Is the Lord Among Us?
Exodus 17:1-7 – Victory Fellowship
June 23, 2024 - Rev. Roderick Grabski
Healing Service
INTRODUCTION: The meaning of: arod4God@neo.rr.com
A monk joined a monastery and took a vow of silence. After the first 5 years his superior called him in and asked, "You can utter 2 words. Do you have anything to say?" The monk replied, "Food bad." After another 5 years the monk again had opportunity to voice his thoughts. He said, "Bed hard." Another 5 years went by and again he was called in before his superior. When asked if he had anything to say, he responded, "I quit." His superior replied, "It doesn't surprise me a bit. You've done nothing but complain ever since you got here."
The Eeyore’s of Life – dangerous rut to get into.
A Christian’s Reaction:
1) Don’t Lose sight of our uniqueness
2) Don’t lose sight of our usefulness 3) Don’t lose sight of our God
The Hebrews wondered if God was among them
What was Moses’ reaction? He LISTENED, LEARNED, put LOCOMOTION to it, and he kept LINKED TO GOD.
- He LISTENED…To God …and the criticism
- He LEARNED from the Experience
- He put LOCOMOTION to the experience
- He kept LINKED To God
We are molded in the critical moments of our life.
Back in 1988, a Polish railway worker named Jan Grzebski was hit by a train. He lived ... but only barely. For the next 19 years (until the year 2007), Grzebski was in a coma.
He awoke in 2007 to a whole new world. His four children married and he had 11 grandchildren.
Nineteen years earlier, Poland was a communist state. Grzebski noted that back then meat was rationed and there were huge lines at nearly every gas station. And, "there was only tea and vinegar in the shops." But 19 years later, he awoke to a free nation where he said there were "people on the streets with cell phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin."
But something puzzled him. "What amazes me is all these people who walk around with their mobile phones and yet they never stop moaning." These people had freedom, and food and wealth greater than Poland had had for decades ... and yet Grzebski woke from his coma to find that ALL they seemed to want to do was grumble!
If you don’t get into the habit of thanking God for what you DO have, you’ll soon become ungrateful because what you DON’T have. (He died in December 2012 of a heart attack)
We become complacent and are no longer seeking to be stretched by God, we may wonder, “Is God even among us?”
When we forget what God has done for and through us, we need to be reminded about our Jesus.
Prayer for Healing & Anointing with Oil
Song: My Jesus
EXODUS 17:1-7 (NASB) Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Sin, according to the command of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink. 2 Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water that we may drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?” 3 But the people thirsted there for water; and they grumbled against Moses and said, “Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” 4 So Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, “What shall I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me.” 5 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 He named the place Massah (which means “test”) and Meribah (which means “arguing”) because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us, or not?”