#3 - God Will Provide
Exodus 16:2-5, 13-16 - Victory Fellowship
March 12, 2023 - Rev. Roderick Grabski
3rd Sunday of Lent
I. Recap
We started our study of the God Story in a fitting place: In the Beginning. In the first chapter of Genesis we find this interesting, captivating story of how the author and main character, God, got this whole thing spinning in motion. After God created humans, God did something revolutionary that gods aren’t supposed to do: God spoke to them.
That was Thread #1, our first connector that we will see throughout the story: God speaks because God desires relationship.
We talked last week about Abraham and the laughable dream God gave Abraham that at the age of one hundred; he would become the father of a great nation. We talked about our own dreams, our own stories that we still hope will be written, and learned about Thread #2: If God makes a promise, God keeps it.
A. The Montage
We jump back into our Story this week at a place that is critical for understanding the connections or threads throughout the whole story. But first let me catch you up. You might think of this as a montage, or a sequence of clips in a movie that covers a long period of time in just a few minutes (usually accompanied by a great song) to get you up to the next point of major action.
In our montage, we will use the bible in 50 words.
(Today’s story takes place at word 24)
We find ourselves in the Book of Exodus, a record of people who were enslaved, who then became a people on the run, who then became a people with no home.
II. Rising Action
Exodus is, if the Bible is one grand story, the Rising Action. In our story the basic conflict is the conflict of the people being separated from God, which started in the garden.
It goes throughout the God Story, and in Exodus it is now complicated by the Rising Action of secondary conflicts. Problems like slavery, hunger, and exhaustion further complicate the already growing issue of a nation of people trying to stay connected with God.
A. Dramatic Rescue
So God radically saves the people from slavery using Moses, who was almost killed as a baby and then had to flee his home country because he murdered someone, a guy who was scared to speak in public.
Moses leads the people out of Egypt even as they are chased by an angry army. Then they find themselves in the desert wandering around, starving, tired, and exhausted. That is where we find them. Facing secondary conflicts, various obstacles.
B. “Why Don’t We Just Go Back?”
And somebody says, “Hey, remember when we were in Egypt?” Another says, “Yeah, we had meat to eat.” Another says, “yeah and cucumbers.” And someone makes the preposterous proposition, “Why don’t we just go back?”
The warning from this Scripture today is there will come moments in transition times, when we are headed toward our dreams that we will be tempted to go back.
Have you ever heard someone say, “I will never go back to that restaurant again”? Someone has been so offended that they say they will never darken the door for the rest of their lives.
What parent has not regretted imposing a restriction on their teen (grounding or cell phone or driving privilege) only to discover it created a greater burden on the parent?
The people of God who had been delivered from slavery, given water in the desert and bread from heaven, after a little time in the desert said, “The heck with it! Let’s just go back.” What they didn’t see was that God would give them all they needed for the journey. It is a thread throughout the story.
III. God Will Provide
Thread #3—God will provide all you need for the journey.
We have to take this story seriously because some of the secondary conflicts and various obstacles in our lives can lead us into believing a lie. The lie is that life in slavery is better than following God, and you might as well just go back. When you start listening to that voice, you get yourself in trouble.
A. Warnings for the Journey
If you find yourself hoping for the next page to turn, you may be in a chapter of transition. If so, here is what you have to be wary of. In these times it is easy for things to move so fast you can’t get a handle on them. You can become distracted. You can become exhausted. And these are the times when you are vulnerable to the temptation to turn around and to turn away from what God wants.
Surely the Israelites - if they thought about it real hard - would not have preferred Egypt. It was a place of slavery, beatings, working in abusive and impossible situations. Life in the desert, in transition, is difficult and disorienting, making you vulnerable to complaining, grumbling, and unhealthy desires.
B. What God Can Work in You on the Journey
The transition times, the Rising Action, is in many ways the best part of the story. It is here you really learn the true depth of the characters; this is where the true depth of the character is formed.
Romans 5:3-4 says, “we can rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (NIV).
This is what defines you, not the in the beginning, and not the happily ever after; this is where you become who you were made to be.
The Hebrew people would re-tell this part of the story over and over again to remind them of what they went through, to remind them that God took care of them, and to remind them that God will still do it today.
IV. Bread from Heaven
If you are in a transition place right now, you may have seen a glimpse of where God might lead you. Don’t give up when you start feeling tired and start desiring meat and cucumbers. God will give you all that you need for the journey. Believe that. Trust that.
And sometimes we need some type of sign, something from God to let us know he is still with us. The people who were hounding Jesus were asking him for some type of a sign, something to hold onto. They said, “Our fathers ate manna in the desert. God gave them bread from heaven. What do we get?”
Jesus said, “I am the bread from heaven. If anyone has me, they will live forever” (John 6:31-36, paraphrase).
We find Jesus in the Rising Action, and he is all we need.
PRAYER
SONG: He Is (Crowder)
Exodus 16:2-5; 13-16 HCSB
2 The entire Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat and ate all the bread we wanted. Instead, you brought us into this wilderness to make this whole assembly die of hunger!” 4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. This way I will test them to see whether or not they will follow My instructions. 5 On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days.”
13 So at evening quail came and covered the camp. In the morning there was a layer of dew all around the camp. 14 When the layer of dew evaporated, there were fine flakes on the desert surface, as fine as frost on the ground. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they asked one another, “What is it?” because they didn’t know what it was. Moses told them, “It is the bread the LORD has given you to eat. 16 This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Gather as much of it as each person needs to eat. You may take two quarts per individual, according to the number of people each of you has in his tent.’”
