In The Wilderness: A Review of What Was Taught at TRAC

Good morning, Good News Church. So this is Camp Recap Sunday,

and the guy that Amanda was talking about earlier, who when he was a kid,

he punched through the window and got sent home early from camp.

So he's actually here this morning in the room, and he is, this past summer

was his first year being a counselor at Royal Family Kids Camp.

The thing that I thought was kind of crazy, though, and I just was talking with

him about this during intermission, there was a kid that was at Royal Family Kids Camp this year,

you know little kid and he got sent home early because of violent behaviors

that he was doing that you know jeopardized the rest of the camp so sometimes

a kid has to be sent home early just like he did the year that he punched through a window,

and so guess what counselor rode home with the kid who got sent home because of his violent behavior,

the counselor that that happened to him when he was a kid and get this I did

not know this until like five minutes ago he dropped him off at the exact same

foster home that he was at when he was isn't that incredible that God made Did

that happen this summer?

All right. So this is Camp Recap Sunday. This morning, I'm going to give you

a summary of what was taught at TRAC this year.

I talked for 20 minutes three times, so 60 minutes total of stuff.

I'm not going to preach for 60 minutes this morning. I'm going to try to whittle

it down to closer to 30 minutes.

But this is, I want to give you sort of just a summary, a gist of what it is

that we learned this year if you were somebody that came to Teen Reach Adventure Camp.

Now, remember, track is the older of the two camps. Track is the one that was

middle school and high school kids, and it is separated into two sections.

There's girls track and boys track.

I did not teach girls track this past summer. Latara Arthur,

a former staff member of this church and a great friend of this church,

she was the one that taught girls track, and I was the one that taught boys track.

Each of us were given a curriculum. Me and Latara were each given a curriculum

to start with, and it says, you know, this is the story, and these are the things

to say, and then you kind of take it, and then you make it your own.

And so the Bible text for this year was Exodus 15, 16, and 17.

And the theme this year was in the wilderness, okay? That was our theme at camp, in the wilderness.

So I began by telling this story.

When I was in my early 20s, I decided to go on a road trip with my two best friends.

We were, you know, we were all in college together and we were all like,

hey, wouldn't it be cool if we just like all got in a car and just drove from Florida to California?

Like what if we just did that and so we were like yeah let's do it so we did

so we all piled in my car and we drove to California

now the drive from Florida to California is about 40 hours of driving okay and

12 of the 40 hours are across one particular U.S.

State anybody want to know what what state it is Texas that is correct okay

Texas is 12 of the 40 hours and so we drove all the way through Texas and if

you've never been to Texas I'm going to describe it for you okay.

Texas has two halves, East Texas and West Texas. East Texas is a normal place.

It has grass and trees and towns and human beings. It's very nice. It's a lot like Florida.

West Texas is a wilderness. It is just desert for miles. There are times when

you're driving and there's just a road that looks like it just leads to the

horizon and there is nothing around.

There's just sand and rocks and nothing for miles and miles.

And so we're driving through West Texas, and sometimes it's a long time before

you get to the next town. And then once you pass that town, it's a long time

until you get to the next town. And so we had not seen a town for a while.

We're just driving in the middle of nowhere, just sand and tumbleweed in our car, driving around.

And it had been a while since we'd seen a city, and we were getting low on gas.

And at some point I said to my friends in the car with me, like,

I don't know if we're going to make it. Like, we're getting pretty low on gas.

We've got to find a town really soon. And then we kept driving and we're looking

around trying to find a town and there's less gas and there's less gas and we're

keep trying around. We got to find a town soon.

And then I think at some point the light, the little e-light when came on,

I was like, we guys, we have got to find a town really soon and I don't see anything around here.

And so then we, we passed this sign. It was, you know, those green signs that

tell you what's coming up. And it said Pine Spring, seven.

Okay. Like city of Pine Spring coming up in seven miles. And so we were like,

oh, you know, thank you, God.

And I think I remember saying to them, I don't even know if we have seven miles

left in the gas tank. Like, I don't even know if we're going to make it to Pine

Spring, but I hope we do. Like, let's just pray that we have enough gas to make it to Pine Spring.

So I'm hoping we will. We're about six miles away now. We're about five miles

away. I'm like, oh, I hope we get there. I wouldn't want to walk. It's really hot.

We're about four miles away from Pine Spring. We're about three miles,

two miles. Oh, it looks like we're going to get there one mile.

And then we got, we arrived in Pine Spring.

And you want to know what was there? I'm going to tell you what was there.

There was a sign that said, Pine Spring.

That was it. There were no gas stations. There was no town there.

There were no people. There were no pines.

There were no springs. There was nothing there.

For the life of me, I don't understand why you would put up a sign that says

in seven miles, there'll be another sign that says this. Why do you need to

know seven miles ahead of time that when you get there, it's just a sign?

So there was nothing there. We're like, what are we going to do?

Later on, I looked up on Wikipedia, it says that the population of Pine Spring, Texas is 20 people.

When I was there, I guess they were all on vacation simultaneously,

because I didn't see any life forms.

So I'm like, guys, what do we do? Like, Pine Spring was our last hope.

Like, I thought it was a city. I didn't know it was a sign.

I don't know what we're going to do now. Like, we don't have enough gas to make

it to the next town. I think we looked on a map, and the next town was way down the road.

And we're like, there's no way we're going to run out of gas.

We're gonna be stuck here. What do we do?

And so you start to panic when you're in that moment, where you start to imagine

what's gonna happen, we're gonna be just stuck out in the middle of desert.

I guess you've eventually run out of food and water, right? And you just imagine

one day, it's gonna be like three skeletons and a Nissan, and someone's gonna

find us as they pass by to repaint the Pine Spring sign next year.

And so I'm exaggerating a little bit, but there was real anxiety.

What are we going to do? And so we looked at the map and we saw there was this

crossroad that was a few miles up. And if we turned right at the crossroad,

we would go out of our way.

But a few miles down that road was this other city. I believe it was called Dell City.

And so we were like, well, I guess we got to try it. I mean,

I didn't know if we could make it to Pine Spring. I don't know if we're going

to make it to Dell City. And I don't know if Dell City is a city because Pine Spring wasn't spring.

So I don't know, but I guess we got to try it. And so we turned right.

And so we're like, you know, whatever, four miles away, three miles away.

You know, and I'm like, Dale City could just be like a guy in his barn.

Like, it just could be anything.

And so we're hoping that it's a thing. And so at this point,

the sun has gone down. It's dark. So now it's like just dark in the desert. We're driving.

And we're like, whatever, two miles away, one mile away. Eventually,

we see all these lights in the horizon. We're like, that's not a barn. Like, that was a city.

And so we pulled in. We got to this gas station. It was closed at the time.

We thought we'd just like park there and wait till the manager shows up in the

morning and opens the gas station And we'll get gas.

It actually took our credit card in the middle of the night with no manager

inside And so we were able to actually gas up and go on.

I started off with that story because It's one of the few stories I have of

being in the wilderness Okay, like when I was trying to think of like things

when have I been like worried in the wilderness and that would be one of the

few I actually don't spend a lot of time in the wilderness and,

That is one of my very few desert stories that I have. But also,

there are some parallels in that story that I think prepare us to think through,

what happened to the Israelites in the Bible story that we're going to look

at today as they wandered through the wilderness.

So, before we turn in our Bible to the specific story, I want to just give you

a little bit of background or catch you up on the part of Exodus that we are

in. The part of Exodus that I'm going to read to you.

The main characters in the stories that I'm about to read to you are Moses and

the people of Israel. Okay.

Moses is the leader of the nation of Israel. And then all the other people are

the citizens of the nation of Israel.

And earlier on in the book of Exodus, the people of Israel were enslaved in

Egypt and they were upset about it.

And they cried out for help. And they just, you know, they were miserable and

they wanted to be freed from slavery and God rescued them from slavery.

That's what happens early on in the book of Exodus.

God rescues the people of Israel with Moses as their leader from the enslavement

in Egypt to bring them to a land that he promised them.

And in order to get to the promised land, he took them through a wilderness.

And that's where we're at in the story. Exodus chapter 15, verse 22 is where we will begin.

Exodus 15:22

God is leading them to the wilderness and it says in Exodus 15,

Exodus 15:22

verse 22, then Moses led Israel on from the Red Sea and they went out to the wilderness of Shur.

They journeyed for three days in the wilderness without finding water.

So panic is probably starting to set in at this point.

Verse 23, they came to Marah, but they could not drink the water at Marah because

it was bitter. That is why it was named Marah.

Okay, so this is what I'm thinking. When they get to this oasis called Mara,

I think that probably something happened like in their minds and in their hearts

that's similar to what happened to me when I was in West Texas.

I'm guessing that they saw the water at Mara before they tasted the water at Mara, right?

So they're wandering around and they haven't seen water for three days and they're

panicking and then they see water, what happened?

They probably got so excited like I did when I thought Pine Spring was a town.

Then they tasted the water, and so they were like, oh no, what are we going

to do? Then they were like, oh, this is great. The Lord has provided for us.

And then they drank the water, and they said, oh no, what are we going to do? That was our only hope.

Now what are we going to do? And when the passage says that the water was bitter,

I think it's important for you to understand that. I think that in context,

that must mean undrinkable.

I know sometimes we use the word bitter to mean taste bad, but it's still good

for you, like bitter medicine.

That can't be the case here. If they were like thinking they were going to thirst

to death and they came across water that tasted bad, but was good for them,

they had got over it and drank it.

So the word bitter here, it's an apparently ancient Hebrew word.

It must mean something like we can't drink this.

So verse 24, the people grumbled to Moses, what are we going to drink?

So he cried out to the Lord and the Lord showed him a tree. And when he threw

it into the water, the water became drinkable.

He made a statute and ordinance for them at Marah and he tested them there.

He said, if you will carefully obey the Lord your God, do what is right in his

eyes, pay attention to his commands, and keep all his statutes,

I will not inflict any illnesses on you that I inflicted on the Egyptians.

For I am Yahweh who heals you. Then they came to Elam, where there were 12 springs

of water and 70 date palms, and they camped there by the waters.

So God provides for his people in this story miraculously.

Like he throws this tree, this wood into the water and it becomes drinkable.

That is obviously supernatural. Just throwing a tree into water doesn't make

it drinkable under ordinary circumstances.

God provides for his people.

Not only is he providing for his people in this story, he is also testing them.

Did you see that? Look at the second half of verse 25.

It says, he made a statute and ordinance for them at Marah and he, what's the word?

He tested them there. He wants to see if they're going to obey him.

He wants to see if they're going to trust him.

That's important because I think that continues with the rest of these stories.

So Exodus 16, verse 1, the next verse.

Exodus 16:1

The entire Israelite community departed from Elam and came to the wilderness

of Sin, which is between Elam and Sinai, on the 15th day of the second month

after they had left the land of Egypt.

Now, I explain this to the kids at camp, so I'm going to explain this to you.

Wilderness of Sin does not mean what it sounds like in English, okay?

This word sin here is the Hebrew word sin, not the English word sin.

So I would just think if you don't know that this is translated from another

language and you think this is like the word sin, you might read the story and

think something very different.

You know, you might read the story and go, why in the world would they go to

the wilderness of sin? If you see like a big sign that says,

welcome to the wilderness of sin, right? And beyond it are a bunch of people

out in the desert going, come here, do drugs with us.

Wouldn't you just avoid it? So that's not what's happening here, okay?

The word sin here, it's a geographical location. It's S-I-N,

it's the first three letters of the word Sinai, okay?

So there was Mount Sinai, S-I-N-A-I, and around it was the wilderness of Sinai

or the wilderness of sin, okay?

So there they go, verse two.

The entire Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.

Aaron was Moses' brother, also one of their leaders.

The Israelites said to them, if only we had died by the Lord's hand in the land

of Egypt when we sat by pots of meat and ate all the bread we wanted.

Instead, you brought us into this wilderness to make this whole assembly die of hunger.

So at this point, they are no longer concerned about water. They are concerned about food, right?

God provided plenty of water for them. Now they're concerned about starving

to death. Chapter 16, verse 4.

Then the Lord said to Moses, I am going to rain bread from heaven for you.

The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day.

That's important, by the way. God was making it very clear what his intentions

were here. He said, I just want you to gather enough for one day.

Okay, no leftovers. verse, just gather enough for one day.

This way, I will, what's the word? I will test them to see whether or not they

will follow my instructions. So I want you to notice two things in this verse.

God is promising to provide for his people. I will rain down heaven.

I will rain down bread from heaven for you.

He is continuing to provide for his people and he is continuing to test his people.

All right, let me skip to verse 13. So at evening, quail came and covered the camp.

In the morning, there was a layer of dew all around the camp.

When the layer of dew evaporated, there were fine flakes on the desert surface,

as fine as frost on the ground.

When the Israelites saw it, they asked one another, what is it?

Because they didn't know what it was.

Moses told them, it is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.

This is what the Lord has commanded. Gather as much of it as each person needs

to eat. Again, it's the same thing, just enough.

You may take two quarts per individual.

He's being very specific here, isn't he? You may take two quarts per individual

according to the number of people each one of you has in his tent.

Um, so God provides his people with meat and bread, right? That was the thing

they complained about. That was the thing they wanted. That's what they said they had back in Egypt.

And so he provides them with meat and bread. He provides them with meat in the

form of quail, right? Quail is a bird and the birds flew in and that's how they had meat. Okay.

And then he provides them with bread and it's not, I mean, exactly bread.

It's this thing that fall, it's the substance that appears on the ground and

apparently it could be made into bread. So they could gather it up and then make it into bread.

Verse 19, Moses said to them, no one is to let any of it remain until morning.

Are you getting the gist here that they keep saying like one day at a time?

So Moses says, no one is to let any of it remain until morning.

The amount that you're supposed to gather is the amount you need for that day.

And then you eat that, no leftovers, no doggy bags, just this amount,

just the amount you need for that day. No one is to let any of it remain until

morning. So what did the people do? Verse 20, but they didn't listen to Moses.

Some people left part of it until morning and it bred worms and smelled.

Therefore Moses was angry with them. Why aren't you listening to what the leader

that God has put in your life has said?

So, I'm going to read the rest of what happens. Pay attention closely.

It's really interesting what God does in the desert here. Verse 21.

They gathered it every morning. Each gathered as much as he needed to eat,

but when the sun grew hot, it melted.

On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much food, four quarts apiece,

and all the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses.

He told them, this is what the Lord has said.

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

Bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil and set aside everything

left over to be kept until morning.

What? We did that before and it didn't go good. Verse 24. So they set it aside

until morning as Moses commanded and it didn't smell or have any maggots in it.

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

Today you won't find any in the field. For six days you may gather it,

but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.

Yet on the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather,

but they did not find any.

They were told they wouldn't find any. They said, today's not a day of gathering.

And they were like, gotcha. And then they went out to gather.

Verse 28, then the Lord said to Moses, how long will you refuse to keep my commands and instructions?

And the word you here is plural. He's not saying this to Moses.

He's saying this to all the people.

Understand that the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore,

on the sixth day, he will give you two days worth of bread. Each of you stay

where you are. No one is to leave his place on the seventh day.

So the people rested on the seventh day.

The house of Israel named the substance manna.

It resembled coriander seed, was white, and it tasted like wafers made with honey.

So when we look at how God provides for them in this particular story it seems

to me that the quail is normal quail okay it's a bird it flies in like a bird

does they ate it like how we eat chicken,

but the manna had a magical quality to it do you see that when you see how it's described,

it it appeared right that's not like normal bread or normal flour right it appeared,

and whatever wasn't gathered looks like it melted away at the end of the day

that's supernatural It had a shelf life of about 12 hours, so that you couldn't keep any leftovers,

except on the sixth day,

when it supernaturally had a shelf life of about 36 hours.

And then on the seventh day, it did not appear at all.

What? What is going on here? What a weird system I'm going to provide for you by this.

Here's the thing. It only lasts for 12 hours, except on the sixth day.

It lasts for about triple that amount of time. But then there's none on the

seventh day. Like what is God doing?

What is God doing here? And what I taught the kids at camp was I said,

I think that God was training them.

I think he wanted them to obey him and trust him daily.

So the reason he set up this system where it went bad right after the one day,

you just gather enough for the one day, is because he told them,

I want you to go out and gather on Monday.

And I want you to go out and gather again on Tuesday. And I want you to go out

and gather again on Wednesday. And so he was teaching them, I want you to obey

me. And then tomorrow, I want you to obey me again.

And I don't want you to gather double on Tuesday with this idea,

well, maybe there won't be anything out there on Wednesday. No, I want you to trust me.

There'll be stuff out there on Wednesday. Just gather enough for Tuesday.

And I want you to go back out. I want you to trust and obey me on Wednesday,

just like you did on Tuesday. And I want you to trust and obey me on Thursday,

just like you did on Wednesday. Yeah.

He wanted them to obey and trust him daily. Now that's important because in

principle, that applies to us too.

That applies to us who are not manna eaters, okay? God wants us to obey him and trust him daily.

Christianity is not about trusting and obeying God one really big time,

okay? Where it's like, all right, I did it.

Like I obeyed God. There was this one moment when I obeyed.

I trusted really hard. Like now, no, he wants us in a pattern of obeying him

and trusting him every single day.

He was also teaching them a pattern of work and rest.

The purpose of the sixth day double gathering and then the seventh day no gathering

was to teach them to take a day off.

He was teaching them a rhythm of work, work, work, work, work, work, rest.

Then work, work, work, work, work, work, rest.

They had been slaves. And he was teaching them to work and then rest.

Now, there's another point that could be made here. And in fact,

this was in the track curriculum. It specifically said this and said, just tell the kids this.

Okay, God's rules don't always make sense at first, but there is a purpose for

them and it's for our good.

And I agree with that. I was like, that's true. And I think this story is a

good illustration of this.

God's rules do not always make

sense to us at first, but there's a purpose for them and for our good.

In this case, I'm guessing the people, not only do they not trust and not obey,

perhaps there were some of them, it didn't make sense to them.

They're going, why can't I gather extra?

Like if we're in the desert and I'm worried about the future,

like why can't I gather some extra? And I think the answer would be because

God wants you to trust him for each day.

Okay, well then why do I have to gather extra on the sixth day? Goodness gracious.

If it's wrong to do it on Tuesday, then why is it not wrong on Friday?

In fact, on Friday, I must do the thing that you said not to do on Tuesday.

Why is God being so confusing?

Because God wants you to trust him on the seventh day and rest.

And so this idea that sometimes God's rules don't make sense to us at first,

and we just need to trust him, like, that's important.

I've certainly had times in my life where I've come across the Bible verse,

and I was like, that's not the rule I would have made if I were writing this thing.

Have you ever had that? Have you come across the thing in the Bible,

and you're like, oh, that's interesting. If I were in charge,

that's not the rule I'd have made.

In fact, I'll tell you one of mine. I'll just tell you one of the rules that

I'm like, oh, who came up with that?

And so here it is. This is just, I'm just going to confess, one of the ones that I've come across.

In the New Testament, there is an expectation, and you'll see it in multiple

places in the New Testament.

There is an expectation that the people of God act like a family,

like they're brothers and sisters with one another. God is their father and their family.

And they're supposed to treat each other like a family, even to the point of

being willing to like have difficult conversations with each other and point

out sin in each other's life.

I think you see this multiple times in the New Testament where we're supposed

to, the people of God are supposed to love each other enough that when one of

us is sinning and someone else notices it first,

we're supposed to like point it out and say like, hey, that thing you're doing

is wrong and we should stop doing that. And by we, I mean you. Okay, like.

That's something that's supposed to happen according to the New Testament that

we're supposed to point out sin.

Now, Mario, would you have set it up that way that that's your responsibility? Nuh-uh. No, no.

If I wrote the Bible, every third verse would be, mind your own business. Okay?

That's my personality.

Isn't that great? I mean, that would be great. You could be a lot shorter too.

Just a lot of mind your own business. That'd be awesome.

But God says in multiple places to point out and rebuke sin.

So I do it. Okay. I don't like it, but I do it.

And you want to know why I don't like it? I'm going to tell you why I don't

like it. Okay. Here's why I don't like it. Because it seems to me,

no matter how nice I am, more than half the time, the person does not say, well, thank you.

Oh my, thank you. I mean, I needed that. You know, sometimes I have blind spots.

I guess we all do. And I really needed that. I'm going to repent.

Okay. No, that is not what happens most of the time. Much more often,

the reaction is, who are you to judge me? You're a sinner too.

And so my thought was like, well, if a person is just going to keep sinning

anyway, except now they're going to keep sinning while being mad at me,

then why say anything at all?

And at some point I realized I need to care what God thinks about me more than

I care what other people think about me.

So we obey and we trust God daily and even when it doesn't make sense to us.

All right, next passage, Exodus 17, verse one. The entire Israelite community

left the wilderness of sin, moving from one place to the next according to the Lord's command.

They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.

Before I go on, I just want you to notice these people have now come into another

situation where they have no water to drink. They have been in this situation before.

So they're gonna be worried. We

don't have enough water. But I want you to notice what the passage says.

The people of Israel did not randomly wander into a place with no water.

Do you see it? It says, They left the wilderness of sin, moving from one place

to the next, according to the Lord's command.

God purposely led them to a place where there was no water.

Why would he do that? I think it was to test them. Like, are you going to trust me daily?

And I think he wanted to show that he is their provider.

So here's the next story. Verse two. So the people complained to Moses, give us water to drink.

Why are you complaining to me? Moses replied to them. Why are you testing the Lord?

But the people thirsted there for water and grumbled against Moses.

They said, why did you ever bring us out of Egypt to kill us and our children

and our livestock with thirst?

And then Moses cried out to the Lord, what should I do with these people?

In a little while, they will stone me.

The Lord answered Moses, go on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you.

Take the staff you struck the Nile with in your hand and go.

I'm going to stand there in front of you on the rock at Horeb.

And when you hit the rock, water will come out of it and the people will drink.

Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. He named the place Massah

and Meribah because the Israelites complained and because they tested the Lord

saying, is the Lord among us or not?

So God provides for them yet again.

He provided for them water at Marah. He provided for them quail.

He provided for them manna every day.

And he provides for them water again here. And this time in a different way.

Last time was wood in the bitter water. This time it's water out of a rock.

And I want you to notice the Israelites attitude at this, like especially when

he talks about what he named the place. He said, they tested the Lord's saying.

Now look what the Israelites said.

They said, is the Lord among us or not?

That was their attitude. Is God really there looking out for us or not?

And I wanted to tell you to watch out for that.

Like watch out for that attitude. Some of us in this room, when times are good,

we find it easy to believe in God.

And some of us in this room, when times are tough, we find it easy to doubt God.

But God is there. God is there in good times and in bad.

God is up to something in good times and in bad. God can be trusted in good times and in bad.

And so that's how far we got through Exodus at Boys Track. However,

we didn't end there. On the last day of camp, we turned to one more wilderness

story because the theme was in the wilderness.

We went to one more wilderness story. This one is in the New Testament.

So here's where we will end today. Matthew chapter 4.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

And I'm going to read to you the first four verses. This is like hundreds and

hundreds of years later during the time period of Jesus.

Matthew chapter 4, starting in verse 1, it says, then Jesus was led up by the

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

After he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry.

Then the tempter approached him and said, if you are the Son of God,

tell these stones to become bread.

But he answered, it is written, and man must not live on bread alone,

but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Now, this passage we just read here at this church last week.

Do you remember it? Doug Davison read the same passage as part of his sermon last week.

I did not say that to the kids at track because it hadn't happened yet for them.

But you have now heard it twice. And when you look at this story,

I want you to notice Jesus is put in a similar situation to the situation that

the Israelites were in. Do you see it?

Jesus is sent out into the wilderness, right?

The Israelites were sent out into the wilderness. Jesus was led by God,

by the Spirit, capital S, right? The Spirit of God.

Jesus was led by God into the wilderness.

The Israelites were led by God into the wilderness.

The Israelites were led by God in the wilderness to be tested.

Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

He was being tested, and specifically it was the devil that was the one that was tempting him.

That is one thing that's different between this story and the Israelite story.

There's no mention of the devil in the Exodus story.

So they're both led by God into the wilderness with these testings.

And in fact, they're both tested when it comes to the topic of food.

Now, there are more tests that the devil did, but I'm just reading the one that

seems the most matching with what happened to the Israelites.

They were both tested regarding food. Jesus here is tempted to provide for himself

in an extraordinary way. I think turning stones to bread would be extraordinary.

And apparently he believed that he ought to wait on the Father's timing.

And for God the Father to provide for him however he would. And when Jesus says

at the end there, when he says,

man must not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth

of God, Jesus shows he is more concerned with God's instructions than he is with food.

In other words, Jesus passed the same test that the Israelites failed.

Jesus passed the test that the Israelites failed. Now, why does that matter?

Here's why that matters.

Because it's not only true of the Israelites. Jesus passed all of the tests

that you and I have failed as well.

It's not like the Israelites are the only sinners. All of us have failed to

meet the moral requirements of a holy God.

You know this, don't you? I think you do. You know you've failed to meet the

requirements of a holy God. I've said this before at this church.

You fail to meet your own requirements. Have you noticed that?

That sometimes you do things that you say are wrong? Isn't that weird?

So if you don't meet your own requirements, certainly can we all agree you do

not meet the requirements of a holy, sinless God?

Okay. So then what? Like, if we just left it there, if we said,

okay, so this is what the Bible says. We are bad.

Jesus is good. then what?

I mean, that's true. We are bad. Jesus is good. But if we just left it there, we'd have no hope.

So now we move on to the gospel.

The reason that people like you and me can be saved from the punishment that

our sins deserve is because Jesus was a sinless substitute for sinners.

It is a big deal that jesus was sinless and so we see these stories where jesus

does not cave into temptation it is a very big deal that we understand that

jesus was sinless and so i told a story to make this clear to the kids at the very end of camp

and there was a story about two serial killers on death row and there was a

kid that was in the second row who i did not know this at the time but apparently

he was kind of obsessed with death row and so he had been like talking with

his counselor about death row like the whole camp,

and then on the final day of camp i told the story about two,

killers on death row and like he perked right up.

So I said, I want you to imagine there are two serial killers and they have

gone around, they've killed lots of people, they've committed awful crimes and

now they've been caught. And so they've not just been charged with their crimes,

but I mean, they like, they've been convicted.

There was a jury and a judge and all the evidence presented, like they really did it.

And so now they are incarcerated. In fact, they have been, they've received

capital punishment. Like that was the sentence. So they're both serial killers.

They both, they're awful people. They've killed lots of people.

And so now they are waiting the day of their execution.

And I guess I said, imagine they're both cellmates, okay? They become friends.

And imagine one day as they get close to the day of their execution,

one of the two men goes up to the warden and says, I can't bear the thought

of my friend here being punished for his crimes.

Like, I love him. I care about him. I just can't bear the thought of this guy

having to pay for his crimes.

Execute me instead. Like, I offer myself.

Punish me in his place. But I just can't bear the thought of him being punished

for his crime. So punish me instead. Execute me instead.

Do you see what the problem would be? Do you see what the moral problem with that would be?

I hope you get it because there was like a kid. He looked young.

He looked like he was 12 years old. He was sitting on the far right side.

And when I said, what's the problem with that? He shut his hand up and I called

on him and he said something along the lines of, it would have to,

like, he can't be executed in his friend's place because he's a killer too.

Like, he would have to be punished for his own crimes.

Kid was like 12 years old. He got that, like intuitively. I hope that you got

that instinctively as well.

He knew. We all kind of know this, I think. Sinful can't take the punishment for sinful.

It would have to be a sinless person to take the punishment of sinful people.

And that's why Jesus' temptation in the wilderness and that whole passage and

the things related to it, that's why it matters.

The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ died on a cross, not for his own sins,

because he didn't have any, but so that he could pay for our sins and our place.

Jesus died on the cross to trade places with us.

He died on the cross to trade places, so he was making it to where he paid the

cost that our sins deserve, and we can receive the eternal life that his sinlessness deserves.

And the way that that trade takes place is by someone placing their trust in Jesus Christ.

They have to believe that he died on the cross for their sins.

They have to believe that he rose again from the grave. That's a very important

part of this. Jesus rising again from the grave is what proves that his death

really was a substitutionary death on our behalf. Like God accepted it.

If Jesus just died and stayed dead, he wouldn't be different than anyone else

who's ever lived. Like everybody who's died stayed dead.

There's nothing special about that.

Jesus died and did not stay dead showing his death was accepted as a sacrifice,

to God on our behalf so we have to trust in Jesus that he died on the cross

for our sins that he rose again and it has to be the kind of trust where you

actually follow him not just like I think this thing happened where you actually

follow him for the rest of your life and you love him,

and you obey him daily as best as you can,

and that trade is the most important thing you can be informed of that trade

is the most important thing that you can be reminded of.

So as we travel the ups and downs of the wilderness of this life,

heading hopefully to our promised land, it is important that we follow Jesus,

the one who passed all the tests for us. Let's pray.

God, I thank you for the opportunity to present this at camp.

I thank you for the opportunity to present it here. I pray that you would apply your word to our hearts.

For those of us who have to be reminded that we need to trust you daily,

I pray that this would be a good reminder of that.

For those of us who have to be reminded to work, work, work, work, work, rest.

For those of us who need to be reminded that we need to obey you even when it

doesn't make sense to us, even when it's something different than we would have come up with.

I pray that that would be that you would use this as a reminder in our right,

like in our mind moving us in the right direction,

but I especially pray I know there are people here who are going through a rough

time and it's easy when you go through a rough time to go is the Lord with me or not?

I think there are probably people who come here that when they go when life

gets really hard they're like is God even there?

It seems like if he was there my life would be easier.

But it seems like, according to the Bible, that's not necessarily true.

You're there, and sometimes it's easy, and sometimes it's not,

and there's a promised land coming for those who trust in you,

and you passed all the tests for us to get there.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jesus, for passing all the tests on our behalf.

We worship you, and we thank you for that.

Amen. Let me end with these good words. This is from the book of 1 Peter 3.

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous,

that he might bring you to God. That is good news.