Introduction
Will you let God, not your culture, comforts, or cravings, shape your identity and purpose, even if it costs you? The central lesson from Moses’s faith in Hebrews 11 is this: faith reshapes who I am and what I live for, moving me from the passing pleasures and treasures of this world to God’s people, God’s timing, and God’s eternal reward.
Hebrews 11 (the “Hall of Faith”) doesn’t just tell us inspiring stories; it trains us to recognize what real faith looks like in real life. Today we follow Moses from birth, to his identity crisis, to his hidden years, and into God’s deliverance, so we can learn how faith must shape our own discipleship.
Main Points
Will you let God, not your culture, comforts, or cravings, shape your identity and purpose, even if it costs you? The central lesson from Moses’s faith in Hebrews 11 is this: faith reshapes who I am and what I live for, moving me from the passing pleasures and treasures of this world to God’s people, God’s timing, and God’s eternal reward.
Hebrews 11 (the “Hall of Faith”) doesn’t just tell us inspiring stories; it trains us to recognize what real faith looks like in real life. Today we follow Moses from birth, to his identity crisis, to his hidden years, and into God’s deliverance, so we can learn how faith must shape our own discipleship.
Faith Begins Under Pressure
Hebrews 11:23 starts with a shocking setting: Moses is born under a death sentence. Pharaoh has commanded that Hebrew baby boys be destroyed. Yet Moses’s parents “were not afraid of the king’s command.”
The text says they hid him because they saw he was “a beautiful child.” This isn’t sentimental, this is spiritual perception. They recognized God’s favor and calling, and they acted in courageous obedience. Faith often looks like defying the “common sense” of a fearful culture because you trust God’s unseen hand.
And God’s providence meets their faith: Moses is placed in a waterproof basket near the Nile, found by Pharaoh’s daughter, and, amazingly, Moses’s own mother is paid to nurse him. God is already writing redemption into what looks like an impossible situation. Disciple lesson: when the culture tightens its grip, faith doesn’t panic; it obeys.
Choose Identity Over Comfort
Hebrews 11:24–25 moves to Moses “when he became of age.” He’s around 40. He has lived with privilege: palace life, education, language, status, luxury. Yet the Spirit highlights one decisive act: he “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.”
Moses had two worlds in front of him:
- Egypt: comfort, recognition, power, “the passing pleasures of sin.”
- God’s people: affliction, suffering, reproach, obedience.
And he chose affliction with God’s people. That is the discipleship crossroads. Faith is not merely agreeing with God in your head, it is letting God define who you are, even when another identity seems safer, richer, or more celebrated.
I want you to notice the realism of Hebrews 11: it calls sin “pleasure.” We don’t defeat temptation by pretending sin has no appeal. We defeat it by seeing that its pleasure is passing.
See Through Sin’s Passing Pleasures
Moses chose suffering over “the passing pleasures of sin” (Heb. 11:25). Sin is enticing because it offers immediate enjoyment. But it never tells you the whole bill.
A helpful picture is the “credit card” effect: it lets you have what you want now with money you don’t have, until the statement arrives, and now you pay back with interest. That’s sin: short-term pleasure with long-term bondage. Jesus said, “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). Slavery is exactly what the pleasure becomes.
Discipleship application: if you only measure life by what feels good now, you will be mastered by what feels good now. Faith trains you to ask, “What does this pleasure cost me later, in my conscience, my relationships, my holiness, my freedom, my witness?”
Treasure Christ Above All Riches
Hebrews 11:26 explains Moses’s inner logic: “He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.”
This is one of the most gospel-rich statements in Moses’s story. Moses’s choice wasn’t merely moralism (“bad Egypt, good Israelites”). Moses was seeing something bigger, Christ. In some true, forward-looking way, Moses valued the coming Redeemer more than the best Egypt could offer.
That points us to the grand story fulfilled in Jesus. Philippians 2:5–8 shows Christ leaving the “palace” of heaven, equal with God, yet humbling Himself, taking the form of a servant, coming to suffer in order to redeem. Moses becomes a preview: leaving privilege to identify with the afflicted people of God.
And this confronts us, especially in a wealthy, comfortable culture: Is my discipleship shaped by a desire for earthly ease, or by the worth of Christ? If Christ is my treasure, then suffering for His name is not loss, it is gain.
Live For The Greater Reward
Moses “looked to the reward” (Heb. 11:26). Faith requires reward-language, but not the way our culture often uses it. We are constantly tempted to shrink God’s promises down to the “here and now”, comfort, ease, status, success.
But Moses’s life proves the reward wasn’t primarily earthly. If Moses’s reward was simply “being the leader,” it came with enormous hardship: grumbling people, wilderness wandering, personal failure, and costly responsibility. The lasting reward was God Himself and the eternal city God prepares, the unseen reality Hebrews 11 keeps pointing to.
So I want to disciple you into this clarity: God may bless you with many good things, family joys, meaningful work, influence, answered prayers, but none of those are the ultimate reward. Our reward is resurrection hope, the kingdom of God, and life with the King of Kings. Without that, we will be crushed by disappointment when obedience is costly.
Endure Long Preparation With Invisible Faith
Hebrews 11:27 says, “By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king… for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.”
This introduces the middle “act” of Moses’s life. Moses’s story unfolds in three 40-year chapters, and the second is the hidden one: exile in Midian. After trying to help his people, Moses kills an Egyptian, buries him, gets exposed, and flees (Exodus 2). Overnight, he goes from prince to fugitive.
How is that “by faith”? Because faith isn’t only displayed in miracles and victories. Faith is displayed in endurance, when you can’t see what God is doing, but you keep walking with Him anyway.
Acts 7 adds insight: Moses assumed the people would recognize him as deliverer, but they weren’t ready. Moses wasn’t ready either, he was still operating in the flesh, in anger, in self-appointment. So God uses the wilderness to prepare:
- Moses learns the desert he will later lead others through.
- Moses shepherds sheep before shepherding people.
- Moses is humbled from anger toward meekness.
- Moses learns patience, dependence, and God’s timing.
And that speaks directly to you. Some of your most important discipleship growth is happening in seasons that feel like sidelining: ordinary work, unseen faithfulness, quiet obedience, waiting, learning Scripture, serving your neighbor, becoming steady in character. Faith means you can endure because you “see” the Invisible God at work even when nothing looks impressive.
Trust The Blood That Saves
Hebrews 11:28 brings us to Passover: “By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.”
Now we’re deep into Exodus (especially Exodus 12). Pharaoh hardens his heart again and again. God declares judgment: the firstborn in every household will die. But God provides a way of salvation for His people, the blood of the lamb applied in faith.
This is not merely an ancient ritual. It is a blazing preview of the gospel: judgment passes over those covered by blood. Just as Moses lifted Israel’s eyes to God’s provision, so we lift our eyes to Christ, “our Passover lamb” (implied from the Bible’s larger teaching; see 1 Corinthians 5:7). Discipleship isn’t self-salvation; it is trusting God’s saving provision and living from it.
Faith applies what God provides. The blood wasn’t magic; it was obedient trust in God’s word. In the same way, we do not overcome the world by our willpower, but by clinging to Christ and obeying what He has said.
Conclusion
Moses’s faith shows me the path of mature discipleship:
- I trust God under pressure.
- I choose God’s people over cultural comfort.
- I see through sin’s passing pleasures.
- I treasure Christ above worldly riches.
- I live for the eternal reward, not the immediate payoff.
- I endure long seasons of preparation with the Invisible God.
- I rest under the saving blood God provides.
So here is the question I leave with you: What identity are you refusing, and what identity are you choosing, because you believe God is worth it?
Father, shape my identity by faith in You, not by the world around me. Give me courage to obey when pressure rises and when fear feels reasonable. Help me see through the passing pleasures of sin and treasure Christ more than any earthly comfort or status. Teach me to endure seasons of waiting and preparation, trusting that You are working even when I cannot see it. Thank You for the saving blood You provided, and for the greater reward You have promised in Your eternal kingdom. Strengthen me to suffer well with Your people and to live for Your glory. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Conclusion
Moses’s faith shows me the path of mature discipleship:
- I trust God under pressure.
- I choose God’s people over cultural comfort.
- I see through sin’s passing pleasures.
- I treasure Christ above worldly riches.
- I live for the eternal reward, not the immediate payoff.
- I endure long seasons of preparation with the Invisible God.
- I rest under the saving blood God provides.
So here is the question I leave with you: What identity are you refusing, and what identity are you choosing, because you believe God is worth it?
Closing Prayer
Father, shape my identity by faith in You, not by the world around me. Give me courage to obey when pressure rises and when fear feels reasonable. Help me see through the passing pleasures of sin and treasure Christ more than any earthly comfort or status. Teach me to endure seasons of waiting and preparation, trusting that You are working even when I cannot see it. Thank You for the saving blood You provided, and for the greater reward You have promised in Your eternal kingdom. Strengthen me to suffer well with Your people and to live for Your glory. In Jesus’ name, amen.