Is Reckless Abandon The Same As Biblical Risk-Taking Faith?
Hebrews 11:23
As I had hoped and intended, last week’s message stirred the pot here at COG just a bit. I heard from many of you that the message on Noah and his willingness to believe and do a really hard thing for the Lord was just what you needed to hear. Others of you shared with me that the Lord has been speaking to you about the very thing we were talking about and that you were encouraged to take greater risks with your lives, time, resources, and ambitions in order to make much of Christ. I am sure that to others I probably sounded as though I was calling us to a sort of reckless abandon that lacked caution, preparation, planning and threw common sense out the window. And today I want to address that very issue.
Now, I don’t think any of us in this church who are really committed to making much of Christ have any misunderstanding about the fact that this kind of mindset will lead to a lifestyle that is willing to risk and even lose certain things that we hold dear for the sake of demonstrating that Christ is indeed our greatest treasure and pleasure in life. In fact, many of you who are already pursuing that kind of thinking and already making decisions about what you are willing to put on the line in order to make much of Christ. Thus, I am not in the position of having to convince most of you to pursue a lifestyle, which willingly risks its treasures and pleasures for the glory of God. But, I am in the position of helping us see how we are to do this.
So this morning we are going to look at just one verse in Hebrews 11 that sums up how one couple that made the decision to live by their faith and thus incur great risk—risking not only their meager comforts, semi-independence, and lives but also the lives of their two young children and an infant—did so.
And what we will see is that whereas, living by your faith necessitates the believing and doing of hard things as well as the taking of great risks—it does not rule out using godly wisdom to minimize the risk and the danger as much as God allows.
There are people who believe that living by faith means you should not give time or effort to planning, preparing, or taking any kinds of precautions so as to minimize the incumbent risks involved in any kind of ministry endeavor. Rather, they would say, that living by faith is a sense of “reckless abandonment” in which you just throw all caution to the wind and take no precautions whatsoever to minimize the risk because trying to minimize risk is kind of like saying you really don’t trust the Lord. And these kinds of people would advise you to just empty your bank accounts, not save for the future, not purchase health insurance, don’t think about retirement, don’t go to the doctor, give all your possessions away, and go live in a tent.
But is that what the Bible teaches and is this what Hebrews 11 is teaching as it highlights the lives of those people who did take great and life-threatening risk to make much of God. Did they in living lives of faith simply live their lives and make their decisions with reckless abandon throwing all caution and common sense to the wind? And does living by your faith require that you make decisions with reckless abandon giving no thought to the consequences and with little or no preparation or plan to minimize the risk you may encounter?
Well let’s find out. Go with me to Hebrews 11:23.
In yet another passage describing what it means to live by your faith in God, the author of Hebrews utilizes the example of Moses’ parents who although not afraid of the King’s edict because of their faith in God still took precautionary measures to keep Moses alive. Thus, they took a great risk in disobeying Pharaoh that could have landed them in prison or killed them—which would have left Miriam and Aaron as orphans in either case. Yet in taking this great risk they did not just throw all caution to the wind. They did not just walk around with Moses out in the open for everyone to see. No, for three months they hid him and then when they couldn’t do that anymore—they made a plan. Moses’ mother and father had a plan—a far-fetched and risky one—but nevertheless a plan.
But the interesting thing was that their actions were not all that different from what the other Hebrew parents did other than that Moses’ folks did not throw out all caution to the wind and they did their best to minimize the risk involved in their actions. Look at Acts 7:17-21. We are told in verse 19 that the parents of other little boy babies “would expose their infants and they would not survive”. The Greek word for “expose” is essentially the same as the word describing what Moses’ mother Jochabed did in verse 21 in “setting him outside”. The two words, which as I said are essentially the same both mean to “put out of” or “to expose” and can even mean “to cast out”.
So it could be that the Hebrew parents took their boy babies and either just hid them outside the home and the villages where they lived hoping they wouldn’t be found by Pharaoh’s soldiers or that they themselves threw them into the Nile River in obedience to Pharaoh’s command yet somehow hoping that God would intervene and save their baby from death. Interestingly enough, extrabiblical literature speaks about multitudes of stories from across the Middle East and Mediterranean of casting babies that either were sick, injured, handicapped, unable to be cared for, or born into a bad and dangerous situation into the waters.
Scholars believe that the reason for the widespread practice of doing this after the time of Moses reflects what happened in Egypt. Furthermore, these scholars have concluded that the parents’ intent in the majority of cases was not to kill their babies but to commit them to the providence of their gods whom they believed would take care of them if they the parents were worthy and strangely enough had enough confidence in the god to protect and save their baby for a life better than the one they could offer.
The idea that the vast majority of Hebrew parents put their babies into the Nile River in obedience to Pharaoh but all the while hoping and praying for some divine protection is probably the most consistent with the language, the history of the times, and extrabiblical literature. Irregardless of whether they threw their babies into the Nile or just left them hidden on the banks of the Nile—they did so with a blind faith in whatever god they believed in to protect and somehow deliver their baby if they were worthy and their baby was worthy.
In other words, they threw all caution to the wind and just hoped for the best.
But that is not what Moses’ parents did. Yes, they put Moses in the Nile but they had a plan to minimize the risk and the danger. They didn’t just throw their baby into the River and all caution and common sense to the wind and presume that God was going to intervene upon their behalf. Now, to be sure they trusted God and they desired to do the right thing, which was to keep their baby boy alive but this decision, even being the right one was a risk-filled one that could cost them the life of their baby boy anyway, their own lives, and the lives of their other two kids, Miriam and Aaron. They had a lot to lose if Moses was discovered in their home and a lot to lose if Moses drowned in the River. So, they came up with a plan, which minimized the risk and which God used to bring them success.
You know the story but let’s take a look at it anyway and see how this plan got worked out. Go to Exodus 2:1-10.
Note that Moses’ mom was not going to just throw her baby boy into the water to sink or be saved—No, she got him a wicker basket and then she covered the basket with pitch and tar so it would float and not sink. Her mom didn’t put the basket into the main current of the Nile but near the shore in the reeds so that it would not be swept away. And she just happened to put the basket near the spot where Pharaoh’s daughter liked to bathe. And after getting Moses settled, she stationed Moses’ sister Miriam—who according to most Jewish scholars was about seven years old at the time—close enough to see what would happen to Moses.
Verse 4 makes it clear that Miriam was stationed there for the express purpose of seeing what the outcome of her parent’s plan would be. In sending a seven year old little girl to do this, I doubt that Moses’ parents thought she would witness his murder. I think they really did believe God would deliver their little boy and wanted to know how He did it. In other words, they lived by their faith and took a great risk but did not throw all caution and common sense to the wind. They under the guidance of the Spirit of God came up with a plan that minimized the risk and the danger and which God used. Furthermore, I don’t think Miriam came up with her reactions and words to Pharaoh’s daughter on her own—simply much too complicated and stressful for a seven year old. No, I think she was coached by mom and when the time came to put the plan into action—she performed flawlessly—because she had been prepared by her mom. You see, taking great risks for God so as to make much of Him does not mean you don’t prepare to do so nor does it mean you throw away your God-given common sense to do so. It simply means that whereas what you are doing may be very risky—you do it with as much preparation, caution, and common sense as possible so as to minimize and be prepared for the risk. Now this does not mean that we should not do risky and dangerous things to make much of Christ—it simply means we don’t need to make them more dangerous and risky than they already are and if able we should try to reduce the risk and even prepare for it as God enables and allows us to.
One more thing—I have no problem figuring out when your kids are parroting your words spoken in the privacy of your own homes. I often hear them complaining about certain things—such as—say our new president. And when I hear them I hear you in their words, their expressions, and their mannerisms. All this to simply say that I don’t think for a minute that Pharaoh’s daughter didn’t know that Miriam had been told what to say and how to say it. Therefore, what you see is that God had already prepared the daughter of Pharaoh to respond favorably to Miriam in this situation. Thus, had Moses’ parents never stepped out in faith by obeying God they would never have known that He had already prepared the way for them.
CONCLUSION
If there is anything Hebrews 11 teaches us it is that choosing to make much of God in a world that doesn’t—will entail the risk of earthly treasures, pleasures, comforts, conveniences, personal ambitions, and a whole host of other things that could even include your health and your life. It also teaches us that taking risks for risks sake or to raise your level of respect among your peers so as to earn “bragging rights” or for anything other than the glory of Christ is foolish and in the end will leave you high and dry. And here in the little verse we considered today—verse 23—it teaches us that taking risks for the sake of making much of Christ in a world that doesn’t is not about just carelessly winging it or just diving into risky situations without a plan, preparation, and lots of prayer.
Please don’t wrongly interpret what I have said today to mean that it is better to play it safe than to risk it all for Christ. If that is what you heard—you weren’t listening. It is right to risk and it is right to risk everything for the sake of Christ and the glory of His Name. But know what you are doing when you do it and pray, prepare, and plan using the wisdom and common sense God has given you. Living by your faith does not preclude prayer, preparation, planning, and even precautions. If anything it demands them.
On September 12, 1853, Hudson Taylor set off from England for China where after arriving five months later he spent the rest of his life sharing the Gospel with the people of China and establishing a missionary movement that still even in secret house churches impacts China today. He was only 21 years old when he went to China all by himself with no family or real friends there to meet him and help him. In going, he risked everything—his safety, his health, his future in terms of an occupation, his ability to find a wife, and thus the opportunity to have a family, his parent’s dreams, and even his very life. But he was willing to risk it all for the sake of Christ and the glory of God. And he was prepared to risk it all for you see he spent two years before he left praying, planning, preparing, and pondering every precaution necessary to minimize the risk as much as possible so as to give him, humanly speaking, a greater probability of success.
He read everything he could get his hands on about China. He continued to work and save his money. He learned Greek and the basics of Hebrew as well as refreshed himself in Latin—all so he would be able to engage himself in translating the Bible into Chinese. Finding a Chinese copy of the Gospel of Mark and the Book of Acts, he, by comparing the words of his own English copies, he began the process of teaching himself Chinese. Somehow between all that, he began studying medicine under the tutelage of a doctor.
He also grew in his love for the Lord, his knowledge of the Word, and his dependence upon the Lord in prayer and came to believe that absolutely nothing was impossible with God. This was seen when on one day when he was visiting a pastor to borrow a book, the pastor asked him why he wanted to read such a lengthy book on China. When Hudson Taylor told him that it was because God had called him to spend his life as a missionary to China—the pastor then asked him, “And how do you propose to go there?” His answer was, that he didn’t know but that God did know and that he would rely upon God to get him there and take care of his needs. And in that exchange with the curious pastor—what I see is that whereas Hudson Taylor ultimately knew he was taking a huge risk in going to China, he could rely upon and trust God to take care of that risk and thus his needs. But knowing this and with a great trust in God to meet his needs—Hudson Taylor still prepared, planned, pondered, took precautions and prayed because that is what people who live by their faith do.
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