Welcome again, everyone. We're so glad you're here with us today. Welcome, Smarter Campus. We love you guys. Glad you're connected there. Everybody connecting with us online, we're so happy to have that connection with you as well.
As we continue our message series through the book of Exodus, "He Draws Us Out to Draw Us In," you may remember the story of the monk that decided to join this order at a monastery that took a vow of silence. Only every 10 years could they say anything, and then they could only say two words every 10 years.
So the guy checks in. They go over all the rules with him. And then 10 years later, the superior calls him into his office and says, "All right, 10 years is up. You can say two words." He looked at the guy and said, "Bed hard."
He goes back. Ten years later, he's called in again. The superior says, "You can say two more words." He said, "Food bad."
Ten more years go by. They call him in again and say, "You can say two words." He said, "I quit."
The superior said, "It's no wonder. All you've done is complain since you got here."
What we're going to be looking at today is a period of God leading His people. Remember when they were freed from Egypt and they went through the Red Sea? They got to the other side and began their journey to the land that God was going to show them. God was leading them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
But He was going to take them through a course and a route that was going to lead them to a lot of different challenges that they were going to face. Even after all that God had done, even after everything He showed them about His love for them, His care for them, and the power He displayed for them, they were still going to be a people that were mostly grumbling and complaining instead of a people with gratitude and thanks being expressed to God.
The reason we need to look at this and spend some time on it is that all of these things are pointing to what God has done for us, right, in Christ. And yet how many times are we grumblers and complainers as Christ followers? How often are we just like these Israelites in how we respond to the challenges that we face as we go through life on this earth?
So we can learn a lot from them. One of the main overarching themes that's continuing to persist throughout this whole series is, remember, God has a plan. And it's a great plan. It's for His glory and it's for our good.
But here's the thing about that plan: very often it doesn't look like we think it should look, like we anticipated it was going to be. Very often it's going to be something quite different than we think God ought to be doing or allowing or not doing. We have our own ideas of how things ought to work.
When it's not what we thought it was going to be and it's not what we think God ought to be doing, then our first response is often just like these Israelites, isn't it? We're grumbling, we're complaining, we're not content, and we're not showing gratitude to God for the love and the care that He's been giving us.
Even when things aren't going the way we think they ought to go, we have to remember He's got a better plan. This is something you can write down and just keep it and remember it. It's really important to remember this: God's way is better than your way. It's better than my way. Even when I don't see it at the time, even when I don't understand why that would be better.
Just like the Israelites, often they didn't think the way God was leading them was the better way to do it. And that's why they went into grumbling and complaining instead of praising and giving thanks to God.
So what we're going to see as we pick up here in Exodus chapter 16, we're going to reference chapters 16 and 17, but we're not really going to look into chapter 17 today. We're going to mainly focus on chapter 16. If you want to be turning there, I want you to go back, though, when you have time and read both of these chapters because they're both a repetition of things not going the way the Israelites thought they ought to go.
And then how God steps in and does what only God can do. And how they still consistently go through this cycle of grumbling and complaining even after God shows His faithfulness to them over and over again. He's showing them that His way is better, but they have to go through some hard things to get to that understanding so that they learn to trust God.
Their response is often not gratitude. It's not joy. Instead, it's that fear, it's that grumbling, it's that complaining. But in these two chapters, if we go back and read chapter 17 too, what happens again and again is God allows them to be tested.
He's allowing them to be tested so that He can... Now, the testing is not trying to get them to fail. He's not trying to give them a test to hurt them. The testing is to grow them. It is to develop them as people who really trust God the way they should trust God.
And oftentimes, the testing in our lives has that same purpose behind it, that same plan behind it. It's to bring us to that place where we stop relying on ourselves and our own strength and thinking we know better than God. And we're put in a position where we have to depend on Him. We have to trust Him. There's nowhere else to go. There's nothing left to do but to trust God, to turn it over to Him and allow God to do what only God can do.
So leading up to this, God has already been setting the stage. If you've been with us in this series, if you missed any of them, you can go back to our YouTube channel. You can pick up any of the ones you might have missed. But you know, God has already done some remarkable things to show Israel, to show us that we can trust Him.
He's already delivered them in a miraculous way from slavery in Egypt. Remember the plagues? Miraculous things. God's showing He's in control. God was showing you can trust Him to do exactly what He said He was going to do. He said there'd be frogs. What were there? He said there'd be gnats. What happened? Right? Flies. What happened?
Over and over again, God said it and He does exactly what He says He's going to do. And so He's setting that stage. Remember, these people have spent 400 years in a pagan country as a people. And they've begun to think like the people of that country, of that culture around them.
And so God has to transform them into being His set-apart people. So He's patient, but He's also persistent in that transforming action that He's doing in their lives. One of the things He's doing to transform them is repeatedly showing them His power.
Even when they're free, right? When they're delivered out, God has them go an unusual direction and leads them to camp beside the Red Sea. Why would you encamp there when all of a sudden they look up and Pharaoh has changed his mind and the Egyptian army is coming after them to take them back into slavery?
And remember, God's got a plan. It's a good plan. But it doesn't look like we think it's going to look a lot of times. Why? Their first question was, "Why did you bring us out here to die?" Right? You delivered us. That was amazing, God. But why did you deliver us just to let us be killed out here in the desert by the Egyptian army? That doesn't make sense, God.
They didn't know God's overall plan, but they needed to learn to trust God had a reason to bring them there and even allow the Egyptian army to pursue them. So God parts the sea. They walk across on dry land. And the Egyptian army tries to pursue them, and they are destroyed in the sea.
And God showed them again, "Hey, I got a plan, guys. It's better than your plan. It's for my glory, Israel, and it's for your good. This plan is. You just need to learn to trust me with the plan that I have for you. You need to trust the God who has the plan, that His plan would be good for you and good for me."
So that's all leading up to this chapter 16 where they've been traveling now for some time. And you see in 16 and 17 these back-to-back tests that He's going to give them. As He leads them with this pillar of cloud by day and this pillar of fire by night, He leads them out into this remote area.
About a month into it now, they're traveling into this remote desert area. And like we talked about last week, as you're traveling like that, you can only carry so many supplies with you. So what begins to happen? The supplies run out, right?
So they had carried food with them on the journey, but now the food that they had—remember, they couldn't preserve it long term. A lot of the food that you would have in that culture, because they don't have things like refrigeration and freezers and stuff like that, so you can't keep it very long.
And so the food that they had that they could carry with them is now running out. And when you start running out of food, we're talking about, listen, remember, hundreds of thousands of people traveling together. Now they're traveling in family groups, right? We're not talking about just the immediate husband, wife, and kids, but the extended family. They're all traveling together as family units. That's how they left Egypt. That's how they're traveling from place to place.
So you have hundreds of thousands of people traveling in these family units together as God is leading them with that pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. And they're going and they're going, and God keeps leading them, but the food supply is running out the whole time, right?
Now at a certain point, you go back to the supply and you realize if something doesn't happen, this is it for us. There's no more food. They're out in a deserted area. There's not any good source of food out in the desert. There's just not. There's nowhere to get any food. They don't have a 7-Eleven on the corner. They don't have Uber Eats that they could call.
There's no way for them to get more food out in that place. Even if they could hunt, even if they could gather, there's nothing to hunt. There's nothing to gather out in this deserted area.
So you've got these people who primarily were used to getting food by growing their food and raising their flocks, and you don't have anywhere to do that, any way, any resource to do that. So the problem is they're brought to a place where they realize if something doesn't happen to change their circumstances quickly, this is the end for them. They are going to die.
But remember what God's already done. Over and over again, every time they faced a crisis, what did God do? He intervened. He faithfully took care of them. He did what needed to be done every single time. But their first thought when they see we're running out of food is not, "But God's been faithful." That's not their first thought.
"But God's always come through." That's not their first thought. You see, they're coming out of that pagan culture where they're not... they're still thinking like... even though they're out of Egypt, Egypt was not out of them yet. And they're still thinking like they were there. They're still thinking they can't trust God. They can't depend on God. That God's not the faithful God that He is.
They've said, remember, they sang praises to God after they got across the sea. Remember, they thanked God when God provided the water for them. Remember, they got to this place on their journey where there wasn't good water. It was contaminated. God provided a way to make the water good to drink, and they drank it. And He took them to a good place where there's plenty of water and palm trees.
And now He's led them out of there. Remember, God has shown them over and over again His faithfulness. And they're thinking, "But God, we're going to die out here. We're running out of food."
We introduced a term last week that I want to bring to you again: it's functional atheism. They are living as functional atheists. And the sad thing is, I want to use that term because whether you've heard it before or not, it describes much of the church in America today. We're functional atheists.
We say we believe. We even attend services like we believe. We sing praises like we believe. We come around the Lord's table and remember the death, burial, and resurrection like we believe. That's true. But we live life day to day as doubters, grumblers, and complainers in the kingdom of God, as if God has not been the faithful God all along that He's always been, as if He's not always gotten us through whatever we've faced in the past, as if He's not always provided for His people and been faithful to His promises.
That's what functional atheism really is. When we start believing in our control instead of His. When we start thinking it's us, not Him. That's functional atheism. And when we're thinking it's us and we can't fix it, then we feel like all hope is lost because we're our hope. We're our hope right now, not the faithful God of Scripture.
And so, when things happen out of our control, and I want to remind you, everything that happens is out of your control. Everything has always been out of your control and out of my control. We don't get to control that. But when we think we're in control, and we're acting like we're in control, and things don't go well and we don't know how to fix it, if we've been depending on ourselves, it seems like it's the end of the world every time something bad happens.
It's so awful every time something bad happens, and we act surprised that something bad could happen. After all, I thought I was in control. How could this happen? You weren't in control. The Israelites weren't in control. Moses wasn't in control. He was following the leading of God. God's been in control the whole time.
So they choose to believe that their lack of control is all they can depend on, even though they have a God who has proven His control over and over. The commentator Philip Reichen talks about the wilderness this way. He says, "If being delivered out of slavery was about Israel's salvation, their time in the wilderness is about their sanctification."
Remember we talked about sanctification over the last couple of weeks? Sanctification is about the fact that the nation means being set apart for God's holy purposes, for God's holy use. God is using this time in the wilderness to set them apart, to transform them into being the set-apart people that God had planned for them to be in His plan for His glory and for our good.
In order to sanctify them, to set them apart, He's got to start training them to put their trust in Him and His promises, not in themselves and their circumstances. We can never live like the sanctified, set-apart people of God unless we've learned to really trust God and recognize that He's in control. Only then can we be that set-apart people.
And as long as we keep trying to take that control back, we're like functional atheists again. We're going back into that again instead of letting Him have total control.
So they're traveling through the region, they run out of food, and food's not readily available. So I want you to understand that their first response, God is trying to train them to have a first response that says, "Let's go to our loving, caring, faithful God with this problem and let's give Him praise because we know He's not going to forsake us."
See, sometimes we do turn to God, but we turn like they do with grumbling and complaining instead of with faith and assurance that we believe God will be faithful and true to His word.
So there are three things I want us to see about God's response here and what He was doing to transform them and sanctify them. The first thing is He provides. We're going to read starting in chapter 16, verse one. He provides manna for them.
And the first thing we see about the manna is the manna was really testing them. The manna, even though it's providing something practical, it's also a test that God is giving them. Let's pick up with verse one.
The whole Israelite community set out from Elam and came to the desert of Sin, which is between Elam and Sinai on the 15th day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. In the desert, the whole community did what? What's that word? Grumbled against who? Moses and Aaron.
The Israelites said, "If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt. Hallelujah. Wouldn't that have been great?" That's not what they were saying in Egypt. There we sat around, listen to this description of their life in Egypt. "There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you've brought us out into the desert to starve this entire assembly to death."
Now, who are they not even talking to at all? God. They're talking to Moses and Aaron. They're saying, "You guys messed up. You guys let us down." Now, Moses and Aaron have been communicating to them, "Here's what God said. Here's where God's leading. This is the leading of God." They've been trying to teach them that the whole time.
But as soon as it goes bad again, Moses and Aaron, "You guys, you don't know what you're doing. You really let us down, and you just brought us out here to die. We were better off in Egypt."
And I love how they described their life in Egypt. "We sat around in Egypt, pots of meat and ate all we wanted. We had that in Egypt." Any provision of food under the hand of Pharaoh was not for their flourishing and their blessing. Any food Pharaoh had for them was for their enslavement, to keep them working for him one more day.
That was all it was for. It was not to bless them. It was not to show them how much they're loved. They were loved and cared for. That's not what Pharaoh was doing. Pharaoh was using them for his purposes as slaves.
It's amazing how in the middle of a crisis we see... how many of you ever... you probably do this some as you get older. I don't know. My kids tell me and my grandkids tell me I may do it more. Talk about the good old days. Back in the day, right?
And most of the time when we talk about the good old days, we go back to the good old days. We gloss over the good old days. We gloss over even the fact that they were good sometimes. Because not all the old days were good days. Not all the old times were better than some of the times now. Not everything about the good old days was good for everybody.
Like maybe it was for you if it was good. And the Egyptians brutally treated the good old days. The Israelites just terribly. But now when they talk about the old days in Egypt, they're just only looking at one good part of it.
"But we had plenty of food to eat. We weren't going to starve to death in Egypt like we are out here." Most of the time when we compare today with the old days, we're only comparing what we see now is worse and what we saw then is better. And we just gloss over everything else.
We do that here in America all the time. Let me tell you something. What we call the good old days sometimes for certain groups of people in our country, they weren't good. Not as good as they were for some other groups in this country.
Let's stop acting like they were just great days back then. We weren't doing all the stuff we should have been doing. We weren't treating everybody the way we should have been treating people. We weren't the people we needed to be back in the good old days.
Now, it doesn't mean everything we're doing now is better. It's not. There's some things we're doing now that are probably worse than what we were doing then. But here's the deal. Stop comparing as if the past was better and let's start living for today, trusting God for today the way we need to trust God today.
The Israelites are thinking, "Man, at least we wouldn't starve to death back in Egypt." No, they wouldn't have, but they probably would have been beaten to death in Egypt, right? Worked to death in Egypt. They wouldn't have been cared for in Egypt by a loving God under the rule of Pharaoh.
It is a loving God that took them out of that and did it in a miraculous and powerful way. God is going to provide for them. Look at verse four. The Lord said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are going to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way, I will test them."
See, it's a test. "And see whether they will do what? Follow my instructions. On the sixth day, they are to prepare what they bring in. It is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days." God already had a plan.
Oh, really? You mean God, the God who brought us out of Egypt, the God who did all those miracles, the God who did... He can handle this too? He can take care of this part too? Oh yeah. And He does it through what is called manna.
Now, they called it manna because they'd never seen it before. They had no idea what it was, and that was a word they just gave to describe what it was. Manna. They didn't even know what this was coming down out of heaven.
And yet here it is. God provides for them and He gives them instructions on how they are to respond to it. And they say, God says through Moses and Aaron, "That is to test whether or not they can follow my instructions."
Here's the thing about the test. It wasn't just to see if they could do the stuff that He's telling them to do. That's not the real part of the test. He knew they could go out and pick up manna. He knew they could bring it in and eat it one day at a time. He understood that.
The test is, do you trust God? Because here's what He's going to do. He's going to give you enough manna for how long? One day. And after that day, what's going to happen to the manna? If you had any left over, what's going to happen to it?
We learned here it's going to rot. He's only giving you one day at a time what you need for that day. The test is, do you trust God for the manna the next day? And then do you trust Him for the next day? And then do you trust Him for the next day?
Manna was a test of whether or not you're going to hold on to your faith in the God who provides what you need that day. Are you really going to trust that God to be faithful the next day? And the next day?
The question God is asking here is, will you follow me when my way is coming? Will you follow me when my way is coming? And the next day differs from your way.
You see, that's not how they were used to being taken care of or taking care of themselves. That's not the normal way they used to do that. But now God is teaching them, sanctifying them, transforming them into that set-apart people that will learn to trust Him every day.
Which leads to the second thing we see with this manna. Not only was it testing them, but it was truly satisfying. By satisfying, I mean that it was enough to satisfy them for their need that day. I mean, how much do you need to be satisfied with today? Just enough for today, right?
That's really all you need. A lot of things could happen before tomorrow. You might not even be here tomorrow. Aren't you glad you showed up for church to be encouraged today? But that's the truth, right? We're not guaranteed tomorrow.
But if God took care of us today and He takes us home tomorrow, did He take care of us tomorrow too? Absolutely. Yeah, He took care of us then too. But if He gives us a tomorrow, how much, what do we need to be satisfied tomorrow? Enough for that day, right?
The manna was a training of the thought process to develop faith in God's provision will be enough. It will be satisfying. Let's pick up in verse 17 of Exodus 16.
The Israelites did as they were told. Some gathered much, some little. When they measured it by the Omer, one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.
Oh, maybe it's a good plan. Maybe God had this figured out. You got a family of seven? You might need more than a family of three. So what will I do? I'll give the family of seven more for that day. I'll give the family of three the amount they need for a family of three that day.
It's a person by themselves. I'll give you enough for you that day. Some of them had really large families. What did He give them? Enough for that family, right? He made sure they measured out enough for each one, each person, each unit, family unit had all they needed, and each individual in that family unit had everything they needed.
Let's look at it again. Verse 19. Moses said to them, "One is to keep any of it until morning." Look at verse 20. "However, some of them paid no attention." Can you believe it? When they tried to keep some until morning, what happened to it?
It didn't just rot. Look at that. I like the translation from the Hebrew. Maggots got into it, right? Have you ever found any old spoiled food that had maggots in it? Oh, it's nasty, isn't it? You can't eat that. You certainly wouldn't try even to eat that. It's awful, and it would stink. It would be repulsive.
What's God teaching them? "I told you to do it my way. I've got a plan. It's a good plan. It's for my glory. It's for your good. Just follow the plan, people. Just trust me with the plan that I have for you. It may not look like you think it's going to look. You may think the better thing is to store up some extra, but I've got a plan that doesn't work that way. And it's a better plan than your plan if you just follow it because it's going to transform you into the people that I want you to be."
Now, they had been raised in an agrarian society, and that means the way they had been raised, the way they were raised in Egypt, the generation now traveling, they were raised in Egypt. And in Egypt, the way they did things was a lot like the way Israel would do things for almost all of their existence.
They would live off the land. And the way you live off the land is there's a season where you grow your crops. And then when the crops are ready to be harvested, you harvest all the crop at one time. You bring it all in when it's time for it to be brought in. You bring in the whole crop.
And the whole crop then is you keep out part to be used immediately, and the rest of it you store up in storehouses and barns and places like that. So you could feed your animals and feed your family until the season changed again back to the time where you could grow some more food.
You couldn't grow food all the time in that culture, in that climate. It didn't work. So you had to harvest everything at once, bring it in, store it up, and then parcel it out along the way as you needed it, and try to stretch it out until you could produce more crops again the next year.
That's how they were used to doing things. That was their way. Is it a bad thing? No. Wasn't a bad thing at all. But was it God's plan for them in the desert? You know why? Because that wouldn't have worked in the desert.
They can't sit there and wait and plant crops and grow crops and harvest crops and store up crops for the rest of the journey to take with them because that's not God's plan. God's got something better He's taking them to than what they have out there.
How many times do we keep thinking our plan's better than God's? That doing it our way is going to be better than doing it God's way? That's exactly what Israel is struggling with. They were used to doing it their way, and they didn't want to let go of doing it their way.
Are they going to believe in the God behind His promises, or are they going to believe that their way is better? That's the real test of the manna. Are you going to just trust God and do it God's way?
Sitting in churches all over the world today are people that think, "Well, I know God says to bring the first fruits to Him financially, but I'm going to just keep it and use it because I think I'll use it better than God's plan."
There are people all over the country today and all over the world today sitting in churches saying praises to God today who are in relationships that are outside of God's plan for how relationships are supposed to work, but they think their way is better than God's way.
There are people sitting in churches all over America today who are praising God today and going to have communion and remember the sacrifice of Jesus today, but they are not going to handle their businesses the way God says to handle their businesses. They're doing it the way the world says to do it instead of the way God says to do it.
You see, we keep thinking we're going to do it because we're smarter than God for some reason. And then we wonder why it doesn't work to the glory of God and to our good all the time. It's because that's not God's plan.
Here's what you have to know about God, the faithful God of the Bible. The blessings that He promises go along with the plan that He gives us. The care and the provision that He promises goes along with the plan that He gives us to follow. Those two are connected to each other.
So if we really want the blessings of that faithful God, wouldn't it make sense to at least try to do it His way? To follow His plan for how we're going to do things? Wouldn't it make more sense to manage money the way He says to, relationships the way He says to, work life the way He says to, recreational life, leisure life the way He says to?
Wouldn't it make more sense to follow His plan when He's the God who promises the blessings that come with His plan? Wouldn't it make sense to trust a God who would do what God has done for Israel consistently over and over again, but more so what He's done for the whole world through His Son Jesus and His death on the cross?
Don't you think you could trust a God who loves you like that? That His plan for you would be better than anything you could come up with yourself? That the world could come up with you like that? That the culture could come up with for us to follow?
Charles Spurgeon's famous line, I love it, goes along with this. He says, "When we can't see His hands, we can trust His heart." When you can't see exactly how He's doing it, you can still trust God. Because you know the heart of God. You know the love of God. You know the consistent faithfulness of God throughout the ages.
Can't you trust His heart? Even when you can't see how all this is going to work? Ultimately, everything we can do, everything we can muster, everything we can try will leave us unsatisfied. It's only God's plan that will truly satisfy the longing of your heart and your mind, your life.
The Israelites were going to have to learn, and sometimes they were learning the hard way, and we make it harder on ourselves too so many times, all of us have, where we just think we figured out a better way to do something than the way God says to do it. And it always comes up short. It's always lacking. It's never satisfying.
The way just following God's plan would satisfy the longing of your heart. That leads to the last thing about this manna. I already mentioned it, but the manna was intended to be sanctifying for them. It was intended to set them apart, develop them into a different people, set apart for God's glory.
Later on in Deuteronomy, chapter 8, Moses is reflecting on this time in the wilderness, and he's talking about that in Deuteronomy. In chapter 8, verses 1 through 3, he says this to the people: "Be careful to follow every command I'm giving you today so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors."
He reminds them of this. "Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these 40 years to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord."
You see, what God was doing, and Moses is reminding them of this, is He was not just filling their stomachs; He was shepherding their hearts to trust Him, to really believe in Him, to not put their hope in the wrong things, but in the right God who has been that faithful to them.
God wants us to be a people set apart for Him. When you go back and read this, it was the manna, and then if you go back and read 16 and 17, He gave them the quail in the evening then after that because they wanted meat to eat. Then when they had run out of water, they complained and grumbled again, and He got... you know, first they complained it was just manna, manna, manna all the time, we want some meat, so He gave them some meat.
So then they complained about there's no water again, so He strikes the rock and they get the water. You go back and read through all this over and over again, what God is demonstrating is that there would be sufficiency for every person, for every need, if we put our trust in Him and the plan that He has for our lives.
But remember when Jesus was teaching us to pray, there's a part of the Lord's Prayer that is really directly tied to this. He taught us to pray, "Give us this day our what? Our what bread?" What do you really need? Just enough for today, right?
You see, Jesus was teaching us to see that same God that fed them every day, what they needed every day. Nobody went without; everybody had a supply for that day. It was enough and it wasn't too much. It was exactly what they needed.
And God's wisdom knows exactly what you need and when you need it and how much of it you need. He's somebody you can trust with that. Now, we may want more, we may think we should have more, but God knows exactly what we need, and God will provide what we need for that day.
And that's all we need it for is that day, unless we have another day, and then we can trust that God's already ahead of us that day. You see, when they woke up the next morning, every day, what was there? Manna. It wasn't there when they went to bed that night. When they got up the next morning, what was there?
What they needed for that day was there. Not more, not less, but what they needed for that day. That's the kind of faith God wants to develop in His people. That when we go to bed tonight, we can trust God for tomorrow. Whatever happens tomorrow, it may not look like we think it's going to look. It may be a totally different day than we thought we were going to have, but who's gone ahead and prepared for us for that day? God has.
He's never caught off guard by what happens that day. He's never surprised. "Oh no, well, I would have prepared, but I didn't know." That's not the God that we serve. He knows what you're going to face the rest of this day. He knows what you're going to face the next day or however many days. He knows all your days already. He's already gone ahead of you into that day to prepare what you need for that day.
His plan's better than your plan. I can tell you that because I know it's better than my plan too. It always has been. You can trust His plan because you can trust the heart of a God who would give everything for you the way the God of the Bible has given everything for you.
You see, here's the thing about the manna and the quail and the water that He kept providing. They didn't do anything to earn it. They didn't plant. They didn't harvest. They didn't store it up. They didn't do any of that. They did none of the work to provide what God was giving them, what God was providing for them.
It was received completely apart from their labor and their effort. The same way our salvation in Christ is received from that same God. Not a one of us have done anything to earn it. Not a one of us has worked enough to have it, to provide it for ourselves.
Because no matter how much work we've done, we couldn't provide this. We are helpless to provide this, no matter what we do or don't do in our lives. In John chapter 6, after a miracle that Jesus performed, you remember the miracle of the loaves and the fish where Jesus feeds the thousands?
Jesus summarizes and applies the manna story this way. Remember, everything in Exodus is looking ahead, it's looking forward. Look at John chapter 6, beginning with verse 30. They asked Jesus, "What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you?"
What did He just do? He just did a miracle. He just fed thousands with a small amount of food. "But give us a sign, Jesus, so we'll know you really are who you say you are."
Verse 31, they go on, "Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat." They said, "All right, we want to believe in you, Jesus, but you've got to believe in us. We want to believe in you, Jesus, but you've got to show us. I mean, God did this for our ancestors. What are you going to do?"
Verse 32, Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, it is not Moses who's given you the bread from heaven, but it's my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world, not just Israel."
"Sir," they said, "always give us this bread." They thought that sounded good. Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me, and still you do not believe. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never drive away.
For I have come down from heaven, not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. So for my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him will be saved. And if you believe in me, you will have eternal life, and I will raise them up in the last day."
You see, manna was sanctifying because as they learned they could trust God, they would live like a set-apart people that pointed other people to His glory, to His goodness, to His faithfulness. And God has done even more for us. He has sent us bread from heaven today that is a bread that gives life to the whole world.
It's Jesus who is the bread of life. And when we receive Jesus, not only are we being provided for, but now He wants us to be set apart for Him so that the rest of the world that He wants to have this bread can come to find bread through us.
It's so easy to look at others that are mocking God and ridiculing God, like some people saw at the Olympic opening ceremonies and things like that. And that was truly a mockery of some things of God, no doubt about it. But God's people and how we respond and what we do is going to speak volumes as to whether or not they see any validity to why it was wrong to mock God.
How are they going to see us react and respond? Here's what I think we should do. This is my opinion. If we want to be people who point people to the God who's provided the bread of life for us, I think they need to see in us something better than they see in their culture.
I think they need to see in us something better than they see in their culture. I think they need to see in us a higher calling and setting apart. You know what we have in Paris right now? Thousands of athletes. You know what? There are thousands of them there that are Christians already.
They've worked hard to be where they are. They've made great sacrifices. You know what I think we could do? We could pray for them, couldn't we? To be the witness in that dark place that they need to be. That while they're there, they can point some people to Jesus who don't know Jesus yet.
You see, it's going to be hard for them to stand up and be strong in that culture. Wouldn't it be better for us to be praying for them? Lifting them up? And I'm talking about not just Christians from America; they're Christians from all over the world in Paris right now. From a lot of different countries that want to glorify God with what they're there to do.
Shouldn't we be praying for them? And shouldn't we be praying for the hearts of people that are so lost in darkness? That they would think it's okay to do what they did to ridicule God? Shouldn't we be praying for their hearts to be pierced and changed and transformed by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the witness of God's people in that place?
Shouldn't we be doing that as God's people? It doesn't mean we accept or condone what they did is okay. I'm offended by it, but being offended doesn't change anything. Prayer does. Living out a good witness in front of them does.
Being the people set apart for God that we're supposed to be, that changes lives. That impacts the world in a powerful way. Why don't we do that as the people of God? Why don't we rise up to a level they've never seen before of loyalty to God and a willingness to sacrifice for His glory and for His good and a willingness to care about even the people who would ridicule our God enough that we would be the witnesses to them that we need to be?
Wouldn't that be a more powerful testimony in so many ways than some of what's happening right now in response to that? I'm not saying you shouldn't be offended. I am, but that's okay. This is not the first time God has been ridiculed, and it doesn't just happen in Paris, France. He's ridiculed in America too.
So what do we need to be wherever we are? We need to be the example of the set-apart, sanctified people of God. Whatever Christians are. And we need to be the ones who lift up Jesus in the right way so that people can see the difference between what happened there and who Jesus really is, what He really stands for, what He really does when He went to the cross, showing His love and His care for all people everywhere.
You see, this whole story in Exodus is foreshadowing that God provides salvation for His children fully and freely and finally forever in Christ. He did something for us we could never earn for ourselves. And He did it so that we would not only have that salvation personally, we have been provided for, we have been satisfied, the needs have been met for us, but so that through us, others can be fed the bread of life, Jesus Christ.
Let's pray. Father, we thank You that today we've been reminded of Your faithful provision for Your people. Even a people in the midst of a culture that does not believe in You, that ridicules You, that didn't care anything about You or Your teachings, You wanted them to be set apart in that culture, in that setting, as people who stood for Your glory, for Your good, because they trusted Your plan to be a better plan than any plan we could come up with.
Help us to be a people today. If there's someone today who wants to take that step to come to know and follow Jesus because they've decided to trust Him with their lives for their salvation through Jesus Christ, I pray that You would do that. Today, they would take those steps. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
We're going to stand and sing and offer you this time of invitation. If you have a decision you need to make, just come right up front while we're standing and singing.
Everybody have a seat, please. We're going to share some of these things with you today. It's a lot of good things to celebrate and some things especially we need to be praying over as well.
Come on up and share. This is... tell everybody your name. Come right up here. I'm going to get... there you go.
All right. Bella comes today because this past week at the CIY conference that we sent our high schoolers to, that a lot of you helped us do, right, with your offerings and support for the church. We were able to help provide some things like that, that opportunity.
And she has family that wanted to make sure she was able to go there. We're so thankful for that. And while she was there, she was convicted and decided she wanted to make a public profession in the United States.
And she was able to make a public profession of her faith in Jesus and be baptized into Christ. So, yeah. You got the video? I think we got the video. Watch this video real quick.
Okay. Amen. Amen. Amen.
And I had to talk, Randy, coming up. I had to come up in front today. It was a little bit hard for her to come up in front of everybody. But she did it in front of those friends there at camp. And I said, but the people here want to celebrate as your family too.
So, let's pray over Bella right now. Okay. Father, we're so thankful for Bella's decision to surrender her life to Jesus, to follow after Him as Lord and Savior of her life.
And, Father, help us as her church family to come around her, to be that encouragement to her. We pray that she would continue in this walk, in this decision that she's made, that You've got a plan and a purpose. Help us for her life. It's better than any plan we could come up with. Help her to trust You with Your plan for her. It's our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.
God bless you. Thank you, Bella. More good news. Come on up.
We've been praying for Chloe, who was here with us for quite a while. And you want to give us an update on how she's doing? We're so thankful for that.
Let's just lift up Chloe in prayer too. Father, we thank You for the work that You're doing in Chloe's life. And we know there's been a real battle going on there.
We just pray for the continued awareness for her of Your power, Your presence, Your provision for her, Your love for her, Father, that she would continue to hold on to that promise that You've made to her through Jesus, that she's Your child and You have a plan for her life. Help her to follow that plan in Jesus' name. Amen.
God bless you. Thank you. Thank you. You want to come on up? Yes. Here we go. Slow but sure. You're right here. That's good.
Tell everybody your name. We're going to pray for you right now, okay? Father, we lift up this daughter of Yours. She loves You, Father, and I know You love her.
And I know they're going through a real challenging thing right now, so many changes that are hard. But, Father, Your plan for her is still good. It's still best.
And we just pray that she would continue to be aware. We pray of Your power, Your presence, Your provision for her in every way, so that she can get past the frustration that she feels.
She can learn to find the joy and the salvation that You provided for her through Your Son, Jesus, that that joy would return to her in a strong and consistent way, and that she and her family would be blessed in the days ahead. We pray for it all in Jesus' name. Amen.
God bless you. Thank you. You guys, come here. Come on up here, guys. Many of you know Sandy and Janet and Sean. They've been part of our church family for a long time.
And there's been a battle going on over the years that Sandy's been through and Janet have been through together with cancer in the past. But recently, there's been a diagnosis where cancer is present again.
And they'll be meeting with an oncologist soon to look at what plans and processes you're going to follow after that to provide for the care, and we're praying for the healing that will come through all of this for the glory of God.
Anything you want to add? Let's pray for them. Let's lift them up together. Father, we thank You for this family, for the love they have for You, for each other.
And Father, we know the challenge they're facing right now with Sandy with the cancer diagnosis. It's a hard thing. And there's no reason. It's not like it's not. It is.
But You do hard things. You specialize in hard things. And You give us the strength and the power and the provision for hard things, for us to go through them, and for us to go through them in a way not just to kind of survive through it, but You give us the ability through Your presence and power and provision to actually bring glory to You through it.
Sandy's done that in the past. Their family has done that throughout all the challenges that they've faced. We pray for that continued faithfulness on their part as they experience Your faithfulness on Your part.
And may we support them and uplift them with our prayers and our presence, our help in any way that we can as their church family. It's our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.
God bless you. Thank you. Can I try to say something? Absolutely. Mike's still on here. Yeah. Okay. That's okay. That's all right. Thank you. That's all right. You're good.
This time, Paul's going to come and lead us in a time of communion. If you want to go ahead and get your communion kits out there.
I got it on. We want to remind you again how grateful we are that you're here for the assembly. God tells us not to forsake the assembly of the church. It's not the total of our worship, but it's a part of how we worship, and doing it together is a great encouragement to everyone.
So thank you for being here to be part of that. If you want to continue your worship through the giving of offerings, there's an offering box available in the back of the auditorium and one in the hallway as you exit.
You can also give online at lakeshorechristian.com. Click on the Give tab, or you can scan the QR code in your bulletin shells.
I want to have Jeremy come up. He's going to lead us in some announcements here at the end and close us out with prayer. I just want to remind you of something coming up this Wednesday.
I have a podcast every Wednesday that I do, and this coming Wednesday, come on up, Jeremy. You're good. Come on up. This coming Wednesday, I'm going to have a guest. Bob Robinson's going to be with us.
He's a good friend of mine. He was part of one of the original founding families of Lakeshore Christian Church, and he's going to talk about the history of Lakeshore.
So we're going to have that recorded, and we'll post it on the podcast. It's a YouTube channel that'll be shared on most popular podcast platforms, but you might want to listen to it.
It's going to have some good information. We're celebrating 50 years this year. This Wednesday is our 100th podcast episode. I thought it'd be good to combine those two things and talk about the history of the church.
So I encourage you to listen to the podcast. If you can't listen to it, it's live at noon on Wednesdays, but then you can listen to it anytime after it's posted there. Thank you.
on Jul 28, 2024
