Tastes Like Honey

(upbeat music)

- Hey, this is Pastor John Ryan Cantu

from PNEUMA Church in Houston, Texas.

Thank you for listening to the message today.

I hope that it blesses you

and all those that you share it with.

God bless you.

(upbeat music)

- Amen.

Amen, it was nice and toasty in here earlier.

Now it's a little bit cooler.

Are we good?

Amen, praise God.

Brother Ed, we're repping that PNEUMA merch.

Yes, amen.

Praise God.

Just a couple more announcements.

First of all, God has been doing amazing things.

Yes, He's been good.

He's been good and He's been good to this church.

And obviously the past several weeks,

and I don't know if it's just the beginning of the year,

but it's been harder to find a seat.

It's been harder to find parking.

I just wanted to remind you guys

that we have that funeral home that's been abandoned,

funeral home that used to let us park there.

And now they closed it down.

But I'm believing that it's gonna be ours,

our property anyway,

'cause I really wanna buy it.

And so it's like,

you know, like when God told Abraham

to go into a foreign land that wasn't yours yet,

but one day it'd be yours,

go ahead and park there, it's ours.

So go ahead and park there

if you need additional parking, okay?

And believe it with me,

when you park there, I want you to get up and be like,

this is ours, PNEUMA Church.

Amen.

And also, I just wanted to make another announcement.

On the 28th, we're gonna be having baptisms.

We have, I think about six people wanting to be baptized.

If you wanna be baptized,

please, you can talk to me,

talk to Sister Heather over here,

and we'll get your name on the list,

because man, if God has been good to you,

and if you said yes to him,

let's go ahead and make it public, amen.

You gotta, sometimes you gotta switch that,

I don't know if they have it on Facebook anymore,

but on Myspace, they used to have it

where you change your relationship status

to in a relationship.

Gotta let people know that you're in a relationship

with Jesus, and one way to do it

is by publicly being baptized, amen.

And then one last announcement, on the 27th,

this kinda came about kinda last minute,

but we don't wanna let the opportunity go.

There's a Christian rapper, his name is Brian Trejo,

and he's, y'all know who he is?

Ah, cool.

And he's gonna be here, he's gonna be here.

He's gonna do a concert here on the 27th at six o'clock.

I think we have a flyer up here.

And this is for everybody, so if you got,

I mean, if you got kids, if you have people

who are into rap, maybe they're not even Christian,

but this is a good opportunity for them to come in

and hear, you know, godly music, amen.

So that's gonna be on the 27th, plan for that, amen.

Praise the Lord, and with that,

we're gonna go into the Word of God.

I'm gonna ask that you stand with me

and turn to Exodus chapter 16, Exodus 16, amen.

Exodus 16 · chapter mention

How about them Texans, right?

(congregation cheering)

Amen.

(laughing)

This is 20 years, right, 20 years of just faith, right?

Coming into fruition, amen.

We're gonna read a little bit this morning.

I wanted to read even more,

but I really don't wanna lose you,

so I'll give you some context of what's going on,

but let's go ahead and read from verse nine

all the way to 31 if you have a say, amen.

It says, "Then Moses said to Aaron,

"Announce this to the entire community of Israel.

"Present yourselves before the Lord,

"for he has heard your complaining.

"And as Aaron spoke to the whole community of Israel,

"they looked out toward the wilderness.

"They could see the awesome glory of the Lord in the cloud.

"And then the Lord said to Moses,

"I have heard the Israelites' complaints.

"Now tell them in the evening you will have meat to eat,

"and in the morning you will have all the bread you want,

"and then you will know that I am the Lord your God.

"That evening, vast numbers of quail flew

"and uncovered the camp, and in the next morning,

"the area around the camp was wet with dew.

"When the dew evaporated, a flaky substance

"as fine as frost blanketed the ground.

"The Israelites were puzzled when they saw it.

"What is it, they asked each other.

"They had no idea what it was, and Moses told them,

"It is the food that the Lord has given you to eat.

"These are the Lord's instructions."

You still with me, right?

It says, "Each household should gather as much as it needs.

"Pick up two quarts for each person in your tent,

"and so the people of Israel did as they were told.

"Some gathered a lot, some only a little,

"but when they measured it out,

"everyone had just enough.

"Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over,

"and those who gathered only a little had enough.

"Each family had just what it needed.

"Then Moses told them,

"Do not keep any of it until the morning,

"but some of them didn't listen,

"and kept some until the morning.

"But by then it was full of maggots

"and it had a terrible smell.

"Moses was angry with them.

"After this, the people gathered the food morning by morning,

"each family according to its need,

"and as the sun became hot, the flakes they had

"not picked up melted and disappeared.

"On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much as usual,

"four quarts for each person instead of two.

"Then all the leaders of the community came

"and asked Moses for an explanation.

"He told them, 'This is what the Lord commanded.

"Tomorrow will be a day of complete rest,

"a holy Sabbath day set apart for the Lord.

"So boil or bake as much as you want,

"and set aside what is left for tomorrow.'

"So they put some aside until morning,

"just as Moses had commanded.

"And in the morning, the leftover food was wholesome

"and good without maggots or without odor.

"Moses said, 'Eat this food today for Sabbath,

"'for today is Sabbath dedicated to the Lord.

"'There will be no food on the ground today.

"'You may gather the food for six days,

"'but the seventh day is the Sabbath.

"'There will be no food on the ground that day.'

"Some of the people went out anyway on the Sabbath,

"but they found no food.

"The Lord asked Moses, 'How long will these people refuse

"'to obey my commandments and instructions?

"'They must realize that the Sabbath

"'is the Lord's gift to you.

"'This is why he gives you a two-day supply on the sixth day,

"'so there will be enough for two days.

"'On the Sabbath day, you must each stay in your place.

"'Do not go out and pick up food on the seventh day.'

"So the people did not gather any food on the seventh day.

"The Israelites called the food manna.

"It was white like coriander seed,

"and it tasted like honey wafers."

Amen, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for this word.

I pray, my God, as you've ministered it to me,

Father God, that you would minister to your people.

I pray, Father God, that I would be sensitive

to your spirit, Lord.

Whatever you wanna do, Father God, do, Father.

Take this time, Father, and convict us, encourage us,

Father God, and give us a word from you, Lord.

In Jesus' name, amen, amen.

You may be seated.

I know that was a lot of reading,

but I entitled the message this morning,

"Tastes Like Honey."

Tastes like honey.

It almost tastes like chicken,

but I know many of us are not eating meat during the fast,

so I went with honey.

Tastes like lettuce, yeah.

I love this story because this is a story

all about Jehovah-jireh, God the provider, right?

And this is two months after God rescued his people

from the land of Egypt,

where they had been enslaved for 400 years.

God remembered his promise to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob,

that he would call to himself a nation.

Deuteronomy says this nation, this people would be his

treasured possession, right?

That was the plan of God from the very beginning.

God called the people to himself.

He wanted them to be holy.

He wanted them to be set apart for him.

They were called to be priests.

Now today, that extends to us, right?

We are the Gentiles.

This is no longer just for Israel,

but it did all start with a promise to Israel.

And so this is two months after that big deliverance

from Egypt and people had just witnessed the glory of God

like never before.

They saw God part the Red Sea as they fled from Egypt

away from their enemies.

And now they're at this point, they're in the wilderness

and it's like they forgot the glory of God.

It's like none of that ever even happened.

And they're acting like babies and they're complaining.

And they're blaming Moses and they're blaming Arron

because you always need somebody to blame.

And Moses was their leader.

And Moses is like, well, hold up,

I didn't even ask for this.

Like I didn't even want this.

Like I was done with y'all.

I left Egypt, I left the Israelites.

God called me back to lead you guys out of Egypt

and now you have beef with me.

And he tells them that the real issue that you have

is not even with me, it's with God.

And what they're saying to Moses is they're saying,

well, why didn't you even bring this out of here?

Why didn't you take us out of Egypt into the wilderness?

Was it to watch us die?

They kind of get a little sassy with Moses.

Was it to watch us die?

Was it to watch us starve to death?

And they begin to reminisce on their enslavement.

And they say in Egypt, we had all the food

that we could eat.

We had all the bread.

Our bellies were full, we had plenty of water.

I know that we were sweating out there.

We were slaves working every hour of the day,

but at least we had water.

At least we had something to eat.

At least we had a place to sleep at at night.

We didn't have to make tent like we do here

every single night and worry about snakes and scorpions

because we're out here in the desert.

And so they're reminiscing on their slavery.

They were so used to being slaves

that they actually longed for a moment

to go back to their enslavement.

That's a whole other sermon right there.

I don't have time to preach today,

but man, the devil knows how to keep us satisfied

with our enslavement.

And this, I mean, this is why people sin.

Even Christians, we hate our sin.

It separates us from God,

but we fall into sin more often than we like.

Why?

Because sin satisfies our flesh.

Yes or no?

Paul says it.

He says, "Do not gratify the desires of your flesh,"

because Paul knew that sin is gratifying.

And there is an evil master,

and we're not even gonna call him the devil.

We'll just call it sin.

Sin is willing to gratify the desires of your flesh

to keep you content with your enslavement.

You know what I'm saying?

And so sometimes, maybe you get a really good high

for a few hours, but you're a slave to that addiction.

Maybe you get a little moment of pleasure

with what you're watching online,

but you hate how it makes you feel

because you keep trying to run away from it,

and then you always go back to it.

So oftentimes, we're trading what is good

with what feels good.

And there is a master of evil, church.

I want you to listen this morning.

There is a master of evil who wants to make you feel good,

and then there is a good master

who wants to give you what is good.

And what is good doesn't always feel good,

and what feels good doesn't always seem good.

That's the battle between our flesh and our spirit.

That's spiritual warfare.

That's what Adam and Eve were dealing with in the garden.

They wanted to feel good, and so they convinced themselves

that the apple or the fruit, whatever it was, was good,

but it wasn't.

We're always trading what is good for what feels good.

And whenever we're delivered from something,

it's liberating, obviously, whenever you're set free.

Anybody been set free before?

It's awesome, right?

It's like when you can look back at your old life

and you're like, I don't even recognize who I was.

It's completely liberating when God delivers you

from something and you're made whole again,

and whenever you decide to follow Jesus,

you leave your sin,

and that just does something to your spirit.

When you realize that the power has been taken

from the enemy, you know, the enemy thought he had me,

but it's been returned to you,

God has all the power, that feels good.

And when the Israelites were rescued

from the hand of their slavers,

they wrote a song about it.

It's a chapter right before this one that we just read.

They sang praises to God, Exodus 15.

It says, "The people of Israel sang this song to the Lord,

"saying, 'I will sing to the Lord,

"'for He has triumphed gloriously.

"'The horse and his rider He has thrown into the sea.

"'The Lord is my strength and my song,

"'and He has become my salvation.

"'This is my God, and I will praise Him.'"

How many times do we leave church feeling like this,

like a new person?

For me, it's like every week.

For you, it might be after a conference.

Like, man, you feel completely renewed and fired up,

because witnessing the power and the glory of God,

you know, it's not just powerful, it's inspiring.

When you witness the glory of God in your life,

or even somebody else's life,

that makes you wanna do things,

makes you wanna move and change your entire life

and quit your job and go into full-time ministry.

I remember one time we went to a mission trip,

and my cousin, he comes back, he's like, you know what?

I think I'm moving to El Salvador.

Because when you see the power and the glory of God,

it inspires us, and it makes you wanna move and dance

and shout and sing and do all kinds of things.

Dare I say something?

Dare I say that it almost has the same effect on your flesh

that sin has on your flesh?

Y'all are like, uh-uh, that's heresy.

That's it, I want you, give me a moment, give me a moment.

Because witnessing the glory of God

can also gratify your flesh.

Y'all don't know, you ain't convinced yet.

That's why you come to church and you get fired up

and nothing ever changes.

Because while something may be happening on the outside,

and you're smiling and you're jumping

and you're dancing and you're singing,

if nothing is changing in your heart, nothing is changing.

And so you may be praising God after seeing the glory of God,

but you're gonna be wishing you were back with your slaver

the moment that glory begins to fade a little bit.

And you'll be treating the glory of God

as something that only satisfies your flesh.

You'll be saying, well, at least I had some decent times

back then when I was stressed out, I could call up the boys

and we can go down to the bar and we could forget

about our problem for the entire weekend.

You might be saying, well, at least I could make a booty call

at 12 a.m. when I needed to feel good,

but now they want me to call brother Larry

for accountability.

I'm being real because this is what I hear.

I love that many of you are real with me,

like the guys, I mean, and I appreciate it.

Sometimes you're like, pastor, I ain't gonna lie,

I miss the old days, I miss it.

That's what I know.

30 years, 35 years, 40 years of my life

being outside of the will of God, doing my own thing

when I wanted to do it.

If I wanted to feel good, I'd go out and feel good,

but now you want me to change?

Sometimes I miss the old ways

because even though I was a slave, it was easy.

Even though I was miserable, even though I hated my life,

at least I had something to make me feel good

for just a moment.

We're always just chasing what feels good.

Maybe that's the only reason you come to church,

because it feels good.

And I just wanna say it one more time,

don't trade what is good for what feels good,

because what feels good will only last for a moment,

but what is good will last for eternity.

What is good will transcend this life.

What feels good will not.

Still with me, right?

That was like my intro, I'm just giving y'all context.

Now we get to the main part of the text.

This is two months, again, after seeing the glory of God,

they just witnessed the mighty hand of God.

He parted the Red Sea.

No other miracle like it in the Old Testament.

And now two months later, they're complaining

because they have no food.

That's understandable, we all get hangry sometimes, right?

And so God tells Moses, he says,

"I am going to show them once again my glory."

I'm gonna show 'em again.

I love that song, man, the song "Do It Again."

♪ 'Cause I see you move, you move the mountains ♪

♪ And I believe, I see you do it again ♪

God gives us his glory more than once in our lives.

And I love that God meets us where we are

in our frustration, in our doubt,

and he says, "All right, I'm gonna show you again."

Even though I showed you the miracle two months ago,

I'll show you another miracle today.

See, he says, "I'm gonna show them my glory."

Listen, what feels good, I want you to get this,

what feels good in the presence of God

is meant to connect us deeper to who God is.

I'm gonna say it again

because I really need you to get that.

What feels good here at church,

what feels good when you go to a conference,

that is meant to do more than just sit there.

I know we're always talking negatively about emotions

because we don't wanna be emotional Christians,

we wanna be real Christians,

but let's not forget that God gave us emotions

to feel things.

And so when God makes us feel things,

when he's churning our emotions,

it's meant to do something more than just last for a minute.

It's meant to connect us to who he is.

And so whenever you hear that song

and it makes you tear up

because it reminds you of something

that you're going through

or whenever you hear that story in the sermon

that you relate to, you start to tear up a little bit,

realize that those are just emotions.

They are emotions.

And you're gonna get fired up

and if you do nothing with it,

it's not gonna have a real effect.

I can preach eloquently,

I can tell you a nice story,

I can make you cry,

there could be a song, man,

that song that we just sang, "The Blessing,"

it gets me every single time.

Those are emotions.

Those are emotions.

But those emotions are meant to go deeper

because I'm emotional when I hear that song, "The Blessing,"

I start declaring it over my family in a very real way.

It becomes less than a song and a testimony.

That's what emotions are supposed to do

when you're at church.

Everybody here's got emotions,

especially the Latina women.

We all got emotions.

It's supposed to make you come closer.

And that's why when the sermon is getting to you

and you're sitting there and you're starting to sob

and you're crying because you know

it's speaking directly to your life,

there is supposed to be a moment

where you bring that emotion to the feet of Jesus

and you say, "God, take this.

"Take it from me."

That's what your emotion is for.

What feels good in the presence of God

is meant to connect you to who God is.

And that's what he does here, that's what he does.

The text says that God's presence

is going to be revealed to them again

so that they know that he is God.

They should already know that he's God.

They just saw the hand of God split the Red Sea.

But he says, "Okay, now I'm gonna do it again.

"I'm gonna do something else.

"We're gonna try this again."

And this time they're gonna know that I'm God.

And here specifically, the glory of God

comes in the form of provision.

Bread in the morning, quell in the evening,

every single day, yes.

The Israelites had been complaining

that there's nothing to eat.

There's not even a McDonald's out here in the wilderness.

But God hears their cry and he says,

"You know what, I'm going to provide."

Now, the Israelites were probably not picky

like we are today.

I can hear Leila already, I'm sick of quell.

I could just hear her say that.

I have quell every day.

They didn't have the luxuries of food like we do.

So I'm gonna say that the Israelites

were pretty grateful for the provision.

The issue with the Israelites,

and this is, now I'm getting to the sermon.

The issue is that they wanted more

than what God was willing to provide at the moment.

The Bible says that God was trying to test them.

God was testing the Israelites.

This was a test to see how much they truly trusted

in God's provision.

Once again, or once the emotion fades, right?

Are you still willing to trust me?

Once you have your fill once, can you trust me?

That is gonna come again tomorrow.

That's the test.

And so they were instructed to not save any of the food

that they received for the next day

because God was gonna provide on the next day.

That didn't stop them.

They gathered some and they saved some leftovers.

And the Bible says that the food went bad.

They were instructed to gather twice as much on the Sabbath

because God was trying to teach them to honor the Sabbath.

There's a lot going on in this text

that we're not really getting into,

but that didn't stop them from going out on the Sabbath day

trying to find some food and they didn't find any.

So this is such a relevant message

because even though we know that we serve a God who provides,

sometimes we go out, we try to gather more

than God told us to gather.

We try to do more than what God told us to do.

We try to work more than what God told us to work.

Again, time and time and time again,

we fell at trusting God in his provision.

And the text in verse 18, it says that everyone

had just enough.

Somebody tell that to your person next to you.

Just enough.

[LAUGHTER]

Just enough.

You know when I read that, I don't

know if that's the ambitious personality that I've always

had.

It goes against the fabric of who I am

and I think who most people are.

Who wants just enough?

Yeah, it's good.

I'm not being an ungrateful goat, right?

We tell Layla.

But just enough, you know what I'm saying?

I remember saying years ago to the church,

we were talking about offering and giving.

I said, I don't want to be a church that just survives.

I want to be a church that thrives.

Because if we're thriving, we can do more.

We can help more people.

We can reach more people, right?

I mean, if we're surviving, that's cool.

We can keep the lights on.

We can pay the bills.

But there's really no purpose in dreaming

to do more because all we'll ever have is just enough.

I'm not going to turn around and teach that to my kids.

Just enough is good.

I want them to dream.

I want them to try.

And so I read that and I'd probably

be that Israelite thinking, we just left Egypt for just

enough?

You know?

I guess what happened to glory to glory?

Now, how many of us have these thoughts about our faith?

You know, like I remember when my mom,

you know, she left her job a long time ago,

very well-paying job.

She took a $70,000 cut to go into full-time ministry.

And I don't really remember the timeline,

but it was maybe a year later or two years later.

Two years later, maybe, the 2007, 2008 crash

hit the recession.

We lost two houses.

And not like two houses, like we had two houses to lose.

No, we had one house.

We lost that one.

We had another house and we lost that one.

And I remember thinking, is this what

it looks like to trust God?

Like, is this what it's supposed--

I was really trying to make sense of it.

Like, OK, God, if I'm not--

if you don't want me to think bigger,

if you don't want me to think bigger about life, OK,

just tell me, is this what it's supposed to look like?

I got the food.

I got clothes.

I got some roof over my head.

But it's just enough.

Is that what the Christian life is?

And sometimes I go down this rabbit trail

and I have to remind myself that I do have all I need.

God is all that I need.

He's more than enough.

And God still gives me more than that.

I have my beautiful family.

I have food.

I have a warm home.

I have more than enough.

But many times, at least in life, or at least in my life,

this goes far beyond personal ambition.

This is about promises.

This is about promises.

It's not just the ambition.

It's not just, I want more.

This is God.

You said there was going to be more.

Because that's where the Israelites were.

The Israelites weren't dreaming of a better place.

They were promised a better place.

They had left Egypt to enter the land of promise.

The wilderness is not the land of promise.

They were looking forward to a land, the Bible says,

flowing with milk and honey, which

is symbolic of the natural resources

that the land was going to have for the people of God.

Just enough is not the same as flowing.

I want to be in the flowing part of God's promises,

not just enough parts.

And some of us, man, I've spoken to a few of you.

And I know that some of you are waiting for a spouse

to come to the Lord.

You're waiting.

You're waiting for your kids, your siblings.

You're waiting for somebody to join you.

And right now, maybe it's just you.

And you sometimes don't even want to come to church.

You sometimes don't even want to get up in the morning and pray.

But you do it because you're like, all right, well,

if not me, I mean, we just sang a song about it.

It's got to start with you.

And you kind of feel like you're spiritually--

you're just in that season of just enough.

It's just me.

It's just enough.

Some of you are waiting for the fulfillment of what

God called you to long ago.

Some of you have callings over your life, man.

You have promises over your life.

And you've been waiting for it.

I mean, when?

And you're kind of just passing the time

doing what you have to do.

You've got a family.

You've got kids.

You've got to feel like-- but you're just

in a season of just enough.

And eventually, if you're like me,

you kind of get tired of waiting.

You get tired of just enough.

Scraping by every week with just enough.

Barely made it to church.

You're operating on just enough.

Where is the flow of blessings?

Where is the growth?

Where is the expansion?

Where is the salvation for my family?

Where is the success over the business?

And I'm not here to tell you that anything that you do

is destined to be a success.

But I know that as people of God, we walk in faith

and we walk in promises.

And sometimes, in those promises,

we try to take shortcuts.

And we gather more than what was asked of us.

And we try to save some leftovers for a rainy day

just in case.

And God is trying to tell you this morning, trust me.

What if you just trusted me for a moment?

What if you just remembered?

Sometimes, the remembrance of what God did yesterday

is enough to sustain you today.

And God is like, look, I did it for you then.

I will do it in my time.

You have to trust me.

You have to trust me.

I am not a God who forgives.

I am not a God who is going to abandon you.

You are my people.

I called you out of this land.

Trust me.

Sometimes, the tests that you're going through, church,

it's simply-- it's about you.

It's not about God.

It's about God seeing, OK, I need them

to know that they trust me.

I need you to know that no matter what comes your way,

you are still going to trust me.

There are times in our walk where God--

he takes everything that you've previously put your trust into

so that all you have left is him.

What else you got?

What else are you going to do?

And maybe you're here today, and you're blessed by the Lord.

You have more than you could ever need.

Praise God for that.

But I want you to remember these words.

If you ever pass through a moment of nothing,

he is everything.

He is enough.

He is enough.

I know Jehovah-jireh is easy to sing.

It's easy to sing when you know you got another week of work

coming ahead of you.

It's easy to sing when your family is healthy,

when there's food on the table, when

you've got a roof over your head.

But when God begins to test you, we find ourselves in the field

looking for what we can get.

And God said, don't look there.

Trust me.

Trust me.

Last year, man, I found myself in a place of just--

man, I think I found myself in a place of testing.

And I found peace in a phrase, in a prayer.

Because at the beginning of last year,

man, I was praying to God for different things,

and Lord, when, and why, and how much longer,

and all of the things that we pray sometimes.

And I finally got to a point where

I got tired of praying all of those things.

And I said out loud--

and it gave me this peace that really just surpassed

all my understanding.

I said, Lord, you know what I need.

You know what I need.

When you realize just how true that is, God,

you know what I need.

I'm over here assuming I know what I need.

But you are God.

You know me through and through.

You know yesterday, today, you know what the future holds.

You know what I need.

The Bible says that He will supply my every need.

He's all that I need.

God's got me.

And I found so much peace in that, and that small truth

that no matter what comes my way, no matter how uncomfortable,

no matter how unpleasant, no matter how difficult

the season gets, God knows what I need.

He knows what I need.

Verse 31, it says, "Now the house of Israel,

called its name, the bread, manna."

And it was like coriander seed, and the taste of it

was like wafers made with honey.

Hence the title, "Tastes Like Honey."

Tastes like honey.

So even though the Israelites were eating just enough

every single day, what they were eating

had a future element to it.

The more they trusted in God, the more they were faithful,

the more they were obedient to God,

the more they would be reminded of the land of promise

that not just tasted like honey, but flowed with milk and honey.

It's almost as if God was saying, look,

I'm going to give you a taste of it right now.

But if you stay faithful, one day

you're going to have an abundance of it.

If you stay faithful, if you remember

that I know what you need at any given time, what is just

enough today is going to be more than enough tomorrow.

The generation of the wilderness,

the generation of the wilderness--

I don't have the worship team come up.

I'm almost done.

The generation of the wilderness,

they had the taste of honey.

They had the taste of honey.

And the generation that entered the land of promise,

they had the flow.

This is what we-- I mean, we're just saying this.

When you stay faithful in the little, in the just enough,

when you've got nothing but you're still at church singing

praises to God, when you're sick but you are still declaring

that God is your healer, when you hold on to that faith,

even when reality tells you that it's silly to have that much

faith, when you are faithful in the little, the abundance,

the flow one day comes, I wouldn't be who I am today.

I wouldn't have the faith that I have today

without the faith that my mom had in those days

where we had nothing and where we lost two houses

and I was questioning everything.

How is it that God is good and he called us to this

and we're losing everything?

But today, because of her faith, there is an abundance.

There is a flow.

When it was just enough at one season in our lives,

now it's more than enough.

This makes me think of what Paul tells Timothy.

He says, I thank God for your faith that came first

to your grandma.

Granny Lois, he says.

Grandma Lois.

I thank God for you, Timothy, but I thank God

for your faith that came first to your grandma Lois

because maybe, maybe grandma Lois

was the first of her entire family to receive Jesus.

Maybe she was the first of her family

to have a taste of that honey and God knows in her days,

it was hard to be a Christian.

Everybody was being persecuted and executed.

It wasn't popular to be a Christian,

but she stayed faithful and she passed it down

to her daughter Eunice.

And maybe her daughter Eunice had a really hard time

raising a young little boy, trying to raise him right

with the same pressures of the culture.

And he says, I thank you.

It was finally the faith that started with your grandmother

that went down to your mother is now yours.

And you, Timothy, are pastoring many.

The taste will one day become a flow

because God's promises are real, church.

They're for real.

I don't know where you're at and I

don't want to pretend to know where you're at

in your life if you're in the season of just enough

or in abundance.

But God wants you to know that he is always enough.

He's always enough.

He's always enough.

Even when it's just enough, he is more than enough.

You have never been left by God, never.

And there's a--

I'll end with this.

This is obviously-- there is a deeper,

theologically significant story that Jesus kind of applies

to himself in the Gospel of John.

Jesus says of himself, he says, truly I say to you,

it was not Moses who gave you the bread,

but my father gives you the true bread from heaven.

From the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven

and gives life to the world.

And they said to him, sir, well, give us this bread always.

And 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.

Over time, the Jews, they came to see God as Jehovah-jireh.

I want you-- if you haven't paid attention, shame on you,

but listen right now.

The Jews over time, over centuries,

they had come to see God as Jehovah-jireh, the God who

always provides, the God who always feeds.

And the story of manna and the quail,

that was their constant reminder that God was always

looking out for his people.

And it should be a constant reminder

that if God cares enough about the birds and the lilies,

if he cares enough about the things

that we would think are insignificant,

how much more does he care about you?

How much more is he mindful of you?

How much more is he not going to let you die?

How much more is he going to feed you when you need?

It's a constant reminder.

But Jesus, being Jesus--

Jesus always starting the pot--

he drives a point even further.

He goes to the spiritual.

Because what does it profit a man to gain the whole world

but lose his soul, right?

What does it profit a man to obtain the material blessings,

the material substances of God, but never

receive the spiritual blessings that God wants us to give?

And so Jesus takes this manna that

was physical food for the people,

and they were living off of it for 40 years in the wilderness.

And it had the taste of honey and a hint of sweetness.

And Jesus goes beyond the promised land, and he says,

I am the bread of life.

What do you mean?

What do you mean by that?

What do you mean that you are the bread of life?

He says, I am always enough.

Church, Jesus is always enough.

When you are spiritually depleted, when you are anxious,

when you are depressed, when you've got no spiritual energy

to get up and go to the house of God,

when you're angry at the world, when

you're bitter at your life, Jesus says, take of me daily,

and you will always have enough.

You will always have enough.

Now listen, that doesn't mean--

that doesn't mean that you will always

have the flow of spiritual blessings.

Stand with me.

Stand with me.

Listen, Jesus says, I am always enough every single day.

You take of me daily.

I am your daily bread.

You will always have enough with me.

But it doesn't mean that you're always going to have

a flow of spiritual blessings.

I want you to stick with me.

Because just like the Israelites didn't always

have the flow of the material blessings,

sometimes we're not always going to have

the flow of the spiritual blessings.

You're not always going to have all the faith.

It's not like you're not going to have moments of doubt.

It's not like you're going to be fearful sometimes.

You're not always going to have all of the anointing.

You're not always going to have all the holiness.

You're not always going to have all the self-control.

There's going to be days where you wake up

and you're not feeling it.

You're not always going to be 100%.

There's going to be days where my sermons are not going to end.

There's going to be days where the worship team just

can't get it together.

Not this team, but the other ones.

There will be days where the gifting isn't gifting very well.

There will be days where you have moments of weakness

as a parent, as a spouse, or a friend, and you fail,

and you fail, and you fail.

You won't always be in the promised land of spirituality.

But Jesus says, even in the wilderness,

even in the loneliness, even in the craziness, I am always--

I am always enough for you.

My grace is sufficient to sustain you

at every moment of your life.

He says, with me, you will never be hungry.

You will never be thirsty, because I am always, always

enough.

And let's glorify God with that this morning.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus, for being the provision of the things

that I've always lacked, Father God, of the things

that I can't produce on my own, Father God.

When I have no peace in me, you are enough.

When I've got anxiety in me, you are enough.

When I've got no faith in me, you are always enough.

You are always enough, my God.

And the message today, church, is that if you run to Jesus,

if you run to Jesus, you will always have provision.

I'm going to have the worship team sing in just a moment.

And I want you to come to the altars in just a moment.

But I want to do this first.

We usually save this for the very end.

But if you're here this morning, I

want to ask that you just close your eyes here.

Bow your heads.

If you're here this morning and you have not said yes to Jesus

all the way, maybe you've said yes to church.

Maybe you've had some feel-good moments in His presence,

but it's never gone deeper than that.

And I want to ask you this morning

that if you want to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior

and make a commitment to Him, make a commitment

to leave your sin behind and to walk with Him,

knowing that the path is not going to be perfect.

But you're going to try.

And when you're not enough, He will be enough.

And that's you this morning.

And you say, I want to dedicate my life,

or I want to rededicate my life to Jesus.

And I want to give Him all of my heart and all of my mind

and all of my strength.

And that's you this morning.

I want you to raise your hand with me.

Raise your hand with me if he answers you this morning.

Amen.

Praise God, brother.

Praise God.

I see you, brothers.

Yes, thank you.

Yes, come on.

Lift them high.

That's you.

Four people.

Four people.

One, two, three, four.

Thanks for listening.

If you'd like some more information on PNEUMA Church,

visit us on our website at mypneumachurch.org.

If you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe or share it

with your friends on social media

and tag us @mypneumachurch.

Thanks again and God bless.

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