40

I'm Anderson.

I'm our student ministry director here at Church at the Grove.

And um I'm back up here.

Nathan allowed me to get back up here.

That means the first time did not go horribly bad, but he's gonna give me another shot.

Um something I did learn is to quit all the talking before and just get into the message.

So that's what we're gonna do.

Uh I'm gonna pray and then we're gonna hop right into it.

Most holy and gracious Father, thank you for being with us this morning.

Thank you for your presence resting upon us.

We ask that you speak to us.

We ask that you open the hearts of everyone in the room tonight.

Speak to them in a way that is meant for them in this season of their life.

Less of me, more of you.

Speak through me, Lord.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

All right.

Um, yeah.

Along with working here at Church of the Grove, I'm also a high school CLC teacher at Monroe area.

And yeah, woo, CLC, it is great.

Um, you should definitely donate to CLC.

They're doing great work throughout the hey, quick plug, yeah.

Um but essentially, with last week being Easter, uh and it being the week before spring break leading up to Easter, I had my students watch The Passion of the Christ, which was a great idea in theory, but I probably traumatized some high schoolers showing them that movie.

But essentially, we finished the movie on Monday, and then one of my students came up to me in my first class of the day, and he was talking to me about how God loves these certain numbers.

It was centered around how Jesus was dead for three days before he rose again.

So then we got into the numbers that Jesus, that God loves.

He loves three, the Trinity, Jesus was gone for three days, came back, rose from the dead.

Jonah was in the belly of the well for three days.

Then we get into seven.

Seven is my mother's favorite number.

So shout out to moms.

Um signifies completion.

We see God created the world in seven days, he rested on the seventh day.

Then we get into numbers like 12 and 24, but all of that brings us to this one number that we're gonna kind of focus on this morning, and that's the number 40.

The number 40 is a very important number in the Bible.

It usually shows that you're about to experience some challenge for 40 days and 40 nights.

We've heard that term before throughout the Bible, right?

All right, so 40.

The first time we encounter the number 40 is in Genesis 7, and it's when God is when God is talking about how he's gonna counteract all of this sin that has entered the world.

And we read in Genesis 7.4, seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.

Then you jump over to Exodus.

Exodus 24, 18 reads, Then Moses entered the cloud as he went up on the mountain, and he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Then you jump over to 1 Kings, and this is where Elijah is fasting for 40 days as he travels, and the angel of the Lord tells him to eat and drink to prepare for his travels.

And 1 Kings 19:8 reads, So he got up and ate and drank.

1 Kings 19:8

Strengthened by that food, he traveled for 40 days and forty nights until he reached Mount Herod, the mountain of God.

Um, the soldier Goliath, everybody knows the story of David and Goliath.

David ended up beating Goliath and how the story ends.

But Goliath was there terrorizing the Israelites for 40 days and 40 nights until David showed up.

Speaking of David, David, along with his son Solomon and King Saul, who preceded him, all reigned for forty years respectively.

Also in Ezekiel, God instructed the prophet Ezekiel to lay on his right side for 40 days to show, to symbolically bear the sins of Judah that they sinned for 40 years.

In Jonah 3, Jonah has delivered a prophecy warning the city of Nineveh that they would be overthrown.

And essentially, they had 40 days to repent until God brought down his judgment.

Luckily, they repented within the 40 days.

But y'all get this, y'all get it, right?

40 days.

It's important.

We hear it a lot.

So the phrase 40 days in the Bible, it signifies oh, why can't I not say that word this morning?

It signifies a period of time to complete an important spiritual challenge.

It's usually when the Bible uses this phrase, something challenging that leads to growth is going to happen within these 40 days.

Often it involves repentance from sin and strengthening of faith, such as the great flood, such as Ezekiel, such as Jonah, such as David and Goliath.

But at other times, it can be a spiritual challenge that involves overcoming temptations.

So a few weeks ago I talked and we talked about Jesus being tempted in the wilderness.

Who can guess for how long Jesus was tempted?

40 days.

Y'all are so smart.

I'm glad that y'all are my crowd this morning.

But yes, it is, it might also include a vital meeting between God, such as we see with Moses and Elijah, with them meeting with God.

So the significance of 40 days in the Bible shows that God allows us to go through these challenges to grow spiritually.

The 40-day time period is the importance of strengthening our faith by relying on God to help us in challenging circumstances.

But also, 40 days highlights God's patience with us.

By using that generous amount of time to symbolize a period of spiritual growth, he's sending a message that it takes time to complete this growth.

It's not something that's gonna happen overnight.

And he's gonna be there with us.

He knows we're gonna mess up.

God knows we're not perfect, he knows that we're sinners, he knows we're gonna mess up.

So this signifies, yes, we're leading towards this sanctification, but he knows it's gonna be a long, drawn-out process most of the time.

So these 40 days signifies his patience.

The 40-day time period also even comes into the modern-day church calendar.

Before holidays such as Easter, such as Christmas, we celebrate things like Lent and Advent for 40 days.

And these are just maturing in your faith to prepare for this big outpouring that God is gonna do.

So when we read of the biblical instances of 40 days, we see that God is working powerfully in these challenging situations to accomplish some sort of spiritual purpose, such as helping to overcome temptation, repent from sin, or strengthening your faith.

But there are two more instances in scripture that we're gonna talk about today.

One is in the Old Testament, one is in the New Testament, but they're highlighting this number 40.

I'm not gonna say 40 days anymore because our first story doesn't necessarily involve 40 days.

It's more like 40 years.

But um, so yeah, that brings me to our first point.

We're gonna begin with the Israelites wandering the wilderness for 40 years after they have been exodus, after their exodus from in Egypt.

Um, my first point is the Israelites we see occupy their 40 years by forgetting the goodness of God and complaining of what he has not done.

So if you'll turn in your Bibles if you have them to Exodus chapter 16.

Exodus 16 · chapter mention

Starting in verse 1.

If you don't have a Bible, it's on the screen.

We're not gonna be mad at you that you didn't bring your Bible to church.

Um starting in verse one, then the whole community of Israel set out from Elim and journeyed into the wilderness of sin between Elim and Mount Sin Mount Sinai.

They arrived there on the 15th day of the second month, one month after leaving the land of Egypt.

There too the whole community of Israel complained about Moses and Aaron.

If only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt, they moaned.

There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted, but now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us to death.

All right.

Only three verses, but there's already a lot to unpack there.

And we're gonna get back to that.

But first I want to ask, have the kids are in the room, right?

Kids, have y'all seen Nemo?

Yeah, y'all seen Nemo?

Okay, in Nemo, who is Dory?

What does Dory say?

Jess keeps swimming, but she has another phrase that she says when she usually meets people.

I'm Dory.

I suffer from short-term memory loss.

Yeah, that whatever.

And so that's kind of her thing.

Before she introduces herself to anyone, that's her thing.

I'm Dory, I have short-term memory loss.

I'm not gonna remember what happened mere moments ago.

And I find that to be kind of true with the Israelites whenever they come up in the Bible.

They should have that same little intro.

Because mere literally a month before this happened, before we catch them here complaining about everything that's going wrong, they were in Egypt and God delivered them out of that.

Not only did God deliver them out of, they were in slavery in Egypt.

Let me start with that.

They were in slavery, they were enslaved, they were being beaten, tortured, they were not having a good life.

But now we see them, we should have gone back to Egypt.

We had all the meat and bread we could eat.

Like, you need to count your blessings, you need to see where God's brought you from.

So, but they seem to have forgotten that.

And it's interesting, not only did God bring them out of Egypt, God also just split the Red Sea to help them get away from the Egyptian armies.

They also seem to have forgotten about that.

But that's neither here nor there.

I want to go back to verse 3.

If only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt, they moaned.

And that's it.

That is crazy.

Like, that is such a wild statement to say.

If only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt, they may have had food and water in Egypt, but let me repeat to y'all, they were enslaved.

They had no freedom when they were in Egypt.

So God miraculously rescued them from over 400 years of slavery and cruelty, yet they still doubt that he can meet their basic needs.

Like, when I was working on this this week, I was just so distraught with the Israelites.

Like, yes, you're hungry.

Womp womp, like, deal with it.

You were enslaved.

Like, you were a slave and God just set you free.

Why are you worried?

I get it, you're hungry, you're thirsty.

But I believe that's where many of us are today.

We're so focused on what's going on in our life that's wrong, what should have happened, what could have happened, that we forget in what ways the Lord has already showed up in our lives.

We forget that God has been there and faithfully provided for us for all of these years.

So we can't become a people that allow our circumstances to make us doubt our God.

And instead of trusting God and praying for Him to step in, we like to complain and um, okay, so in my notes, I use the word press.

We press God, and Nathan was going over my notes, and he told me not to say it because he didn't know what that meant.

So I'm just gonna explain it what it means.

When pressing someone, it means they did something that you did not like, so you're gonna go get in their face and tell them that you did not like that.

Essentially, that's what they were doing to God.

They were complaining, they were saying, God, you should have either left us in Israel, in Egypt, killed us there, instead, you brought us out here into the wilderness with Aaron and Moses to die from starvation.

So they're pressing God.

Who are we to press God?

Who are we to question anything that God says?

So when I was reading this, I thought back to Job chapter 38.

Job 38 · chapter mention

And if you don't know the story of Job, Job was going through it.

Job was a good, faithful, he was faithful to the Lord, but he was going through it.

And so one day he decides he's gonna get a little attitude with God.

And God's response in Job chapter 38 is one of my favorite passages of scripture.

Job 38 · chapter mention

I'm gonna read some of it.

It says, Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm, he said, Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?

Brace yourself like a man, I will question you and you shall answer me.

Which that right there is that would terrify me.

If God started speaking out of the storm and said, Brace yourself like a man, I'm about to ask you some questions.

That is terrifying.

But then he goes on he goes on to say, Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?

Tell me if you understand.

Who marked off its dimensions?

Surely you know, who stretched out a measuring line across it, or on where its footing sat, or who laid its cornerstone, while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy.

Then jumping down to verse 35, he goes on to say, Do you send lightning bolts on their way?

Do they report to you?

Here we are.

Who gives the Ibis wisdom?

Who gives the rooster understanding?

Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?

Who can tip over the water jars of heaven?

When the dust becomes hard and the clouds of heaven stick to clouds of earth stick together?

Do you hunt to pray for the lioness to satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in the way of the thicket?

Who provides food for the raven when it's young?

Cry out to God and wonder about the lack for food.

That's just God, is God essentially saying, I'm, I do this.

Like, I've been doing this.

You don't know what you're talking about.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Sit back and trust me.

So, this is one of my favorite passages of scripture because sometimes I can get to where Job was.

Sometimes I can get to God, what are you doing?

God, why are you doing this?

Why is this happening to me?

And this is a good reminder, I don't fully understand everything that's going on in the world.

When we choose to complain, it takes our focus off of God and we forget of his power and we forget of his goodness and we forget of his love for us.

But this passage in Job 38, it points me right back to him.

It reminds me that no matter what I face in this world, the answer's right there.

The answer wants me to call out to him.

So when we complain, our mind, instead of directing it to the answer, we just become overfixated on the problem.

And we can't do that.

That's when we begin to get into this mindset of hopelessness, like we'll never get out.

The Israelites were complaining in the desert because they forgot everything God did.

In every circumstance leading up to this point, God had provided for them.

But they were so focused on how they felt.

They were tired, they were hungry, they were thirsty.

Like, yeah.

Like they forgot God always provides their needs.

And if we can give him the chance, he will always prove himself to be faithful.

So we're gonna talk about complaining a little bit, which might be hypocritical.

I do complain some.

But also, I feel like whenever I sit down to write these messages, God always gives me something that I also need to hear.

And that's what really makes it hit home.

So, first thing, when we complain, we destroy our Christian witness.

It's way too easy to just vent and write everything off and just throw out our frustrations onto others instead of telling them about what God has done in our lives.

We end up complaining about our lives and our current circumstances.

So, say I go and I'm talking to my friend, he's not a Christian, I'm trying to convince him to become a Christian, to follow Jesus.

But the only thing he ever hears me talking about is what's going wrong in my life.

That wouldn't seem like a life he would want to live.

But instead, once I focus on the goodness of God and I'll talk about where God has brought me from, that seems like something they might want to get hop on, right?

So we can't destroy our Christian witness.

Because that's, we're gonna talk about it a little later, but our Christian witness is one of the main things that we're supposed to do in this life.

We're supposed to be a witness of the goodness of God.

Two, complaining keeps us from our God-given task.

Um, the enemy loves to trick us to focus on our problems.

It's one of his biggest tactics.

He wants us to think our problems are too much for us to handle, but not only that, he wants us to think our problems are too much for God to handle.

Which is not the case.

There's nothing too hard for God to handle.

It's even to the point where we don't think of God as a factor in the first place.

See, he has big plans for each and every one of us, but when we settle into this complaining mindset, it's easy to stay there.

We can't accomplish much when we have an unhappy life.

If it were up to the enemy, we will live in a constant state of misery and discontent.

It cripples us from doing the work God has called us to do.

Um, also, last thing, this is just something everybody needs to hear.

Complaining about your circumstances won't change them.

You can complain as much as you want about what's going on in your life.

Once you look turn around and look back at it, it's still gonna be there.

Just complaining is not gonna do anything.

Can you even think of a time when complaining has ever accomplished anything?

Not even necessarily the circumstance you're complaining about.

When has complaining accomplished anything?

Probably not.

All complaining ever does, it usually just makes me more mad about whatever's going on.

Because now that's all I'm thinking about.

Circumstances are changed when we change our attitudes and act accordingly to that.

Complaining is pointless and it won't get you where you need to be.

So just stop complaining.

Don't be like the Israelites.

That's our that's our main thing.

It's easy to blame our problems on others, like the Hebrews blame their hunger on Moses and Aaron, but that's the same thing we do when we grumble and complain.

That's just human nature.

When they were in Egypt, they longed for freedom and they were willing to give up anything to get that.

But when they were free, they were ready to face oppression as long as that meant that their stomachs were full.

As long as they had something to eat.

They were ready to face anything, God, anything you throw at us.

But as long as we have something to eat or drink, if there's nothing to eat or drink, we don't want to deal with it.

So they didn't truly know the heart of God.

But this is where the heart of God is revealed.

It came up in the sweet gentleness.

In order that they would know the Lord, he provided them with the miracle of manna.

And if you don't know what that is, it's really cool, like it's bread from heaven.

It's like if it just started raining bread.

That's essentially what manna was.

Um, so it's easy to criticize them for their lack of faith, but how often do we react in the same way when faced with life's problems?

Too often we say we just argue and grumble, grumble, but in reality, the problem is we lack trust in God.

And I'm just gonna say it again: who are we to argue with God?

He's the all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent creator of everything.

Who are we to argue with him?

He's promised us, he's never promised us that he would just remove obstacles from our lives, but he has promised us that through every obstacle, he would be there with us.

So as long as he's there with us, the obstacle is essentially void because he's the all-powerful, all-knowing, almighty God.

So for them to survive without food from the natural source required the Lord to do only what he could do.

So for five days each week, he delivered daily portions of bread from heaven for each individual.

And then on the sixth day, he delivered a double portion so that they could take the Sabbath off and then just eat the day, the food from the previous day.

You get it?

Um, which, first of all, is a crazy the Israelites, when they were wandering the wilderness, were into like millions.

Like there was so many of them.

So for God to provide food every day for 40 years for millions of people, is just crazy to think about.

I was thinking about that as I was writing this.

But it's revealed, the power of the Lord is revealed, the revelation of glory is revealed of God.

The meal of quail, because he also brought quail in the evening for them to eat, but that was a miracle, but the manna was a greater surprise.

The word manna comes from the question the Hebrew people were asking the first morning.

What is it?

They didn't know what it was.

But it would become their food for the next 40 years until the new generation entered the promised land.

The amount of food that the Lord provided was staggering again.

I'm gonna tell you again, it is crazy.

There were almost two million people for 40 years every day.

He provided food for them.

But also, I want to say that this man became part of their test.

It became part of their 40, part of their, part of their spiritual journey that they were going on.

It was delivered daily, and it was only enough for the day's need, which was gathered.

Anything that was left over would become filled with worms, it wasn't good to eat.

And the only exception of that day was the Sabbath.

So the lesson here is that God's provisions are fresh every day.

He will provide, and just as they had new manna every day, we have new grace every day.

We have new mercy every day.

God will always give us exactly what we need.

But then we see they still fail to trust him.

They acknowledged that the Lord is, there's no other like the Lord God, but they didn't fully understand who he was or what he was able to do.

Even if they remembered that God was their deliverer out of Egypt, they still have not yet experienced again and again that he was also their provider.

So the manna is a test that teaches us about habitual dependence.

God could have provided it all at once and given them everything they had needed for their wilderness wandering, but he didn't.

He decided to only give them enough for the day every day.

Every demand God makes of us is a test of faith.

When he wants us to do something that stretches us, he wants to see are we gonna back down and go with our gut feeling and say, oh, that's just too much for me to do?

Or are we gonna trust him and that he said this right and that he's gonna give us the power to do it?

He often asks us to do the impossible so that we're forced to depend on him to complete it.

So there are some things that can't be stored up for tomorrow.

Yesterday's manna cannot be used as food today.

It can't be hoarded, but it will be there in the morning, and we can use it until the evening, but then tomorrow we'll have to gather it again.

Every day we Need to seek the Lord for his grace and his mercy.

Every day we have to seek him for him to pour it out upon us.

So there's no nothing we can do other than go after the Lord daily.

It's a daily affair.

We have to daily seek after him.

When we come into this Christian experience, yesterday's manna won't keep.

Faith can't coast.

It's a daily thing.

But still we see in the midst of complaining, and despite the lack of faith, even with disobedience, God will provide.

Because he loves us.

Alright, that brings us to our next point.

We're going to jump over to the New Testament now.

And we looked at how the Israelites, we give the Israelites a bad rap, but sometimes they deserve it.

But sometimes we do, we are a little hard on them.

But now we're going to look at the perfect representation of what to do in your 40.

And if you turn to Luke chapter 24, starting in verse 35, we're going to talk about Jesus.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

And it reads, actually starting in verse 36.

While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you.

They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost.

He said to them, Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?

Look at my hands and my feet, it is I myself.

Touch me and see.

A ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.

When he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

And that's where I'm gonna stop for right now.

So similarly to the Israelites, Jesus' forty, his is 40 days, but his forty occurs after God had just delivered him from this great trial.

But in Jesus' case, it was literal death.

And it's crazy.

Jesus was beaten, whipped, spit upon, kicked, like every every bad thing you could imagine doing to a person was essentially done to Jesus.

And so he dies for three days and then he rises from the dead.

And immediately, instead of immediately going back up to heaven, he's like, I'm gonna stay around here for 40 more days.

These dudes on earth seem kind of cool.

No, they're not cool.

They just beat and crucified you, Jesus.

Why are you why are you just hanging around now?

Get up to heaven to be at the right hand of the Father.

But I mean, he completed his purpose.

He died for our sins.

We have atonement now.

So why couldn't he just go back up to heaven?

I think he was still on mission.

He completed his purpose, but there was still a mission he had to complete.

I think there are a few reasons.

I think Jesus' 40 days consist of him testifying of the Lord's goodness, teaching about the kingdom, and challenging us to spread the gospel.

So, to both believer and unbeliever, the evidence that we celebrated last week, Easter.

The evidence on the morning of the third day was compelling.

The stone was rolled away, the dead Christ was no longer in the tomb.

However, even with that evidence, Jesus still chose to confirm his resurrection in numerous visitations.

And this is one of those appearances he made.

The first was to Mary Magdalene, which we talked about last week on Easter.

So the Lord, the risen Lord, revealed himself to others throughout the forty days.

Earlier in this chapter, Luke 24, he walked with the two disciples, and they spoke together about the rumored news of the angels appearing and the Lord being risen and the missing body.

And Jesus says, Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter his glory?

He asked the two disciples.

Then the Savior appeared to Simon Peter and the other eleven apostles.

And then while all these confirmations are of great value, there's one that really sticks out to me.

And it's when Jesus goes, comes back, and he appears to Thomas.

So if you don't know who Thomas is, Thomas is um, I found out a couple weeks ago, he's also known as the twin, but y'all probably know him as doubting Thomas.

And um his name is just who he is.

He he doubts.

He does not believe until he really sees.

So Jesus appears to him.

And Thomas had doubted that Jesus was the resurrected Lord, but Jesus said, Reach out your finger, behold my hands, reach out your hand and thrust it into my side.

The King James Version uses the word thrust.

And I like that because it feels like he really stuck it in Jesus' side.

But we must see that Jesus not only allows him to feel and see that it is truly him who's risen, Jesus gives him this confirmation.

He says, Thomas, because you have seen, you have believed.

But blessed are they who have not seen and yet still believe.

So this is the first difference we see between the experience of the Israelites and the experience of Jesus in their 40.

Where the Israelites had forgotten what God did and wished death among themselves.

Jesus uses this time to testify.

He testifies of the Lord's goodness.

The Israelites are wrongfully, like almost crazy, clinically and crazily wishing for death.

But then Jesus comes into his 40 and he's like, I was dead.

I was dead.

I was stone cold dead, but God.

But God's good.

He says, For three days I lay there dead, but the goodness of God, and because of the faithfulness of God and his promises that he's made to me, he got up on the third day with all power of heaven and earth in his hands.

So, another reason about that power, we're gonna talk about that power sum.

Jesus came to teach us about the kingdom and the new life that we can now have in him.

So it's kind of like after I'm done in a few minutes, Nathan's gonna come back up here and he's gonna be like, These are some next steps and opportunities.

That's kind of what Jesus did.

Jesus said, These are some next steps and opportunities you can take to continue to follow me.

So we're gonna pick up in verse 44 in Luke 24.

And he says, He told them that it is written, the Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.

You are the witnesses of these things.

He wanted to the disciples to understand that because of his death and because of the fulfillment of the prophecies and his resurrection, we now have the opportunity to have life in him.

Because for them to go out and teach that, they have to truly understand it.

So he paid the price we could never afford.

He took the penalty, but he won.

And now we can be forgiven, but that is followed with a challenge or a call, which he repeats in Acts 1.8.

But you will receive the power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witness, telling people about me everywhere in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Jesus is telling us that we have witnessed God's goodness through his life, death, and resurrection.

And due to that, we can now receive forgiveness and we can live an abundant life.

This is good news, right?

This is great news.

Like we understand we all should, we deserve death and hell.

That's what we naturally deserve.

But Jesus, because of Jesus, Jesus came and died and defeated all of that.

And now we can have abundant life in him.

As members of the church and disciples of Christ, we have to come to terms with this challenge.

At the time when the prophets of God had been called the members to be missionaries, they're called to be missionaries to neighbors, to family members, to those in distant lands.

We have to prepare for that day when Jesus is coming back.

And he will reign as King of kings and Lord of Lords.

And these particular teachings take on an increasing urgency.

As we study the New Testament and pray for light and wisdom, we will be reassured with our divine origins.

We can find great joy in the resurrection, in the redemption, in the exalting of Jesus.

We can seek to carry this message to all that our joy and their joy can be found in Jesus.

We can partake in eternal life through the Lord Jesus Christ.

But then there's one more thing that Jesus does in his 40.

I want to touch on it.

And it's verse 49.

And now I will send the Holy Spirit just as my Father promised, but stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.

So just as John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus to come and start doing work in our lives, Jesus is now preparing the way for the Holy Spirit to show up.

To show up and start working in us.

The Holy Spirit will come and it will rest in us.

He tells us that the Holy Spirit will come and fill us with power.

That's crazy.

And you know what that power is?

That power is the same power that got Jesus up on the third day.

We're going to be filled with that.

Jesus has died and he's risen, but now he is about to ascend up to heaven.

But he leaves us with this promise that he's not leaving us alone.

The Spirit is coming and is going to give us power.

And that power is the same power that got Jesus up in the bed in from the dead.

And he ends his 40 days of leaving us with that gift to help us, to lead us, to encourage us, to guide us, to comfort us.

So he leaves us with that promise of that gift, and then he goes up to heaven.

That's how Jesus spends his 40 days.

Do y'all see the contrast between the two?

These are two important situations revolving around that number 40.

Two stories of people being saved by God and them going into this journey of the 40.

Some of you here today might feel like you're in your 40 right now.

And let me give you some encouragement.

Literally, I was in Bread the Butter, bread and butter the other day with Roger.

Um and God put this on my heart.

It was kind of overwhelming in a way, in a sense.

But notice how the Israelites spent 40 years wandering before they could enter into their promised land.

But Jesus only took a mere 40 days before ascending up to heaven.

So what's the difference between the two?

It's their mindset.

Jesus trusted the promises of God.

He was obedient to the mission that he was commanded to do.

And through it all, he kept his focus on God, on the kingdom, on heaven and what God's done for him.

The Israelites were a bit different.

They let their circumstances get the best of them and they lost faith.

It can be simply put that they lost faith in God, who had delivered them and already provided so much in the past.

C.S.

Lewis puts it like this faith in a sense, in the sense in which I'm using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods.

So the Israelites failed to hold on to that faith that they had when they were enslaved in Egypt.

Whereas Jesus continued to hold on to that faith that he had as he was hanging on the cross.

He trusted God to see him through these 40 days.

He trusted God to be there with him as he continued to walk this hateful, broken world.

And from there he was able to live out what he was commanded to do and trust that he would ascend in the end to be up at the right hand of the Father.

So I want to ask you today, what is your 40 days putting you through?

What is stopping you?

What do you have to get past to be able to go and live in the promised land that God has promised you?

More importantly, how are you responding to these 40 days?

Are you trusting God and using these 40 days as a testimony of what he has done and what is to come?

Or will you forget about all that God has done and fall into this spirit of complaining?

Will you face the challenge head on, knowing that he will see you through it as he always has?

He is the Lord who will never leave nor forsake you.

Or will you attempt to place blame anywhere else for the circumstances in your life, turning what should be 40 days into what seems like 40 years?

Charles R.

Swindle, he says we must cease striving and trust God to provide what he thinks is best and in whatever time he chooses to make it available.

But this kind of trust does not come naturally.

It is a spiritual crisis of the will in which we must choose to exercise faith.

Sometimes life is gonna throw things at us that seem like they're too much to bear.

But every day we have a choice to make, and this choice can be the difference between life and death for us.

I've heard in the past that an ungrateful, complaining spirit is a dying one.

But when we choose to remember God's faithfulness and his goodness, when we choose to have a grateful heart, when we choose to live as a testimony of everything God's done, and that he will show up, he will save us from hunger, he will send manna from heaven to provide for us.

He saves us from wandering and he saves us from death.

All we have to do is trust him.

All we have to do is remember, is remember what he's already done.

So this morning, I'm about to pray.

Um, I don't know how long that was, but the counter's messed up.

But I'm about to pray.

Um, but as after I pray, the band's gonna come back up.

I want you to use that time as a time of response.

Think about what your 40 might be.

Think about what ways God has already brought you through some of these trials.

And whatever trials you're currently going through, think about how he's gonna continue to get you through them.

All right, let's pray.

Most holy and gracious Father, thank you for being the God that would never leave nor forsake us.

We ask that you guide our hearts to be set on you, to be set on your goodness, to be set on your grace, to be set on your love and your compassion for us.

May we never forget what you've done for us.

May we never forget how good you are, may we never forget what you're gonna continue to do.

We've been told what you're gonna continue to do.

And you're gonna continue to work in us, you're gonna continue to lead us to the kingdom.

And all we have to do is put our faith in you.

So we thank you, Lord.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.