Exodus - 16:8-16

This is ERC Sundays, the messages at Emmaus Rd.

Church in DeWitt, Iowa. ERC is a Church of people

striving to grow in Jesus and make him known to others through

our faith, words and actions. Find out more about our church

at emmausrdonline.org. Here's this week's message.

So today we've been, we've been obviously hanging out with Moses

for several weeks now. I think this is week 7 and over

the last couple weeks I just want to run us back a little bit

so that way we have a clear sense of where we are right now.

A couple weeks ago we talked about our warrior God, and we

talked about why we need a warrior God, how he fights for

us, and so on and so forth. And then last week, Pastor Matt,

he got into the fact that the same warrior God, not only does

he fight for us and on our behalf, but he's also a God of

love and great provision. So Pastor Matt talked about

manna in the wilderness and talked about quail.

And then I'll also let you know that in chapter 17 of Exodus,

which is where we're going to be today at the front half of that

chapter, what happens is the people are grumbling once again,

big surprise. And and so they're, they're a

little parched, they're a little thirsty.

And so they tell Moses like, hey, they, they get, they give

their kind of classic line. Did you bring us out here to

kill us? What was the point of all of

this if you're just going to let us die of thirst?

OK, So Moses goes and intercedes for the people and God tells

Moses, hey, take your staff, the staff that you used to part the

sea with and strike the rock and water will come out and the

people will be their thirst will be quenched.

And so Moses does that and it seems all good for the moment

until there's an attack. There's an attack, but we'll get

into that in just a second. The point I'm trying to get to

here with this introduction is the fact that all along the way,

whether it was through the 10 plagues in Egypt or it was

parting of the sea so the people could walk right through it, or

even providing food and water in the wilderness, God has been

doing all of the heavy lifting. Now we should be used to that

because He still does all of the heavy lifting today.

But there's something that's about to change.

God is going to ask His people to buy in.

He's going to ask his people to start participating in the

fight. In other words, he's telling

them, I need you to grow up. I've walked you like little

kids. I've carried you, I've done all

these things. I need you to grow up a little

bit. And so as he's asking them to do

that, he's asking them to grow up and participate physically,

right? He's asking them to participate

with their resources and with their heart and their mind and

their soul first commandment that he's going to give soon.

Love the Lord of God with all your heart, soul, mind and

strength, right? So that's that's kind of where

we're showing up today and we see that it's pretty clear that

God always gives the means. He always gives grace.

He always makes the way. But what are we doing in the

midst of that? You know, as often times we

don't like to talk about the doing part on on our end because

then it feels like, oh, I've got a checklist and Christianity is

this checklist of things that I have to do.

However, that's not true. God calls us to participate

because he loves us, right? So think about it.

If you love your kid, parents, please hear this.

Kids, please hear this. If you love your kids, you know,

you know what you're going to go home and do instead of doing the

dishes for them and without them, you're going to say, hey,

come do the dishes with me. I want you to participate.

Oh, I just signed you guys up for some dishes.

Mm. Hmm.

I did that. Yeah.

You wait. You're going to have soapy

hands. It's going to be awesome.

No, but, but I mean that I, I really do mean that like God

wants us to participate, just like a parent should want their

child to participate in what what's going on.

So in that illustration of the dishes, like, you know, as

parents, you're going to make sure it's clean because they

probably won't, but you'll make sure it's clean and it's good.

But you want them involved in that process.

In the same way, God makes sure that we are clean and that we

are good through his Son Jesus Christ.

Amen. Yeah.

But he wants us to participate. So we're going to get into that

today. We're going to see what that

looks like a little bit. I forgot my clicker.

Mr. Carter, would you send me to the next slide?

So thank you. Appreciate that.

The people in the back, like, I don't know what I'd do without

you. I don't know anyway, But here's

here's what this is going to look like today.

We're going to view the text through this kind of lens.

God wanting us to join the fight.

Looks like who and what we're called to fight against, how

we're called to fight because there is some pretty specific

ways. And then we're going to see the

king who won the battle. So if you would join with me,

we'll be in Exodus chapter 17. We're going to read just verses

Exodus 17 · chapter mention

8 through 16. It's a really kind of short

little bit here, but it's powerful in its full.

So Exodus 17, eight through 16. And we read this in Jesus name.

Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Refadim.

So Moses said to Joshua, choose for US men and go out and fight

with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top

of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.

So Joshua did as Moses told him and fought with Amalek while

Moses, Aaron and her went up to the top of the hill.

Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed.

Whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.

But Moses's hands grew weary. So they took a stone, and they

put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and her held up

his hands, one-on-one side, 1 on the other side.

So his hands were steady until the going down to the sun, and

Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.

Then the Lord said to Moses, write this as a memorial in a

book, and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly

block, blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.

And Moses built an altar and called the name of it.

The Lord is my banner, saying, a hand upon the throne of the

Lord. The Lord will have war with

Amalek from generation to generation.

Here ends reading of God's word. Let me pray for a second.

Our Father in heaven, this is your word, This is your story,

This is your history. Lord, I pray that true words and

true thoughts would be spoken around this history, that you

would light up our hearts with your Holy Spirit, and that you

would teach us today. Teach us by your word, teach us

by your Spirit, that we might grow to love you and grow to

participate in what you're doing in this world.

Father, we pray all these things in the name of King Jesus, Amen.

So I need to give you just a kind of a quick background here

on Amalek. OK, It says Amalek, and that

sounds like not a plural word, but that's that's the

Amalekites. That's who they are.

They're the Amalekites. Well, where did the Amalekites

come from and why are they attacking the people of Israel?

Well, short version, if you go back to Genesis 25 through 27,

what you're going to see is you're going to see the story of

Isaac. Now, Isaac and his wife, they

had two sons, they had twins, they had Esau and Jacob.

Now, if you know this story, it gets really interesting, but

I'll give you the briefest version of it.

So Esau comes out first and he's kind of like Elmo on steroids.

Like he's the Bible describes him as as kind of hairy and red.

So, you know, like think a really angry little Elmo, not

great, right? But then right on his heel,

literally holding onto his heel is Jacob.

And Jacob comes out. And what happens over time is

that Esau becomes like the real man's man and, and his father

loves him for it. So he's a, he's a hunter and

he's always outside. And like later the Bible reports

that he just smells like the outdoors and like, so some of us

are like, man, that's my guy, that's my guy.

And that's what his dad thought too.

Jacob, on the other hand, a little bit more of a sensitive

soul, you might say, and so he is not out in the fields, he's

not hunting game all day, he doesn't smell like the outside.

He tends to stay more at home. And because of that, his mother

favors him. Do you see where this is going

to go sideways? If you have parents, if you have

favourites amongst your children, don't ever let them

know. You can never tell them because

it turns them into monsters. It really does.

And so please don't ever let them know.

My mom is so funny. She with, with with her

grandkids. So one of the grandkids will

come up to her and say, Grandma, am I am your favorite?

And she's like, yes, yes, you are.

And then 2 seconds later the other one will come up, Grandma,

am I your favorite? Yes, you are.

All four of them right through. And so they debate about that

amongst themselves. But my mom has never given up

the goods on that anyway. So over a period of time, Isaac,

their father is dying and he wants to bless his son, Esau.

Well, Esau, he tells Esau, OK, go out, My, my son who hunts, go

out and, and get some game and make me this awesome Stew that I

know you're really, really great at making.

And, and he goes out. And in the meantime, Jacob,

Jacob's mom is like, hey, I got an idea.

We're going to get that blessing from your father.

You're going to be #1 in this family.

And that's exactly what happens. Jacob kind of tricks his daddy,

puts on all Esau's kind of hunting clothes and he puts on

fur. So when his dad touches him, he

feels kind of furry, like Elmo. And and it goes just that way.

And so Jacob is blessed and Esau is angry.

And here's the thing about Esau. You may think that Esau has

gotten a a raw deal in all this, but the problem with Esau is

that he only cares about his body.

And the story that we know that makes that true is at some point

he's out hunting and he comes home and Jacob has made some

Stew and he's just kind of hanging out, you know, doing

what he does. And Esau comes in and he's like,

I am exhausted. If I don't get some of that

Stew, I'm going to die. Right now.

He's a bit of a drama queen. I know he's a big man's man, but

he's clearly a drama queen, too. It happens.

But anyway, so he comes in and I'm going to die if you don't

give me this Stew. And so Jacob being kind of the

scoundrel that he is, he's like, hey, I'll give you the Stew if

you give me your birthright, if you make me first, in other

words, I get the best and 1st inheritance.

I will be the leader of this family.

And so Esau, loving his flesh more than he loves anything

else, says, yeah, sure, give me the Stew.

I'm good, we're good. I don't care.

And here we are. Esau and his people eventually

become the Amalekites, and Jacob and his people eventually get

down to Moses, right? So now we're seeing a family

tree happening here. And so when the Amalekites come

and attack Moses and the Israelites, we have a sense of

background. Now we understand why there

might be some salty feelings. And, you know, families are

messy, right? Well, anyway, the, the

interesting thing about the fact that they are getting attacked

by the Amalekites is also the fact that the Amalekites, you

know what they do, they attack from the rear.

So you're dealing with a couple million people kind of spread

out a little bit, but they attack from the rear.

They attack from the position of Israel's greatest weakness.

So that's where the kids and the animals and the older folks are.

And they attack them first like a really scoundrel move.

They don't come and hit the warriors at the front, they

attack from the rear. Now, why does that matter?

Well, the fact is we all have a back door that's open, right?

And metaphorically, what I mean by that is we all have blind

spots where we can be attacked by the enemy and we will never

see it coming. Now here's here's what we can

notice from this text about that attack.

You are in the most danger in in three different times when

you're isolated, when you're isolated.

So some of you are not like super, you know, like I need

people to to give me energy. I am one of those people, which

is why I like when I'm kind of home by myself, I'm really

mostly subdued. And when I'm here, I'm like,

because it's all of you. Like you guys bring me energy.

That's who I am. But some people aren't like

that. You prefer to be alone and you

prefer to spend more time by yourself.

The only problem with that is you're isolated.

Then if you don't break out of that and in isolation, your

enemy can get to you far, far easier because you don't have a

community of people holding you accountable and you don't have

that strong community of people around you necessarily bringing

you the grace of God when you need it most.

Friends, we need community. We, if we become isolated, we

are, we are playing right into the enemy's hands.

And so I would encourage you, if you're a person who tends to

isolate yourself a little bit, please go outside of your

comfort zone and come into community as often as possible

because quite frankly, you are less susceptible to attacks from

our enemy when you're in a community like this.

And a short plug, this is a good sized community right now, right

here on a Sunday. But what do, what do we do the

other six days of the week? Do we just stay home?

You're just like, well, I got my Jesus fixed time to move on with

my life and I'll just go be a hermit at home.

Not great for you. That's a lot of hours.

That's a lot of days where the enemy gets to attack you.

So I, I, I would just encourage you join women's ministries,

join into men's ministries, get in a get in a group, like allow

people to know you to, to hold you accountable when you need it

and to give you grace when you need it, which I suspect is

often for all of us. So don't get isolated.

The second thing that makes you vulnerable to attack is pride.

It's pride. I, I, I think like one of my

favorite and worst phrases that I've heard over the past decade

or better is I got this. I got this.

Oh, man, aren't we guilty of that?

No, I got it. I got it.

Even when somebody wants to come along and help, you're like, no,

I got it. I'm good.

Give that dishes example a little bit earlier.

The kids are like, I want to help and you're like, no, I got

it. Because you're going to actually

make it worse. Like, no, no, let's let's again

join into a place where our pride doesn't win the day, but

rather it's a it's a sense of like, we're going to do this

together because pride says, I got it and humility says, let's

do it together, right. And then finally, the third way

that this text clearly tells us that we can be attacked by the

enemy, our blind spots is when we get weighed down by the

things of this life. Notice that in the back of the

pack, again, it's where all the enemies are.

It's probably all where the heaviest baggage is and all that

kind of stuff. It's where older folks go and,

and, and young kids, maybe they're back there.

Gosh, but all these things that we hold on to as as the means by

which we live, if those things become more important than our

relationship with God, all of a sudden, man, how can Satan

attack me when my things are more important than God?

He can actually attack me by feeling like I'm being blessed.

Hey, let me give you some more stuff.

Let me make sure you get that raise at your job so you can

have a bigger house, so you have more rooms to clean.

That feels like that feels like a good thing.

But man, it might be an attack. Be careful.

Because when we start to rely on those things and we get weighed

down by those things, we are so susceptible and vulnerable to

how we might, how we might get hit.

And we never saw it coming, right?

So that's kind of the background.

That's the the way that we can understand what's happening in

this text and where the Amalekites are attacking from.

But let's move forward. How are we called to fight?

OK, well, Moses calls on Joshua. This is the first time we hear

of Joshua. And actually fun little fact,

his name in Hebrew is Hoshea. And then if you translate to, to

Greek, it's Yeshua, which is actually the same way you would

say Jesus in Greek. So this guy Joshua, who's coming

along, who's going to be the warrior for his people, the

leader of the fight, man, there's something really special

about him. And if you continue through the

1st 5 books of the Bible, you're going to see that play out.

But anyway, what does Moses call him to do?

He's like, hey, go ahead. We're going to, we're going to

make sure like you need to go get some men and you need to

start fighting. We need to be physically

engaged. So this is different than what's

been happening with the Israelites thus far.

They need to get physically engaged in the fight.

Now, I would say in our modern world, apart from apart from a

certain segment of people, maybe it's soldiers, most of us

probably aren't getting into a lot of physical fights.

And if you are, we should probably have a conversation

about that. We might have some temper

issues, some anger issues that we can start to work through.

But yeah, most of us don't have to physically fight.

But there are times, there are absolutely times where God calls

us to get physically involved in the battles of our life.

Now, the other way I'm going to tell you that, that this fight

looks like inside your home and inside my home is that

physicality. It's that being present

physically and emotionally and mentally.

So you, you know, I, I need to in my home, I need to be

physically and mentally and emotionally present for my kids.

Think about this. If they're coming home from

school and you know, they get home and oh, hey, how's your

day, how's school? And they're going to give you

the routine answer, which is school's fine.

And maybe even I follow up with the second question, which will

still get the same stupid answer.

What'd you learn today? Nothing.

You knew it. All of you knew it.

We could have said that in unison.

What'd you learn today? Nothing.

Yeah. Well, here's the thing.

If I'm actually physically and mentally present, I'm not going

to stop there. I'm not going to because I want

to engage this person, right? I want to.

I want to be present with them. Same thing with my spouse.

You know, I, I have to work very hard at this because I'm an

idiot. So what happens is my wife and

I, and I actually talked about this a little bit in Bible

study. My wife and I will be sitting

together on the couch and we'll just be chatting and she'll be

telling me about her day or something.

And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's, that's cool.

No, that's that. Actually, that sounds sucky.

I'm sorry about that. And like, what am I doing?

What am I doing? God has given me the gift of

this beautiful human being. And what am I doing instead?

I'm looking at some stupid phone.

How dumb am I? I need to be physically and

mentally present for my wife. And then I need to do the same

thing with my with my community. My goodness, guys, if we come

here and, and, and, and we're already thinking about, oh gosh,

now I'm going to make you think about it.

We're already thinking about lunch.

We're thinking about the football game.

We're thinking about whatever I might be physically here, but

I'm not really here, am I? Friends, we come here to

worship. We come here to give God all of

the praise and all the glory that he deserves.

That's why we're here. And we do that best when we are

physically and mentally present with other people.

Because Christianity was never a faith that was meant to be lived

on an island. That is not the point of it.

That is not how it works. So when I come here, I want to

be physically and mentally and emotionally present with you.

And I hope you want the same thing.

Now, another detail within this, and I need to pick on about half

the room. It says that Moses told Joshua,

go find the men. OK, we're going to get into this

1st, 1st Corinthians 1613 and 14 says this.

Be watchful. Stand firm in the faith, act

like men. Be strong.

Let all you do be done in love, men.

God has called us to be leaders in our households and in our

church. Now, that doesn't mean

dominating everything. That doesn't mean that nobody

else gets a word, and that doesn't mean I pound my chest

and look at me. That's not what that means at

all. It means that we lead in love

and we lead an example. Now, maybe in your household,

maybe you're not the most eloquent speaker.

Maybe your spouse is OK, maybe, maybe, maybe if you're going to

do a family devotional, that person is leading or maybe you

have just a spirit filled kid who's going to lead that.

Awesome. How are you encouraging that

behavior, men? How are you encouraging that in

your family? How are you encouraging that in

your home? I did watch and this is this is

amazing. I watched from a distance

because, you know, soft hands. I watched from a distance, men

pour cement and do real work for God's Kingdom, and you're like,

how is porn cement God's Kingdom?

It's because we're always trying to get room for one more.

That's how men are to lead to make sure that we have room for

one more, whether it's through a parking lot, whether it's

whatever man can. Can I?

I saw a guy and I can't remember who it was.

He was serving doughnuts. Good job.

Doughnut serving guy. Seriously, dude, that's awesome.

That's what leadership looks like sometimes.

But men, God, God has called you out.

Stand firm in the faith, Act like men.

Be strong. Let all you do be done in love.

And you know what, men, I'll tell you one more thing and then

I'll move on. There's a couple of things we

can do inside of our home and inside of our workspaces that

will really make us men. First and foremost, it's

gratitude. That whole I got this thing

baloney. The only reason why you breathe

is because of the Lord. So when I show gratitude to the

one who gave me my body, who gave me my ability to speak and

work, man that is infectious, especially when you do it.

Second thing you can do real quick, man, admit when you're

wrong. I will tell you that one of the

some of the most powerful moments in my life with my wife

and my kids is moments of complete humility because I was

finally able to look at myself, look at them and say that's

that's on me, that's my fault. Then that's how we lead.

Then Moses, he goes and fights, but he fights a little bit

differently. He doesn't fight with a sword.

He doesn't go down with Joshua. He goes and fights a little bit

differently. He goes up on the hill where he

can oversee the battlefield and he brings his brothers with him

and he raises his hands and he prays.

This is a fun fact for you. Jewish people pray with hands

raised. This is how how they pray.

So Moses prays from the top of the hill.

And what you'll notice about this text is, well, if you've

ever tried this, this gets difficult after a little while.

It really does. And so his friends are there to

support him. His friends are there to hold up

his hands and pray with him. Do you see that prayer is by far

the most important part of the battlefield that we can stand

on? Yes, Joshua, in the in the army

of Israel, they were down there. They were doing the physical

hard labor of fighting. But there is Moses and his two

friends and they are praying to the God who gives victory.

That is how they win. They pray through that.

I don't know what your prayer life looks like, but I can tell

you unequivocally, if you don't have a meaningful full prayer

life, you are going to lose the fight every single time.

You will not win. You cannot win because you are

trying to use resources that you see that you've created.

But man, if you want to talk about a resource, if you want to

talk a way to about a way of fighting, prayer is your atom

bomb because it's God who has all the power.

It is God who puts the enemies down where they belong.

And if you're not praying, you have no way to fight that

besides your own means, which you will grow weary and you will

fail eventually. So this prayer is the greatest

battlefield that we can be a part of.

Now the king. There's so many things in this

text and I want you to see it. I'm going to get into teacher

mode for a second because I want you to see how Jesus is involved

in every single book of the Bible.

I want you to see how Jesus is the, is the the forerunner of

all of these things. So it says that, for example,

Moses went up on the hill to pray.

Jesus was taken to the hill called Golgotha, the hill of the

skull. They took him up to a hill.

You want to know why? So everybody could look at him.

So all the walkers by they could, they could spit on him,

they could make fun of him, they could mock him.

They put him on a hill and then he fought in darkness from noon

until 3:00 in the afternoon and became dark.

That darkness as Jesus is on the cross fighting and praying, That

darkness is God separating himself from His Son.

That darkness is Jesus Christ going through hell itself.

That is a darkness that none of us have to see because He went

through it for us. Then Jesus.

Jesus is posture. There's only one posture.

If you're on a cross, it's arms spread wide.

Just like Moses prayed as he's postured in prayer, which is a

mocking position at this point. As he's postured in prayer, he

he recites psalms. Do you see that?

I want you to notice that in the crucifixion, the seven words of

Jesus, they call it, three of them are the Psalms.

He's praying his own prayer book.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Friends, we can pray through the battles and we have to.

And again, I, I, I respect people who have to get

physically involved in some of those things.

But man, the biggest battle we will ever face, it is not

against flesh and blood, is it? It is against spirit in the evil

principalities of this world that Satan rains down on us that

are silent and deadly. Friends, we have to pray through

this, just like Jesus prayed on the cross with his arms wide

open. We get to pray too.

And So what I'm asking you to do, if there's any take away

that I want you to go home with, please do battle in prayer.

Do that hard work and guess what, when you can't do the hard

work, I hope you have some friends who will hold up your

hands for you because you need them.

You absolutely need them because this gets tiring.

Jesus is the only one who did it on His own, and He did it

because of the nails that were for you.

Friends. Jesus prayed in battle, and I

want you to go and do likewise. Amen.

All right, let's pray. Our Father in heaven, it is more

than enough that you hear our prayers.

It is more than enough that you respond.

Lord, it's more than we deserve. It's more than we could even ask

for. So, Father, I pray that you

would stir in the hearts of your people to seek you first.

Lord, I confess too many times I I seek to do it my way and I

tell you I've got this and I take the screen will Lord, I'm

sorry. Forgive me, Father, when I've

taken the power out of your hands and tried to put them in

my feeble hands. Lord, I pray for each one of us

that we would call on you not only in the moments that are

difficult, but in the in the great moments and everything in

between. Help us to call on You, Lord,

because you are our Savior. You are the one who sets us

free. You are the one who gives us

life. May you be glorified because of

your great grace towards us. Father, we pray all these things

in the name of Jesus Christ, who is our Lord and our King.

Amen. Thanks for listening to ERC

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