Learning To Depend On God, Part 2 Exodus (ESV) October 14, 2018 Dr. Ritch Boerckel

Transcription

1 Learning To Depend On God, Part 2 Exodus (ESV) October 14, 2018 Dr. Ritch Boerckel We re going to be looking at Exodus chapters 16 and 17 today as we continue on this message of learning to worship, as we ve been studying the life of Moses. Recall that God, for His own Name s sake, has brought His people out of oppression in Egypt. And He does it in dramatic fashion to show that He is God above all gods. There is no God other than Him. He is the one true and living God. He sets aside all the gods of Egypt and then He backs up His people against the Red Sea so that He might do a miracle and show His power. It was on display to the Egyptians as well as the Israelites once again. The people of God walk through that Red Sea on dry ground. The sea then covers over the Egyptian army and they perish. And now we pick up the story where the people are wandering in a wilderness, and they ve been wandering for over a month when we get to chapter 16. They had brought about a month s worth of food and it is past a month now. So this is where they are when we open up the story in chapter 16. Think of that! Think of wandering around in the desert every day for over a month. And that s where you ll find the people of Israel here in Exodus 16. I m going to read just verses 1-12 this morning. We really are encouraging y all to read the Scriptures ahead of time. We put out a Scripture reading format so that we might follow along together as a family. We won t read all that we re going to be studying in our Scripture reading on Sunday morning, but we really want to encourage you to glean as much as God would have you to glean; to feed on that manna that God offers every day. 1 They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. 2 And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, 3 and the people of Israel said to them, Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. 4 Then the LORD said to Moses, Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. 5 On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily. 6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, At evening you shall know that it was the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, 7 and in the morning you shall see the glory of the LORD, because he has heard your grumbling against the LORD. For what are we, that you grumble against us? 8 And Moses said, When the LORD gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the LORD has heard your grumbling

2 that you grumble against him what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the LORD. 9 Then Moses said to Aaron, Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, Come near before the LORD, for he has heard your grumbling. 10 And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud. 11 And the LORD said to Moses, 12 I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God. May God bless us today through His Word! God wants to be known. He wants to be worshiped. That s our theme today. God redeems a people in order to transform us from wanderers into worshippers. That s what God is about. He is about the work of changing us from people who resist God, into people who revere Him; from people who are separated from God, to people who are sanctified for God. God s purpose for our deliverance always expands beyond the deliverance itself. In other words, His purpose is not just to deliver us from oppression. God did not bring the Israelites out of Egypt simply so that they wouldn t have to endure the cruel treatment of the Egyptians any longer. God brought His people out of Egypt so that they would be a people who are set apart for worship; who are set apart for His glory. Turn with me to Exodus 19 briefly. We jump forward three months from the time God parted the water of the Red Sea so that the people could walk across on dry ground safely away from the Egyptian army. And we read this in verse 1: Exodus 19:1 On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. So this is the exact place where Moses was going to hear God from the burning bush. They come to the same mountain, Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai. The two names are the same place. And they come now to this place as a people, as a great congregation. And God goes on to say in verse 4: Exodus 19:4-6 You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. God is saying, You ll be precious to me because you ll be my people who are set apart for my Name. After God liberates the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, God leads them to camp at Mount Sinai. Moses is very familiar with this place. He has been 40 years in this area and

3 it s the place where he encounters God and God tells him, I AM that I AM. I send you to be my deliverer. And God communicates here that He has delivered this people now so that they would be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. So we ask the question: What does a priest do? How is it that you can have every citizen of a nation be a priest? What exactly does a priest do? A priest first experiences God in personal worship. There is no priest that can act as a priest, that doesn t know God first. But then a priest leads others to God in worship. God s design for Israel is that every person get this!...be a priest, and every person lead others into worship. He wants every person worshiping God and every person impacting their brothers and sisters. Every one of them in this nation! God says, This is why I brought you out. It was so that you would be a whole kingdom of priests. God wants every person to be a worship leader in the congregation. Through Jesus, God makes this same design for His church. In 1 Peter chapter 2, Peter connects Exodus 19 to Jewish and Gentile believers. Of the church, Peter borrows language from Exodus 19 to describe who we are. He says 1 Peter 2:8-10 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. God is saying, It s because I have set my love upon you that you are connected to me. You are a chosen race. Why would God call us as His people, His church, to be a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession? It is so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of the darkness of sin into His marvelous light; the light of His righteousness, the light of His glory, the light of His presence. And speaking specifically to the Gentiles he says, Once you had no part in worshiping God. You could not know Him. You had no access to Him. But now you are God s people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Isn t that amazing?! That s who we are. If you re part of Jesus church, you are a chosen race. You are a royal priesthood. You are a holy nation. You are a people of God s precious treasured possession. The central idea that this story in Exodus is teaching us is that God s purpose for our deliverance always expands beyond the deliverance itself. In other words, it s not just about the physical, temporal relief that God brings to His people out of His kindness to them. That s not the main point. That s a great blessing, but it s not the main point. God rescues us from sin us so that we would become worshippers. Deliverance is always whole. It s body and soul. God rescues us out of the kingdom of darkness not only so that we would avoid judgment, Hell, poisonous corruption that sin would bring into our lives. God rescues us from our sin so that we would be worshipers. And God is always successful at everything He purposes to do. This truth has profound implications to our daily life. If you are in

4 Christ, God is successfully and effectively forming you and fashioning you into a worshiper. That doesn t mean He does so without our resistance at times, but that is His purpose and that is what He will accomplish in our lives once we are in Christ. So if we are redeemed by God, we are being transformed into worshippers from one stage of glory to the next. We are being transformed into worshipers who love God, worshipers who obey God and who serve God and who sing to God with joy. If we are seeking confidence regarding our own salvation, regarding the question, Am I redeemed? Am I delivered from sin? Am I a part of this holy nation? Am I one of those whom God calls His precious possession? If we re seeking confidence for that issue, we ought not to ask ourselves, Did I pray a prayer when I was seven or eight years old in Sunday School? We ought not to ask that question if we re seeking confidence, assurance. We also ought not to ask ourselves, Do I simply affirm that Jesus died on the cross for sin, that He rose the third day, that He ascended into heaven and one day He s coming back? Do I affirm that? We ought not to ask ourselves, Am I doing some good works for God and living a moral life? Confidence doesn t flow from those questions; not biblically. Our confidence regarding God s redemption flows from seeing this internal change that God is making in our lives of being a person who was a wanderer, into a person who is a worshiper. You see, our problem is that all we like sheep have gone astray. Each one of us has turned to his own way. (Isaiah 53:6) That s what we used to be. God is taking us as wanderers pursuing our own path, and He s transforming us into worshipers who are aligning our lives with God. And so we re right to ask as we seek assurance regarding our salvation, Am I seeing God move me and transform me in joy and love and submission and in holy zeal for Him and for His will? The Bible always points to worship transformation as the evidence that we have received the grace of God by faith. So what are we talking about when we say the word worship? Let s define it. Worship is simply our joyful, obedient and amazed response to God s revelation of Himself to us. God reveals Himself to us through His Son by His Spirit in His Word. So when God reveals Himself to us, a worshiping response is joyful obedience and amazement. It s just being astounded at who God is! Worship always begins with God s revelation of Himself to us. No one can worship without God showing us who He is. We can t discover Him through any other means than this revelation that God provides for us so that we can know Him. And when God does reveal Himself by His Spirit through His Word in His Son, He opens our eyes then that s the gift of salvation to see His glory. And then we cling to Him in faith. Like thirsty people who are shown this cool, clean water, we just simply drink and drink and drink. One definition of worship that expands upon what I have said here is from a man by the name of William Temple. I love this definition! It has impacted me and has nourished my soul. Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His

5 beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose and all this gathered up in adoration the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and source of all actual sin. Did you catch that? It s just the submission of every part of us to every part of God as He reveals Himself to us. So we open up our Bibles now to these two stories in Exodus 16 and 17. We re going to look at God providing for His people with quail and bread and then with water from a rock. We ve been talking about God shaping us into worshipers, and He takes us through a college course. We ve talked about three specific subjects through this section of Scripture, Exodus Last week we looked at the first subject in God s curriculum for worship. Subject #1: Hydrology Give praise with joy to God for parting the waters. We learned to give praise with joy to God for His provision of deliverance. So He opened up the water. He made the bitter water sweet. Subject #2: Ornithology and Nutrition: Depend with confidence on God s kind provision. This subject has to do with quail, birds and with manna, with bread. 1 They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. 2 And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, So they re hungry. They re complaining. 3 and the people of Israel said to them, Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. A grumbling heart is always looking for someone to blame. Moses, of course, is the leader, and so their wrath is exercised upon him. Grumblers most often feel very superior to the leaders that God has provided them. These grumblers felt that if they had been in charge instead of Moses, then they would have had nothing to complain about. There s an important example for us here of this people. As we read through the New Testament, I want to make two important observations. First, grumbling is not listed among the Fruit of the Spirit. (Laughter!) Grumblers often feel like they re giving something valuable to the church and to the community. If people would just listen to my grumbling, then we could really get things straightened

6 out. Grumbling is not listed among the Fruit of the Spirit. Secondly, grumbling is not listed among the gifts of the Spirit. Grumbling is neither a positive trait of Christian character nor is it a God-given ability to help the church grow. Let s ask ourselves: What might cause us to grumble or complain? How about if a professor graded a paper too harshly and gave us a low mark? How about if an employer fails to recognize our skill and efforts? How about traffic that is heavy? How about spouses that are critical? How about children that are unruly? How about a body that begins to fail? How about if it rains on the day you planned a picnic? Now on the scale of things to grumble about, the Israelites seem to have just cause. They are out of food and they have no place to obtain it. Their stomachs growl with hunger. Think of yourself being a parent here among this 2,000,000 plus people. You re a parent and you have little ones. You re putting them to bed at night and as you re laying them down, you re trying to lay them down early because you know that they re hurting from hunger. And your little one says, Daddy, when is supper? And these moms and dads had no answer for their little kids; no answer whatsoever. So they come to Aaron and they come to Moses complaining. And they say, We should have stayed in Egypt. There, we had food. We had lots of food. Before we condemn the Israelites for complaining, it s right that we acknowledge I certainly acknowledge that I have never experienced this form of trial. I don t know what it s like to be without food and have no source of food. There have been times that I ve been hungry, but I always knew that there was some place I could get food. There were no grocery stores. There were no food banks. There were no rescue centers. No neighbors with cupboards. There was nothing anywhere. No food! They were in a desert. Why did God let His people experience this degree of severe distress? And it had to be severe. The answer is: To show Himself to His people so that they would worship Him. That s how much God cares about worship. He brings us through hard trials, trials that our flesh would attach itself to, to grumble. But God would have these same trials have us attach faith to them so that we would worship, so that we would see God s glory and know Him. In Deuteronomy 8, God talks about this time. Of course, they re about ready to enter the Promised Land now by Deuteronomy. But here is what He says. Deuteronomy 8:2 And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. Why did He lead them for forty years in this way, through a lot of trials? He says it was so that He might humble you. It was to bring you to the end of yourself. It was so you d know whether you really were worshiping God or just worshiping the comfort that God brought you. It was to know whether you were really submitting to Him.

7 God then expresses a warning that they would forget Him if He provided for them so bountifully. Deuteronomy 8:19 And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. God says, Life is found in me. And if you begin, because you have so many creature comforts, to be distracted and deceived by false gods and go after them, you ll die. Deuteronomy 8:20 Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. So God is saying that prosperity tempts us to forget God. He says, If you forget, this is what is going to happen. And that s why trials come. Like a laser, they lock us into the reality of God and cause us to seek Him and depend upon Him. Of course, our flesh can respond to trials in a way that causes our soul to suffer. And that s what is happening here with these people. They re responding to this trial in unbelief. But God s intention is to use trials to help us to remember Him and to depend upon His goodness and to submit our lives to Him in our need. The winds of suffering cause the roots of worship to grow deep. That s why we need these winds. It s so that our roots dig down in to gain stability. I can t think of a single time in my life where my worship of God deepened without difficult trials. God ordains trials because He loves us; not because He hates us. The need is very real. And it wouldn t have been wrong, by the way, for this people to cry out to God in their need. God, rescue us! God, send us food! That would not have been wrong at all. In fact, everything would have been right about that. But instead of calling out to God in faith and supplication before the Lord for Him to provide, they point their anger at Moses and they respond with complaining and unbelieving grumbling. So the application we learn right away from their negative example is let us pray instead of protest. Let us cry to the LORD instead of complain. Let us make our requests known to God instead of murmuring against Him. This is what God says to us in Philippians 2. Philippians 2:14-16 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. It s the easiest thing to grumble and complain. And yet, God is driving us to deepen the roots of our faith so that we would have a different kind of response. If we re grumbling and complaining, it s impossible to shine as lights in this world. And let s keep that in view when we see the world quite a bit in chaos. We see all kinds of injustice happening in this world. Let s remember that if we just simply grumble and complain before the world, we won t be lights to this world.

8 Now, who were the Israelites grumbling against? And if you asked them that question, they d say, We re grumbling against Moses. And God would have said, No, that s not right. I know Moses happens to be in your line of sight, but he is not really the person that you are angry with. You re really grumbling against me. 4 Then the LORD said to Moses, Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, In other words, it s because of Moses intercession, Moses faith, that he is going to receive this blessing for the people. and the people shall go out and gather a day s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. So even now, this is a testing of their faith. 5 On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily. 6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, At evening you shall know that it was the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, He s going to do it in a way that you can t have any other response except to say, This is the Lord s hand. 7 and in the morning you shall see the glory of the LORD, Again, God is driving them toward worship, to seeing His glory and acknowledging Him for the great God He is. And then listen to what he says. because he has heard your grumbling against the LORD. Now if you follow the story, not a word was said directly to the Lord. It was said directly to Moses. But the Lord says, No, you re grumbling against me because you re grumbling against my representative. Your real problem is not with him, but it s with me. For what are we, that you grumble against us? 8 And Moses said, When the LORD gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the LORD has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the LORD. Nothing could be more clear! So here s the truth that we learn. Since God controls every detail of our life, all grumbling is personal to God. He takes it personally, and rightly so. God considers our grumbling to be against Him. No protest or explanation is going to change the fact that our grumbling insults God and is an act of anti-worship. So we can explain to God, No, God, that s not at all what I meant. Here s what I really meant. No! God says that when you grumble, you re grumbling against Him. God in mercy and

9 patience provided for the Israelites needs even though they offended Him in their grumbling. What a loving God we worship! Psalm 103:8-11 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; 11 And the LORD said to Moses, 12 I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God. Again, God wants to be known. He wants to be worshiped. That s His purpose. So God sends quail in the evening and He sends manna in the morning. And here s the truth. God always provides for His people either by supernatural or natural means. We ought not to think that when God provides by natural means, it s not the Lord. God cares for our physical, temporal needs. It s right to pray, asking God to care for our temporal needs. We as Christians must not become so super-spiritual that we say, Well, it would be wrong to pray for these physical needs. No! God wants to hear every request from His children. He loves to hear us ask for things like food and clothing. For forty years manna will mysteriously appear on the ground every morning to feed God s people. But they have to acquire it every day. Why? Why is that? God could have made manna to last for a week, a month or year. He could have said, Pick up all the manna you need for the whole year. Store it in a big bag in the corner of your tent and just feast on it. But He didn t. He said, You have to gather manna every morning. If you try to eat yesterday s manna, you ll go and open up the can, and you ll find that it s full of worms. And by the way, to show again that this is a supernatural provision, He says, Except on the sixth day. On the seventh day, you re not going to gather any. On the sixth day, gather a double portion. You ll eat that portion on the seventh day and there won t be any worms in it. But if you gather twice as much on Sunday or Monday or any day the rest of the week, there s going to be worms by Day Two. But not on Friday. Why does God not allow the people to gather a week s supply at one time? Wouldn t that be easier? Wouldn t that be more efficient? Here s the answer. God wants us to look daily in dependence upon Him to supply our needs. That s what worship is. It s a daily dependence. When God gives us abundance, we typically respond to God s abundance with forgetfulness. Jesus taught us to pray, Give us this day our daily bread. For most people in our community, our need is not daily. We have food in our kitchens to last a week or more. We have money in our bank account to last a month or more. God s abundance places us at risk of losing faith and losing worship. So we have to find a way to have this sense of daily dependence upon the Lord in the midst of God s bountiful supply.

10 John tells the story of the feeding of the 5,000 with five small loaves and two fish. These people were getting really ecstatic about Jesus. After all, He fed them and He fed them well. No more grocery bills! they think. I want to take you back to John chapter 6. They re hustling to find Jesus again. Jesus is getting away and needs some time to rest. John 6:24-27 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal. He says, The reason why you re coming after me is because I gave you food to eat. Don t you know who is in front of you? You think it s amazing that I fed you with some fish and loaves and gave your body something to eat? That s not amazing at all! I m the Person who can feed your whole person, your soul, with eternal life. What a danger to look to God for temporal needs without desiring God Himself and without desiring worship to connect to the true and living God! And then this is what Jesus says in John 6. John 6:28-29 Then they said to him, What must we do, to be doing the works of God? Jesus answered them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. That s it! There s not a set of rituals. There s not a set of laws. He says, This is the work of God. Believe in Him whom the Father has sent. John 6:30-31 So they said to him, Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. In other words, Could you give us some more food? If you give us some more food, then we ll finally believe that you re the Messiah. We want another meal! The first food was good, but you could feed us with something even more delicious if you re really the Messiah. John 6:32-34 Jesus then said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They said to him, Sir, give us this bread always. They re still thinking of physical bread. John 6:35 Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. This story that God gives to us in Exodus 16 is designed to point us to Christ Jesus. This story helps us see who God is and His amazing faithfulness and provision. But it s really

11 about Jesus. He is the bread of life. He is the manna! So let s think of some applications. And these applications are basic discipleship. 1. Believe that Jesus is the food your soul needs to be satisfied. Don t look to any other place, any other bread, any other nourishment, to finally find meaning and purpose. Don t look to yourself. Don t look to other people. Don t look to success. Don t look to pleasures or riches. Look to Christ! That s it! He s the manna. He is what is going to feed us and nourish us. The cure for a complaining spirit is contentment in Christ. It is only Christ that is the manna. 2. Labor to gather Jesus for yourself. In other words, we can t rely on others to gather this manna, Jesus, for us. Again, Sunday School teachers and pastors and parents, etc., they re all helpful. But God said everyone is to go out and gather up the manna. Every household! Everyone was involved in this work. So learn to study God s Word in order to benefit from it. We make the application of the living Word, Jesus, but also it s of the written Word, God s Scripture, because that s what the Word of God does. Deuteronomy 8:2-3 And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. So even in that day, they re saying, Listen! It s not about this physical manna. Yes, God provides for our body, but really, this is just a symbol, a picture of the living Word of God, the Word that God gave to you which is Scripture itself, which is the very Person of Jesus as well. So let us labor to gather Jesus for ourselves. 3. Feed upon Jesus daily. It s not enough to be in the presence of manna. In order for manna to nourish, it has to be eaten. It has to be internalized. And that eating is daily. Too many of us are seeking to live off the strength today of yesterday s manna. We re getting manna today. Today is Sunday. We re listening to the message. Someone else has gathered manna for us and we re stuffing it down our throats. It s good. It s nourishing. That s fantastic! Or maybe tomorrow I m excited and I get up and I read the Word and I listen to Christ. I m connecting to Christ. And on Tuesday we re relying on what happened Sunday and Monday in order to nourish us for that day. And that doesn t work! You re going to get tired and say, Why am I so tired? Why am I so prone to the temptations of this world? Why am I so weak in faith? You need to gather up this manna every day. 4. Make the Sabbath a special day of enjoying Christ with others.

12 This is the first mention of the Sabbath in the Bible. God rested on the seventh day. It s the first mention of Sabbath in the Bible. And so, He gives this, and now it becomes a cornerstone, a centerpiece for the schedule of the Israelites worship. Six days are kind of normal days. You labor for the glory of God. You know God and you enjoy God while you re laboring. But one day, we won t have to have the stress that the first six days gave us. We can just relax. We can trust God to do what God s going to do. We can trust Him to provide and we can just set our hearts on thinking about God, enjoying God, enjoying one another. When God gives the 10 commandments at Mount Sinai, Sabbath keeping is going to be a central part of that worship. And to this day, the Sabbath is very important to the Jewish people. We re going to go to Israel in about a week. And in kosher hotels, just as one for instance, on the Sabbath, on Saturday, when you get on the elevator Let s say your room is on the 6 th floor. When you get on the elevator, all the buttons are automatically pressed. It s going to stop on the 2 nd floor and the 3 rd floor and the 4 th floor and the 5 th floor and the 6 th floor and the 7 th floor and the 8 th floor. Why is that? It s because a kosher hotel says, We don t want anybody to do the work of pressing a button. So when you get on, you just ride it. Every other day, when you press the button, you go right to your floor. But if you re staying on the 20 th floor of a kosher hotel, you just have to plan on a long ride. So to this day, it s important to the Jewish people. God is shaping His redeemed people to be worshippers and He calls them to make every day a day of worship and to particularly set aside one of those days. And what freedom God gives us in this day! It s a freedom to be unconcerned about the temporal tasks and temporal concerns, and allowing time just to listen to God, to talk with Him in prayer, to talk with one another in your families and in our church family. And say, I don t have much time to talk with you and just to sit and rest. This is the day I don t have anything else going. I am busy, but I m not going to let that business enter this day. This is the part of the natural rhythm of my life. I m going to take a day and I m just going to set aside this day. I m going to be able to invite people over. We re going to pray together and we re going to talk about life and talk about what s happening. We re going to listen to the Lord. We re going to do those things and just take a breath. We can just think. Again, it s difficult because Sunday is so busy. Can I get an Amen? And we ask the question: How practically can I make that day a day devoted simply to resting in God and enjoying Him. It seems like all the stuff that I should have done those first six days comes crashing in. Now I have to wash the car, and I have to mow the lawn, and I have to attend to some work. I have to read the s. How could I possibly I need an extra day, you might say. Let me ask you a question. Let s imagine that I had the power to create an eighth day. And let s say I did it. Everyone is saying, I need seven days to get all my work done. Okay. I ll create one more day for you all. Wouldn t that be great? Wouldn t it be great to have an extra day every week and then that day you could really use as a day of rest and relaxation and talk with the Lord and build relationships and go to church? Wouldn t that be great? What

13 would happen within a month or two? We d fill that day up too, wouldn t we? The issue is not that we need another day. The issue is that we need to value Sabbath worship. And I want you to know this is not a command to say you have to obey the Sabbath even though you really want to do some things that you can t. That s not what this is about. This is a day of freedom. And people in our culture are so messed up by stress. They re bound up so tightly. There are a lot of frustrations driving them. What would happen if we just began to say, Lord, you gave me the freedom. This is a good thing. It s a pleasant thing. It s a healthy thing. I m going to take up this gift. I think that there would be big changes in your life, in our lives and our families, and in our church. God is teaching us how to worship. He s pointing us to Christ Jesus because all worship is mediated through Jesus. Apart from Jesus there is no worship. Without the manna and the next story that we won t get to this morning, without the water from the rock The rock is Christ. Without that rock supplying us with water, we ll never be able to have a soul healthy to worship. So what do we do with this desire that God has placed in every one of His people to worship Him? It s our chief end. We know it s the cornerstone of our life. We know it s our purpose. What do we do with that? There are two aspects, two applications that I want to close with and I want to encourage you toward. They both have to do with Jesus because He is the means by which we connect to God and enjoy Him. 1. Come to Christ Jesus for redemption. Come in faith. Believe in Him. That s the work of God. Say, I m going to give my life to you, Christ Jesus. Apart from being redeemed and rescued from sin, I ll never be a worshiper. As long as I m in Egypt, I won t be able to be set apart, my life, for the worship of God. So I need to be liberated from this bondage of sin, this Egypt, this place of darkness, and enter into the light of God, receiving God s forgiveness. So if you ve never come to Jesus in faith to receive this blessing, that s the first place to start if you want to be a worshiper. And the beautiful thing is that it doesn t take but a moment of time. It just simply is a cry of the heart. Lord, I m in darkness and I need your light. I m in bondage and I need your freedom. I know Jesus is the One, and I m going to trust in Him. I m going to lean in to Him and I m going to depend upon Him to bring life to me. Has that ever taken place? If not, just call out to God even now where you are. 2. Having been liberated by Jesus, having been forgiven, come to Christ Jesus each day to be transformed into a worshiper. Those are simple applications, but they mean something. They mean something practical. If you have not yet been redeemed, I would urge you to take some time to think about this and say, Do I need Christ? Is Christ Jesus sufficient to bring me redemption, forgiveness, freedom, and eternal life?

14 If you are in Christ, take some time and ask, What does it mean for me today and this week, to come to Christ Jesus daily? What does that mean for me? What does it mean to my schedule? What does it mean for my family life? What does it mean to my personal use of time and energy and focus? What does it mean for me to come to Christ Jesus feasting on Him who is the manna, drinking from Him who is the Rock, the water that brings satisfaction? What does it mean for me to come and receive that so that my soul will be transformed from glory to glory, to a worshiper? May God begin a new work in every one of us so that we would be worshipers and worship Him in spirit and in truth!