Better Than Our Wilderness - February 22, 2026

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6.19, Pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

A few years ago, I heard a story about a young hiker who decided to go take a trip to the Rockies.

Now, this guy, he had a little bit of experience, but he wasn't from a Rocky Mountain kind of state.

And so he had all the gear that he thought he had, that he needed, I should say.

He had a map. He had a trail marked out on it.

And he even stopped to talk to the ranger before he hit the trailhead.

And he talked to the ranger and the ranger gave him this advice. Stay on the trail.

Don't take any shortcuts. And if you get turned around, stop right there and

start yelling out, help, help.

Pretty simple instructions. He said, there's enough people that hike this trail

that someone will hear you.

Well, the young hiker, enthusiastic, ready to go, just hit the trail and see

all the beautiful Rocky Mountains and trying to get to this one waterfall.

He took that advice, filed it away, and immediately set out.

About halfway up the mountain, he decided that he knew a better way because

he had watched a YouTube video.

And in this YouTube video, it said, if you take this game trail off to the right,

it will lead you to just some spectacular scenery.

And so, what do you think the young hiker did?

He listened to the advice of YouTube, and he decided to take the game trail that he found.

He ignored the signs along the way. He ignored the ranger's voice that still

echoed in his mind of those three things. Stay on the trail.

Don't take shortcuts. And then stop if you get lost. If you're off the path and yell out, help.

Well, he ignored all of that.

Hours later, he figured out that he was completely lost.

The sun was going down, and as is the case even in summer in the Rocky Mountains,

it began to get a little cold. He was exhausted.

He was a little fearful, and he figured out that he was following this game

trail, but wandering around in circles somehow.

Well, he finally just stopped there, and he stayed put, listening to a little

bit of the ranger's advice. And when he was finally found, he said something

painfully honest to those that rescued him.

He said, I didn't get lost all at once, but I just kept ignoring the voice in

my mind that knew better.

That's what Hebrews 3 is all about. When we have the temptation to listen to

a voice or not to listen to the voice that we know belongs to the Lord.

And so this morning, I'm going to read a portion of Hebrews chapter 3.

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

So if you'll stand with me, I'm going to read Hebrews 6 through 10,

and we'll cover the other parts of the chapter here as well.

Hear the word of the Lord from Hebrews chapter 3, starting in verse 6.

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house, and we are his house if we

hold on to the courage and the hope of which we boast.

So as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion during the time of testing

in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me for 40 years and saw what I did.

That is why I was angry with that generation. And I said, their hearts are always

going astray and they have not known my ways.

So I declared on an oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest.

Heavenly Father, thank you for the opportunity to meditate, to think about,

to chew over this passage of scripture.

And we've only touched the first part, but God, the message is clear.

While it is still called today, Lord, you have called us to something.

And Father, while it is still called today in the moments that we have,

may we hear the voice of the Holy Spirit guiding us and speaking to us today.

Lord, speak to us, we ask in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Thank you. You can be seated.

You know, the scripture that we read at the outset of our service together in

Psalm, the 95th Psalm, and then the passage of scripture here,

just a little portion of it in Hebrews chapter 3, it's clear that just like the hiker,

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

Israel didn't get lost all at once.

It was a series of little choices. It was a series of little attitudes that

influenced choices that they

made. But all along, they just kept ignoring the voice that knew better.

They put that to the side. They would not listen. And eventually,

we know what that got them.

As the writer of Hebrews says that we read, Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts.

Do not plug your ears and not listen to what the Holy Spirit is wanting to say

to you today, because I wanted to tell you that Jesus is the better guide.

He's better than our wilderness, better than the wild, better than our instincts,

and really better than our own stubbornness.

And I think if we could take a poll this morning, there would be a lot of people

that said amen to that last one when it comes to stubbornness.

This morning, I just want to give you three reasons why Jesus is better than our wilderness.

I hope to do so quickly as we've had a full service already,

and I hope that your heart's full today just on witnessing what you've witnessed,

partaking in what you've partaken of, and just being here today.

First, I want you to know that Jesus is the better voice in the wilderness.

No matter that, if that wilderness is something you went to on purpose to see

the sights, to see the sounds, to smell the smells, and you just got captivated

by There's something to be said about the wilderness.

Yeah, it's wild, but it's beautiful.

There's some excitement out there. It's some beautiful scenery.

But when the wilderness is in our own life, when we found ourself in a place

where we're kind of lost, where, man, we wanted to come visit for a day,

but we've been lost out here a week, and how do we get out of it?

Life can be a little scary at those times, a little hairy even.

Well, Israel heard the voice, God's voice in the wilderness.

But as the scripture said that we read, they hardened their hearts.

Remember in the story I started with, the ranger spoke to the hiker and said,

here's what you need to do.

Well, God did the same thing with the children of Israel here.

God told them exactly what they needed, but Israel ignored him.

Israel ignored even the word that God gave Moses. And so we see two things here.

Israel resisted God, even after seeing everything that God did for them for 40 years.

Now, catch this for a minute.

God delivered the children of Israel out of captivity from Egypt, out from being slaves.

God led them out of there through Moses, leading them. They crossed the Red

Sea with the Egyptian army in hot pursuit.

That's amazing. That's incredible.

One, it's amazing that they were granted their freedom. But two,

it's amazing that they escaped all the way across the Red Sea.

Miraculous, amazing works. But not just that.

They were delivered from Egypt, but even as they wandered through the wilderness,

going to what was promised to them, the promised land, the promised rest that

God had for them, God took care of them all along the way.

And I know I talked a little bit about this last week, but it's incredible how

God took care of them by feeding them with wild quail and manna,

how God took care of their water needs in the middle of a desert,

How God led them with a fire by night and a pillar of a cloud in the daytime.

How God never let their clothes wear out, never let their shoes wear out while

they're wandering through the wilderness.

Amazing other works that God did all along the way. And yet Israel still resisted God.

As a matter of fact, when Moses went up to the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments,

The people lost their mind. Have you ever had that happen to you?

Maybe with your kids or some kids that you were watching, and you step out of

the room for just a minute, and you come back, and it's all chaos that is broken loose.

Man, I remember one time, well, I won't tell you too much because I don't want

to look like the bad parent that I was,

but I stepped out for a quick break from my young children, and I cannot believe

the mess they made in the living room And at that time, our living room was

connected to our kitchen in our small little house in Springville.

So the fridge was right there. And I can't believe how many things they got into at that moment.

They were small at the time, but man, the chaos that can ensue in just a short amount of time.

And I wonder if Moses thought the same thing as he brought the Ten Commandments

down and he saw this ruckus of his people going wild, going crazy.

Israelites Gone Wild would be the name of the movie, and the unspeakable acts

that happened, we don't want to talk about.

But Israel rejected, they resisted God and what God was doing there.

And it's really Israel's unbelief that kept them from entering into the promised

land, into the promised rest that they had.

Now, it's not just an unbelief. Oh, yeah, I don't believe that.

Like you might not believe in the Easter bunny or leprechauns or any of that kind of stuff, right?

It's a different kind of belief. It really hits to the core of your faith because

the word that's used, and I'll get the Greek wrong here, but it's like a pistos,

and pistos is the root word for faith.

And so it's like no is the part on the first part of that where it's a,

it's like they had no faith.

It says they didn't just not believe, but they had no faith in that.

I mean, they saw God do amazing and incredible works, but yet they still had

no faith that God would bring them to the land that he promised.

And even further, as we go a little bit more into their story,

we see God had this place for them.

And when they got to the precipice of entering that land, they sent those spies out.

And out of all those spies, only two came back saying, yeah,

we can take it. Let's go for it. It's ours.

God has delivered them into our hands. but the people heard the others that

said, no, there's giants in the land. We're scared.

We can't do this. And they heard the majority of the spies that said, no, we can't.

Instead of the two that really had faith that said, yes, we can,

and we can be successful in it.

Israel's unbelief kept them from that. But we see in our passage today that

Jesus speaks more clearly.

He is the Word made flesh, and Jesus offers true rest to all those that will

trust him, a true rest to those even that never entered into their rest,

never entered into their land. So what I want to tell you today is this.

First and foremost, listen to the better voice.

Listen to that small, still voice amongst all the other voices in the world.

Listen to that one small, still voice.

It might not always sound reasonable, because God doesn't always do things reasonably.

Sometimes he's going to call you to something that you'll be like,

are you sure that's my message, God? Are you sure you want me to do that?

I can't do that. Well, Moses said he couldn't go to Pharaoh,

and he couldn't do all the things that God did through him eventually.

Naturally God equips those who he gives a call to.

And I don't know what God is calling you to, but don't be afraid because God

will give you the necessary equipping to do what he's calling you to.

So respond today and trust God in his way.

Respond today. Trust God's way. If you're not trusting him, today's a great day to do that.

Today, as the scripture said, the invitation is still open.

Today, the invitation is better than the wilderness of delay.

Israel refused to let God do it his way. They wanted to do things their way and it cost them.

Jesus calls us to surrender today, to listen to the better voice that's in the wilderness.

But that's not all. You see, Jesus, he also builds a better community for the journey.

If we go on in the passage of Scripture here, verses 12 through 14,

it continues, See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful,

unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.

But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today,

so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.

We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end,

the confidence that we had at first.

You know, hikers should never go alone. The mistake, the first mistake this

guy made in the story I told you was he went by himself.

Boy, that's great if you want to be alone, but who else are you going to enjoy

the sights with? You got to have someone with you.

Hebrews kind of tells us the same thing. It says to encourage one another daily

so that no one drifts off the trail, so that no one goes astray.

Boy, life is more beautiful together. No matter how much of a hermit that you

are, I want to tell you, life is so much better together.

The wilderness exposed Israel's unbelief. It exposed Israel's true identity.

It exposed Israel's true lack of their trust in God.

But I got to tell you, Jesus, what he has done in coming and giving up his life,

living that holy life, giving up his life on the cross, being buried, and then rising again.

He did something great in that he forms a community that helps one another persevere

through it. That's why we have the church.

It's a community. The common unity that we have is Jesus.

He's the one that brings us together. He's the one that has brought us together.

He's the one that has called us here this morning so that we could worship him,

so that we could fellowship with one another, so that we could be witness to

these incredible spiritual milestones in people's lives and so that we could

receive the word together.

But you see, in this community, there's the same three principles that were laid out in Scripture.

First is the warning, the warning that unbelief can trip you up.

It can divert you from the living God.

We've got to be careful in our faith, not just to test what we believe,

but to truly believe what we believe, to believe those things.

You know, some pastors, some people will say you shouldn't have any doubts, and I agree with that.

But the thing about doubts is you've got to wrestle with doubts.

When you wrestle with doubts, it's like your spiritual muscles.

They become stronger, and then when you truly believe, you truly believe.

You're strong enough to believe that no matter what comes your way,

no matter what hits you, that you

have that faith confirmed because you've wrestled with those doubts, and,

There's doubts maybe that you have this morning, maybe even about Jesus.

Hey, don't give up exploring who Jesus is. The world might tell you something.

Hey, chase that down and chase it down through the word and really see.

That's what the beauty of the Bible is. It builds your faith up.

And so if you're wrestling with some doubt this morning, go to God, let him build you up.

So we have the warning that unbelief can trip you up, but we also have the command

to encourage one another.

It says, encourage one another while it's still called today.

While it's still today, make sure you give someone some courage that might need

it for their walk this week.

Maybe God did something with you this week. He put someone on your heart or

on your mind. You prayed for them, then you thought about them.

And you just want to tell them, don't wait till tomorrow. Tell them today while they're still here.

If they don't happen to be here today, give them a phone call,

shoot them a text, send them a message somehow. to say, hey,

God put you on my heart this week, and I just want you to be encouraged that

I've been praying for you.

Or, hey, I heard you've had this need, and I want to see how I can help you meet that need.

Whatever the Lord leads you to, give someone some encouragement.

That's the command is to encourage one another.

It's not a great suggestion, but it's right here. But encourage one another

daily, it says in verse 13.

So who needs encouragement today? And who's going to give that encouragement.

Then there's the promise. The promise is this conditional statement.

If we hold firm, we show we truly belong to Christ.

If we hold firm, are you holding firm today?

Boy, there's some testimonies in this room as I look around and see your beautiful

faces, some testimonies that life has not always been easy.

That what you've gone through in life, it's been tough at times.

Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's been great, but sometimes it's been tough.

And as you walk through those, are you still holding firm to God?

Are you still holding on to God's hand as you're going through new and unknown things?

Or are you celebrating with God with a clenched hand in his hand saying,

God, thank you. You're awesome. Look what we made it through together.

Man, I can't wait for the celebration we have together in glory.

Celebration from all those that have gone before us, all those that will come

after us, Lord willing, those that we're witnessing to now that we want to see in heaven.

But can you imagine the victory celebration that will happen? It's incredible.

Promise. If we hold firm, we show we truly belong to Christ.

So this morning, guys, hold firm. We are better together.

Jesus gives us a community that encourages us, that restores us,

that strengthens us, and you are that community. You are that community.

Don't ever lose sight of how important you are.

Don't lose sight of how important you are, even when you are not able to be here with us.

Your prayers still matter. Your encouragement still matters.

You still matter. You're part of the family of God.

And so I just want to say, guard one another so that we can persevere together as partners.

In Jesus' family, we don't let sin dull each other's spiritual reflexes.

Boy, we got to keep each other ready to go for God.

We got to keep each other bobbing and weaving.

We never know what's going to get thrown at us, right? So we got to be on our

toes against sin that wants to come in.

Let's not let it in. We're in this with Christ for the long haul.

He's the faithful one. He's going to be with us, and he's the one that keeps us.

Third, this morning, let me tell you that Jesus leads to a better rest than

the wilderness ever could.

The rest was something that the promised land was known, the land of Canaan

that was promised to the Israelites, that was called their rest.

They knew once they got there that that was theirs.

This was going to be Israel's land.

And it's spelled out in scripture, all that was to be theirs.

And all they had to do was go, and they had to kick out those squatters that

were in there, and they had to take possession of what was rightfully theirs according to God.

God said, all you have to do is that. But when it came to actually doing that,

they lack the faith to go through with it.

They lacked the faith to step into the promised land, to take hold of the victory

that already belonged to them, and to claim what was there.

Everywhere they put their foot was going to be theirs.

Man, if that was the case and you were one of them, wouldn't you be running

in and tapping your feet everywhere you could?

Man, talk about a land grab. That's the easiest thing. God says,

this is yours. Just go step on it. All right, I'm there.

I don't know how to dance, but I'll be dancing all over the land.

But no, Israel didn't have the faith to do that.

It says in verse 15, and in closing out the chapter, As has been said,

today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.

Who were they that heard and rebelled? Were they not all of those Moses led

out of Egypt, and with whom he was angry for 40 years?

Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert?

And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest,

if not to those who disobeyed?

So we see that they were not able to enter because of their unbelief.

Another word for that unbelief is because of their apostasy,

because of their falling away from the true God, that apistos, apostasy.

They fell away from the faith that they had in this God that delivered them

from captivity in Egypt.

You know, the hiker never reached the summit in my story earlier because he

didn't listen to the one he should have listened to, the park ranger who knew

the ups and downs of those trails.

He should have listened, but he didn't. Israel never entered their rest because of the same reason.

They didn't listen to the God that delivered them, to the God that was guiding

them through the wilderness.

Israel experienced deliverance, but they did not experience destination.

They did not reach the place that God intended for them to be because of their

lack of faith, because of their

falling away, because of their looking to other things rather than God.

See, it says Israel died in the wilderness because they wouldn't listen.

Now, not all of Israel, but as the scripture said, those that were led out of

Israel who disobeyed, who would not have faith to go in.

The next generation got to, but not that generation that had the disbelief in their heart.

They would not listen, and so they could not enter into their rest.

They saw the miracles that God performed, but they never entered the rest because

really, when it came down to it, they never maybe believed.

They never believed that this God who just did all these miracles to get them

out of captivity would deliver them to the place that he promised.

They didn't believe in that promise.

So as a result of that, they perished.

Folks, I want to tell you that Jesus just does not deliver us from sin and the

power of sin, but Jesus is going to take us all the way home to our destination.

He's going to help you be the person that he originally designed you to be.

And not just that, it says that when he ascended to heaven after giving the

great commission, one of the things he said is, I'm going to prepare a place for you.

I'm going to prepare a place for you so that where I am there, you may be also.

God's got a home for you eternally. Do you have the faith to see it through?

I hope you're not just looking for a temporary deliverance from your sin.

It's like, man, I got this addiction. I just need to get over.

Oh, I bet Jesus. Thank thank you, Jesus, for taking it away from me.

Now what? Well, there's more to just not now what? There's more that God has planned for you.

Maybe you're saying, man, I've got this generational sin in my family.

We just can't break free from it.

There's this thing called curry anger, and this curry anger has plagued the

curries for generation and maybe even passed down to some of my kids on a bad day.

Well, I need deliverance from that. God will say, I'll deliver you from it,

but you've got to make some changes if you trust me.

You've got to make some changes if you want to overcome even that which may

be biologically, you may be biologically predisposed to.

God can help you overcome that.

God can give you victory because he's already got a destination for you.

And his destination is one that you want to be part of.

Jesus just doesn't deliver us. He brings us all the way home.

And so what I wanna encourage you with as we kind of wrap this up is this.

Jesus encourages, don't repeat Israel's story.

When you look at the story of Israel, it's a lot of faith in a short amount

of time followed by a great big crash and a lack of faith.

And it's this up and down journey, up and down journey.

And sometimes there was some discipline along the way. There were smacks upside

the head for Israel along the way because they just wouldn't listen.

They just wouldn't get it.

Don't want to repeat that. And just so you know, proximity to God's works isn't

the same as trust in God's Son.

You could attend church all you want faithfully every Sunday, every Wednesday.

You could be close to what God's doing. But if you've never placed your faith

in Jesus Christ and asked him to forgive your sins, you're close to what God's doing.

You're close to the great works that God's doing.

But are you trusting Jesus?

Are you trusting God's Son that he can forgive your sins, that he can take you

along and bring you along the way to the home that he has planned for you.

See, it's okay to be close to what God's doing. That's exciting. That's great.

But are you willing to follow Jesus even into the tough stuff?

Are you trusting Jesus even in the tough stuff?

Folks, I want you to follow the better leader and enter into the better rest

that he has planned for you.

I sometimes miss some of the old hymns we used to sing when I was growing up.

On Sunday nights, we had this little hymn book, Heavenly Highway Hymns.

Some of my favorite hymns are in that little hymn book.

It has little shape notes in it. You might not know what I'm talking about, but that's okay.

But some of the great hymns that we sang in that little book,

I've got a new name written down in glory and it's mine. Oh yes, it's mine.

Oh, I mean, when you get into those, it just proclaims the hope that we have.

This isn't all there is. God has something greater planned. Songs about heaven.

Songs about some glad morning. When this life is o'er, I'll fly away.

Man, I know my singing doesn't inspire you, but I hope those songs do, the words anyway.

When we think about it, what God has planned for us. And again,

I just referenced this. It may be my own theology.

You could test it against things, but it just makes sense to me.

If God created the world in six days and then rested?

And then when Jesus said, hey, I'm ascending to heaven, but I'm going to go

prepare a place for you. And it's been what, over 2000 years?

How spectacular must heaven be, right?

So let's follow the better leader into the better rest. Moses led them out of

captivity into the wilderness.

That led them to exhaustion.

But Jesus leads us into the rest and the joy. And Jesus will eventually lead

us all home into the new creation, into the new heavens and new earth that he's planned for us.

So in conclusion, here we go.

Remember, that hiker who walked around in circles because he ignored the voice

of the one who knew better.

Hebrews ends this section with the sobering truth.

Israel wandered for 40 years for that same reason, because of their unbelief.

The good news is that since Jesus is the better guide in our wilderness,

he just doesn't shout out directions from a distance.

Hey, dummy, turn right.

Hey, didn't you see that rock over there? Why did you trip on it?

Hey, why don't you just turn around and go to the trail?

That's not the way that Jesus is. Jesus walks with us.

Jesus has already cleared the trail for you. You don't have to go find a wild game trail somewhere.

You just got to follow Jesus. He will lead us. And if we find ourself,

stuck. If we find ourselves lost, guess who's going to be the one to rescue you?

It's going to be that better guide that is Jesus. He's going to come to your rescue.

If we listen to his voice today, he will bring us safely into the rest that

the wilderness never could.

Are you trusting him today?

Don't leave this place until you know that you're trusting Jesus,

that he's going to carry you through.

We're going to close, I believe, with the song. And as we close with that song,

I just want you to take it upon yourself just to ask the Lord,

God, is there some way where I'm not listening to you?

And then commit to following Him and listening to Him in those areas.

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon, as well as other sermons and the sermon outline from today

on our church's website,

www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.