More Than Survivors!

The Right To Choose!

Hebrews 11:24-26

Ever been a foreigner?

Have you ever been dropped in a place so utterly different from your own that you knew you were not in Kansas any more?

I will never forget the feeling of absolute shock to my senses when I stepped of the 747 in Frankfurt, West Germany in June of 1979. I was there to work with a church planter in a little German village with 1 other American and 2 Canadians. I had studied German for 4 years in High School, and thought I would be able to get along. I knew I was in trouble, however, when we sat down on the Lufthansa jet, and the stewardess came on, and “Guten Tag meine dammen und herren,” was all I was able to recognize from her 2 minute speech about the safety features of the plane.

When we landed in Germany, it was like this entirely different country! I mean, they don’t speak English there! The signs, the voice on the speakers over head, the little children whining to their mothers and fathers – it was all in some foreign language! And there was the German military at the airport, carrying their Uzi’s, something that we had never seen in America until just the last 6 months. It was all so overwhelming. I was never so glad to hear two English words in my life when I heard someone shout “Over hear!” And there stood Dic Schaeffer, the pastor we would be working with for the summer.

For that six weeks, I learned what it was like to be a stranger in a foreign land. I remember going to a McDonalds in Heidelberg, and in my best German ordering my food. It was hot, and I was fanning myself with a magazine, and the man said, “It’s hot today.” And I replied, “Ja, ich bin warm!” His eyes first grew wide, then he said, “Nein, du bist heis.” Then in English he said, “If you say, “Ich bin warm,” it means you are attracted to me!”

Foreigner in a strange land.

Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, verses 24-26. Hebrews is toward the end of the Bible, page 810 in the Bibles you will find on the chairs around you. Hebrews chapter 11 has been called, “The hall of fame of faith,” because in this chapter we read that all through Bible, from beginning to end, it has been faith that guided the great characters.

Salvation through faith is not something that began with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The writer of Hebrews points out that from the very first, with Cain and Able, through Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses, each one walked with God through faith, just as we must today. I believe that a summary of the lives of these Old Testament believers is found beginning in verse 13, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth…”

Did you catch that? “Strangers and pilgrims on the earth…” Those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ, and who look forward to a day when we will be with Him forever in heaven, realize that this world is not our home. We have different values, we have different goals, we look by faith beyond the circumstance and experience a joy that is foreign to our culture. When the whole earth is shaken, we know our Redeemer lives. When a doctor makes an error, and a six-year-old daughter is left blind for the rest of her life, it is faith that allows that little girl to grow up and write “To God be the glory, great things he hath done, so loved he the world, that He gave us His Son…”

We are strangers in a foreign land when we see the clash of cultures between what we know to be right and what we see being accepted as normal in our world. We value life, the world values only life that it deems is “valuable.” We value family, the world argues about what the word means. We value truth, the world says there is no absolute truth.

Just as I felt that day I stepped off the airplane in Frankfurt, I sometimes feel the same when I listen to the radio these days. Sure I understand some of the words, but it all seems so foreign.

Strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

This year one of the television “Survivor” type shows was created to put people in situations like that. They took Americans, dropped them in the middle of a strange land, half way around the globe, and they had to race back to New York. Unable to speak the language, no knowing the landmarks, or even what continent they were on, they had to survive and thrive to win.

For the next 7 weeks, we are going to be learning some of the same lessons those people had to learn. How do we not only survive this foreign and sometimes hostile environment, how we THRIVE? I don’t want to simply make it to the end – I want to reach the finish line of this life victoriously!

For the next seven weeks, we are going to learn about strangers and pilgrims. People who found themselves in a foreign culture, surrounded by foreign values, and who were able to not only survive, but thrive, and to actually change the landscape around them simply be their presence and their faith.

Our first example is Moses. Have you found Hebrews 11:24 yet? Let’s look at it together:

By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.

Moses had to choose. Would he choose the riches of this world, greater riches than any of us can imagine, or would he choose to be counted as one of God’s people?

The story of Moses, in a nutshell is this. It is found in the book of Exodus, the second book of the Bible. He was born a Hebrew – a Jew. The Jews had been guests in Egypt, in fact, Joseph, the son of Israel, had been made the second in command of the kingdom. But as the number of Hebrews grew, and the generations passed, the Egyptians began to worry about this foreign race taking over their culture, so they made the Jews slaves, and did all they could to work them to death. But the people of God continued to grow, so the King ordered that all the boy babies be killed. But Moses’ mother would not permit her son to be murdered, so she put him in a basket, and sent it free in the Nile. The baby was removed from the river by the daughter of the king, who recognized the child as Hebrew, but loved the boy, and made him her son. God saw to it that Moses was placed back in his own mothers home to be nursed, until he was old enough to come and live at the palace. So Moses was raised in the house of the king, with the riches of Egypt at his disposal.

In verse 11 of Exodus chapter 2, we read that Moses, went out to his brethren. He apparently was aware of his Jewish heritage, and he was faced with a choice. Would he stay in the palace, and live as an Egyptian, and enjoy all the riches and pleasures that the world had to offer, or would he identify with God’s children and give it all up. Moses chose to live as a Jew.

He chose mistreatment over pleasure. He chose to be counted with slaves, God’s people, not masters, the Egyptians. He chose disgrace over honor.

If you follow Moses’ life, you will find that he had many choices to make. He had to choose to be obedient when God confronted in and told him to go back to Egypt and free his countrymen. He had to choose to follow God’s instructions when dealing with the Pharaoh. He had to choose to follow the people of God through the Red Sea on dry land, through the wilderness, to the land God had promised. He had to choose whether or not to listen to his father in law’s advice about delegation. He had to choose to control his anger, and speak to a rock, as God had commanded, or to let his temper get the best of him, and hit the rock, which gave water for the people, but cost Moses the chance to enter in to the Promised Land.

Choices. We all have choices to make. But of all the choices Moses had to make, the one that is the most pivotal in his life, was the one we see here.

Back in Hebrews 11:25 we find it: “…choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin…”

Moses had to choose to listen to the call of comfort, convenience and luxury, or listen to the voice of God’s spirit reminding him of who he really was. Somewhere along the line, Moses had learned what it meant to be a child of God. He was taught of his heritage. He knew he was living as a Prince of Egypt, but he was a Child of Israel. And he had to choose.

You know, in some ways, Moses was already a survivor. He had survived the attempt of the king to have him killed when all the Jewish boy babies were to be murdered at birth, but surviving is more than staying alive. What makes life worth living is the ability to make soul conscious choices a day at a time. What makes us more than survivors is choosing to do what we know is right, even if it costs us in the short term.

Look at that verse again. He chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than enjoy the passing pleasure of sin. For most of us, it is not a choice between living as a slave or living as a prince, or is it? When we choose to yield to that passing pleasure of sin, does it not enslave us?

The real irony of these words is that Moses chose slavery as a child of God over the so-called freedom as a child of Pharaoh, with all its pleasures. We, on the other hand, can choose the freedom of being a child of God over the slavery of the fleeting pleasures of sin.

This week, as we begin our Spiritual Adventure, we are challenged to make a daily inventory. Every night as you prepare for bed, we are to consider the choices we made that day. At the end of each day’s journal, two sentences are to be completed. They read, “A wise choice I made recently was ______________________” and, “A foolish choice I made recently was ________________________.”

This week in your journal you will read these words,

For Moses, soul-conscious choices were decisions that would either nurture or undermine his walk with the Lord. They were made intentionally in the light of eternity. Becoming skilled at critiquing you choices is a prerequisite for those who want to be more than survivors.

Moses was able to make the right choices because he kept his eyes where they needed to be. He was able to keep his focus on the final reward, not the temporary pleasure. I suppose that one of those people on the “Survivor” television show could have just stopped along the way, and enjoyed the food and culture of the foreign land he was in. Taken a few pictures, danced with the locals, eaten at their finest restaurants. He would have enjoyed a free vacation, but would have never had a chance to win the big prize. He would survived, but not been victorious. I don’t want to just survive this journey, I want to win!

More than survivors. I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty good to me. I for one, am tired of just getting by. I don’t want to just survive until the end, I want to Thrive! I want to make a difference for God in my family, and in my community. One way for that to happen is for us to be the makers of good choices. Choosing to keep our eyes on Christ, making our choices in light of His word, is one way to get started.