Faith of Moses Part II

If you knew you couldn’t keep a single thing you own, what would you chase and what would you finally let go? We return to the faith of Moses and put a spotlight on a life shaped by the future, not the moment. The thread running through everything is “looking forward” and it pushes against the instinct to gather, store, and sit on our comfort while pretending it will save us. We talk about wealth, contentment, and why Christians can hold material stability with open hands because our true inheritance is stored up in heaven.

We also get honest about the fear that sits under so much striving: the fear of death and the fear of losing what we’ve built. The good news lands with force here. Jesus is the death conqueror, and because of Him we don’t have to live in slavery to that dread. We connect that confidence to Colossians 3, setting our hearts on things above, and to 2 Peter 3, where the coming day of God reshapes how we live now with holiness, clarity, and hope.

From there we move outward: the Great Commission and the idea of “speeding its coming” through evangelism and mission. Not everyone is called to a stadium or a stage, but everyone can plant seeds, speak encouragement, pray for others, give generously, and point people to Christ. Moses is our case study again as he turns down luxury, accepts disgrace for the sake of Christ, and does it because he’s looking ahead to reward, with God Himself as the greatest reward.

If this helped you, share it with a mate, subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next, and leave a review to help more people find the show. What is one “forward-looking” choice you want to make this week?

Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are in the world - Welcome to Grapevine Ministries.

Transcript

Looking Forward With Moses

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Here we are back again. And uh we're continuing with the faith of Moses, and I just want to reiterate just a couple of points before we go on. Now, this is always about looking forward. We want to make sure that we look forward in our life because the main thing to get out of this about Moses is that he chose eternal spiritual rewards over fleeting worldly power or the ability to just um you know, I remember one of my old Bible college students told me this, and he said, This is what people do, you know, like in general, um, and you know, there's a I've seen uh two examples of this, right? But you get all that you can, put it in a can, and then sit on the can. The thing is that you can't take it with you. What you have in your life, you can't take with you. And I've seen several examples of this just recently with a few people that have passed away and gone to be with the Lord. You know, everything they'd worked so hard for and they'd got, and they were like squirrels, you know, getting all of the um the nuts stored away for winter, okay. They had a plan and a purpose. They were getting the nuts uh whilst they were preparing to go into hibernation and they'd have enough food to get them through the winter, okay? But mankind doesn't do that. Mankind's all about let's um let's get everything we can, put it in a can, sit on a can, and then that's it. And so you're saving it up for who, not for you, your descendants, your uh the people that are in your last will and testament, they will end up getting everything you worked so hard for because you didn't bother enjoying it. Because we were looking at worldly things, not spiritual things. We have to remember that we are rich in Christ, we're looking forward to coming into our inheritance, that's where it is, it's stored up in heaven. We're looking forward to get it right now. We're living on what they call stepping checks, which are pretty good. I mean, like in the moment, you know, you know, you you get your money and you screw it all away, and you look at all this sort of stuff. And I mean, just recently I've been watching the Left Behind movies, right? And uh and you see, so I mean, I know it's a movie and everything, but it it's a it's a good analogy, okay. If you look at it from this point, okay, umce the rapture happened, all the people were left, they thought the best thing for them was to break into premises and steal everything they can get their hands on TVs, money, jewelry, everything. Because that was their main focus, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:47

The deposit of the spirit and what we're feeding on, and the spirits testifying that we're children of God, and all of that, but don't be glad to give up your financial stability for the actual inheritance.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

God does not complain or desire us to all be um poor, giving all of our money away, okay. Uh, you look at the uh parable of the sower, it was like, you know, you you get your harvest, okay, you keep some of the seed for yourself, you keep some of the seed to plant next season, okay, and then you can sell off the rest of it or give it away. Your choice. But the thing is, the main thing is don't think that uh you're doing God a favor by going without. Because even Jesus, I mean if you have a look at it and you listen to the scripture very carefully, he wasn't broke, he he he didn't want for anything, but he was, you know, in all terminology, he was doing pretty well for himself. He's got 12 people that are going with him, he's got his own treasurer, he's got clothing that is in one garment, it's not like bits sewn together. There was a lot of things in relation to the life that he led for that very short period of time that showed that he didn't want for anything. We need to praise God. We are wealthy and no one can take our wealth from us, and so we're looking forward.

Wealth Death And True Security

SPEAKER_01 5:55

They're afraid of death, that they might not want to admit it, but those other people out there, they're in bondage, they're in slavery to the one who holds the power of death over them because they're sinners and they can't get free. All of their lives are held in slavery by the fear of death. Only Jesus, the death conqueror, can deliver you from that situation. He holds the keys of death and Hades. What is the point of having everything that you want in life if you're so afraid of losing it, and also you fear that one day it'll all be gone when you pass away? We as Christians have no fear of death. Our best things are all in the future. I don't care what incredibly good lives that you have had up to this point, richly blessed by God, all of them are as tiny and insignificant blessings. Yes, I mean God does bless you. Yes, God enables you to be financially comfortable, but it's not the be all and the end all. In Colossians 3, we set our hearts on the things above and the things to come, not on earthly things. What an advantage our faith is looking forward, looking forward to Christ and looking forward to his return and looking forward to our inheritance. You know, I've uh I've got a friend of mine, no names, no pack drill, because she's still around. Um, but she's done everything she wanted to do in life, and she's ready now to go to be with the Lord, and she has no fear, no worry whatsoever. Um, she's going to be able to leave her children and her grandchildren some of her natural things, but she's going to be glorified, you know, with God, and then whatever she's had here on earth will only be like a speck. One speck of sand on a sandy beach is the amount of financial stability that she actually has in her life, but what she's going to is the rest of the beach, so to speak. And we're told in 2 Peter 3, with his whole same kind of language that we're looking forward. Looking forward, he says three times. He says this three times. Now I've mentioned this a few times, uh, and I'll say it again because

Living For The Day Of God

SPEAKER_01 9:25

you know you can always never say it enough. If you find a passage of scripture that is speaking to you in the Bible, and then you see that a second time, God's trying to get your attention, but if you see it a third time, he's almost like he's slapping you in the face and saying, Phil, listen to what I'm trying to tell you. And it says this, since everything that you see is going to be destroyed in this way. Everything. What kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

There it is, as you look forward to the day of God and speed it coming. Do you realize how vital that is?

SPEAKER_01 10:25

All right. Those are the two infinite journeys there because everything's going away, everything's going to burn, it's all going to disappear. Everything will disappear. You are given in those verses to Peter 3 the two infinite journeys you ought to live by. All right. And that's the thing that I want you to be aware of. And that's why it's important to say it again.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Everything you've got is going to disappear. Okay? You need to live a holy and godly life.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

You ought to purify yourselves from ungodliness. That's an internal journey, and you ought to look ahead to the day of God and speed its coming.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

You do not have to do this, but this is what you need to desire.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

You can speed up the coming of Christ for the second time, and you can speed up your inheritance at coming by evangelism and missions. There's no other way, and so by sharing the gospel, by bringing the elect Christ, Jesus, he isn't coming back till all the elective have heard the gospel and responded by faith, then he's coming back, right? So the thing is, your job's not done. The Great Commission given to you is there for you to be able to go out there. And evangelism doesn't mean you're walking the streets or that you're going to another country and doing big uh tent, you know, uh revival, you know, meetings or anything. We're not all called to be a Billy Graham, we're not all called to be, you know, um other great men and women in Christ. But just the simple things. Like, I had someone tell me this once, and uh and I don't know whether it's true, but it's something to consider, but you've got to look for the signs. He got there and he said, you know, every year of your life, there are ten people that you will come across in your life, you know, in a calendar year, right? Let me try and explain this a different way. Um, okay. Everybody that you meet

Everyday Witness That Speeds His Return

SPEAKER_01 13:40

in your earthly journey, you have an opportunity to plant a seed in their life. Okay? Now you can choose whether that is a good seed or a bad seed. But what this pastor was telling me that there are ten people that have already had a seed planted, and according to scripture, it says the harvest is plentiful, but you know, but you are few, so you may not be in the five-fold ministry, you may not be called to do God's work, you know. I know at this point in time, which may change, these podcasts have to be touching people's hearts and souls, and hopefully bringing people to Christ. Because that's the purpose behind it. You know, I am actually letting you know over and over and over again, the journey that you're on doesn't have to be alone.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

So we've got work to do, friends.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

We've got internal journey and an external journey of work to be done. But it says it three times in 2 Peter 3. We look forward to the day of God. God, we look forward to the second coming, we look forward to the heavens and the new earth. We're looking forward to it all.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

And how glorious is that.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Now, in this text, it says that Moses isn't just looking forward to Christ, but he's looking forward to his reward. He burned down a life of luxury, and in effect, he's standing before Almighty God and saying, Okay, God, I'm turning down silk pillows, I'm turning down plates of grapes and beautiful slave girls dropping the grapes right into my open mouth. I'm going to not live like that anymore. They're not going to find me with big fans anymore. I'm not living that life. You know, I'm not a big celebrity.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

I'm not going to, you know, be enjoying the riches of Egypt.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

I'm going to wander in the desert with a bunch of, you know, ungrateful people who

Choosing Disgrace Over Luxury

SPEAKER_01 16:35

do not appreciate me and who actually would like to stone me. And at some point they wanted to even go back to Egypt. Actually, he didn't know all that was coming, but it was coming. And he embraced a life of disgrace. Do you see that word disgrace? The people who were his friends, the Egyptians who were his friends in the court, maybe his half brother and his half-sister, his adopted mother, all those Egyptian powerful people who were beating on his biological people, but they were his friends, and they turned on Moses to protect what was threatened their rich, privileged life. Wow. Wow. Absolutely wow. So knowing little about what God was calling him to do, by faith, he turned his back on all of that. He embraced disgrace for them. And the author of Hebrews going to call us all to that Hebrews 13. Jesus suffered outside the gate. We need to go outside the gate and bear the disgrace he bore. He is disgraced by the world. You want to be pleasing to God, then you stand next to him and get disgraced too. See, Moses was willing to bear disgrace for the name of Christ.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

What about you? What about me?

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Are you only to be disgraced, socially rejected, looked on poorly, slandered, reviled, rejected because you follow Christ? Well, Moses was willing to do that. It says, because he was looking forward to his reward.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

And what is the nature of this reward?

SPEAKER_01 19:18

What is this reward? When we come to rewards again, we already converted it in verse six, so I won't need to go over it anymore. But rewards are tokens of God's pleasure connected with your actions and your motives. God gives you some semblance of how pleased he was that you did something. That fundamental reward of the Christian life is God Himself. God Himself is our very great reward, and we get him. All lesser rewards, and there are lesser rewards, are all in some way connected to our relationship with him.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

They are relational moments.

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I want you to step into joy. I had when you went into the room and closed the door and prayed to your father who was unseen.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Or when you gave to the needy, and your right hand didn't know what your left hand was doing. Your reward is great, for this rewards are different than wages. They're not earned or merited as we deserve them. The rewards of the Christian life is just lavished grace. We know that God will even have us in heaven, but that we would actually find things in our lives worthy of praise. He rewards us. And so Moses was looking ahead to his reward. Now rewards are not all equal. There are some great rewards and lesser rewards. Causes sometimes to be greatly rewarded versus something that's worthy or a similar, smaller reward. I think it has to do much with our faith.

Rewards Giving And Suffering By Faith

SPEAKER_01 22:00

And how much sacrifice it took to do this in the world. And let me put it a like a simpler way. What if we just said, like, uh, yeah, he's saying, Well done, good and faithful servant, but if you sow poorly, you reap poorly, if you sow richly, you will reap richly. Giving into the kingdom of God is one of the great ways that we can be rewarded. But there are many, many ways of doing that. But not everything is just about financially supporting someone in ministry, it's all about helping those that can't help themselves. And the reality, the fact is, most charities are Christian-based in some level because they understand the scriptures. See, the harder it is for you to do something for the kingdom of God, the more faith that you need. The more it costs you in the world, then the more worthy of praise and the reward is next. Does that make sense to you all? So if you do anything by faith, anything at all by faith, you make a phone call by faith, you speak a word of encouragement by faith, you get down on your knees and pray for someone by faith, any of it can be rewarded and will be. Store up lots of them, but the really big ones, the really big rewards, the great rewards are for those who suffer in this world to serve Christ.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

That has to make sense to a lot of you.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in you the same way that the prophets were persecuted, the disciples were persecuted, so great is your reward if you suffer greatly. Now, I'm not telling everybody to go out there and martyr themselves for the word of God. I I'm just saying that um we we are we are supposed to be like um a conduit. I think that's the right word. Uh like basically what comes in needs to go out. If you want to be blessed, and it says blessed, press down, shaken together, and running over, man will give into your bosom. The thing is that we are a conduit. You know, are we blessed? Someone blesses us, right? Uh, and and if you look at in the the right context of it, okay, we take 10% of what we've given and we give that 10% to the kingdom of God, we give that 10% to the widower, uh, the the person on the street or whatever type thing. You know, you you've got to put things in the right perspective, though. Okay. I don't mean whatever you get, give the whole lot away. And I'm not just talking physical, materialistic things like money, vehicles, houses, all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

The thing is, you give of your time, you pray for people, you intercede for people, you you counsel people, you tell them about Jesus, you lead them into Christ. Hebrews 11.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

People who wandered around in the desert and caves and were sworn into and stoned and suffered greatly for Jesus, and so they get greatly rewarded for the things that they've done. But understand that you don't deserve anything, even for doing great things, anything from God, but he's promised that he will reward, and greatly will you be rewarded. And so Moses had a great reward because he made a great sacrifice, he turned away by faith from a comfortable life of ease and embraced suffering and disgrace for the sake of Christ, and he did it because it weighed on him. He considered it of great value. That's what the text says. He weighed it and looked at it, and it was better for him, it was better, a better deal for him to do what he just did. Now I can keep going. I mean, let's suppose you're on a desert island and you can only carry one box from a sinking ship, right? It's between an incredible amount of wealth, money, gemstones, gold, silver, and the other box is filled with enough food to last you a whole year. You know what you'd pick. Even if it were a bunch of barley loaves, you chose the barley loaves. So the thing doesn't have to have any intrinsic value, but it has to do with what is valuable to you and the quality of it, and that value comes at appraising your situation. Now, I'm not saying you all have to end up on a tropical island or anything, but the reality of the fact is, yeah, I mean, it doesn't matter if you're the greediest person in the world, you're not gonna keep, you know, priceless paintings, gold, silver, and all this sort of stuff, and be on the island with no food because the next person that comes to the island's got to get all the gold and silver and fine arts, and they're just gonna find a skeleton of you. Listen, let me finish off with this. A faithful person does some praising, and you've got the life in an Egyptian court, a comfortable life of ease and power and pleasure, and you're looking at the value of that, and then you're looking at what you get if you choose a life of suffering and disgrace for Christ. But it must have been in some aspects, it would have had to have been a really hard decision in the natural because back then Yahweh was you know not living within you. We have Christ that lives in us, and

Seeing The Invisible And Farewell

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sometimes you know the Holy Spirit nudges us in one way or the other. Moses did not have that, but it said he feared the invisible God more than the visible Pharaoh. By faith he left Egypt. It says, not fearing the king's anger, he preserved, he was preserved because he saw him who is invisible. Now, the way that you do that is is quite incredible, but uh we can speak about that another time. All right? That's it for now. God bless. Take care, and we'll talk to you soon.