Desert

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0:00 The rest of us, we are looking at the same story. We've been reading through the synopsis of the scriptures in the book The Story. We passed out about 20 of them. If you didn't get one, let me know if you want one. We're on chapter 6. It's flying through the story of scripture really quickly. We're going to get through the whole scripture in like 30 weeks or something like that. We're on week 6. And one of the things that I'm noticing as we're moving through the story of scripture

0:31 this quickly, I've never read the scriptures all in order. This arranges them chronologically. So one of the things I'm noticing is how nuanced the story is because I feel like a lot of stuff gets left out of this synopsis. It's moving fast. The other thing that I'm noticing is we're reading this chronologically and quickly, giving over the top of it, is I'm getting the narrative connections of some of these things, which maybe I would have missed if I get bogged down in the details of the desert

1:04 wanderings, flying over the top of them like we are. I'm seeing the whole narrative connection. So just to remind you about that narrative connection, the story starts with God imagining creation out of nothing. And we have these three characters that are going to drive the story of scripture. God humanity and earth or creation. These are the three main characters. And creation, they're all in a kind of symbiotic relationship with each other. Everybody's got the right relationship to the other.

1:35 So like one of the things that we forget sometimes is like when the first ones are stewarding the garden, creation just yields up its fruit for their sustenance. It's only after they get exiled from the garden, after they take from the earth to try and be God that then the earth only produces thorns and thistles. And it's from the sweat of his brow that it produces what he needs. So like when humanity takes from earth to try and use earth to become God and break all

2:08 three relationships at once, everything gets broken, they're ushered out of the garden. And the question will be can these three characters get back into the relationship they were intended to be? God, humanity and earth. Can this thing be restored? And we're watching through the story of scripture to see how it might be restored. And by the time we get to Moses, the other thing that I picked up in the reading, flying over the tops of the story and reading it chronologically in the Moses story that I hadn't noticed

2:40 before is how distant God had been. We have where he in the beginning, he forms humanity out of the dust of the ground and breathes the breath of life into them. And he doesn't do that again. Like he made my kids 18, 16, 10 years ago, but it doesn't say that he formed him with his hands and breathed the breath of life into him. The breath of life from the garden is enduring yet passed down from one generation to the

3:14 next. It's in me and you and goes through you into the kids, right? One generation to the next. He got this intimate relationship at creation. And then even with Adam and Eve afterwards, he kind of closed them and ushers them out of the garden, right? And then he speaks to Noah, specifically a command. But then you don't hear from him for a while for several generations, right? Tower of Babel. Then he speaks to Abraham.

3:45 Then he speaks to Isaac. He wrestles with Jacob. And then we hear from Jacob's son, Joseph, that his life is kind of circuitous and ordained providential, but he never talks to God. And then for 400 years there in Egypt, by the time Moses comes on the scene, people have forgotten who God is and what God does. That's how far removed God is. He's made this promise to Abraham that his people will have land, that he'll have offspring

4:16 more numerous in the stars in the sky, and those offspring will be a blessing to the whole world. But nobody, everybody remembers that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had a God, but nobody remembers what he does, who he is, what his name is. We're talking 400 years and my math is notoriously bad, but 400 years ago is older than this country, right? So you can imagine at the founding, some founding nation going, hey, the God has chosen us and

4:49 we will be the blessing for the world. And then crickets from the God. Meanwhile they go from being blessed to being subjugated. And when they're enslaved, one comes back and says, hey, I spoke to the God. Moses is this like archetypal human. God comes out of where every dwells infinitely and inhabits the burning bush. We talked about it last week.

5:21 They think they know where it is. There's a chapel around it. I want to go see it. It's not. But Helena, Constantine's mother commissioned a chapel around it. That's in the 300s. That's when they're still deciding on the New Testament. So it might be right. At least it's the right mountain. Maybe not the right bush. Moses is this like archetypal human.

5:52 He has a conversation with God and multiple. And what I was trying to pull out last week was how unique it is. And this week they've made it past Sinai. They're through the Red Sea. And now they've started wandering through the desert because we find out. God takes them to show them the promised land and they look at it. They send 12 spies, one for each tribe out to go look at the land.

6:27 God's going to give them that he promised to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And when Abraham went through, it was great hurt in country. And he built up lots of herds. And Isaac and Isaac did the same. And then Jacob and Esau grew it even more. So it's great open-hearding land. By the time the 12 spies get in there, there's all these nations that are built up. There's walled cities. There's armies. There's vineyards producing vine. It's a land flowing with milk from all of the herds that are thriving on the land and

7:02 honey because all of the bees that are there are pollinating all of the vines that are producing all of the wine. And God says, I'm going to give you this land. Walk into homes you didn't have to build. Vineyards you didn't have to cultivate. Just go and take it. And the 12 guys come back and 10 of them are like, there's no way God can give us this. It's entirely beyond our scope and capability. We cannot accomplish it. You guys are crazy. And two of them are like, yeah, it's totally over our head.

7:34 But if God says he'll give it to us, he'll give it to us. Look at what he just did to Egypt and the Red Sea. And they are like, we're not doing it. We're afraid. And this is a pattern. If you read the story, it's mostly in Numbers and Deuteronomy. It's a little surprising. Look, it's really frustrated with these folks.

8:05 At this point, when he's like, go check out the land and make a plan and then we'll go in and give it to you. And they come back and there's like, there's no way he can give us that. It is too good. Y'all, we are slaves. Those are warriors. There's no way. It's too good. This is just a side note for you. The gospel, when it's done right, when you start to get it, it's better than you deserve. It's more radical than you could earn.

8:36 It's beyond your scope to grasp, understand, or get on your own. The gospel is scandalously good. They looked at the scandal of the gospel and were like, no way, too good. We can't have it. And God gets frustrated, so frustrated. He says, none of these people, if you don't think I can give it to you, fine. You won't get it then. I don't know if that's the attitude you were expecting from the God of creation and life,

9:08 the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Christ and the church, but it's there. And what I wanted to look at is he does this several more times. If you have a Bible there, we can look at Numbers chapter 11, Numbers chapter 11 starting at verse 1. And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes.

9:44 And when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled. And the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed anything or outlined, consumed some outlying parts of the camp. And the people cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down. So the name of that place was called Tabira because the fire of the Lord burned among them. Are you kidding?

10:14 Did you hear it? They complained to the Lord about their misfortunes, which, okay, I mean, he's rescued them from Egypt. He's got food falling from the sky for them, right? And so they should be grateful. But also there's two million of them in a desert, and they're wandering around and don't know where they're going. And they're eating the same thing.

10:45 We talked about this a little while ago, maybe Demetri saw I talked about, but like, I remember researching, there's still a thing in the Sinai Peninsula that they call manna. And it does not sound good. It's like this, like, secretion from these insects that leaves in the morning, and it's there on the plants. And if you scrape it off, you could make it kind of into a loaf, and it's a little bit sweet. It sounds like the manna from the story of Scripture.

11:17 You could look up. And they still call it manna, and it still happens. They just can't predict or control when it will happen. So it's very reasonable to believe that the manna that the Israelites had in the desert is the same stuff, and God just ordained for these insects to just follow around these Israelites so that they would always have food, right? So I'm saying it doesn't sound great, the manna. And that's what they're eating every day.

11:50 So I'm just saying, like, I could imagine myself complaining. Yeah? I mean, these kids want fr- want curly fries, right? And birthday waffles. And God's fire burned among them and like burned the outline of the camp until Moses went and was like, hey, God, could you turn the fires off, right? Look, it goes on.

12:21 Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving, and the people of Israel also wept again and said, oh, that we had meat to eat. We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing. Cost nothing. Sure, they gave it to them because they owned them, right? Cost nothing. The cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.

12:54 But now our strength is dried up, and there's nothing at all but this manna to look at. Now the manna was like a coriander seed in its appearance like that of, I don't know what that word is. The bellum. The people went about and gathered it and ground it in hand mills or beat it in mortars and boiled it in pots and made cakes of it. And the taste of it was like the taste of cakes baked with oil when the dew fell upon

13:27 the camp at night, the manna fell with it. Moses heard the people weeping throughout their clans, everyone at the door of the tent, and the anger of the Lord blazed hotly. And Moses was displeased. Moses said to the Lord, why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight that you lay the burden of all these people on me?

13:59 That I conceive all these people? That I give them birth, that you should say to me carry them in your bosom as a nurse, carries a nursing child to the land that you swore to give to their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give all these people? For they weep before me and say give us meat that we may eat. I'm not able to carry all the people alone, the burdens is not heavy for me, it's too heavy for me.

14:30 If you will treat me like this, kill me at once if I find in your sight that I may not. So Moses, it's not just God that's annoyed with these people, it's Moses that's annoyed with these people. So definitely these people are being annoying somehow. So this is the question, one question. But reasonably, does gratefulness or faithfulness look like?

15:02 What would Moses and God have preferred from Israel as they're wandering in the desert and eating manna over and over and over and over again? It comes up again in Numbers 20 and the people of Israel, right at the beginning of Numbers 20 if you're following along, the people of Israel, the whole congregation,

15:34 came into the wilderness of Zion in the first month and the people stayed in Qadash and Miriam died there and was buried there. Now there was no water for the congregation and they assembled themselves together and Moses and against Aaron and the people quarreled with Moses and said, would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord? They wanted God to have killed them. Why? Because they're thirsty. They want some water.

16:05 Then we should have both we in our cattle and why have you made it made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place. There is no grain, no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates and there is no water to drink. And then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly into the entrance of the tent of Median and fell in their faces and the glory of the Lord appeared before them. This is where he makes water come from a rock, enough water from the rock to water to million people along with their animals. A lot of water.

16:37 What I'm saying, he does it, God does it in response to the grumbling and he's frustrated. He would have preferred a different behavior from Israel. He takes care of them anyway. So the question is like, thirst water seems like a reasonable request. What would faithfulness, what would gratitude look like? One thing they keep saying, I mean there are several more, like they don't believe

17:10 he'll protect them. They don't accept his planning. He's like stay to yourselves and they keep bringing in these Moabites. But one of the things they keep saying and maybe you heard it there was like, you should have just left us in Egypt, man. We didn't need, we look God, we were better off without you. That's what they say. We were better off, we had it under control.

17:44 They gave us meat for free. That's how they remember it. They gave us meat for free. So they killed your boys and gave you meat to eat. This is classic for Israel through the whole story. Egypt is this example. We could go back and protect ourselves with Egypt instead of God. It gets as far as when the kings are looking for protection from Assyria and Babylon. God gets frustrated because they're still looking to Egypt to protect them.

18:16 So instead of trusting God, this is famous Christmas prophecy. Instead of trusting God, they trust Egypt to come and protect them. We don't need you, God. We can solve it on our own. So I think gratefulness and faithfulness would look like, Lord, we are thirsty. How are you going to solve it? We remember the Red Sea. We remember the Passover. We didn't see either of those things coming.

18:49 We are sure you got something up your sleeve. When's it coming? We're ready for it. It makes me think about like, I mean, these stories endure because they apply maybe to you. I'm most wondering what gratefulness and faithfulness looks like for you.

19:20 Of course, the struggle is for you that I've said this before, but it's worth saying again. You're very capable people. When you live in a place where you can get most of what you want, let alone what you

19:55 need. What does gratefulness and faithfulness look like for you? I was asking the Lord this, look at me in a story, Lord, from my life about this. I remember the first one that came to mind was in college. I took mostly classes where I had to write papers, which was fine, but I didn't.

20:28 The amount of attention that it took to sit down and write a paper was hard. I did not like doing it. I would do other stuff. I was really involved with our Bible study and our buds. I remember one time I was at a thing and I was telling him I really should be writing my paper. I told the pastor, he was like, what? I said, I should be writing this paper, but I'm doing this thing instead.

21:00 I can't short circuit God for schoolwork. I'd rather give him priorities to God instead of to schoolwork. I don't think it's a zero sum there. I told he had in my mind that if I gave everything else to write attention, I could get through the paper faster. I was trusting God instead of trusting myself to sit down and write it. When you tell me it's time to write it, I'll sit down and write it. I don't know if that's quite right.

21:34 I made another story here. I think that the question is where your confidence is for the future, where your hope is for the future. This is why Jesus talks so much about money.

22:08 He talks about money more than anything else because it's the easiest proxy for Egypt in the wanderings. They were like, all right, we've got this weird situation where we've got this God that we hear from every couple hundred of years who does things like part of Red Sea to wipe out an enemy and makes water come out of a rock, neither of which we can predict or understand

22:39 or do ourselves. We've got these Egyptians who are brutal to us. We understand, but we know the economy and we feel like we can manipulate it and control it. When I'm in a place of need and worry, when I don't know how the future is going to turn out, when I have something that is disrupting my equilibrium, my sense of autonomy and control, I look where to something I can control. Egypt, at least I know how to get my food there. Here I'm just sitting around and waiting for you and God's like, yeah.

23:15 And Jesus says the proxy for Egypt often for us is our money. Because where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. And so like this practice of realizing that your money doesn't buy your future or secure it. Your work is good work, but not what provides for you.

23:47 I was really struck by how frustrated God got. Like I, it's not if I'm being 100% honest, it's not the behavior I would expect from the originator, creator and sustainer of all things, like that he gets frustrated and burns the camp. But he like, one point he sends snakes among the camp to bite them and kill them.

24:22 Because he's frustrated with them. So he's like going to kill them. It's brutal. And so this is like where you get to. Also what got me when I realized this, like how how atypical Moses is, even in the story of scripture, and then that God is taking Israel, but he's only taking Israel. And he's wiping out the other nations.

24:55 And so I'm like this God is like frustrated with Israel, but Israel and he's wiping out all the other nations. What are we dealing with here? I think that it's worth considering that the scriptures claim that there is a God. The scriptures claim there is one God.

25:28 And that's it. And that God decides the scriptures claim that God decides what to do. That God's in charge, not me. That's tough. This story is hard to reckon with it. And the God is always inclusive.

25:59 Somebody who wants to cast their lot with the God of the scriptures is allowed to at any time and all the time. So there are Egyptians who leave Egypt with them. There are Rahab leaves cities to come and seek the protection of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of creation and life. Like humanity is fickle. And the reason so many nations perish in the face of God is because many of them just trust

26:31 themselves. Can't get over the fatal flaw that there is a God and it's not me. They'd prefer to micromanage their own future. So the invitation for you in the story of scripture, in the desert wanderings, is the suggestion that your life would be better if God were in charge. That your life would be more full, more directed, more fulfilling.

27:04 That provision would be more substantial. That relationships would be more life giving. That things would be more directed. And that life would be more enduring if God were in control and not you. In the end, Moses tells Israel what faithfulness and gratefulness looks like.

27:41 Your famous verse in Deuteronomy chapter 6 said, Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words I command to you. In the end, Moses says, the best response, the best way to let God be God is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

28:14 Sort out what that means for you. I'm praying that God would teach me how to trust him with my provision, my protection, my future to let him be God. But I think it'll be better for me. Let me pray that you could do the same. Hey Lord, thank you for your story, for your deliverance of Israel. Teach me what it means that you deliver me. Teach me to count on your deliverance instead of my own. To hope in your protection instead of my own.

28:48 To bet on your purpose instead of my creations. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.