Exodus: How Do You Relate to God?

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Let's pray.

Lord, we wait for you because we believe you, because you are our Father.

And the Bible tells us that not only are you good, but you have something good that has our name on it today.

And so we posture ourselves to hear and to receive and to live like people who've received from the Lord.

And so we don't need as much as this world needs.

We don't need what they need in the way they need it.

That doesn't mean we're better than them.

That just means that's like Jesus when you said, My food is to do the will of the Father.

That we experience something and we experience it.

It makes us not need what everybody else needs.

And again, that's not arrogance, that's identity.

And so we're your people, we're your children, we're your sons and daughters.

And so increase our capacity to understand and believe that today from your word.

This is our prayer.

We prayed in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

You can have a seat.

If you've got a Bible, I want you to take it and open up to Exodus chapter 16.

Exodus 16 · chapter mention

And while you're finding Exodus chapter 16, I want to tell you that we're, if you're a guest today, welcome.

Exodus 16 · chapter mention

We're going through the book of Exodus.

The book of Exodus is basically, it's it's about a people on a journey.

It's kind of like, think about if you saw the most beautiful woman you've ever seen in your life, and you ask her out on a date, and she said yes, that would be exhilarating.

But then the next thought would be, okay, now what?

And and you begin this journey.

Many of you in this room are sitting beside somebody.

Let me ask you this question.

How many in this room are married?

Can I see your hands?

Yes.

You began a journey with somebody a long time ago that started with an innocuous question like, hey, what are you doing Friday night?

Or hey, would you like to get lunch on Saturday?

Or at work one day, hey, would you like to get a cup of coffee?

Or hey, I'd love to get to know you better.

But it's innocuous and simple, but it begins this journey.

And now you got a minivan and a mortgage and kids.

Yes, absolutely.

And you're kind of like, and when way back then, you never would have thought, you would have been like, oh man, there's just no way.

You've seen the commercial, I'm never getting married.

Dude gets married.

We're never having kids.

Dude's got kids.

We're never, we're never, we're never leaving there.

We're never gonna move to the suburbs.

He's in the suburbs.

Then he's on the couch covered up with kids and his wife's mouth breathing.

He said, I'm never, I'm never letting go.

You, you, you, the, the further you go on this journey, the more stuff changes, and the more you change.

Now, by the way, we're all on a journey.

We're all at different places.

As I said earlier, some of you hadn't started the journey yet.

Look at me.

You're okay.

You're safe.

No one's gonna beat you with a guilt stick today and give you a Jesus pop quiz, all right?

Oxygen masks are not gonna deploy from the ceiling.

White lights lead to red lights.

No, you're not gonna be.

When we're done here, you're not gonna want to run out.

You say, Well, you don't know that.

I know God.

He's gonna say something today that's gonna be such a sweet taste in your mouth, you're gonna be kind of like, that wasn't as bad as I thought, okay?

That's more of a statement about God, not a statement about me.

But one of the questions that they're they're on this journey, they're 30 days into their journey, by the way, when we read this morning, Exodus 16.

One of the questions that that the Bible asks us, I want to put to you today, is what I want to talk to you about is how do you relate to God?

How do you relate to God?

And and to get your mind thinking that way, I want to tell you about my redneck friend Mike, who has a mullet.

Uh, I don't know if you've seen a mullet lately.

They're kind of out of style, but Mike has a mullet, and I mean it is business up front and party in the back.

It is a Kentucky waterfall.

And here's the best part it is a full-blown mullet.

He perms that bad boy in the back.

And I'm like, dude, what are you?

Are you like a rasseller or something?

Cut that thing off.

He goes, man, that's like Samson.

If I cut that, I wouldn't have any strength.

You not only don't have strength, you don't have friends because you rock a mullet.

And the worst part is that thing is snow white.

Oh, yeah, you can't hide it.

That dude's bumping 60, and he's got a mullet.

Or as he says, this is a moulet.

And I'm like, no, that is that's like that ought to be on a wrestler somewhere at a state fair.

Uh Mike has four sons.

They're rednecks, they hunt fish, they love to be outside.

And his his friends, uh his kids' friends start getting, you know, a little John boat.

They got this, and one of their kids' friends got got some sea dudes, and they start bugging their dad about sea-dudes.

Dad, we gotta get some.

So Mike goes down to the dealership, lines up financing, and says, Hey, I'll come pick these things up on Saturday.

This is like on the on Monday.

And his kids just kept on and kept on and kept on.

Monday they're wearing him out.

Tuesday they're wearing him out.

Our friends did, blah, blah, blah, blah.

He said to his boys, You better not bring this up to me again, okay?

I don't want to hear one more thing about these sea dudes.

Wednesday, his kids did good.

And Thursday, they just couldn't help them.

So, hey dad, I'm gonna tell you more about these sea dews.

So Saturday, he didn't say a word to his sons.

Loads his sons up, drives them down to the dealership.

These two sea duds are on the trailer, walks them back in the back, and kind of says, You see that?

And he said, Yeah, he goes, tell them what, said to the salesman, tell them what I did.

And he said, Yeah, your dad bought these.

They're like, that's awesome! And his dad looked at them and said, Remember, I told y'all I don't want to hear this again?

You all have insulted me as your father, and so I canceled this purchase.

This is what you could have had, but you insulted me, and you can't live in my house and put your feet under my table and eat my food and insult my capacity to take care of you.

And he made his four sons go get in the truck and drive off, and he never bought the sea dews.

Now y'all are thinking one or two things.

A, that's awesome.

I can't wait to try that on my kids.

And B, oh man, he didn't go back and get the sea dews.

No, he didn't.

But his children never related to him the same way ever again.

When his kids asked him something, he said, Yeah, that was the end of the story.

And what if I told you that?

To begin this by putting this little drop of honey on your tongue to say, what if God wants to be that way with you?

What if God wants to get you to the place where whatever God says, you so experience him, you you relate to him in such a way, you're like, you uh oh, okay.

God said it.

That's gonna happen.

This is what the Bible says.

Exodus chapter 16, verse 1.

Exodus 16:1

They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of sin, and which is between Elim and Sinai on the 15th day of the second month, after they had departed from the land of Egypt.

And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.

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've brought us out into the wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

And then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I'm 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.

And on the sixth day when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.

So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

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?

And Moses said, When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat, and in the morning bread to be 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.

And 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.

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.

And the Lord said to Moses, 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, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.

In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp.

And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground.

When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, What is it?

For they did not know what it was.

And Moses said to them, It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.

This is what the Lord has commanded.

Gather of it, each one of you, as much as ye he can eat.

Now hear that again.

Gather it, each one of you, as much as you can eat.

You shall each take an omer according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.

And the people of Israel did so.

They gathered, some more, some less.

But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over.

Whoever gathered little had no lack.

Each of them gathered as much as he could eat.

And Moses said to them, Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.

But they did not listen to Moses.

Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank.

And Moses was angry with them.

Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat.

How many times has God said that already?

Each as much as he can eat?

It's like the third time.

Each as much as he can eat.

But when the sun grew hot, it melted.

Verse 22.

On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each.

When they all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, This is what the Lord has commanded.

Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord.

Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till in the morning.

So they laid aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it.

Moses said, Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord.

Today you will not find it in the field.

Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.

Now, let me acknowledge the obvious.

That's a lot of Bible reading.

That's absolutely right.

Because I wanted you to get the story.

I want you to follow the narrative that God is inviting Israel and you and me today.

He's inviting them way back then.

He's inviting you and I today to think deeply and biblically about this one simple question.

How do you relate to God?

And to provoke you to think about this in a spiritual way, in a biblical way, I got three questions from the text this morning.

And the first one is simply this Does God always have to prove Himself to you?

Does God always have to prove Himself for you?

Because for the children of Israel, it was all the time.

It's like God could never do enough.

And so it's really subtle, but when he says what he tells them to set out from Elim, and all the congregation of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai.

And then he says this, on the 15th day of the second month.

On the 15th day of the second month, the children of Israel, the Exodus began on the 15th day of the first month.

And so Moses puts it in here with reason.

It's just subtle.

Kind of puts a little timestamp.

By the way, we're one month into the journey, and these cats have already spit the bit.

They are already whining.

It's like, how much further?

By the way, anybody traveling for Thanksgiving?

Anybody traveling with little kids?

We went to a quincenata last night, and some of our friends were there.

We all used to live as neighbors over here.

And one of our neighbors, they have three little girls, and they were leaving after the quince and yeta and driving to Florida.

And I just thought, oh, Lord help the crippled.

And the dad's like, oh man, they'll all fall asleep.

Yeah, they'll fall asleep in the back of that minivan.

Dad, how much further?

I said, How long?

He goes, 10 hours.

He said, I mean, he this way he first got there, like at 6:30.

I said, What time y'all leave?

And he goes, whenever this is over.

Have you been to one of these before?

These people are about to get their party on up in here.

Man, I just thought, you enjoy that.

And I sat there and thought about my sermon.

These people are 30 days into the journey.

God has delivered them.

God set a bush on fire, spoke to Moses, took Moses, a man with a checkered past, and said, I'm going to make you the leader of this great nation.

You're going to deliver my people.

He sends 10 plagues.

He just parts the Red Sea.

In the last chapter, the water is bitter at Merah.

And God told Moses, throw a log in it.

Because sometimes you think the log made the water sweet.

No, it's you trust me.

Throw a log in this bitter water.

It becomes sweet.

And now God has to prove Himself yet again.

Hey man, is this really what it's all about?

I mean, come on.

Would that we have 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 brought us out of the wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

Yes, that's what God wants to do.

God wants to deliver you and then kill you.

And you know the reality?

Our world is full of people that think that way about God.

Hey, just God, God, God gets God does enough good to get you committed, and then wham, He lays it to you.

And that's what God's really all about.

Let me just ask the question again.

Does God always have to prove Himself to you?

Is there ever a time where you just kind of smile and you go, you know what?

By the way, if you read the whole Bible, you would see two things.

This is free this morning.

Uh you would see that God gives people over to two things.

Number one, their defensiveness.

And number two, their desires.

Their defensiveness, what do you mean?

Defensive people aren't teachable.

And unteachable people rarely change.

And so if you're defensive, let me give an example.

I I've never met an alcoholic who wasn't defensive.

I've never met somebody who struggled with drinking too much, and somebody didn't say, hey, honey, maybe be dumb.

Maybe let that be your last one.

I'm fine.

I got this, I got this.

And people eventually back away.

And that person is given over to what they're defensive around because no one can get through their defensiveness.

And so eventually your life becomes an expression of that which you defend.

That's what I mean when I say God gives people over to their defensiveness.

The second thing He gives them over to is their desires.

And for the children of Israel, it was all their desire was always to go back.

Oh man, we sat around meatpots.

I mean, there's two words you've never put together in your life.

You've never, like if no one asks you, hey, what are you doing with Thanksgiving?

We're just gonna sit around a big meat pot.

I'm good.

I don't want to get gout.

I had enough.

But the Bible says, oh, we sat around meat pot, because see, their desire was to always just have food.

That's as good as it gets as good as it gets.

As long as we got food and we got money to pay the bills, we're good.

We'll get to that in just a minute.

Their desire was to, if they had to go back to experience that, they would gladly go back.

But God kept calling them to go forward.

Again, does God always have to prove Himself to you?

Because for them, the answer is yes.

I remember a friend of mine's mother's dying in the hospital over here in Beaumont.

And he's a very godly man.

His mom's a very godly woman, and she's the doctor's like, you know, it's not good.

We don't know.

We're doing all we can.

And he's laid, he's sitting beside her bedside, he's got her hand, and he says, Mom, I'm believing God for your healing.

I want you to believe God for your healing too.

And his mom's lady, she opened her eyes, looked him right in the face, and said, Hey son, God doesn't have to heal me for me to believe in him.

I already believe in God.

Okay?

And so whether I live or whether I die, I'm gonna die believing in God.

Now that came up because I asked my friend over lunch, hey, what's the most shaping thing someone's ever said to you?

And he said, My mom on her deathbed.

He said, It changed the way I thought about God.

Does God, number one, have to always prove Himself to you?

Second question comes out of the text this morning is simply this Is God provision or provider?

Is God provision or is God provider?

You say, Oh, what do you mean?

Look at verse 4.

If you want to understand all of the 16th chapter of Exodus, and we read a lot of it, but not all, it's summarized in verse 4.

Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I'm about to rain bread from heaven for you.

And they just stop right there.

How would you like to be watching the weather one night and they say it's cloudy with a chance of pumpernickel?

Tomorrow we got a right, we we got some raisin toast coming down, people.

Uh-uh.

I mean, I'm gonna 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.

Is God provision or is he provider?

Because see, if God's provision, then what I gotta do is when provision happens, I gotta get as much of that as I can.

If God is just provision, where you get up every day and the ground is covered with bread.

Hello.

I gotta get this.

Because what the people did, because the children of Israel, God was provision.

He wasn't provider.

That wasn't who God is.

He's provision.

So, and he said, Hey, that's why verse 4 just kind of unpacks it.

Let me just take it phrase by phrase.

He says, Go out and gather.

He said, I'm gonna rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out.

Here's the first phrase I want us to think about.

Go out and gather a day's portion.

Now think about this.

When you're hungry and you're out of food, and God says, Tomorrow I'm gonna rain bread from heaven, but here's what I want you to do: I want you to only take enough for today.

See, human nature kind of says, Yeah, I know what God said, but I gotta get me a little extra because my kids, you know, they eat a lot.

We got all boys, you know, they're big eaters.

And the Bible even tells us, that's why we read all those verses, because the Bible says some of those people disobeyed God and they got some extra to keep it, and it spoiled, and it got infested with worms, and it began to stink.

And Moses was angry at them.

Why?

Because he didn't trust God.

Because he didn't believe what God said.

He said, Go out and gather a day's portion.

By the way, did anybody see the infographic this past week that said they ask a question if everyone lived like a like an Ethiopian, if everyone lived like a this, like a like the Japanese or the Chinese, how many earths would we need to sustain this?

And you get down to if everyone lived like an American, you would need 4.1 earths to sustain their consumption.

And in that culture, God says to you and to me, he says to the children of Israel, I'll say this in just a minute.

He says to the children of Israel, I want everyone to go out and gather a day's portion.

Now, that whole that little phrase, a day's portion, that ought to sound familiar.

One day Jesus was talking to the disciples in the Bible and they said, Lord, teach us how to pray.

And he said, Well, when you pray, pray like this.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day.

About a day's portion.

There was no Sam's where you could get five gallons of mayonnaise.

We're good.

Whether or not God comes through or not, we got this.

We'll be making sandwiches till we get to the promised land.

Everybody needs five gallons of pickles and a gallon of barbecue sauce.

Look at me.

I ain't knocking on Sam's.

My wife will tell you, I love me some Sam's.

I gotta go every once in a while and just see if they got anything new.

I have a Sam's card and a Costco card.

Yeah, that's right.

And I'm over 50, so I eat lunch at both of them.

It's 267 for a slice of pizza and a Coke, and I feel like I'm getting over on the man down there.

So don't leave.

Oh, the pastor was getting after us because we don't like it.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I'm just saying, here's what I'm getting after all of us, me included.

If you're not careful, you will become your own provider.

You'll stock up enough where you ain't gotta just, you ain't gotta depend on God.

You don't have to say.

He says, go out and gather a day's portion.

Then he says this, every day.

To bring this down where you live.

Ladies, imagine grocery shopping every day.

Some of you are like, that's it.

I'm not taking notes anymore.

Every day.

Every day.

This is not God sending them on an errand to keep them from getting bored.

This is not God saying, hey, make a bread run.

This is God inviting them.

Look at me, beloved.

This is God inviting them to taste his consistency every day.

To say to the kids, see, we don't have to hoard this up.

I mean, does it bother anybody?

We got a show called Hoarders and a whole TV network dedicated to food.

I know it's the holiday baking specials and you're recording them right now.

I know the Pioneer Woman has a Thanksgiving special coming out.

I know, because it's my DVR is jammed up with it.

What are we, what are we doing?

I mean, how many episodes, how many spins of chopped can you have before we chop, chopped?

17 episodes recorded on my DVR right now.

Not bitter anything.

Every day, every day, God says, go to sleep at night, knowing that there's gonna be bread on the ground tomorrow.

And here's the way you demonstrate that I believe there's gonna be bread on the ground tomorrow.

Today I just take enough for today, because tomorrow there's gonna be more.

Now, by the way, when you think bread, some of you kind of like bread.

I mean, what's the big deal about bread?

You ever wonder what that stuff tastes like?

Because manna means literally what is it in the Hebrew?

They had no frame of reference.

They're like, what is it?

Manna.

That's where the word comes from.

If you got a Bible open, look down at verse 31 of chapter 16.

It says, now the house of Israel called its name manna.

Talking about this bread.

It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.

How hard would that be to get used to?

We're gonna have some wafers that have been made with honey.

Shut your mouth, yes.

But he goes on.

Moses says, This is what the Lord has commanded, let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.

And Moses said to Aaron, Take a jar and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the Lord to be kept throughout your generations.

As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept.

The people of Israel ate the manna.

40 years.

40 years till they came to a habit of habitable land.

They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan.

That's the promised land.

In other words, every day for 40 years, God provided for these people until they got up to the border of the promised land of Canaan.

And of which Canaan, the promised land, God told them this is a land that is flowing with milk and so they've been eating this manna, which tastes like wafers made with honey.

And now they get into the land where it's just overflowing with plenty.

And it's a land of milk and honey.

And you got to ask yourself, how hard would that be?

How hard could this be?

I mean, he says, hey, go out every day, gather enough for this day, do it every day, and here's why.

That I may test them.

That I may test them.

Back in verse 4.

What do you mean?

Hey, I'm about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion.

I want you to do this every day, and here's why.

That I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not.

What do you mean?

The unbelief of your heart, the unbelief of my heart is most on display when it's ruled by our appetites.

The unbelief of your heart is most on display when it's ruled by its appetites.

What's the test?

Whether though walk in my law or not?

What's the law?

It's manne-keeping.

And by the way, when he says whether they'll walk in my law, that's the Hebrew word Torah.

It's the same word he uses to describe the Ten Commandments.

Torah.

That's the Torah.

This is the law.

This is the requirement.

God says, if you can't obey me in a little thing like mana keeping, like, hey, don't go out and store it up because it's going to rot and stink and you're going to get worms in it, okay?

Trust me.

I'm not run out of ideas for you.

I'm not run out of provision for you.

I know what the price of oil is these days.

Hello?

Somebody called me this week and says, hey, we start bombing ISA's oil reserves.

You think the oil situation is going to improve here in Texas?

Do you know that I pastor a church?

I got no idea.

I got some people in my church.

I could ask them and they'd look at me like, I'm downstream, I'm upstream, I'm midstream.

I don't even know what that means.

So I said back into the phone to the person.

I know this, that my God is a great God.

He's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

You said that a couple weeks ago in a sermon.

He said, You're just going to start saying that.

No, no, no.

I'm not just saying it.

I'm reminding myself that I believe that.

But these people, God said, I'm going to test them.

And they failed the test because they would not walk in God's law.

By the way, if you can't obey God in the little things like, hey, don't go out and hoard it up and make me look like I'm not generous.

I ain't going to buy you no sea dudes.

Just get enough for that day.

But the Bible says they couldn't keep that Torah law.

So when he got to Sinai and they couldn't keep the Torah there either, it didn't surprise him.

Which is why in Deuteronomy chapter 8, God says this about this experience here.

Deuteronomy 8 · chapter mention

This is Deuteronomy chapter 8, verse 2 to 4.

Deuteronomy 8:2–4

He says, And you shall remember the whole way.

Circle those two words in your head the whole way.

Wherever you are in the journey, God says, I'm committed to the whole way.

I don't know about you, but I'm in for the whole way.

And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these 40 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 he 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 by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

That last part should sound familiar.

Because when Jesus went to the wilderness and he fasted for 40 days, the devil came to him and tempted him.

And one of the temptations was turn these stones into bread.

I know you're hungry.

You hadn't eaten in 40 days.

And Jesus says, it is written, man should not live by bread alone.

You know there's an insufficiency to bread that you only understand once you have all the bread you need and you still have a gnawing hunger in your soul.

Let me say that again.

There's an insufficiency to bread.

Nothing wrong with bread.

Have a Thanksgiving feast.

Don't sit here and feel guilty, like, oh man, we're gonna commit gluttony.

I think that's a feast day.

It's not gluttony.

You should feast on Thanksgiving.

You should say, oh man, God, you've been so good to us.

We're gonna eat and fall asleep into a dopamine or tryptophan-induced coma.

Glory to God.

And the cowboys are gonna lose.

Just get ready for it.

Yeah.

So it's not like, oh, should we have anything but crusty bread for Thanksgiving?

No, not at all.

Not at all.

But here's the deal: there's an insufficiency to bread that you don't experience until you get all the bread you want.

Have you defined bread?

And you still got this gnawing hunger in you that won't go away.

That's God saying, hey, it's not just provision.

I'm provider.

It's not just getting your needs met.

Because if God is just provision, you have the house you want, driving the car you want, belonging to the country club you want, wearing the clothes you want, your kids living the life you want them to live, and you lay down, and here's this thought goes through your head like an airplane.

What's missing?

It's not a boat.

Your wife told me to say that.

You don't need a boat.

It's not.

It's you need to be in a relationship with God who's provider.

Not just experience provision.

By the way, you can be provided for and never know God.

You know that, right?

You can, you can, you can, you can have all the stuff you've ever needed.

You can have all the all the bread.

You have to have so much bread you got to tear down barns and build bigger barns.

And there's gonna come a night your soul's gonna be required of you.

And again, if you've got a Bible, just turn to the New Testament to John chapter 6, and I'll be done this morning.

John 6 · chapter mention

You still with me?

Let me say it again.

You can be provided for and never know God.

And the classic example is the Jewish people.

You say, What do you mean?

Don't take up an offense for the Jews.

Let me just read.

This is John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

I'll start reading verse 24.

Jesus has just uh fed 5,000 people with a couple of loaves and some fish, and then he walks on the water, and the people freak out, and they're like, dude, you got magic powers.

We want to have magic powers.

And so they come chasing after Jesus.

Verse 24, it says, So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum seeking Jesus.

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here?

And Jesus answered them, Truly, truly I say to you, you're 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.

And then they said to him, What must we do to be doing the works of God?

And Jesus answered them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom God has sent.

Translation, you believe in me.

Verse 30, 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 man in the wilderness, as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.

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.

And they said to him, Sir, give us this bread always, provision.

And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life, you knuckleheads.

Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet you do not believe.

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out, for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life.

And I will raise him up on the last day.

And so the Jews grumbled about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.

They said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?

How does he now say, I have come down from heaven?

I just picture Jesus just rolling his eyes and going, ay, ay, ay.

Why?

Because for the Jewish people of the day, they just want provision.

They didn't want provider, they didn't want to be able to say, You're the Messiah.

Oh, absolutely.

So when you ask yourself, how do I relate to God, you gotta ask yourself, does God always have to prove Himself to me?

Secondly, is God provision or is God provider?

Because the manna, if God's provider, the manna just reminds you, just points forward to Jesus.

Oh, God provided this bread as a reminder that Jesus says in John, I'm the bread that's come down from heaven.

I mean, this is not just about your physical hunger.

This is about that gnawing curiosity, that gnawing hunger in the pit of your soul that never goes away when you have everything and you're still hungry.

And the Jews are like, We know your parents.

You're white trash.

You lived in a trailer park and you went to the skating rink on Friday night.

You're not better than us.

And Jesus was like, Oh, wow.

And yet, no, that's not in the Bible, in case you're wondering.

The Bible says it like this: He came into his own, and his own received him not.

That's why in Matthew 9, Jesus looks out over the city and he sees they're harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

And the Bible says he was moved to the depth of his bowels.

He was just like, oh.

And he says, He was moved with compassion because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

They didn't have anybody that they believed enough to follow.

Let me ask you a question, do you?

You got anybody that you just believe in enough to follow besides the guy you see in the mirror when you shave?

Because one day he's gonna look back at you and kind of go, you know, we don't have this figured out.

And that hunger just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

Third question I want to ask you about how you relate to God to help you think about that is simply this.

What do you think moves the heart of God?

What do you think moves the heart of God?

I mean, what what gets God's attention?

What does God commend?

What is God cut?

Because if you're not, here's why I tell you that.

Because if you're not careful, and they mentioned it here eight times in this part of Exodus 16, they mentioned that the people grumbled and they grumbled and they grumbled.

And Moses said, Why do you grumble against us?

You're grumbling against the Lord.

In the last chapter, they grumbled.

And in John chapter 6, I don't know if you saw it, they grumbled there too.

John 6 · chapter mention

Oh, who do you think you are?

You think you're better than us?

We know your parents.

Your parents are married and Joseph.

How can you say you come down from heaven?

La de Die.

Are you kidding me?

If you're not careful, sometimes you'll read the Bible and you'll believe things that the Bible's not telling you to believe.

Like you can read this because last chapter they grumbled the water better, and God told Moses, throw a log in it, and it became sweet.

And so if you're not careful, the takeaway is hey, what moves God's heart is just complain.

And our culture is saturated with those kind of people.

Turn on your TV.

Oh, well, you know, it's the race, and yum, yum, damn, and dun, and oh, gee, whiz.

Are you kidding me?

Everybody's complaining these days.

And here's the here's the truth about that kind of environment.

It's a great environment for grateful people to rise up and express gratitude.

Everybody at work is, oh, yeah, oh man, I just don't know.

But enough about staff meeting here.

Well, what do I mean?

What what what what do you think moves the heart of God?

It's a thing that you do when you feel like you really need to get God's attention.

For some of you, you get mad, you stop talking to him, you stop praying.

For some of you, you get really diligent and you start reading your Bible because, oh, God's gonna look down and kind of go.

And some of you are engaged in behaviors that really don't move God's heart at all.

And yet you just keep doing them.

Some of you are in a one-man campaign to hate yourself enough to make God finally feel sorry for you and love you.

That doesn't move God's heart.

Let me just give you from the book of Luke three things that move God's heart that we can be certain about.

The first one, don't turn there.

Just you can just jot down these two words.

Extravagant gratitude.

Extravagant gratitude.

Luke chapter 7, there's a woman, the Bible says she was a sinner and a woman of the city.

Luke 7 · chapter mention

I'll let you do the math, mom and dad, as to what kind of person she was, but people gave her money to do what she did.

You with me?

I'm talking in code over your kid's head.

Yes, because I have a degree in this.

And so everybody knew she was a sinner.

Jesus is at a dinner party at this very religious guy named Simon's house.

This skank shows up, reeking of pall malls and vodka, and she just slathers this ointment on Jesus' feet and starts washing his feet with her hair, which I could not do.

And she's down there, and everybody at dinner is just kind of looking at him and they're just folding their arms like, well, if he was a prophet, he wouldn't know what kind of a skank is touching him.

I mean, good Lord, everyone knows she's been passed around like a bong at a fog hat concert.

Y'all know what a bong is.

I'm just telling you what the Bible says.

Did y'all feel that?

Some of you religious people are like, I'm offended.

I don't know why, but good Lord, I'm offended.

She was a woman of the city.

That's what the Bible says.

And they were all, if you think I'm making it up, read Luke 7 for lunch before you write me the email.

And they're all like, oh, if Jesus was really a prophet, he would know what kind of a sinner's touching him.

And Jesus said, knew what they were thinking.

That ought to scare you.

Jesus knew what they were thinking.

And he explained her behavior.

They look at it, he goes, hey, whoever's been forgiven much loves much.

Whoever's beginning forgiving little loves little.

That's why you're not washing my feet, you religious weasel.

What moves the heart of God?

Extravagant gratitude.

Luke 7.

Second thing that moves the heart of God is persistent faith.

Luke 18.

Luke 18, Jesus again, not Neil, Jesus.

I gotta say it in a language you understand.

Some of you you're like, oh, did he say fog hat?

Yes.

Yes.

The second thing that moves God's heart is persistent faith.

Luke 18.

Jesus tells the story of this widow that goes to this judge who doesn't, the Bible.

I love this.

The Bible says he doesn't care about people.

He doesn't love God, and he doesn't care about people.

He's a politician who's in the pocket of any lobbyist that'll come along and scratch a check, okay?

And this woman just wears him out.

Every time he makes an appearance, he goes and has a ribbon cutting.

She's like, give me justice, give me justice.

And his people are like, keep her away.

Every time she shows up, and so finally he realizes this woman is not gonna stop doing this.

He says that I don't fear God and I don't care about people, but so that this woman will stop beating me down.

I'm gonna do what she's asking me to do.

And at the end of that story, guess what Jesus says?

When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?

That sounds so out of context with everything Jesus just said.

But what he's really saying is this is what faith looks like.

It has a bulldogged persistence to it.

Third thing that the Bible teaches us moves the heart of God.

This isn't all, is real sacrifice.

Luke 21.

There's these guys coming by.

This time of year they have the uh Salvation Army kettles out in front of Walmart and everywhere.

And the Bible says that's how they took offerings back then.

They had it like a very public, and people would come.

And Jesus says the rich people walked by and dropped in a check for a couple grand.

And they had millions in the bank.

And this woman came and she took her mortgage payment, her light bill, and her grocery money, and the extra five dollars that she bought a pack of generic cigarettes with and smoked when no one could see her.

And she dropped all that in there.

The Bible says two copper coins, two mics she put in there.

And Jesus, standing at a distance, smiled and said, I tell you, this woman gave out of her need.

They gave out of their excess.

This is sacrifice.

Now, ask yourself, and we'll be done this morning.

When's the last time you really made a sacrifice?

Because you got to work hard to make a sacrifice in America.

I ain't getting at you, I ain't trying to guilt you.

We don't understand this kind of sacrifice because nobody names an elementary school after the custodian.

We name them after politicians, which why we do that, I don't know.

Or astronauts.

I can come closer to seeing that.

Can you imagine being a custodian at elementary school for 31 years?

And the kids just love that woman.

She prays for those kids.

Oh, I love Miss Maggie.

Oh man, she was there.

Jesus says, that's what this is like.

This is kind of a real sacrifice.

Somebody that has, hey, I this I need this, but I want you to have it.

Instead of, I have this and I don't need it, here you go.

That's not sacrifice.

Sacrifice is I'm gonna have to do without because I gave this.

That moves the heart of God.

Here's a question I want you to think about this morning, and I'm done.

When's the last time you really felt like you moved the heart of God?

You got extravagant.

Extravagant gratitude.

Or persistent faith.

A real sacrifice.

When's the last time you just kind of sensed, man, I feel like I really connected with the heart of God and moved the heart of God today?

Let's think about that.

Let me pray.

If you're a guest today, we just relax.

We like to teach the Bible and then just think about it.

Unless you think I'm kidding about the woman in Luke 7.

No, I just understand that woman.

And many of you do too.

And I want you to know that God doesn't make fun of those people.

God commends those people who realize what sinful wretches they were and they couldn't help themselves.

Their sense of overwhelming gratitude got the better of them, and they just busted the door down and started slathering tootie-fruity Vaseline all over the feet of Jesus and wiping his feet with their hair and weeping uncontrollably.

It's like John Vell John.

I mean, he realizes he's forgiven.

And for all you artistic people, God's the one that says, You forgot the candlesticks.

You forgot the candlesticks, you stinking thief and liar.

If you want provision, you can have the candlesticks.

But I want you to have a relationship with a God who's your provider.

Those are two entirely different things, beloved.

Let's think about that for just a minute.

Yes, Lord, and at that table are men and women who've been to the Fog Hat concert who knew better and did it anyway, just like the rest of us in this room.

That's why we're not judgmental.

That's why we just kind of say, Man, can you get a whiff of what God is doing?

I know it feels like you're in the wilderness, but can you smell it?

You may not see it, but you can smell it.

Smells like sweet wafers made with honey.

And if you'll just trust him, he'll take you the whole way.

Thanks that you're the God of the whole way.

Not the halfway, part way.

I got you started.

Now you're on your own.

You're gonna take us the whole way.

And so we can rest and trust because of that.

We pray and believe that in Jesus' name.

But everyone says, Stand up, let me yell at you and you get out of here.

Hold your hands out.

It's so good that God uses one of the sweetest things you know on this earth to give you a frame of reference for.

That's why it's called the land of yoke and honey.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.