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You see all of us get knocked down in life from time to time.

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But the goal is not to dodge the punches in life.

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The goal is to figure out a way to endure, to keep getting back up time and time again.

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And we're going to look at the life of Moses.

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Moses got knocked around and beat up and knocked down so many times in his life and yet he

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endured.

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How did he do it?

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Let's take a look around and let's learn together so that we too can become people of endurance.

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Our first reading is from the book of Exodus chapter 2 verses 11 to 15.

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One day after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched

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them at their hard labour.

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He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.

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Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the

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sand.

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The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting.

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He asked the one in the wrong, why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?

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The man said, who made you ruler and judge over us?

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Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?

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Then Moses was afraid and thought, what I did must have become known.

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When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses.

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But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian.

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Our second reading is from Hebrews chapter 11 verses 23 to 29.

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By faith, Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born because they saw

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he was no ordinary child and they were not afraid of the king's edict.

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By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

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He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures

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of sin.

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He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of

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Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

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By faith, he left Egypt not fearing the king's anger.

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He persevered because he saw him who is invisible.

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By faith, he kept the Passover and the application of blood so that the destroyer of the firstborn

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would not touch the firstborn of Israel.

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By faith, the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land.

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But when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.

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This is the word of the Lord.

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One of the most famous superheroes out there has got to be Captain America.

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But Captain America wasn't always a superhero.

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Actually Captain America was Steve Rogers.

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And Steve Rogers was this scrawny kid from Brooklyn who was constantly getting picked

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on, constantly getting beat up.

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He was smaller than everybody else.

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He was weaker than everybody else.

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But the thing that made Steve Rogers different is that every time he got beat down, he would

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get back up again.

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He just kept getting back up again.

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In fact, there is a scene in one of the movies, the Captain America movies where there is

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Steve Rogers.

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He's in an alley.

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He's beaten up again by his bullies or whatever.

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And anyways, he gets up off the ground.

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He wipes the blood off his face.

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He looks his opponents in the eye and he has this great iconic line.

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He says, I can do this all day.

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I can do this all day.

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It's a great line.

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And he says this line a few times throughout the various series of movies.

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I can do this all day.

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And what this teaches us actually about Captain America is that his real superpower is not

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that he drank super soldier serum.

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His real superpower is that he's durable, that he has endurance, that he keeps getting

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up again and again and again.

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Well, I don't know if you can believe this, but we're in now week seven of this teaching

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series called Heroes of Faith.

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And we've been looking at the book of Hebrews chapter 11.

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And in that chapter, we see the stories of ordinary people who lived by faith, trusted

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God and overcame amazing and incredible obstacles in their life.

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And as we read through all those stories, I don't know if you've noticed, but the word

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endurance keeps coming up again and again and again.

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And it's no surprise because here's why.

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This whole book, the book of Hebrews, this letter was written to a group of people who

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kept getting knocked down and kept getting beat up again and again and again.

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They were being persecuted at the time by Emperor Nero, and they were suffering a great

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deal.

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In fact, in Hebrews chapter 10, we read that they endured great suffering.

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They were publicly insulted, persecuted, imprisoned.

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They even had their property confiscated.

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Now after all of these knocks, after being knocked down this many times, I'm sure that

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the community was like, okay, that's it enough.

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It's not worth it.

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I'm not getting up again.

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You know, this faith is not worth it.

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But the author of Hebrews is saying, no, no, no, you got to keep getting up.

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You got to keep enduring because it is worth it.

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Get back on your feet.

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In fact, it's interesting.

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The Greek word for endure is this compound word, it's a Hupo Menno, Hupo Menno.

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Hupo means under or beneath and Menno means to stand.

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So to endure is to stand no matter what's coming down on you, to keep standing, to keep

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getting up to Hupo stand.

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I think that to endure is, you're just, you're keeping getting up.

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You keep getting up and you keep saying, I can do this all day.

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That's what endurance is.

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And the world needs more people who don't quit, people who keep enduring.

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I mean, we live in kind of a throwaway culture where, you know, people quit their marriages

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and they quit the faith and they quit their jobs.

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They quit anything that feels hard.

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But those who endure, those who can Hupo stand are the heroes that change the world.

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And if there was ever somebody who knew what it was like to endure, it's gotta be Moses.

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Because throughout his life, Moses endured all sorts of things.

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He was constantly knocked down by rejection and hardship, but he kept getting back up.

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That's the amazing thing.

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He's like Steve Rogers, but better.

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And I want to tell you today both what Moses endured and I want to tell you how Moses endured.

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And if you picked one of these up on your way in, these are the sermon notes for today.

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So you can keep some notes.

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And if you're again watching online today, you can visit the website, go to Sundays at

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Trinity.

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You can download both the sermon questions and you can download the sermon notes for

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today.

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I would encourage you to do that.

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But let's start.

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In Hebrews 11, there are at least four things we are told in particular that knocked Moses

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down throughout his life.

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The first happened when Moses got knocked off his throne of privilege.

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You see, Moses was a Hebrew and the Hebrew people were enslaved by the Egyptians.

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But Moses was different though, because when Moses was a baby, he was adopted by the daughter

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of Pharaoh.

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She found him and she raised him as his own, her own, which meant that that now Moses was

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like the royalty in the very family that was oppressing his own people.

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And what that meant is he had everything he could ask for, right?

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He had privilege, he had power, he had education, wealth, status, he would have eaten all the

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finest food and so on and so forth.

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By all accounts, Moses would have been one of the most privileged people in the ancient

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world.

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Okay.

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All his fellow Israelites were slaves though.

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But when he grew up, we are told, he refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter

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and he chose to be mistreated along with the people of God.

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So you see what Moses did is instead of aligning himself with the Egyptians, he said, no, I'm

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going to suffer with my own people, with the Hebrew people.

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He could have stayed in the lap of luxury, he could have stayed in all that comfort and

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ignored the pain, but something happened that just actually tipped the scales and forced

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him to make this decision.

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Here's what's happened.

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Here's what happened.

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One day after he'd grown up, he went out to where his own people were working and he watched

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them hard at labor.

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And then he saw this Egyptian, a Hebrew slave, an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, sorry,

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one of his own people.

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And looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and he hid the

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Egyptian in the sand.

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I want to suggest to you that as soon as Moses knocked that Egyptian down, he also knocked

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himself down off of his throne of privilege.

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He was declaring, I am no longer an Egyptian, I am a Hebrew and there is no going back from

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that.

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I want you guys to think about the fact that that is often where endurance starts for us.

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It's not by surviving something really, really hard, but it's by choosing to walk away from

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something that is really comfortable or walk away from something that is really easy because

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it's not what God wants you to do.

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Have you ever stepped out?

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Have you ever stepped out out of your comfort zone because you sense this is what it takes

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to obey God in this moment.

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If you'd have, then you know what it felt like Moses to be knocked off his throne of

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privilege that day.

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But that was that he was just getting started.

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Here's the irony, the deep irony is that the very next day, Moses suffered another knockout

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blow and that is he was knocked aside by his own people.

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You see, he thought, oh, once I've kind of declared that I'm no longer an Egyptian and

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that I identify with my Hebrew brothers and sisters, then they're going to welcome me.

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But that is not what happened at all.

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Instead, they rejected him.

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He goes out and he sees two of his own people now fighting and he tries to intervene.

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He says, hey, guys, guys, cut it out.

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Let's not do this anymore.

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But their responses, who made you ruler over us?

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So what?

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You're going to kill, you're going to kill me like you killed the Egyptian.

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This guy basically just risked everything he had in order to stand with his own people.

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And they basically say, who do you think you are?

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In a single day, Moses went from having two people, Egyptians and Hebrew people to having

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none.

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He had no home now.

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He had no people.

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He had no safety.

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He has nowhere to go.

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I think we'd all agree.

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It's easy to stand up and keep getting up off the ground when you've got people cheering

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you on, when you've got friends in the background saying, you can do it.

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We are with you.

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But what happens when you feel alone in your faith?

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Right.

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You've lost your family and you've lost your friends because of your commitment to Jesus

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or your commitment to God.

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Some of you maybe have experienced that being rejected by friends or family members because

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of your faith.

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That is a knockout blow for sure.

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That's what Moses experienced.

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But no sooner had Moses gotten up off the mat, then he is then sent flying again, not

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just being knocked down from his place of privilege or knocked aside by his people,

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but now he is knocked right out of his homeland.

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He has to go.

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He has to flee.

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He has to leave everything behind.

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We're told that by faith, he left Egypt, not fearing the King's anger.

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After killing the Egyptian soldier, right, word started to get around.

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And then we're told that actually Pharaoh, his grandpa is now like wanting to kill him.

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When Pharaoh heard of this, tries to kill Moses, Moses fled and went to live in this

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Hick town called Midian.

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Moses is now in exile.

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He's got no home.

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He's been knocked out of his home.

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He's had to leave everything behind.

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And I know that some of you know how that feels because you have had to leave your home

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and you did not want to.

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You had to leave a city that you did not want to.

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You had to leave a country and you really did not want to leave, but you had to.

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And it felt like a punch to the gut.

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So Moses knocked down from his place of privilege, knocked aside by his people, knocked out of

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his own country.

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Now let's fast forward a little bit here.

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Forty years go by, 40 years later, God calls Moses back to Egypt to rescue the Hebrew people

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from slavery.

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I'm not going to be able to go into all this story, but even in that moment, Moses is going

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to get knocked for a loop one more time because Moses now gets knocked by God into the world.

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The waters of the Red Sea.

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This was actually Moses's ultimate test, if you will.

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This was a test to say like, Moses, if you stay down, this is going to be the thing that

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caused you to stay down because I'm about to throw you into an ocean of trouble.

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But maybe Moses will hypostand through that as well.

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He will endure and show that he actually has this kind of endurance that really, really

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lasts.

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Here's how it happens.

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After the Israelites were set free, guess what?

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Pharaoh changes his mind and chases after the Israelites and then traps them.

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And it's a real trap because on the one side, what you've got this big mountain, we're told.

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And then on the other side, you've got this huge obstacle called the Red Sea.

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And on the other side, you've got this army, one of the most powerful armies on earth bearing

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down on you.

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There's no way out.

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You are about to be crushed.

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But even then, Moses got back up and he hypostood.

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He did not collapse.

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He did not retreat.

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And he said to the people, he said, don't be afraid, everybody.

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Stand with me.

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Hypos, stand with me and you will see the deliverance that the Lord is going to bring

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today.

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So he lifts his staff and he puts his staff over the water.

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And then Hebrews 11, 29 says that by faith, the people passed through the Red Sea on dry

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land.

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Guys, this is amazing.

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God knocked Moses literally into the Red Sea.

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And amazingly, even there, he stood on dry ground and passed through the waters.

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Moses took the first step.

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Yes.

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But then God created a way.

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Some of you are right now feeling like you're in a Red Sea moment.

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You are trapped.

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You do not feel like you have any place to go.

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You want to go back in fear, but you don't know the way forward.

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But like Moses, maybe God is saying to you, just, hey, take that first step and I will

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make a way.

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I am not sure that Moses could have done this 40 years earlier when he was still a kid back

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in Egypt.

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I don't think he was ready then.

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But now he had been, he had endured all these other things.

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He had been knocked down so many times that he had built up this resiliency that now he

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could Hypos stand even in the middle of the Red Sea.

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And I wanted to say that because some of you have endured great hardship in your life.

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And perhaps that is because God is equipping you for even tougher things still to come.

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There's something about hardship that shapes us and grows us.

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My whole point in all of this is simply this.

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Moses kept getting knocked down and he kept getting back up.

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I can do this all day, Moses said.

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The question is how?

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How does he muster the strength to keep getting back up?

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How do you endure?

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Well, we're going to look at how he did it, but there's also a few fake ways of endurance

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that I think we should look at.

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And one of them is what you might call emotional suppression.

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People say, oh, the way to get through tough times is you, you detach yourself emotionally,

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you suppress your feelings, bury your feelings.

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But that's not how Moses endured.

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He didn't shut down emotionally.

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That wasn't the secret.

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Or, or some people think that endurance is about sheer willpower.

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If I just try harder, I can push through anything on my own.

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But that's not what Moses did.

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He didn't just grit his teeth and push through.

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Some say, no, endurance comes from optimism.

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You just got to stay positive and you got to believe that everything's going to work

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out and better days are ahead.

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But Moses did not necessarily believe there were better days ahead.

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He didn't necessarily think things were going to get easier for him.

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And finally, other people say the way to, to endure this life is to just avoid hard

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things altogether.

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And Moses, of course, as we already said, he had the option to stay in Pharaoh's palace

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and to avoid suffering, but he obeyed instead and he stepped into the difficulty.

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No, no, none of these are the pathway to real endurance.

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These are not going to enable you to keep getting up off the floor when you get knocked

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down.

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Moses had a different strategy.

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So just as we, in the time we got left, I want to show you there was actually three

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verbs in the reading that Rita read for us this morning.

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These three verbs in Greek, they all start with the sound H and they teach us what Moses

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really did to really endure.

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Okay.

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So the first verb is found in Hebrews 11 26.

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And we read this.

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Moses regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than all the treasures

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of Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward.

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Now that word right there that is translated as regarded comes from this Greek word, which

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actually translates better as calculated or measured.

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So what this maybe would read is Moses calculated that any disgrace he suffered for the sake

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of Christ was of greater value than all the treasures of Egypt.

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He calculated, he thought it out.

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In other words, he looked at all the treasures of Egypt.

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Yes, here they are.

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And then he looked over here at the reward that God had for him and he calculated it

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out.

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He looked at this disgrace that he would suffer for siding with his own people, but he also

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then looked at the promise that God had for him.

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And he weighed it out and he calculated it out.

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And then he made a choice.

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He calculated what was the most valuable thing.

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And that's why he kept getting back up because he knew it was worth it.

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Egypt's treasures were nothing compared to the worth and value of what God had in store

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for him.

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If he would only obey, I can do this all day, he said, because I know it's worth it.

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And this is where real endurance starts.

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What it really comes down to is calculating what is most valuable to you.

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And you are only as durable as that thing in your life that you think is most valuable.

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So the reason that many people collapse and do not get up from the ground, the reason

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they get hit and they stay down is because they don't think it's worth it.

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It's not worth getting back up again.

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If Moses thought that comfort was the most valuable thing, he never would have left Egypt.

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No.

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If he thought status was the most valuable thing, he never would have sided with his

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people.

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But because he calculated that God's reward was the most valuable thing, he was able to

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endure.

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He was able to get up again and again and again.

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It's like what the apostle Paul says.

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Paul said, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ.

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Paul said, here's everything and here's Jesus.

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Which one's worth more?

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I choose Jesus.

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And that enables us to endure.

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All of us have decided, you've already decided what's most important to you.

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What is most valuable to you in this life?

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Right?

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If comfort is your greatest value, then you will give up as soon as life gets hard.

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If your greatest treasure is approval, then you will quit when people reject you.

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If your greatest value is success, then when you fail, you will be constantly tempted to

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compromise who you are.

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But if your greatest treasure is God, then you will hypostand.

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You will stand and you'll keep getting up no matter what knocks you down.

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So that is the first thing Moses teaches us is that he had just placed his value and he

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had counted the cost and God was worth it.

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God was worth it.

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Getting up was always worth it.

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But the second secret to endurance is found in the second verb we want to look at and

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that's in Hebrews 11 25.

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It says that he chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy

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the fleeting pleasures of sin.

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And the key verb there chose is this other Greek verb, heretomai, which is a deliberate

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selecting of something.

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Moses didn't just have suffering thrown upon him.

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He didn't just accept suffering when it came to him.

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He chose it.

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Obedience wasn't forced on him.

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He chose it.

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Moses.

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Yes, we just heard he decided what was most valuable, but then he had to choose it.

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He had to act on that decision.

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And again, Moses, he could have stayed in Egypt.

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He could have had the comfort, but he didn't.

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He chose to stand with God's people.

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He chose to suffer for the sake of obedience.

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And it wasn't just a one time choice.

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Every day he had to get up and choose it again and again and again.

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Every time he got knocked down, he had to get up and choose again what was most valuable.

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And the thing is that when we do this again and again, endurance gets built.

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Whenever we choose obedience, even when it hurts, that is how we become durable people.

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And I know I struggle with this.

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I'm sure you struggle with this too, but we actually only really want to obey God when

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it's easy.

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And we want to follow Jesus when it doesn't cost us too much.

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But obedience and suffering often go hand in hand.

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It's a hard choice.

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It's a hard, it should be a hard choice to choose faith in God.

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But every time we choose it, every time we obey, it's like we're like we're Steve Rogers.

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We're getting a little stronger.

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We're building muscle.

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We're growing in our endurance.

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If one chapter later in Hebrews, the author is going to say, no discipline seems pleasant

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at the time, but it's painful.

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Later on, however, later on it produces this harvest of righteousness and peace for those

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who've been trained by it.

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Guys, what are you choosing?

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Those of you watching online, what are you choosing today?

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Are you choosing comfort?

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Because you don't want to suffer?

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Are you choosing safety?

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Because you don't want to risk too much?

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Moses chose obedience and he chose to stand with God's people, even if it meant suffering

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for him.

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And every time we choose obedience, his, every time he chose obedience, he grew stronger

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and we can make the same choice.

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Growing in our strength as we obey.

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So Moses, first of all, he hegetomide, he calculated the cost, what was most valuable.

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Secondly, he hegetomide, he chose obedience over comfort.

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And that brings us to the third key verb that Moses did.

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Let's read it here.

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It says that by faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger and he persevered because

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he horoad, he saw him who is invisible.

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Now that Greek word horoad does not mean just to glance at something.

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Oh, I see you.

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It means actually to focus on it, to fix your attention on it, to set your eyes on it, which

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means that Moses endured because he kept his focus, he kept his attention, he kept his

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eyes fixed on God.

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I'm sure on the one hand, you can't help but notice when there's an ocean in front of you

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and an army coming toward you and a mountain beside you, he saw all his problems.

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He saw that too.

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He saw the threats.

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He saw his people suffering.

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He saw it all, but he fixed his eyes on God.

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We're told that he saw him who is invisible.

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One of the greatest truths about endurance is this.

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What you focus on will shape how you stand.

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If you focus on fear, you're going to be shaken.

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If you focus on circumstances, you're going to be discouraged.

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If you focus on your own strength, even, you're probably going to collapse in the end.

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But if you focus on God, if you focus on his presence, if you focus on his love, then you'll

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be able to get up and you'll be able to do it again and again.

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You can do this all day.

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That's why David wrote in the Psalms, he said, I have set the Lord always before me, always

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before me, always.

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My eyes are on him because he's at my right hand and therefore I will not be shaken.

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Oh my gosh.

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Moses had so many chances where he was shaken, but he wasn't shaken.

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He had no power.

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He had no influence.

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He had no resources, but God told him, go and do all these things.

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And he did.

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Why?

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Because he didn't focus on the visible circumstances.

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He focused on the invisible God.

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And don't you know that we have an even better opportunity to see God at work than Moses did?

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Because look, Moses was able to endure because he could set his eyes on the invisible God.

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How much more reason do we have to endure when we can set our eyes on something that

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Moses never saw, which is Jesus Christ.

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Jesus said that whoever has seen me has seen the father.

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When we're overwhelmed, put your eyes on Jesus and see the risen Jesus saying, I am with

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you always.

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Whenever you feel afraid or fearful, put your eyes on Jesus and remember him saying, I will

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never leave you or forsake you.

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Moses, yes, he saw the invisible God, but we see the God who was made flesh and blood,

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Jesus Christ.

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So are you only seeing the struggles that are in front of you or are you fixing your

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eyes on this God who never fails?

453
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Endurance isn't about what you face.

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It's about what you focus on.

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And if your eyes are fixed on your problems, you're not going to have the courage to get

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back up off the ground.

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If your eyes are fixed on yourself, you're not going to have the strength.

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But if you regard what is most valuable, if you choose obedience and if you fix your eyes

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on Jesus, you will endure, you will hypostand and you will get up off the ground and you

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will say, I can do this all day.

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Thanks be to God.

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Amen.

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Amen.