The True & Greater Moses (Jesus in Genesis #12)

There’s a moment in Spider-Man: No Way Home that quietly breaks the superhero formula. Villains from other universes are loose in Peter Parker’s world — dangerous, unstable, guilty. And everyone around Peter lands on the same obvious solution: get rid of them before they hurt anyone else. But Peter refuses. We can help them, he insists. And the entire movie pivots from a story about defeating enemies into a story about rescuing them.

I’ll be honest: I love myself a good Marvel movie. In college I saw Infinity War in theaters at least five times — I’d go alone, then with one group of friends, then another. (I still haven’t managed to see Brand New Day. My wife and I got to the theater, it was sold out, and we ended up with dinner and a nearly-finished puzzle instead. Honestly? A great evening.) But I opened this week’s message with No Way Home for a reason bigger than my fandom: we love rescue stories because every one of us knows what it’s like to need rescuing.

Maybe not from a supervillain. But from fear. From guilt and shame. From our sin. From circumstances far bigger than we are. To one degree or another, we all know what it feels like to be trapped — and what it feels like to be unable to save ourselves.

That’s why the story of Moses has captivated people for thousands of years.

Wait — Moses? In a Series Called “Jesus in Genesis”?

Yes, I know. Moses lives in Exodus. Take it up with the guy who planned the series title — I’m just the one preaching it. This week we landed in Hebrews 11:23–28, and we even wandered into Joshua before we were done.

If you’re familiar with Moses’s story, you know it’s one of the greatest rescue missions ever recorded. An entire nation enslaved. A wicked king clinging to power. A deliverer raised up by God. Miracles, plagues, the institution of the Passover, a sea splitting down the middle — even people who’ve never opened a Bible know pieces of this story.

But here’s what struck me as I prepared: when the author of Hebrews looks back at Moses, he skips almost all of that. No plagues. No burning bush. The Red Sea gets one verse. Instead, one drumbeat repeats through the whole passage: by faith. By faith Moses was hidden as a baby. By faith he refused the palace. By faith he left Egypt. By faith he kept the Passover.

Hebrews 11 isn’t building a hall of fame — it’s teaching us what trusting God actually looks like. And as we’ve seen all summer with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, Moses isn’t the final destination of the story. He’s a signpost. Some scholars argue Moses may be one of the clearest pictures of Christ in the entire Old Testament. So let’s walk through these carefully chosen moments and see how the faith of Moses points us to Jesus, the true and greater Moses.

A Baby, a Basket, and a Tyrant Who Couldn’t Win

“By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw that the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the king’s edict” (Hebrews 11:23).

The story begins under a death sentence. Pharaoh, threatened by the growing Hebrew population, had commanded that every Hebrew baby boy be killed. Imagine being Moses’s parents. A single cry from your newborn could mean his death. Every knock at the door could be the last time you see your child.

And yet the passage says they acted by faith. They feared God more than they feared Pharaoh. They trusted God’s purposes over a tyrant’s commands. And God not only preserved Moses — He placed him, of all places, in the household of Pharaoh’s own daughter.

Now fast-forward roughly a thousand years. Another child is born. Another ruler feels threatened. King Herod learns from the magi that a king has been born in Bethlehem, and in his paranoia he orders the slaughter of that town’s children. But once again God intervenes — Joseph is warned in a dream, the family flees to Egypt, and the child is preserved.

Two tyrants, two death decrees, two preserved deliverers. The pattern isn’t coincidence. It’s the same truth demonstrated twice: when God’s purpose is to save, no earthly power can stand in His way. Pharaoh couldn’t. Herod couldn’t. And nothing today can either.

Walking Away from the Palace

The author then jumps decades ahead. Moses is no longer an infant in a basket — he’s a prince of Egypt. (And yes, if you’re picturing the movie right now: it’s fantastic, and I recently learned Jeff Goldblum voices Aaron, which means I need to rewatch it immediately.)

“By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:24–25).

Think about what Moses was walking away from. Power. Wealth. Prestige. The best education the ancient world offered, inside the most powerful empire on earth. And he came to a crossroads: do I identify with Egypt, or with the people of God who are being oppressed? One path promised comfort. The other promised suffering.

By faith, Moses chose suffering — not because suffering is somehow virtuous in itself, but because he believed God’s promises were worth more than Egypt’s comforts. And that’s one of the defining marks of biblical faith. Faith doesn’t merely believe God exists. Faith treasures God more than whatever else is on the market. Faith says: even if obedience costs me something real, Jesus is worth it.

And isn’t that exactly what Jesus did — on an infinitely greater scale? Philippians 2 tells us that though He existed in the very form of God, He didn’t cling to His rights and privileges. He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant. Moses left a palace and exchanged privilege for suffering. Jesus left a throne, took on flesh, identified with sinners, and bore our sin all the way to death on a cross.

The Strangest Verse in the Passage

Verse 26 might be the most surprising line in the whole section: Moses “considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.”

Hold on — the reproach of Christ? Jesus wouldn’t be born for well over a thousand years. How could Moses consider the reproach of someone who hadn’t yet entered human history?

The author isn’t claiming Moses understood everything about Jesus. He’s saying Moses trusted God’s promised Redeemer — and valued God’s future kingdom over Egypt’s present treasures. Moses looked beyond what was immediately visible because he understood that Egypt’s wealth was temporary while God’s reward was eternal. And because of that, he was willing to endure disgrace now for joy later.

Jesus didn’t merely endure the reproach — He bore it. Mocked, rejected, spat upon, beaten, flogged, abandoned, crucified. Hebrews 12 says it was “for the joy that was set before him” that He “endured the cross, despising the shame.” Moses looked ahead to a future reward. Jesus endured suffering to secure that reward — for us.

Here’s what that means for you and me: faith allows us to see beyond our very real, very present suffering to the eternal, equally real joy set before us in Jesus. Obedience to God is never wasted. Your suffering is not for nothing.

The Lamb at the Center of the Story

Then we arrive at the climax: “By faith, he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them” (Hebrews 11:28).

This is the moment the whole story has been building toward. The final plague is coming. Judgment is literally standing at the door. And God’s way of rescue isn’t military might, political influence, or good intentions. It’s a lamb.

The Israelites were told to sacrifice a spotless lamb and put its blood on the doorposts of their homes. When judgment came, every house covered by the blood of the lamb was spared. Let’s be honest — that took faith. It looked strange. But God’s provision often does, and we can trust what He calls us to do even when it seems unusual.

And the Passover wasn’t the destination either. It was a signpost. Every sacrificed lamb pointed forward to a greater Lamb. When John the Baptist saw Jesus approaching, he announced, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 5, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”

The blood on the doorposts in Egypt pointed to the blood on the cross at Golgotha. The greater exodus isn’t from slavery in Egypt but from slavery to sin. The greater judgment isn’t physical death but eternal separation from God. And the greater Lamb isn’t an animal — it’s Jesus, the Son of God Himself.

Moses instituted the Passover. Jesus became the Passover.

But Wait — There’s More

As the late, great Billy Mays would say: but wait, there’s more. Because Moses wasn’t the only signpost. The people he led were part of the picture too, and the author of Hebrews keeps moving — straight through the Red Sea to Jericho and to a woman named Rahab (Hebrews 11:29–31).

Israel, freed from Egypt, found themselves trapped between Pharaoh’s army and the sea — nowhere to go. So God made a way where there wasn’t one. The waters divided, the ground dried, and God’s people walked through. Centuries later, Jesus came to the Jordan River and was baptized by His cousin John. He wasn’t escaping slavery or entering a promised land — He was identifying with His people. Israel passed through the waters as God’s son. Jesus passed through the waters as the greater Son, and the Father declared, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Then the wilderness. Israel spent forty years there — hungry, tested, grumbling, failing, and yet held by God’s stubborn faithfulness the whole time. Matthew 4 tells us Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days and forty nights. Israel was hungry; Jesus was hungry. Israel was tested; Jesus was tested. But here’s the difference: Israel failed where Jesus succeeded. When Satan tempted Him to turn stones into bread, Jesus answered from Deuteronomy — the very book where Moses reflects on Israel’s wilderness failures. Jesus was reliving Israel’s story and writing a different ending.

And the best part? Jesus wasn’t simply modeling an obedient life for us to imitate. He was accomplishing the obedience we never could. He is the faithful Son that Israel — and every one of us — was always supposed to be.

Fallen Walls and an Unlikely Grandmother

After the wilderness comes Jericho: “By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.” Israel didn’t conquer that fortress through military brilliance. Marching in circles doesn’t destabilize masonry. The walls fell because the people trusted God and obeyed Him — and God brought them down.

Jesus faced a greater fortress than Jericho. He defeated Satan in the wilderness through perfect obedience, and then at the cross and resurrection He won the greater victory — over sin, death, and the powers of darkness themselves. Joshua conquered earthly enemies and brought Israel into a temporary rest. Jesus conquered our ultimate enemies to bring His people into eternal rest.

And then, wonderfully, the author lands on Rahab. A Canaanite. An outsider. Identified bluntly as a prostitute. And yet she makes the hall of faith — why? Because she believed. She had heard what God did for Israel and concluded that “the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.” She acted on that belief, hid the spies, and when Jericho’s walls fell, she and her family were rescued.

But here’s what makes her story sing: open Matthew 1 and you’ll find Rahab in the family line of Jesus. The outsider became family. The condemned woman of Jericho became a beloved daughter of God — and a great-great-grandmother of the Messiah.

That’s the gospel in one genealogy entry. God takes rebels, turns them toward Himself, and redeems them for His purpose. The question was never “Am I impressive enough for God?” Rahab wasn’t. Israel wasn’t. We aren’t. The question is: will I trust the God who saves?

Why We Ended at the Table

We closed this week with communion — and that’s not a change of subject. It’s exactly where this whole story has been heading.

Israel stood behind blood-covered doorposts, trusting that God’s judgment would pass over them because of the blood of a lamb. We look back at something greater: the finished work of Christ on the cross. We don’t need another sacrifice, another Moses, another deliverance. Jesus didn’t just pay the tab for an evening — He paid it all. Past, present, future.

The bread reminds us of His body, given for us. The cup reminds us of His blood, poured out for the forgiveness of our sins. And as we came to the table, I asked us all to do something very simple: remember. Remember when you were enslaved to sin — and maybe, if we’re honest, some of us still are. You’re not alone in that. Remember how judgment was coming, and how Jesus took your judgment upon Himself. Remember that you could not and cannot save yourself — and remember how Jesus became your Savior.

If you’re not yet a follower of Jesus, I mean this sincerely: thank you for being with us. We planted Riverwood for you. And maybe your next step isn’t the table at all — maybe it’s a conversation, a confession, a surrender. You don’t need to pretend to have it all together. You don’t have to fake it to make it. What a crushing lie that is — as if God loves us for our potential. He loves us because He loves us because He loves us. That’s simply who He is.

Moses could lead Israel out of Egypt, but he couldn’t lead them out of sin. Joshua could lead Israel into the promised land, but he couldn’t give them eternal life. Rahab was rescued from Jericho, but she couldn’t rescue herself. All their stories end. The Passover lambs were sacrificed over and over and over. But Jesus lived the perfect life, died in the place of sinners — both like us and unlike us — and rose to life again. His sacrifice is sufficient forever.

So stop striving. Stop trying to impress Him. Jesus isn’t a crutch — He’s the rock we stand on. Trust the God who saves, and rest.