don't have to go to the gym anymore. Like they're paying me to work out. He's a big dude. And I'm like, well, I never looked at it like that before, right? And he goes, not the job I want. And I'm working towards the one I want, but I'm getting a free workout every day. All how we look at things, what God's blessed us with. Faith chooses the eternal reward over temporary pleasures. It chooses courage over faith.
[12:21] It chooses obedience over things that would hold us captive and it gives us deliverance and freedom that obedience is. That's what faith does. Moses wasn't perfect. He struggled with fear. Moses doubted himself. He had insecurities. He had failures. He had a life that he was trying to figure out yet God used him because Moses chose to trust them. Moses chose to trust God in all things. We read in the next portion of the scripture in Hebrews where it says he chose to share the oppression of God's people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. Now notice the wording. The Bible never says that sin isn't pleasurable.
[13:08] What it does say is that it's temporary. But I will tell you that the promises that God gives us last forever. The promises that sin and temporary pleasure give us last a very short time. But the effects of some of those decisions that we make and the impact of some of those decisions we make stay with you a lifetime and they'll come back and haunt you. They may not haunt you in relationships or physically, but they will haunt you mentally and in your thought life. It'll come back. The enemy will continue to bring them back again and again and again. Faith sees beyond the temporary and what's right in front of us. Faith sees to the eternal and what's been promised to us that God has planned. Moses looked past Egypt.
[13:58] He looked past his comfort. He looked past everything he had and he looked beyond the temporary gain and saw what could be gained if he trusted God with his life, with his faith, and direction. Hebrews continues, it says, he thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to his great reward. We think about the average person even today would go, read that and go, the treasures of Egypt? It's historical, the treasures of Egypt. He gave all that up. It was one of the greatest, greatest kind of organizations. It was one of the greatest countries. It was one of the greatest empires of all time. The wealth that they had were unimaginable. And he said, no, God, you are greater than all things that are of this earth.
[14:55] Moses considered Christ more valuable. Here's the mathematics that we'll use when it comes to what the world will tell us what faith is. It says, temporary pleasure is greater than obedience. But when we put our faith first and above everything else, our obedience is greater than temporary pleasure. See, everything that we do, everything we say, every relationship we have, should be filtered by our faith. Our faith should be the first thing that gets lifted up and be held to look through at everything we do and everything we say. Faith has to be our compass. Anyone ever use the compass? When I was 12 years old, I was a boy scout. It was me and three other kids. They dropped in the middle of the woods and they said, here's coordinates.
[15:48] You've got one day to get to these coordinates. And they dropped us about noontime. And we had till noontime the next day to show up at those coordinates. Can you imagine doing that with 12 year olds today? It's not going to happen, right? And it's not because they're 12. It's because we haven't trained them. We haven't taken the time and the same thing goes with faith. I mean, we did that once in the summer and once in the winter. We had to build a shelter in the winter, figure out how to know adults with us. This is a Newfoundland, like winter in Newfoundland, a little bit rough, but we found our way and we enjoyed it. And faith has to be our compass. We can't be our compass, you know, because there's too many earthly influences that we allow in and it'll guide us to spots. And the enemy is so good at cloaking things to look like it's good, right?
[16:37] But if you go, God, is that what you want me to do? You'll hear it quickly. I tell my son-in-law often he's from Minnesota and he moves at a quick pace, like fast. And I'm like, dude, you just need to slow down, right? Like you're in the maritimes now, like we slow, we could like slow roll everything, right? But everything in faith too, I mean, I remember what it was like living my life and I felt like I was running down a hallway and every 10 feet, there were two doors and I had to make a decision to open the door so I could keep moving. And then God said, you just need to slow down so you can hear me. When we go too fast, we can't hear. And so now in life, like I wander up and I'm like, oh, there's two doors. Like which one, God, do you want me to pick?
[17:24] And I know that makes it sound simple, but he'll tell you, he'll tell you, he'll get a, you'll get a sense of your spirit that will pass all understanding. You go, okay, this one, and you take that step and you move towards it. And for me and Giselle, as you know, we live on our principle that the answer is always yes. Now what's the question? And we've done that time and time again, and God has always been faithful when we say you've called us. So our answer is always yes. Now what's the question? See, Jesus even taught the same principle for us when it comes to earthly things. In Mark 836, it says, and what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?
[18:12] What lasts forever, we need to ask ourselves. Everything we choose is like comfort over calling. That's what people do. That's what people do today. I want to be more comfortable. What about God's calling on your life? We got to be able to ask that question. This is a big one. Popularity over faithfulness. If I've got to watch another person trying to take a selfie seven or eight different times just to get the right light, the right angle, the right look, the right everything, I'm just like, you've got to be kidding me, right? And it just, one of the speakers that was there talked about the impact of digital on the human brain. And I'm not going to bore you with it, but it just made me go.
[18:57] And it was just eye-opening of how it impacts left and right brain. We choose convenience over obedience. We want to figure out what's just enough that I can do to have faith and like have a relationship with Jesus and still get into heaven. Versus living a life that says, what all can I do? So without a doubt, I know I'm going to heaven and I know my faith is first. That's where our life should be living. It's not in the what ifs or just enough. It's got to be all or nothing. And coming to church on Sunday, it's good. But my question would be, what's happening the other six days of the week?
[19:47] When you're at work, when you're at school, when you're hanging out with your friends, when nobody sees you, what are you doing when nobody sees you? I had to go to the Moncton City Hospital to get blood work done. My doctor likes me. I'm getting older now, and so he wants me to like get blood work more regular. And so I made an appointment. And when I arrived at my appointment at the Moncton Hospital, I was told that like, well, you still got to take a number. And I'm like, you missed the whole point of making an appointment. And they're like, well, everybody's got to take a number. Then why did I make an appointment? I could have just showed up and taken a number, right? And it's not the people. I love the people that work there. They're doing their job. It's the system. So I go over and I pull the tab off and it's like B10. And I remember this. It was B10. And I looked, if you ever been there, up on the digital, there's a little digital clock. It was like A98.
[20:38] I guess I got 12 people. I got to wait. And I got an appointment. And so I go over and there's a countertop that's there. If you've never been there in a pillar, and I went over and I leaned on the pillar to wait for my number so I can see it and watch all the people be in service. And I happened to look down at the counter. And there was all the tabs that people had pulled and used from prior. And on the counter is the tab B01. So somebody got frustrated and left. I got B10. I'm 12 away. Or I can be three away. And in that moment, because I'm a new fee.
[21:24] I'm a slow roller anyway, right? And God goes through the Holy Spirit. He goes, there's people that are waiting ahead of you. You don't get to jump the line. I could give the person who has B15, B10, they could jump too, right? And I took that little pile and I just squished it all up. They had B1 underneath. And I waited for B10. Because my faith is not worth trading for nine spots or whatever nine spots on the blood test. It's what do we do with our faith when people aren't watching God, but God's watching, right? And that's a simple example. But we do that all the time.
[22:10] We trade it all the time. Have you ever been in a store and they gave you back too much money? That's happened to me. And I'm like, I don't know how you just counted that, but that makes no sense. Because I gave you 20 and you gave me back like 25. So I don't know how that math works from the cash register. Because it's like even doing it for you. And I go, you gave me too much money. And you know what the response is? Oh, that's not possible. Oh, no, it's possible. Like, let me lay it out here and show it to you, right? Because our faith, the only value our faith has on it is eternity. And it has to hold itself above everything else. Everything. Even the things that we, little comedians, nobody would have known that I switched B1 for B10.
[22:59] Nobody, I just told you all. Nobody would have known. Every time that something happens, I've gotten into the posture of just thanking God. And someone had to remind me that a couple of weeks, my wife got in a car accident and someone hit her. Someone had hit her. And I was like, this is the most inconvenient time to lose a vehicle. Because like, I want to look for a vehicle when I need a vehicle. I don't want to look for a vehicle because something happened. Now I got to look for a vehicle. And I was just sitting there and I'm like, why does this happen? And then someone came along and they said, I heard what happened. And they said that you may think that's awful. And I go, yeah, I think it's pretty awful.
[23:45] But they said, I wonder what God saved you from down the road by owning that car. And I was like, thank you. I said, thank you to them. But I really like thank you God, just for reminding me and all things I should give thanks and all things when you hold your faith above everything, that's where it sits and it stays there. That's where it needs to stay. So when we think about that and Moses, as he considered his relationship with God more valuable than anything, we can't choose temporary treasures for eternal reward. There's no substitution for the eternal reward that we will get. As we continue in Hebrews, it says it was by faith that Moses left the land of Egypt, not fearing of the king's anger. He kept right on going because he kept his eyes on the one who is invisible. This verse is summarizing Moses's life when after he had experience with God at the burning bush. And if we look at in there at Exodus three, like there's two great stories that are coming in here and God and Moses was in wandering for 40 years and he was thinking like he was done. He was thinking he's useless.
[24:55] He's thinking God's not going to use him. He's just left and then all of a sudden God appears to him and he says I see the misery of my people and I'm sending you. Can you imagine just being nothing and then he's going I'm sending you and Moses responds like who am I? Who will I tell them that your name is? Why would they believe me? I can't even speak well. Please send somebody else like please. And then Moses just like us, he made excuses, he made reasons, he had fear, he had doubt, he had insecurity. That's what all these statements put out here. But God didn't go, oh Moses, you'll be okay.
[25:44] It's great. Like it's Moses, you're a good speaker. People really like you. Like you've been doing so well. They didn't do any of that on a self-esteem. God objected to every one of his statements with one simple phrase that's still impactful today. He said I will be with you. That's all he said. I'm not a good speaker. I'll be with you. Who am I? I'll be with you. Who will I say your name is? I'll be with you. What if they don't believe? I'll be with you. And everything we have today that we struggle with in our faith, whatever it is, you got to remember that because it's still effective today and it's still God today. He's still at work and lives and he just says I'll be with you. And that's always enough when he says that.
[26:31] Because for Moses, see, he had to realize that courage comes from God. Courage doesn't mean there's an absence of fear. It just means God says I'll be with you. Okay, you're with me. We got this. God's way of saying I got this. You're just going to be there for me. Courage is not the absence of fear. Moses was afraid. Faith just simply obeys regardless of fear because God says I'll be with you. Many believers think that if you're you can't be courageous and anxious. There's a lot of times for me I can tell you like unless it comes to jumping off something like I got a fear height and unless my house on fire and I'm on the roof I'm not jumping.
[27:17] You know what I mean? Like it's just like I can look and I got stuck on the roof of our house one time because the kids threw a toy up there. And I got up on the ladder and I was fine. Getting back on the ladder coming down was a whole different story. Giselle was on the phone with her mother. We were living in Virginia at the time. I sat up there for two hours because the kids went and got a snack and went and watched something. Forgot to tell their mother I was on the roof and come to hold the ladder so I can get down. Right? So courage I didn't have the courage to get down off that ladder. I was anxious but there's difference right between even earthly courage and biblical courage because when God says I'll be with you that's biblical courage. That's our faith being lived out every day in our lives and moving forward with God. He saw him who was invisible is what it said in Hebrews and that's a remarkable phrase because faith is moving without seeing something with our eyes.
[28:14] And there's a lot of people now like unless you're from Missouri and if you want to go look up Missouri on their license plate it says the show me state because they don't believe anything unless you show them. And so they're the show me state. Well as believers we're not the show me believers. We follow in faith and what Moses could see with these faith-filled eyes and not physical eyes everyone at the time saw Pharaoh. Moses saw God. Everyone else just saw the Red Sea. Moses saw God's power where everyone else just saw impossibilities. Faith sees opportunity. Faith sees opportunity every time when we're faithful. What's invisible today that we think about that we got to remember is that God is still present. God still speaks to us.
[29:09] God will still deliver and God opens impossible paths because he's God and because our faith rests right where he is. Faith chooses obedience that leads to deliverance. It continues in Hebrews it says it was by faith that Moses commanded the people of Israel to keep the Passover to sprinkle blood on the doorpost so the angel of death would not kill their firstborn sons. It was by faith that people of Israel went right through the Red Sea as though they were on dry ground but when the Egyptians tried to follow they were drowned. These are two great points when we think about it because we got to think God instructed the households to sacrifice the lamb as it said and put the blood over the doors and the angel of death they could hear people screaming and yelling and everything human if someone was to from God through the Holy Spirit who said you got to put this on your doors because something's going to happen this week how many of us would do that and back then it didn't make any sense but they fall and they were obedient and it brought salvation to them it brought them to a point where the angel just passed their doors and I can't imagine what it would have been like sitting there hearing all that happen but it represented faith and then centuries later Jesus became the Passover lamb from that standpoint we're saved not because we deserve it we're saved because we trust the sacrifice that Jesus made for each one of us and then we think of the Red Sea and I mean I can't even imagine you like Pharaoh goes just get out of here and just leave and everybody's leaving and we've seen movie depictions of it in Hollywood and like all these people leaving following Moses and then they get to a spot there's desert there's mountain there's water there's Pharaoh's army behind them and they're just like we're gonna die we're gonna die and then God says to Moses
[31:14] tell the people to move forward and can't you just picture Moses standing like like like forward towards the water you mean like that's like there like that's what you want us to do and God's like yeah because sometimes it seems impossible when we look at it but we're in obedience and we trust because we keep our faith above everything else in our lives we take that first step but there's something in here think about it it wasn't what God did first it was what his people did first because they were all over here going I'm not going towards the sea like I don't even swim right like that cart I got filled up with stuff that's going to sink to the bottom like a rock there's no way I'm walking into that sea Moses said we got to walk into that sea there's and they weren't all over there trying to figure it out okay we'll hold on to it maybe it'll float a little right we'll get across and all like that kind of thing or I got a better job to climb the mountains maybe I get like some of you might die as we're going up but I think I can get up there and and maybe I'll just I'll go back to they're not having those kind of conversations and then God goes parts the sea God says move and when they move towards the sea and Moses held up his staff the sea part it and one of the things we miss quickly we read through this they went through as if on dry ground I don't know about you but I've walked down the water after the saying after the tide goes out it is pretty wet I'm pretty big old boy like I sink in that stuff still right and they went across on dry ground because God is good God is faithful and God when we live with our faith raised above everything else in our lives and our human expectations no matter what it is no matter what hardship you've got no matter what's going on and you just go God I trust you no matter what you tell me the answer is yes and
[33:16] I'm gonna move and they get across there and of course we all know that what happens they get across the old bay and in comes the the Egyptian army and and they're all gone and destroyed the sea opened to show the possibilities of what trusting God is and to this day scientists still try to prove right disprove all this how this happened I don't know about you I stand by the ocean a lot and I go there's no way this is part like it's just they can come in maybe they can put stuff and they I've seen them stop Niagara Falls and reroute it on videos but that's all man putting stuff in but just to part it like that and when they moved and obeyed that's when the sea part it that's when it part it faith moves before all the answers appear and that's why we live a life that says yes now what's the question and if we live that in faithfulness with God the red seas that we come against our family situations health challenges ministry opportunities financial burdens broken relationships maybe some family broken relationships and we give them the God I'm not saying that you've got to sacrifice yourself in light of a view of God this year I'm going to hold my faith up here and I'm not going to be this way I'm not going to act this way it's not worth the price to compromise my faith and so every obstacle I place in front of you and on that day for Gisela and I that's what we did we said we're going to put our faith in the right spot and we trust you and conversations that happened after she was like I don't ever want to have a family and I said God's called us to have a family we both talked about it had conversations about it and we just got to trust them we put our faith and we elevated it he just wants us to take the next faithful step Moses
[35:20] faith wasn't perfect Moses wasn't perfect Moses murdered Egyptian he doubted God he argued with God he became frustrated with the Israel people Hebrews though remembers him as a man of faith why because God gets to write the final chapter on our lives the world doesn't you don't family don't God does when our life comes to the end he writes the final chapter and God specializes in redeeming broken people and he's still doing it today we can see through the life of Moses Jesus in it if you take the time and look through it see the life of Moses just points us to him we reflect and looked at the little points like Moses left the palace to be with his people Jesus left heaven to be with us Moses identified with the suffering people Jesus became one of us he was both God and man Moses delivered Israel from slavery Jesus delivered us from sin Moses instituted the Passover Jesus became the Passover lamb Moses led the people through the Red Sea to freedom Jesus leads us through our lives and delivers us from sin for freedom avoidance of death everything Moses accomplished gives us a picture forward in the life of Jesus and who Jesus would be in our lives Hebrews in the life of Moses reads about four choices for us gives us four choices will we choose identity in Christ
[37:21] over worldly status will we choose an eternal reward over a temporary pleasure will we choose courage because God is with us and will we choose obedience even when we can't see the outcome see faith is about every decision it's about every relationship it's about every word spoken it's about who are you in faith first and that's tough sometimes that's really tough Moses didn't have God go okay Moses here's the powerpoint presentation for what I'm going to do this is what it looks like by the Red Sea and they're like going to come in as many mountains there but when you get there then we're like he didn't lay a plan out before him and so on this what the outcome is going to be I'm going to part in the sea and you walk through it everybody I'll drown the rest you'll be good that didn't happen didn't give him handouts powerpoint didn't give many of that he just said trust me and Moses trusted him and the same invitation stands before us every day choose faith choose obedience choose Christ because if we choose Christ we win because he's already chosen us because of the sacrifice of his life so the question I want to ask is a lot in there I want to ask you if you've never made a decision to follow Christ or maybe maybe you made a decision at some point in time of your life and and your faith is kind of flipped from the top maybe to the second thing or the third thing and and it just made it a little simpler or easier and and so that's where it's sitting now it's not sitting in that top spot I want to ask you how long are you willing to wait to put it back in the top spot how long you because the scripture tells me when will Jesus return nobody knows when the time to play nobody knows so every time we decide to
[39:21] take our faith out of the top spot we're hedging a bet that we don't know the answer to and I'm not saying like when I was a kid they used to say like if you leave here tonight without giving your life to Jesus and you get hit by a train on the way home and I'm like we don't even have train tracks around us right I'm not saying that I'm just saying if your faith is not in the top spot because you let it slip or you never made that decision how long are you willing to wait like I don't know how much time and for me called as a pastor it's my job to be able to tell you is my calling to say you got to make that decision you got to elevate it back to where it's got to be if you let it slip because there's egypt's in our life that will come after us and drag us back there's temporary pleasures that are everywhere hidden and some that are obvious there's things that'll keep us from our faith I told our board when all the governmental stuff was going on I said I'm not changing does matter what they say we can and can't share from this I will always share everything that's in this because that's what I'm called I mean this is this should be held above us we're not worthy to have it at this height we're not worthy to put it on like this should be here right because this is a faith this represents everything who we are and it should be held above our heads because that's where it belongs is above us so how long are you willing to wait I'm going to invite the worship team to come and I'm going to pray as they come and we're going to sing a song and I'll come back and close service and and but with every head bowed and every eye closed I just want to give you the opportunity that if you've never received Christ in your life I want you to pray these
[41:25] words after me just say father God I come before you I've not held you or my faith at the highest spot in my life and I want to do that today and I'm not sure what that means but I know there's people in this room that can help me figure that out and father I'd ask that you forgive me of the sins that I've committed and that I would find freedom and deliverance from all that is of this world to complete surrender to you so I recognize Jesus as my lord and savior today and I give my life to him and maybe you've let faith slip down a few notches in your life and I would just encourage you to pray say God give me the strength give me the courage give me all that I need to keep it in that top spot and if I'm moving too fast slow me down so that I can move it back to the top spot help me see that father in this room today you know where everybody's at you know whether it's just a few steps down and and you know whether they've been strong and I thank you for those that have held their faith in the highest spot through their lives father may they be shown your love your favor your care may you use them in mighty ways and for those that that have just kind of asked to move it back to its spot may you honor them may you give them strength may you give them courage to make that happen and father for those that for the first time have invited you to be their lord and savior may the peace that passes all understand they may the glory that comes of knowing who you are and may the growth that comes as becoming a disciple who will eventually make disciples be an incredible breath that just blows over them this morning
[43:28] it's in Jesus mighty name that we pray and ask this and everybody said amen