A Monument for Moses

If you go to Egypt you will find all kinds of impressive monuments, some of the most impressive monuments that have ever been built and have stood the test of time like the pyramids, the sphinx, you'll see burial tombs and temples, great monuments to rulers of Egypt. Moses could have had such a monument. We have been for some months now in a series of messages on the life of Moses. And we know the story, if you've been with us, you know that Moses was the Pharaoh-Elect. He was the son of Pharaoh's daughter being reared to be the next Pharaoh of Egypt. He was in a place of power. He was the pride of Egypt. He had everything you could possibly want, wealth, stature, the best education, the most glorious and golden of opportunities dangling before him. But if you go to Egypt you'll find monuments to Tutmost, to Ramses, to Tutankhamun, to Queen Hatshefsith, but you won't find any monuments to Moses. Why? Why are there no monuments to this leader in waiting, this Pharaoh in training in Egypt? Hebrews 11 has the answer. It is because of some choices and decisions that Moses made to turn his back on all that was offered to him in Egypt and to take a different course in life. We cannot finish this series on Moses without examining this important testimony that God gives us in his hall of monuments, his hall of faith to Moses. Moses occupies a significant slice of this chapter. And thus he gives to us an eternal perspective on a lasting monument. So we can't finish this series without touching on this text because we cannot fully grasp the significance of Moses' greatness without understanding what this text says about the choices he made and a kind of monument he wanted erected for his life. Moses did not have an Egyptian monument, but there were three principles that guided Moses' life that led him to a lasting monument and we find those three principles for us in Hebrews 11. I believe they can and should be the guiding principles of our lives so that we too, when we see the Lord, will not be concerned about what kind of monuments have been erected to us here, but we will be more concerned about God's eternal monument, which is awaiting us in heaven, a reward in heaven. One of those three principles that guided the life of Moses and that I believe need to guide our lives today. The first one is godly goals. Godly goals. If you'll look with me at Hebrews chapter 11, let's begin reading in verse 23. By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born because they saw he was no ordinary child and they were not afraid of the King's edict. By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. What we have described here is the godly goals that Moses had set for his life and how those godly goals gave him direction in life. Many years ago the late Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was writing on a train to his destination when the conductor came through his car asking for tickets. He fumbled around in his suit coat and in his pants pockets and in his briefcase could not for the life of him find his train ticket. And so the conductor finally said, Mr. Holmes, we know who you are. We trust you. When you find it, just send it in the bottom of the mail. That's fine. No problem. Mr. Holmes said, my dear man, that is not my problem. I need to find my ticket to know where I am going. Some of us have no clear direction in life. We don't really know where we're going. It is godly goals that will determine your direction in life. And I want you to see how Moses developed godly goals that determined the kind of choices he would make and the direction he would take with his life. The first thing that just leaps out of us in this text is that godly goals start with wise parents. Look again at verse 23, by faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born because they saw he was no ordinary child and they were not afraid of the king's edict. If you can remember a few months back when we first started this series on Moses, we found that the Pharaoh of Egypt because of an alarming growth in the nation of Israel within the borders of Egypt was concerned about the security of his country. And so his way to solve that crisis in his mind was to kill all of the Hebrew baby boys that would be born from that point on so that the nation would eventually lose strength, numbers, and influence. While Moses' parents went against the edict of the king, this text tells us, and they did it by faith, they were the ones who set Moses' life on a trajectory that would chart a course for him that would be different. These were parents that saw something in this young man. The Bible says they saw he was no ordinary child. Some translations say they saw he was a fine child. We don't know exactly what they saw in them, but I believe it was more of a heart, mind, and soul type of things than it was just the way he smiled or cued or whatever. I think it was more of a heart. I believe that god touched their heart as they looked into the eyes and the mind and soul of that baby boy to where they saw that god had a special purpose and plan for him. That god wanted to use this baby boy who would grow up to be a man. They saw somehow that god wanted to use him in his work to deliver his people to do his work. And they believed that god had something special, a special purpose for this young man. And so they hid him as long as you can hide a baby. He gets to three months old. He's doing a lot more crying, a lot less sleeping. And so he's hard to hide anymore. And so you remember they concocted this plan under the direction of the Lord? I am sure to fix a little basket for him and nestle it among the reads of the river Nile at just the location where Pharaoh's daughter would usually enter the river to bathe herself. Trusting that she would see this baby take pity on him and take him home. Of course Moses' mother was nearby. His sister was watching all this unfold. And when Pharaoh's daughter did indeed find this little baby. The first thing she recognized, this is a little three, four month old baby, he needs someone to feed him. And so she talks to Moses' sister who rushes into the scene just the right time. And as you remember the story, god providentially arranged his promoses to go back to his own home to be nursed by his mother until he was old enough to be weaned. And in those few years, which would be three or four years in a Hebrew household, I'm convinced that his parents who could see that god had a special plan and purpose for this little boy before he would leave their influence, they poured every bit of influence into him they possibly could. I'm confident from the record of Exodus that they poured into him his identity. He knew he was a Hebrew because when he became an adult, he knew who the Israelites were and he knew that he identified with them. They were his people. So he had never forgotten that that had been built into him, built into his heart and mind by his parents. Godly goals, the kind of path in life that starts you out on a path toward following God begins with wise parents. Parents, you have a tremendous impact on your children whether or not you realize the significance of it even when they become teenagers and suddenly you as a parent become absolutely dumb. You still have an amazing influence on your children and you need to understand that that you are equipped by God and called by God to shape your children, to challenge and mold your children, to walk with him, to serve him, to love God above all. It starts with parents but then those Godly goals that are built into the very fabric of a young child's life by his or her parents. Those Godly goals enable you to say no. At some point in your life, they will enable you to say no to everything that attracts you, that tempts you to go away from that path that God wants you to go on. It will enable you to say no. Look at verse 24, how this worked out with Moses. By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, he's no longer this little child, he's now grown up, he's on his own, he's been taken into Pharaoh's household, he's been raised as Pharaoh's daughter, he has been groomed and primed to become the next Pharaoh of Egypt, but by faith when he had grown up, he made a choice. He said no, he refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He was raised by Pharaoh's daughter. He was raised in wealth, in the royal household, he had status, he had the best education in the world at that time. He had wealth, he had all the advantages of the court and bright glowing prospects for the future, but he made a choice. His choice was to say no to all of that and to identify with the people that he knew were his people, the Israelites. They were a slave nation, they were viewed with contempt by every high-bred Egyptian, every wealthy Egyptian, especially by those in Pharaoh's court. They were treated with contempt, they were treated cruelly, but that choice to make, do I follow the career path that has been established for me in this court, that offers everything this world could offer, or do I identify with God's people and fulfill the purpose that God destined me for to serve him, that my parents saw and built into me. Which do I do? He had the courage and the strength to say no because of godly goals that he kept before him, to say no to all of the allurements of the world in which he was reared, and to say yes to following God in God's purpose for his life. So godly goals start with wise parents, they enable you to say no, but here's the reason why you can say no to all those allurements. And that's because godly goals place the eternal over the temporary. Look at it in verse 25, it's right there. Why did he make this choice to say no? He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God, here it is, rather to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. You see, he saw the people of God in God's purpose for them as being eternal. I'm sure that his parents had drilled into him, who Abraham was, and how god had made promises to Abraham that the Israelites would be a great nation, and that god would raise them up and they would have a land that was promised to Abraham and his other forefathers. I'm sure they built all of that into this young man's life. And so he is able to see the eternal plan, the eternal perspective of god. And what he sees in comparison to that, all the wealth and advantage and pleasure of Egypt is just fleeting. That's not eternal. That's just temporary. He may enjoy that for a while, maybe even a lifetime, but he's got his eyes on a better price. He's got his eyes on a bigger goal. He has learned to place the eternal over the temporal. Now that's not an easy choice. It is not easy if you've got your eyes on what's right in front of you and a career path that will bring you much of this world's goods. It's not easy to lift your eyes up from that and to see an eternal perspective because people will think you are crazy. Who would give up what Moses gave up in Egypt to be mistreated? Mistreated with these Hebrew people? I mean, that's no choice. Anybody with two grains of sense, you would think, would choose what's available in Egypt. Moses is not looking at the fleeting choices in front of him. He's looking at the eternal perspective of what it means to be God's people and fulfill His plan and His purpose in life. There will be people who, when you make that choice, think you are absolutely out of your mind. I shared the story with you before that God began dealing with me about going into ministry between my junior and senior years of high school and I committed my life to follow him to do whatever. I didn't know what it looked like at that time. I believe God was calling me to preach, but I wasn't real sure what that would look like. Whether it would be on the mission field, in a church, or where might be? I didn't know. But I remember going back to school for my senior year and all seniors at Princeton High School are talking about what they're going to do and where they're going to go to college and exciting plans they have and that's an exciting time. And I remember some of my friends asking me, I remember one young lady in particular who was graduating at the top of the class, number one in the class. She was going to an Ivy League school. I don't remember whether it was Harvard or Princeton, but she had a full ride just a brilliant young lady and she asked me one day, where are you going to college? I said, I'm going to Piedmont. She looked at me for a minute and then she said, oh, you're going to be an airline pilot. Some of you are at least my age. You remember those regional airlines, Eastern Airlines, Piedmont Airlines, Piedmont kind of service the southeast? Oh, you're going to be an airline pilot. No, no, not going to be in her. What are you going to do? Well, I'm going to go into the ministry and I'll never forget her kind of blinking her eyes a little bit, her mouth dropping open and this is what she said to me. Why don't you just join the Peace Corps for a couple of years? Get that out of your system and do something with your life. That's stun. It's stun. And I'm a little ashamed to say I was embarrassed by that. And I was kind of embarrassed to tell my fellow students, no, I'm not going to Virginia Tech. I'm not going to WVU. I'm not going to wherever I'm going to a little place you've never heard of, a little Bible college. Now I wish I'd had more strength and fortitude like Moses and it wouldn't have bothered me and I could have just stood right up and said that proudly and boldly. Other men, I was a little intimidated. But I thank God my parents weren't. I thank God that through that senior year when there were lots of ways that at the time I could tell you the ways Satan tried to get me derailed. And off the path through a relationship with the young lady, I never should have started dating through some other things that happened. I can see now that Satan was trying to get me off of that path. But I had parents and a church that valued highly a Bible college and somebody going into ministry and kept pushing me that direction. Even when I wavered, they didn't waver. You see, godly goals start with godly parents and wise parents who are able when their children are struggling with that, when their teenagers are struggling with that, with parents who will say, I see the eternal over the temporary. And I know what you're giving up and I know how hard it is to face your classmates when they've got all these glowing plans and all these scholarships in place. I know that's hard, but you keep your eyes on the eternal and do whatever God wants you to do. I'm so thankful I had parents like that and a church, this church, across the road back in those days, that believed in that and pushed young people to go that direction and to follow the call of God if God was calling them, I will never, never regret that choice. And sometimes it's the parents who are ashamed and embarrassed because they're having to talk to all the other parents. Oh, where's your child going next year? And they're all comparing notes, you know, how parents are. Oh, my kid got full ride to name the school. They're going to study. Where's your kid going? They say they kind of want to go, but we would really like for them to say, what the God we had some parents like Moses parents who built into him the eternal over the temporary. What the God we saw more people, more young people making that choice is a John, are you saying that all young people should go into the ministry for crying out loud? No, but we're not in any danger of that. Are we just look around for 40 years? I can count on one hand, the number of young people that have gone into the ministry from this church in the last 40 years. So I don't think we're in any great danger of losing all of our young people to the will of God. Although that would be great. And yes, I certainly know that godly young people can serve the Lord passionately and be salt and light for him as architects and factory workers and school teachers and business owners and nurses and doctors. I fully get that. But I just like to see it's tilt the scales a little bit back toward challenging our young people to think first about how to invest your life in an eternal way that will have the most impact for eternity. God doesn't open those doors for you. That's fine. That's fine. He will use you in other vocations. But can't we at least as we are doing now? Thank God for Pastor Dan and Pastor James who are putting this vision before our children and young people. But there's something more eternal to invest your life in. But what we need to do is parents and as a church is to get behind them and to push them that direction and if God closes the doors fine. But we're not even checking to see if those doors are open. Godly goals enabled Moses to say no to a career path that would have given him everything Egypt had to offer and to say yes to identifying with the people of God and leading them as a full-time vocational servant of God. Godly goals, first principle, second principle, focus to priorities. And you will only be able to focus your priorities for your life if you start with Godly goals. There's a sequence here. There's a continuum here. It starts with Godly goals and then it goes to focus to priorities in verse 26. Notice how Moses was able to focus his priorities. He regarded now that's a term that means he thought this through. He put two different career choices in a scale and he weighed them out. He regarded this grace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward. I believe that verse summarizes two great life-changing questions that everyone in this room at some point has to answer. Two great foundational life-changing questions. Number one is this. What is most important in life? What is most important in life? Look, again, verse 26, he regarded this grace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt. Now think about that. Just envision all that that's saying there is an actual weighing out of career paths here. Wailing out of priorities because he's regarding these two choices. He's looking at both of them and he's weighing their value and the value of one is incredible. Power and riches if he stays on the course to be the next Pharaoh of Egypt. And the other career path is disgrace identified with these people who have been enslaved by the Egyptians and are regarded as nothing. Here the world looks at that and says, what kind of choice is that? That's a no-brainer. You'd be a fool not to take the riches of Egypt. You'd be a fool not to take the wealth and power and all that's offered you here in Egypt. The other choice to live a life of disgrace with this group of people. You had to be kidding me. And so the world says to choose what Moses chose is to choose like a fool. But what does God say? Again, what's most important in life? That's the real question. Well we know what God says because he told us, listen to this, Mark 8, then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross, death to my own self-plans, goals, career paths, take up the cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. In other words, if you want to say, I'm going to live my own life. Nobody's going to tell me what to do. I know what I want to do. I know where I'm headed. I'm going to figure out my own life. And this is what I want to do with it. You end up losing your life. Jesus is speaking somewhat metaphorically here. He's not talking necessarily about you'll die as a result of that decision. But he is saying you will lose all purpose, meaning, fulfillment, direction, eternal reward in life if you just live for yourself. But if you as a business owner or a clerk in a store or a teacher in a school or a secretary or a lawyer, if you choose to invest your life in whatever vocation, a missionary or a pastor or Bible college professor, if you choose to invest your life for God's glory, then you will save it. You will find true meaning, purpose and fulfillment in life. The problem with all of those careers I've just mentioned is that the ones that are usually considered by people are just that, what secular vocation can I go into? Nobody even thinks about missionary, pastor, Bible college professor. In other words, that's a last resort. God's going to have to pull me dragging and kick me, kicking and screaming. He's going to have to drag me into that. Why don't we consider that up front and say, Lord, what's most important in life? The souls of people and eternity. So that's the way I'm going to head to give my life to serve you. Now if that's not what you want me to do, stop me. Why don't we do it the other way around? Because if you really understand the most important thing in life is to get as many people as possible to have them, then what better way to invest your life? So let's start there and then if God closes that door, say, okay, Lord, then I'll use my time and energy and whatever resources you give me as someone who's working faithfully in another vocation and I'll still use that to serve you. Jesus really sets it up for us when he says, what good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul or what can anyone give an exchange for their soul? Eternal things. That was last forever. The souls of people are more important than anything you will gain in this world. Remember the story. Jesus told about the successful businessman who looked around at the bumper crops that were coming in every year and saying, I don't even have enough room to store all this stuff in Luke 12 and he said, I'm going to tear down all my barns and build bigger barns and that's what I'll do. I'll make investment in my future financially. We'll grow this business and then I will say to my soul soul, that has much good to lay up for many years, take 90s, eat, drink and be merry. Just enjoy life because you got it made. You know what, God's evaluation of that was found in Luke 12 verse 28, thou fool. This night your soul will be required of you. Then who shall those things be? In other words, God considers us fools if we make the evaluation of life that what's most important is stuff down here rather than the soul and eternity. So the real gripping question is what is most important in life? The eternal, the temporary. The second focused question that will help you focus your priorities in life as this, how will this decision look in eternity? That's what Moses was saying. Look again, verse 26, he regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt. So he's weighed out these two options and he's come to the amazing conclusion that it would be better, it would be a higher value in life to suffer disgrace with the people of Israel. How in the world did you come to that conclusion, Moses, with the second question, how will this decision look in eternity? You see why I made it? In verse 26, because here's how he made that evaluation, because he was looking ahead to his reward. You see there are two ways you can live life and that's with your head down looking at things in front of you, looking at all the decisions you need to make to choose the best path for you that will benefit you the most, or you can lift your eyes and look way off, way off, not to middle age, not to retirement years, looking further, lift him up a little higher. Look over in the eternity. Get that glimpse, get that view. How will this decision I'm making right now play at the judgment seat of Christ? When I'm asked to give an account of my life to Christ, then how will the decision I'm making right now look there? And then that's the kind of question Moses was asking. That's what he was asking. What's the most important thing in life and how will this decision look in eternity? When you ask those two questions, then it becomes a no-brainer. I suffered disgrace with the people of God. Obvious choice. That's not the way the world chooses. That's not the way worldly thinking chooses, but it's the way someone who has developed a lifestyle of Godly goals chooses, with focused priorities, knowing that the eternal is more important than the temporal, and I will someday stand before God to let him know what I've done with my life. What determined Moses' direction? Godly goals. Focused priorities, but then there was an obedient faith as well. Look at it if you will in verses 27 to 29. It's interesting to me that these next few verses describe three times when Moses was required to exercise amazing faith. And they mirror, at least as I look at them, they mirror times in our lives when if you don't trust God, you'll make a mess of things. You will make the wrong decisions. The first time for faith is when things go wrong. Look at it verse 27. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the King's anger, he persevered because he saw him who was invisible. Now you need to digest this verse a little bit and you need to put it in the context of what happened back in Exodus. This verse is saying by faith Moses didn't fear the King. Well Exodus 2 says he did. I think Exodus 2 has the situation that was happening right then, and God is looking at his whole life in the bigger perspective. So in the moment in Exodus 2, when Moses killed the Egyptian taskmaster, remember, and he got discovered, and he realized the word was out and the Bible says he was afraid and ran for his life out of Egypt. So initially he was afraid, but looking at the whole big picture of his life, what God taught him over the next 40 years in the wilderness was not to fear man, not to fear Pharaoh. To the point he doesn't even feel qualified going back to Egypt anymore, but when he does to deliver his people, he's not afraid of Pharaoh. He's not afraid to stand in the presence of Pharaoh now. He's not afraid of Pharaoh killing him anymore. Why? Because he has been able by faith to see him who is invisible. Listen, when things go wrong in your life, when things come crashing down around you, then you need to be able to have the kind of faith in God that trusts he knows what he's doing. Everything looks like a failure, but I believe God knows what he's doing. You see him who's invisible, and everything around you looks like it's crashing, but you believe in the one who's invisible. You think you know he knows what he's doing. That's faith. There's a second time when you're going to need faith on a very deep level, and that's when things don't make sense. When things don't make sense, you got to trust God. Verse 28, by faith, he kept the Passover and the application of blood so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel. Remember that story of the Passover where God told Moses how the children of Israel could escape the last plague on Egypt, which was a plague of the death of the firstborn of every Egyptian household. And God said, the way Israel can escape that, is you take a lamb, you kill the lamb, take part of the blood, and you apply it over the outside of your door into your dwelling, the top and both sides. You know what? That made no sense. He said, well, I want to say, John, it makes perfect sense. Blood of the lamb, Christ is our lamb who died for us, and even, you know, blood over the top and the two sides, a perfect picture of the cross, perfect, since we know that. Yes, we do. This side of the cross. And with all of the information of God's word, we know the figures of speech and types and pictures and metaphors of the Old Testament that pointed toward the cross. Moses didn't have that information. He knew some basic general promises of the Word of God about the promised seed of the woman, the seed that was promised to Abraham that would bless all nations. He didn't have the details of the cross and the blood and the look, how the cross would look. That was a Roman instrument of torture developed centuries later. He didn't know that. And so take a lamb, kill it, take the blood and put it over your door and on the side of your door. That makes no sense. What's that about? When things don't make sense, you have to be able to trust in what God says to do. When things go wrong, you have to be able to trust that he knows what he's doing. When things don't make sense, you have to be able to trust that he knows what he's saying and obey him anyway. There's a third time you're going to need faith, you're going to make a mess of your decisions in life. And that is when things look hopeless. When things look hopeless, verse 29, by faith, the people pass through the red sea as on dry land, but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned. That's a pretty hopeless situation. What did it look? Hopeless. Israel is before the red sea. There are mountains to the north. There's desert to the south, Egyptian army closing and fast behind them. There's no way to get out of this. The situation is hopeless. And when your situation is hopeless, you need to be able to trust that God knows the way. He knows the way. And if need be, he can park the red sea and take you through it. When things go wrong, God is in control. When things don't make sense, trust what God has said. That he knows what he's talking about. When things look hopeless, trust him to lead the way. And he will. That's when you will need faith more than any other time. And what was the result of that faith? Obedience. In all three cases, he obeyed God. He did what God told him to do. Even though everything seemed to be going wrong, even though it seemed senseless, what God was telling him to do, and even though the situation seemed hopeless, he just obeyed. He did what God told him to do. He trusted God. When God puts his hand on your life and begins to speak to you about what he wants you to do, they're going to be times when it seems like everything's going wrong. You need to be able to trust that God's in control. He knows what he's doing. They're going to be times when things don't make sense. You need to be able to trust what God has said. And they're going to be times when situations look absolutely hopeless and you'll be able to trust he will lead the way through that part of your life. Moses willingly traded an earthly monument for a heavenly one. He willingly traded fame, power, pleasure, and perks for a reward that would be eternal. Yes, he didn't get a monument in Egypt, but he did have eternal impact and reward. What a trade. What a trade. It doesn't look like a good trade to the world, but it is a great trade off. What he lost, he couldn't have kept anyway. What he gained, he couldn't lose. One of my favorite all-time songs from one of my favorite all-time artists. It's an oldie, but it's a goodie. Done in 1988 by Twila Paris, Twila Paris, who wrote this song based on the famous quote from Jim Elliott in the book written by his wife, the biography written about her husband through Gates of Splendor. He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Jim Elliott was born to wealth and privilege, a high status in society. He turned his back on all of that and went to be a missionary to people that had never even seen a white person, a native tribe deep in the jungles of Ecuador that had never seen any outsiders. You may remember the story how in 1956, he and four of his fellow missionaries were murdered by that tribe on a sandy landing strip beside a river. There were plenty of people including newscasters who looked at that and said, what a waste, what a waste of potential. Twila Paris wrote this song in the first verse of this song is about Jim Elliott. The second verse of the song is about Eric Little. Eric Little was born in China, raised in a missionary's home in China, but sent to a boarding school in Scotland, his home country. He quickly became the best athlete in that boarding school and became pretty soon the fastest runner in all of the United Kingdom. So in 1924, he was scheduled to be on the Olympic team for the United Kingdom. He was scheduled to run the 100, which was his specialty race, but the qualifying heats for that race were on Sunday and it was against his personal conviction to engage an athletic competition on Sunday. And so as the wonderful movie chariots of fire documents, he said, I will not run that race. Can you imagine what he was giving up? So they quickly scrambled things around and entered him into the 400, which was not his race. He had never run it competitively, although knowing ahead of time when the trials would be, he'd been training some for that race, but he'd never run it competitively. He was on the outside lane so he couldn't see who was running against him. And so he just ran like he would run a 100 for 400 and set a world record in one of the gold medal. One year, one year after winning that gold medal, he was back in China as a missionary. Turned his back on all the lucrative things that were before him because of his international fame and status and went as a missionary to a little school to help young people learn how to walk with God in China. Spent 20 years there before in 1945, he was interred in a Japanese internment camp after the Japanese had invaded China, World War II, and suffered as a martyr for the cause of Christ, died in that internment camp. And there were a lot of people who said he's full. He's a fool to give that up. Well actually, Puyla Perra sings it a lot better than I can say it, so let's listen to her song for 30 years. It has challenged my heart. There was a man for the height of the dead. There were dancers he had every chance to speak. And I, from above, made his dreams of life. You're not full, you're feeling worse. You're just the thing, you cannot see, you're by my feet and never lose. You say your treasure in one show, the star of shine, the pride of God, he is the home. You're the one who was dead in his life, you're walking the stairs of the Lord. He has died, he has no soul. You're just the thing, you cannot see, you're by my feet and never lose. You say your treasure in one show, the star of shine, the pride of God, he is the home. He has no soul, he has no soul. Moses was not a fool. Eric Little was not a fool. Father, I thank you for Pastor James and Pastor Dan who are casting this vision before our children and young people. And I pray without apology, because you told us to, I pray for laborers for the harvest. From this church, Lord I confess our poor record of thrusting people out into the harvest fields. I pray that you will forgive us for what has often been a world leave you of what success really is. Father, I pray that from this very group you will call out place your hand upon those who would be thrust out to take the gospel to the unreached peoples of this world. I pray that you will call out some to be pastors and teachers who will grow up into maturity, believers who will be challenged to go out and serve you. Oh God, help us never to believe that what is most important in life is what lies right in front of us. But to lift our eyes up to eternity and make our choices based on that in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.