By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 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 (Hebrews 11:24-26).

Yesterday, Pastor Anthony ended his devotion on Moses' parents with these lines, "Faith is not lived in the future, but in the present. By time heaven comes round—it'll be too late to try."

That sentence there, "Faith is not lived in the future, but in the present." This is the kind of faith that the author of Hebrews ascribes to Moses, which he learned from his parents – their words, sure, but certainly also from their actions.

Our author wants us to understand something about Moses -- because of that faith, he made a choice. He grew up in Pharaoh's household as the adopted son of the royal princess. He had access to the best luxuries and wisdom and powers of the Egyptian regal court. It was all there at his fingertips: all the papyri of the magicians who could turn staffs into snakes (Exodus 7:12), all the best food and drink, all the pleasures a young man desired, all the training of an Egyptian soldier.

But he made a choice. He turned away from it all. Moses chose to identify with God's people rather than with the godless. He chose at great personal cost: loss of wealth, relinquishment of status, and intense mistreatment. He "regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt."

This phrase squishes time together: present, future and further still. Certainly, Moses experienced reproach by identifying himself with the people of God but in doing so he also experienced the reproach of the coming Messiah (that is the present and the future). Our author does this to encourage his readers, in the 1st century and in the 21st century, to make the same choice that Moses made: to accept the reproach that comes from identifying with Christ and with his church (that's the further still, us). He is encouraging us to join Paul in declaring, "I want to join [Christ] in his sufferings. I want to become like him by sharing in his death" (Philippians 3:10 NIRV).

Are you willing to make that kind of choice? Are you willing to be identified with a group that declares Jesus is Lord above all the rulers of the world, even when people say, 'where's the proof'? Are you willing to put some of your hard-earned income towards the mission of God as worked out through his church, even if it costs you that vacation or new vehicle that you are dreaming of? Are you wiling to name among your friends, people whom the world deems undesirable, people who can offer you nothing but friendship? Are you willing to be identified with a group of deeply flawed people who regularly mess up their God given mission?

Does your faith enable you to trust Jesus when he said, "Truly I tell you, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life" (Mark 10:29-30). Does your faith live in the present, in the here and now?

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you: wherever he may send you. May he guide you through the wilderness: protect you through the storm. May he bring you home rejoicing; at the wonders he has shown you. May he bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.

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. (Hebrews 11:23)

The character of any person, government, or culture is displayed in highest relief by the way they treat their weak and vulnerable ones. Under Herod in Matthew 2—the baby boys and toddlers were killed as a means of stamping out any claims of God's Messiah coming to the kingship. In Pharaoh's Egypt, a similar policy is taken to stamp out the threat of the God's people of promise—they were multiplying too fast. God very often entrusts himself and his people to weakness, rather than strength, because as Paul put it in speaking about his thorn in the flesh—it is when we are weak that we remember God's strength is sufficient for us.

For someone to be unafraid of a king's edict—whether that be the edict of an ancient emperor or a modern day elected President or Prime Minister—it means they have a view of reality that extends beyond what can be seen. They understand that there is a yet higher power behind the thin veneer of this present moment—a God who still rules and reigns as Sovereign Lord King over this earth.

Faith is not just a hope in heaven after death or at the end of time. Faith sees God. Right here, right now—on the move. Our hope does not lie in heaven—our hope is in God. And God is not only in heaven at the end of time, but also right here with us, among us on earth in our time. That is what gives terrified parents the capacity to defy an earthly king's order—what gives weak people strength. They believe that God saves—not just later at the end of time—but in the here and now of life as it is lived.

Christians too live by the rules and assumptions of a different culture and kingdom: the kingdom of God. In this kingdom, we are able to extend mercy in a world of hard lines; offer hospitality in a world of mistrust, and speak forgiveness in a world of grievance. We can produce these counter-cultural acts because we draw on a source outside the reality brought to us through our screens. Faith sees the God of mercy, forgiveness, and hospitality offering these graces to us—setting a table for us in the presence of our enemies. Faith hears the call to go and do likewise. Faith trusts that this same God is with us as we go.

This is how daring acts of saving and preserving life against the grain of the politics and culture of the day are done. Moses' parents didn't do this simply because Moses was a cute baby or because they were abnormally unafraid—no, they did it because they had faith in God. The God who they trusted would see their plight and hear their cries. A God who would set things right. A God who creates and sustains life against any whims of ruthless rulers.

Do you see this God? Will you act out in this kind of faith? By time heaven comes round—it'll be too late to try. Faith is not lived in the future, but in the present.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you.

May he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm.

May he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you.

May he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.

By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones (Hebrews 11:22).

Perhaps the greatest test of faith is not sacrifice but success. If so, Joseph's faith was of the best vintage. We know from his story that he pondered deeply the things of God. His faith could see that the suffering he endured God was using for good. Even though his brothers' intentions were evil of the worst sort, Joseph, in faith, saw that "God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives" (Genesis 50:20).

One can imagine that Joseph spent many hours wrestling with God in prayer, like his father Jacob at the Jabbok (Genesis 32:24). But it was not Joseph's piety that the Holy Spirit calls our attention to. Rather, through his long and successful carrier as Egypt's second in command, he maintained his faith that God had a prophetic and salvific plan for Israel. It was not powerful Egypt but little Israel that God would use to redeem the world. Not Egypt, but Israel, would display the glory, holiness, mercy and love of God.

Such faith must have seemed eccentric and bizarre to all who knew about it. In his day, Egypt was the dominant world power. Israel must have felt a little like Canada does today, with the USA as a neighbour. Abraham's descendants were only a tiny tribe, scarcely more than an extended family. That Joseph rose to become Vice-President in this superpower was not that unusual. But for such a leader, while still in office, to believe and announce that hope for the world's future lies not with superpowers, but with tiny Israel and with her God-given role in history – that is quite another thing.

It was not Israel's holiness, nor her understanding of her identity that mattered. Israel's history reveals she was neither very holy nor very able to embrace her God given identity. What mattered is what God had promised, and that God was a keeper of his word. The Holy Spirit gave us this chapter of faithful people to shore up our own faith. Not faith in our faith, that is silliness, but faith in God. Despite Israel's weak position in the world God did use her.

Today, many people are concerned about the church. She is shrinking in North America. In some places she is coddling up to power; in other places she is losing her holiness. Her light seems to be dimming and her saltiness diminishing. These things are important. However, they are not ultimate. The church is not dependent on her size or even her holiness, she is dependent on God. Fear not, says Jesus, I am with you to the very end of the age.

Israel was no longer living in the land of promise. But Joseph believed that God's people would return there. God's plans would be fulfilled, and he wanted to be identified with them. Even in death he wanted to be remembered not as a famous prime minister of Egypt, but as a member of a fledgeling nation through whom God would redeem the world. Egypt was not her home – the promised land awaited.

Material success often dims our longing for the new creation. We become so comfortable and secure with our worldly possessions we neglect laying up treasures in heaven. Joseph's eyes of faith did not waver from the future. He fixed his eyes on God as we fix are eyes on Jesus, longing for the joy that awaits us, not depending on the momentary joys of life today. He worked faithfully for Pharoah, all the while, keeping his eyes fixed on the Important prize, God's affirmation, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you: wherever he may send you. May he guide you through the wilderness: protect you through the storm. May he bring you home rejoicing; at the wonders he has shown you. May he bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.

An extended Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text comes from 2 Samuel 4 from the New International Version of the Bible. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection! To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

DIVE IN QUESTIONS

1. What stands out to you from hearing these verses? Is God offering an invitation or a challenge to you through those words? Take time to pray about it.

2. What do you learn of Saul's world ways from this passage?

3. Where do you see these ways in your own life or in the world around you? i.e.: the ways of fear, mistrust, and taking life into our own hands in a way that neglects God.

4. What is story of shame in this chapter (and book—read 1 Samuel 20 and 2 Samuel 9, noting that this chapter falls directly in the middle of the two!)?

5. How do the ways of the Lord overcome Saul's ways of shame in this book?

6. How will you trust in God's work in Jesus this week, rather than the fears and mistrust that might swirl about?

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future. By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones. (Hebrews 11:20-22)

I am acutely aware at the moment of something I've observed quite often in the lives of others: it is hard to end well. It is hard to let go. And no one ever has as much control as they might hope over the circumstances that bring the end they must face.

There are all sorts of endings we must face, and it begins quite early on. The end of diapers as we graduate to being fully potty-trained. The ends of school years, eventually graduating from grade 8, then grade 12, then perhaps other forms of schooling after that. The end of living at home. The end of relationships. The end of single life. The end of jobs, houses, and cities as moves fling us to and fro through life's middle-years. Eventually we come to the end of someone's life: a mother, father, sibling, friend. We come to retirement. We come to an empty nest, the end of our family home, we downsize. Eventually we come to the end of driving, independent living, good and dependable health. Until eventually we come to the end of our own life.

The early parts of life teach us that life is a journey of growing up and growing into—a journey of gaining and earning friends, skill, strength, knowledge, wealth, influence, and control. But that often causes us to miss the countermovement at work underneath in the form of all these endings and moments of letting go. It is similar to the waves on an ocean that come in quite visibly on the surface, bringing energy, sound, and a living quality of vitality to the experience. But what we cannot see is what lies underneath—the undertow, the countermovement, the waves that go back out and keep the sea from swallowing up the land. These waves underneath are the movement of release and erosion: the movement that can suck you under, pull you to your end, claim your life.

So it is. Our life rolls in toward the shore, cresting and breaking at any number of high points with sound and flourish. Underneath the surface, our life continues to be struck by the undertow in the form of endings and loses—but never enough to change our direction until that eventual moment when we reach the shore. Our life peaks, and the movement that dominates our journey is reversed. We then become the waves underneath, retreating from the shore. We interact with the waves sill moving in—celebrating their journey forward of growing up and growing into. But our path is a different one now—a journey marked mostly by endings.

The Christian life is an invitation to pay our first attention to the countermovement of undertow, loss, and letting go, rather than to the movement of gaining and earning. Jesus shows and tells us that we must die before we can live. It is only the one who loses their life who truly finds it.

By faith: Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph all did this. They did not learn these lessons quickly or early—especially in Jacob's case—but they did learn them and so were able to end well. They learned to let go and let God even while they lived so that when their end finally came, they did not meet it with bitterness, resentment, cynicism, or defeat. They met it with grace—with words of blessing on their lips for those who would take over their place. They met their end with faith—a faith that no matter what they had gained or lost—God would provide a future and a salvation yet for those who came after.

Let us meet all our endings in this same faith in the God who secures the future and invites us to end with blessing on our lips.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you.

May he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm.

May he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you.

May he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.

By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death" (Hebrews 11:17-19).

In our ears, the story of God's command to offer Isaac as a sacrifice is laced with ethical problems. How could God ask this? There's much in this story, told in Genesis 22, that will leave any thoughtful reader with questions, or that seems downright unspeakable. But the spare, skillful narrative points the way to its beating heart.

The story is structured in three cycles. Three times, there's a summons to Abraham - first by God, then by Isaac, and then by the angel of God. Three times, Abraham's tender answer: "Here I am" (Genesis 22:1, 7, 11). Three times, a response. And those three cycles have Abraham's trembling reassurance to Isaac at their rhetorical center: "God himself will provide" - literally, "God himself will see to it."

This is what the author of Hebrews draws to our attention. Isaac was the child of promise. Through him, the promise to bless the world, in fact, the promise to repair this sin-polluted creation, that promise would be fulfilled through Isaac. It was God's word, his promise. Now Abraham is commanded to sacrifice him. A test of faith indeed. God's promise and God's command are diametrically opposed to each other.

Abraham is now a man of faith. This is God's problem to solve, not his. So, he goes to the Mount with his son. When Isaac askes, "Where is the lamb?" Abraham simple responds, "God himself will provide." After God provides a ram for the sacrifice, Abraham names that mountain: Jehovah Jireh, "The LORD will provide."

The church father, John Chrysostom noted that Genesis 22 is a "sketch ahead of time in shadow" for how God would one day provide for the putting right of God's whole world, once and for all. I think he was right. God said to Abraham, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love" (Genesis 22:2). Later, at Jesus' baptism, God speaks again saying, "This is my Son, whom I love" (Matthew 4:17). Eerily similar words – a sketch ahead of time in shadow.

This dark story, in the end, foreshadows another journey taken untold centuries later. Jesus of Nazareth - Son of Abraham, and Son of God - would walk into that same mountain range, with wood on his back, and make the dreadful three-day journey into death. These are the lengths to which the divine Love would go for the sake of the world.

Abraham's son was spared death. But God did not spare his own son. Isaac knew not what lay ahead. Jesus did. He willingly took up his wood; he went willingly to the altar of the cross; he willingly offered himself unto death. But death could not hold him. Abraham was right – God can and will raise the dead.

Can we trust God in the face of a bleak future? Is God anywhere to be found when we're walking in darkness? Is God at all present in the horrors of human life? The empty cross and the empty tomb are the answer. The light has pierced the darkness. The promise of God is that someday, there will only be light, nor more darkness. With faith in that promise, we walk hopefully in the dark of our Mount Moriah.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you: wherever he may send you. May he guide you through the wilderness: protect you through the storm. May he bring you home rejoicing; at the wonders he has shown you. May he bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:13-16)

They did not receive the things promised. But they believed anyway.

There are some moments in our lives when we feel like everything is going right. Life is good, our family is good, work is good, and the sun is shining. It is good to feel like we're living our best life. And sometimes we do feel that way.

But there are plenty of other times when the ground feels to have slipped out from beneath our feet. Something or someone in our home, work, or school context feels threatening. Our health is compromised. Someone we have a relationship with leaves or abandons us.

In those moments, we are reminded of how few and fleeting are the threads that hold up our security and sense of well being.

What we often fail to recognize however, is that this is also the proper context in which to really understand the meaning of our faith—because it is the truest sense we ever get of our real situation. We've always lived precariously. Nothing has ever been guaranteed. Death, suffering, and hardship are far more often the norm in human history than peace, order, and good government or life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No one fully receives all the things promised until we arrive at life's end or Christ's return.

Citizenship in a stable, peaceful, and prosperous country (which both Canada and the United States are, despite what any politician might say to the contrary) can lull us away from the admission of Hebrews that in fact, we are all foreigners and strangers on earth. If our country on earth is pretty good—why would we look for a better country—a heavenly one?

So in those moments of feeling unsettled—say, when a pastor leaves, or a death occurs, or some other unsettling anxiety sweeps through your life—take it as an opportunity to live by faith and not by sight. Remember and believe that it is God who has promised us life and a future: not our RRSP, our children, our legacy, our government, or our or next vacation. Remember that our lives are lived in trust in God, and that our eyes ought always to be straining just beyond what we are given, to see Jesus who beckons us onward until we arrive finally and fully at our home with him. Then what we see now only as a poor reflection will be replaced with seeing our God, face to face. Then we shall know fully, even as we are fully known. Then only the good things like faith, hope, and love will remain. The greatest of which, is God's own love. This is what our lives finally rest upon.

Because God loves us, he "is not ashamed to be called [our] God, for he has prepared a city for [us]." A home, with him.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you.

May he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm.

May he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you.

May he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.

By faith, with Sarah's involvement, he received power of procreation, even though he was too old, because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore, from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore" (Hebrews 11:11-12).

The Heidelberg Catechism defines true faith as "not only a knowledge and conviction that everything God reveals in his Word is true; it is also a deep-rooted assurance, created in me by the Holy Spirit through the gospel, that, out of sheer grace earned for us by Christ, not only others, but I too, have had my sins forgiven, have been made forever right with God, and have been granted salvation" (A 21).

The author of Hebrews would probably not disagree with this definition. However, I suggest, recognizing that I am skating on thin ice, that according to Hebrews 11, more should be added to this confessional definition.

Hebrews 11 faith often involves a physical response to God. It involves action taken in response to the unseen God and his promises. Faith is not merely static belief or cognitive assent. It spurs us to act in accordance with God's truth. There is a boldness to faith that caused Noah to build an Ark, Abraham to leave home and Moses' parents to hide their son. This courage is rooted in the faith that, in the end, God will come through; he will keep his promises.

The folks mentioned here stepped forward with eyebrow-raising tenacity and confidence. There was no perceptible reason for doing so, except that God had spoken. God revealed himself, and that was reason enough to act. Their faith caused them to behave in certain ways, in ways expectant of promises fulfilled.

Along with the promise of a new homeland, God promised Abraham children. Well, there was only one thing to do with that promise. But this promise tested Abraham's faith severally. He got very old, and so did Sarah; well beyond childbearing age. God continued to promise, and Abraham kept working on his faith. Finally, he was enabled to become a father because he believed God.

Abraham, an old man, and Sarah, his wife, as good as dead, became parents, trusting in the faithfulness of God. We are challenged to take our eyes off the obvious—in this case the inability of old people to become pregnant—and to focus on the faithful God who keeps his promises.

There is more hidden in this promise. The number of Abraham and Sarah's descendants would continue to expand until their children included not just those of their blood line, but all those with their kind of faith. Paul said it best, "Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham" (Galatians 3:7).

As the Catechism put it, true faith "is also a deep-rooted assurance, created in me by the Holy Spirit through the gospel, that, out of sheer grace earned for us by Christ, not only others, but I too, have had my sins forgiven, have been made forever right with God, and have been granted salvation." All those with this faith are children of Abraham and recipients of the promises God made to him.

The question remains, how will that faith effect the way that we live?

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you: wherever he may send you. May he guide you through the wilderness: protect you through the storm. May he bring you home rejoicing; at the wonders he has shown you. May he bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. (Hebrews 11:8-10)

Without exaggerating too much, this more or less feels like my life right now—except for the "inheritance" part—as we prepare to follow the call to Orillia. "He obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going… like a stranger in a foreign country…"

Of course there is also something universal in the story of Abraham. It is not just a story for pilgrims who happen to be moving house, but for all Christians who journey toward God and the promises he has set before us in Jesus. It is a lifelong journey—the journey of discipleship.

It is a journey marked by not knowing entirely where we are going. What will we become when we follow Jesus? What does God call us to do with the few days and limited resources in our possession? Who will we encounter and befriend along the way?

We often fear that God will make us do the opposite of what we want—that if we happen to make eye contact with the Almighty and get pressed into his call, he'll ship us off to some far-flung continent to suffer deplorable conditions as a missionary or something. It happened to Abraham, after all (to Femke and I too!). But this notion misunderstands something about our God.

Does he sometimes call us to do hard things? Sure. But God just as often works with our desires as against them—indeed the journey of the Christian life is a journey of purifying and refining our desires. God placed desires in the human heart so that we might desire him and his gifts. When lived well—the journey of our Christian lives bends our desires increasingly toward God to the point where we may begin to trust those desires to lead us home.

In the example of Abraham—he made his home in the promised land, but despite arriving in this good place of God's calling, the promised land always pointed beyond itself to "the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God." So Abraham lived always as a stranger in a foreign country. Not because he had no claim on the land on which he lived—but because his true home was with God.

This is perhaps a strange thing to wrap our heads around—but its true for us as well. Whether one rents, tents, or owns a house and cottage—we too are naught but strangers in a foreign country. Why? Because our true home is not here at all—but with God in Christ. He is the one to whom we belong. Home is the place of rest we will know with him when this earth and its heavens are made new and we see him at last as he is: face to face.

Until then: we journey forward in faith, trusting that the one who made the promise is faithful and will provide everything needful until at long last he brings us home.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you.

May he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm.

May he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you.

May he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.

A Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text 2 Samuel 3. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection!

To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

1. Spiritual ECGs usually happen through the discipline of confessing sin. How regularly do you take time for this? Should you take more time for it?
2. How well do you read the Word of God? Once you have read it, what do you do with it? Consider James 1:23-25. Choose one of the gospel's accounts of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and meditate on this story.
3. When you pray, what it your goal? Is it an act of submission to God. Consider 1 Peter 5:6-7 – let your praying be shaped by these words.
4. Jesus calls us to be peacemakers. How well do you live this out? Or are you more like Joab? To be shaped by peace we must go to the cross of Jesus. As you reflect on Ephesians 2:11-22, hear Jesus speaking his words to you, "My peace I give you" (John 14:27).
5. What signs of weakness are given in this chapter? Jesus does perfectly what David only did imperfectly. Choose to follow him.