Bread from Heaven

Today's scripture is Exodus chapter sixteen.

They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month, after they had departed from the land of Egypt.

And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.

And the people of Israel said to them, Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots, and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I am about to reign bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I might test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.

On the sixth day when they had pre when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.

So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord.

For what are we that you grumble against us?

And Moses said, When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat, and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him, what are we?

Your grumbling is not against us, but against the Lord.

Then Moses said to Aaron, Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.

And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.

And the Lord said to Moses, I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel.

Say to them, At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread.

Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.

In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp.

And when the dew had gone up there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground.

When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, What is it?

For they did not know what it was.

And Moses said to them, It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.

This is what the Lord has commanded.

Gather of it each one of you, as much as he can eat.

You shall each take an omer according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.

And the people of Israel did so.

They gathered some more, some less, but when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.

Each of them gathered as much as he could eat, and Moses said to them, Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.

But they did not listen to Moses.

Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank, and Moses was angry with them.

Morning by morning they gathered it each as much as he could eat, but when the sun grew hot it melted.

On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each, and when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, This is what the Lord has commanded.

To morrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord.

Bake what you will, bake what you will bake, and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.

So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it.

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

Today you will not find it in the field.

Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thank you for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman, I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver, and this is a joyful morning to gather together because right after church this morning, we get to do one of my favorite things that we do each year, which is deck the halls.

We will decorate our church for the Christmas season.

So stick around after church.

We're going to order pizza and we'll play Christmas music and we'll decorate the whole church.

It's really, it's really fun.

It's one of my favorite things that we do.

But I also have some sad news about Deck the Halls this year.

So normally one of the most death defying feats we accomplish during Deck the Halls is putting lights on the outside of the building.

But we're getting a new roof this week.

The building's getting a new roof.

Yeah, right.

So uh we can't we uh have to wait till next week to put up the lights because otherwise we'd have to put up the lights and then they'd have to take them down tomorrow uh to put a new roof on.

So we've it was requested of us that we don't put up the lights this week, which is you know one of those things.

But we but we get a new roof.

So that's cool.

It's one of the nice things about being a renter, is it's just like, hey, you're getting a new roof.

And we say, Great, and that's all you have to do.

So that's a nice thing.

So yeah, stick around after church, help us decorate the inside of the building at least, and uh it'll be a fun time.

Uh also we have a first communion this morning uh for uh um Eva Hegerty.

So you'll get to see one of those.

Lots of things uh in the in the hopper for this morning.

All right, so let's pray.

We'll move into our text for the day.

Holy Father, you are our provider.

And we look to the heavens for our nourishment.

Because you are the one who provides it.

Lord God, you give us our daily bread.

And you have given it to us each day of our lives, Lord.

You have nourished us to this point because that is what you are like.

And Lord, you nourish us by your word.

Just as you call us to gather together weekly to worship you, Lord, it is so that we might be nourished in our rest.

Lord, while we rest, you provide our nourishment.

Such is your grace towards us.

Lord, this is a uh difficult time of the year, Lord.

The the nights are long, and the uh no week at this time of the fall is a normal week until sometime in the middle of January.

But Lord, amidst these abnormal times, Lord, you meet us and you provide us our rest and our nourishment and our care for each day.

Lord, your grace is new every morning, and your grace is new for us this morning.

Pray that you would work that truth into our heart as we look to our nourishment, as we look to you for our nourishment.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So if you want to celebrate a culture, what you do is you eat its food.

That's how you that's how you celebrate a culture.

A culture is is its food.

When uh I you know, Disney World, I went a couple weeks ago, and so it's fresh in my mind, you're gonna get a lot of Disney references uh for the next couple of weeks.

But you know, Epcot, the experimental prototype community of tomorrow, was uh is a um uh i in the back of Epcot, it's like the all of these um uh different nations.

You get to go on this tour of nations.

It has a name, I don't remember what the name is.

The world showcase.

There's the world showcase, you guys, in the back of Epcot.

And so you go to France and uh there's buildings that look like Disney, France, and there's Disney, Italy, and Disney Germany, and Disney, Mexico, and Disney, China.

These are like all of these nations, the way that they are in real life is just a little better, you know?

Because it's Disney and they're right next to each other, and uh and there's no, you know, everything's imagine going to all of those places and every all the signs are in English.

And uh there's no you you don't have to miss a train or anything.

It's kind of like that.

And the way that you really celebrate though, the way that you have fun at the showcase is you go to you eat all the different foods.

That's what's so fun about it.

There's uh you eat pizza in Italy and you know, like if I'm gonna when you're in France and you're getting some something that you can't pronounce, the food's still in their language, you know.

There's still some changes to be made, of course.

But there's uh and uh you're eating some some sort of French delicious, you know, incredible, rich food and cheese and stuff, and it's like, should we get a beer?

And it's like, oh just wait, because Germany is coming.

And you and you know, we know that like to celebrate these cultures, to participate in them, you've got to have their food.

And that's that's cultures are are built around food.

They're because they they tell us about ourselves, the stories are preserved in the food.

You know, it's why there's whole shows, entire shows dedicated to watching people eat food from different places, because there's this exploration that takes place when you do that.

Because the food tells you, well, what's the land like in this place?

And how do they deal with the seasons?

And are these a farming people or a herding people?

Are these uh is this a culture that experienced prosperity, or is this a culture that cobbled together delicious things even amid their lack?

And you you get to explore all of those things through their food.

And this is this is uh a sermon about food, and it's a sermon about how God establishes the culture of his people by their food, in the same way that all cultures are established.

And it's the perfect week for a sermon like this because this is a week of one of our great food celebrations.

You know, you later this week we'll all gather together with your families, and uh you'll we uh I don't have to ask you what you'll be making.

You know, it's not like you you didn't decide.

Nobody consulted you on what you should have for Thanksgiving.

You're gonna have turkey and you're gonna have stuffing and you're gonna have uh there's slight variations.

Like some of you uh don't put marshmallows on top of your uh sweet potato casserole, which is probably a sin, probably, to not cover it with marshmallows and bake it.

What's the point?

This is one time of year you get to do that.

But the amid the slight variations, you were basically not consulted.

And it's a wonderful feast to remember.

Thanksgiving is such a glorious feast.

It's like one of the best parts of our country is that we have a feast of Thanksgiving, and it calls back to this wonderful first Thanksgiving feast.

It's a uh uh it's a it was a crazy time to give thanks.

The um William Bradford and the re the rest of the folks on the Mayflower, they come over in 1620 and they arrive in the fall of uh 1620, and then you know that there's there's 102 of them on the on the Mayflower.

And then by the other side of that winter, by the spring of 1621, half of them died.

You know the story, but I just wanted to tell it again because this is the week.

Half of them died.

This is unthinkable, it's terrible.

So how and they're in a new land, you know.

This is this is a whole new world.

Don't you dare close your eyes.

This is a whole new world.

And there's and uh they don't know how to farm here, they don't know how to cultivate this land or how to live in this land, and it there's no way the land beneath them had given way.

There's there it doesn't provide for them like the land that they came from provided for them.

So they look to the dirt and there's nothing there.

But God had sent before them someone who could receive them and teach them how to cultivate this land.

This is the story of Squanto.

You know the story of Squanto?

Yeah, yeah.

Uh I th I think the 12-year-old nodded her head.

This is we we all used to know this, and then we forgot, and so I want to tell it again because it's one of the great Christian stories that that we have.

It's amazing.

You know, in 1614, Squanto was kidnapped to be sold into slavery and was brought to Spain.

But in Spain, these Spanish friars, these monks, uh they uh prevented him from being sold into slavery.

They took him in uh under their wing, they shared the gospel with him, and Squanto becomes a Christian.

And then Squanto made his way back to uh he made his way to England, and then in 1619, he finally was able to cobble together a trip to get back to his homeland.

Uh and his home, and then in 1619, when he arrives in his homeland, all of his people were gone.

It's a mystery what happened.

It could have been disease, it could have been war, it's this mystery.

But when he arrived at his home, all of the people that he had left, those five years earlier, were gone.

He had no home there anymore.

And so he uh starts living with the tribe that that did live there at that time, uh, the Wampanoag.

And then it just uh a couple of months later, who shows up in the very place where he had grown up, and the place where he knew the land and he knew how to make things grow in the land.

You know how to make things grow in that land.

What do you do when you plant the corn?

You put it you plant a fish with it.

Yeah.

If you were ever in New England and you were trying to grow corn and you saw somebody planting it without fish, you know the story, and you'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

You're gonna want to put a fish in there with that seed, you know, and then you would be able to grow corn because you know the story.

And so Squanto is this uh this Native American, native to this land that the Mayflower lands on.

And he is that he's this perfectly prepared mediator for the people on the Mayflower because he's a Christian brother who is a native of the land.

So he negotiates a peace between Mazazoet, the chief of the Wampanoag, and between the Mayflower settlers, and he teaches the Mayflower settlers how to live in this land that was his home.

It's like it's like the he's like uh he's like the American uh Saint Patrick, you know, who is who is captured into slavery and then comes back and is able to bring life uh to even those people who were his captors.

You know, it's just an amazing story.

Only the gospel could create a story like that.

It's just this unthinkably beautiful story.

So then that spring, they are able to plant, and they know how to plant because Squanto is there, and he can say, in English, he can say, fish with corn, you know, and so they plant, and so the the year goes on, and then the in in 1621, the fall of 1621, they have a harvest.

The fifty left from the Mayflower have a harvest.

And they they have a harvest because the Lord sent Squanto before them and called him to himself, and called them to himself, and works to preserve them.

It's this miracle, it's this beautiful, beautiful story that was accomplished.

And so they have a Thanksgiving feast, a feast in this land that had given way before.

A feast they celebrate.

And we celebrate it today, as we remember that why do we have any provision?

It's because the Lord has gone before us.

And that feast, it forms it forms the culture of us as a people.

Like you what you're doing when you uh do Thanksgiving is you're doing a culture thing.

You know, in college, you'll every other class you have to do this thing where they ask you to define culture.

And this is what's happening there.

You are defining uh culture by uh not choosing what you're going to eat, but you're gonna make a turkey to mixed results.

You're going to make a turkey.

You'll say, I'm not very good at making turkey.

Why do I do this every year?

It's not up to you.

It's who you are, it's what it's what it means to be a part of this people.

And so you remember the story and you give thanks to the Lord for his provision as you negotiate whatever family dynamic you happen to be going to.

At least part of it is remembering to give thanks to the Lord.

Our our food, your food, the food you don't choose, shapes who you are as a people.

And so when the Lord gives to his people food in the wilderness, he's not just satisfying their hunger.

That's not the the way the Lord does it.

He's making them a people.

He's establishing a new culture when he gives them their food.

And that's what he does for his people.

But of course, in order to see that happen, we have to see what is the culture that they had before the Lord intervened and taught them what culture they would have.

And we'll see how the Lord provides us food that is bread from heaven, that this is the nourishment that he gives to his people, bread from heaven.

And as we see how he gives them the bread from heaven, we'll see how this forms the hearts of the people towards him.

And in seeing that, we'll see how our hearts are formed in that very same way, by the true bread from heaven.

The Lord is forming us as a people by giving us the true bread from heaven.

So let's look at our text.

Exodus 16, 3.

And the people of Israel said to them, Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

Last week they were thirsty.

They were pressed up against water, but it they couldn't drink it.

And the Lord worked a miracle so that they could have water.

But now at this point, they they recognize that they've run out of food.

Now they're herders, and so they'd probably brought they brought their flocks out with them.

You know, this this mass migration of the Israelites out of Egypt would have been quite a scene to look at.

And there's all these herds, and they're probably down to, you know, we've got a male goat and a female goat left.

Well, we can't eat one of them because we're gonna want some more goats later, I bet.

And so they're at this point where they've got no food.

They realize just around the corner they're they're going to be facing this terrible hunger and they're die in the wilderness.

And this hunger in their flesh causes them to completely forget the glorious rescue that the Lord had accomplished for them only weeks before.

Man, isn't that what it's like?

Isn't that what it's like?

That this faith when we face hunger, when we face lack, when we face the problems that thrust themselves upon us, we just we just forget the glory of the rescue that he has accomplished before.

And we forget that that glorious rescue is what he's like.

That's what God is like towards us, so surely he will accomplish this again.

But instead, what we see is the natural culture of the Israelites is revealed.

And what their natural culture is, is a culture of grumbling and resentment.

They resent the salvation that has been accomplished for them, and they look back with longing at their days of slavery.

They look back with longing at the oppression that they had in Egypt.

Literally saying, Lord, it would have been better if you didn't rescue us.

It would have been better if we didn't stand on the other side of the Red Sea and sing that song together.

Because at least back in Egypt we had meat pots.

You know, which is at least back in Egypt, we we could sit around and at the end of the day there was bread, remember?

At least we had bread.

It was hard labor, but there was bread at the end of the day.

Here we're going to die in the wilderness.

So the culture that they have, just left to themselves, it's it's not even it would you would not want to visit that country in Epcot.

Because it would be a civilization of grumbling and hunger and lack and resentment.

It would just be like you, it would be people walking around Epcot and looking at all the other countries and saying, ah, these other countries are terrible.

And just jealousy and envy and resentment.

That would be the experience of being with the Israelites.

But this is a reflection of our hearts.

Our natural culture is one of resentment, focused on the lack and on what we don't have, with a neglect of the Lord who can provide for us.

It's an anti-culture, culture of devouring.

But the Lord intends to give them a new culture by giving them food.

In verse 12 of chapter 16, the Lord says, I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel.

Say to them, At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread.

Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.

It's just Like when we saw him give to them water last week.

Here's the order.

They're grumbling.

And we can see that this grumbling against Moses and Aaron, Moses and Aaron make it clear: you're not grumbling against us.

Who are we?

You're grumbling against the Lord who has rescued you.

You're rebelling against God in your resentment that you're showing to the leaders that God has put over them, to Moses and to Aaron, these great mediators.

And in their rebellion against God, God doesn't say, okay, I'll wait till you stop grumbling.

And then once you're done grumbling, I'll give you food.

Everybody ready to stop grumbling?

Sometimes I do that to my children.

Okay, fine.

No, no food.

You'll just not eat.

There's nothing more repulsive to children than a freshly made meal.

With their own desires in mind, when it was prepared, sat down before them and they're like, this is who?

What type of disgusting parents do I have?

Do I have to deal with?

And they grumble against the parents.

They're not grumbling against the parents.

They're grumbling against God.

You know, who are we, the parents say.

To our children, they remain unconvinced.

Why does he just that's not what God does though.

He just he just says, I've heard your grumbling.

At twilight tonight, you're gonna eat meat.

And in the morning, you'll be filled with bread.

And you'll know that I am the Lord your God.

It almost seems like it it almost seems like weak parenting, doesn't it?

It's like it okay, fine.

I'll make mac and cheese.

That's what that's what it feels like.

Why is the Lord what he what he does in response to their grumbling as he's forming their people, he just out of the gate, just like he did for the water, he just shows them mercy.

He just has grace upon them.

Why can he do that?

Why can he act like that?

Uh Paul brings it to mind in Romans 9 when when he teaches us what the what the Lord is like is he towards his elect.

Why can the Lord do that?

Because he has mercy upon whom he has mercy.

He can have mercy upon whomever he desires.

And he desires to have mercy upon his people.

That's what he's like.

Hey, that's what he's like to you.

That's what he's like to you.

He has mercy upon you, even amidst your grumbling.

And then he demonstrates that his mercy upon them, that will that will be the transformation of their hearts.

They will know that he is the Lord.

And so, where is this bread going to come from?

It's going to come from the heavens.

What was the source of their grumbling?

The source of their grumbling was they looked to the earth.

And that's not too ridiculous.

When you look to where your food is going to come from, you look to the ground around you.

And you look around and you say there's no food and there's nothing growing, there's no food coming.

You look to your flocks, and you say, We're empty.

Go out and count the goats one more time.

It's worse than I thought.

You know, we're there's fewer than I even expected.

And they look to those ordinary sources of provision and they assess their circumstances, and from that they begin to grumble, but they forgot there's a place that they forgot to look, and this is what the Lord is teaching them.

They forgot about bread from heaven.

Maybe it hadn't even crossed their minds.

Many of you are at a place of grumbling.

It's dark, you know, it's busy, there's a lot on your mind.

There's those those family issues that you're able to ignore most of the year, you're about to be thrust into, and they've lined dormant, but they're about to be resurrected with this incredible force, like a Frankenstein monster getting shocked by lightning.

And as you're looking towards that, looking down the barrel of that, and you're assessing the circumstances of what's to come over this holiday season, you're forgetting.

There's bread from heaven.

Bread from heaven.

You can't see it.

You can't see it, but it will come down like a grace from the Lord, like a mercy from the Lord.

You will be provided with grace and mercy from the Lord for each day.

This is where our assessment ought to be.

And our assessments are false when they only take into consideration our circumstances, what the earth might provide.

Our assessments become true when we remember there is such a thing as bread from heaven, bread out of the sky.

The Egyptians looked down upon the Hebrews because they were herders.

And, you know, herders, you know what I mean?

I get it.

No, they look down upon the Hebrews because they're they are herders, and uh a herding people, they're they're always wandering around.

You know, because there's grass here one day, and then the herd eats all the grass, and so then you gotta move over here the next day.

And it's really no way to have a civilization.

If you're starting a civilization, herders is not the way to do it.

And so the Egyptians look down on them because of what you want to be, if you want a real culture, if you want to build great things like pyramids and storehouses and palaces and gold and uh write things down and preserve these things, then you're gonna want, you're gonna want farmers.

You know, you're gonna want people who can plant things, and when you plant a crop, you stick around, and it gives you some time in the day, and especially if you got something like a Nile, where it floods and you can count on the flood of the Nile, then now you can build a civilization around that type of thing.

And that's the way the Egyptians conceived of themselves.

They understood we are the civilization type of people, you're the herding type of people, and so they look down on them.

But you see the relationship between food and culture, between food and the type of people you are, the type the way that you depend on the land, what it means for you as a group of people.

And so the Lord takes this group of herders, and you can imagine later, after they receive the bread from heaven, you see how the food implies what type of culture they're ha they'll have.

Then you see, well, what type of culture is the Lord making among his people?

Someone might walk up and say, Are you guys a herding type of people or a farming type of people?

And it sounds like a pleasant, you know, get to know you question, but you know the subtext, you know, a herding type of people or a farming type of people.

I know what you're really asking.

How where do you place me culturally?

What type of thing do you place me?

And then the Israelites, they would, they would respond with, We're a we're a um bread from heaven type of people.

We're the we're the we're like a have you ever met any group of group of people where God Himself makes bread for them and gives it to them every morning?

We don't even look to the ground, actually.

We don't think about the ground much in its provision for us or in what will be provided for us.

We're the type of people that look to heaven for where our provision comes from.

You see what he's he's making them the highest culture imaginable.

Because he's making them a type of people whose expectation is we look to God for our provision.

All of our provision we expect to come from the the merciful and gracious hand of God.

And the person who asks that question says, I've never heard of a never heard of a people like that.

Must be why why you all seem pretty relaxed about things.

I guess the herders are always wandering around.

The farmers that I know, they're always looking up at the clouds, thinking, come on.

Just like ski resort owners this year, especially.

They say, We're we're the bread from heaven type of folks.

That'd be a cool culture.

You'd want to visit that country in Epcot.

So how does he form his people by giving this food?

In verse 15, it says, When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, What is it?

For they did not know what it was.

And Moses said to them, It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.

So that night, quail came and landed all around.

We don't talk much about the quail because quail can fly in, and that you could they they would probably think like, oh, it's just a lucky quail.

But the bread from heaven, this was the strange thing that happened in the next morning, where they wake up and there was dew on the ground, and then when the dew, you know, burned off in the morning, beneath it there's this flaky wafer type of thing.

And they look at it and they say, What is it?

And you've got to be careful the first thing you say about something because it could become its name.

And that's what happened with manna, because manna is just the word in Hebrew for what is it.

It is.

And so they looked at the manna and they said, What is it?

And somebody, another Israelite said, Good, we'll go with that.

And so they look around it and it's it's flaky.

You can gather it up, you could pick it up, and you could just take a bite out of it, and it would be like a like a honey uh flavored wafer type of thing.

Not bad to have just appear for you from heaven.

You can gather it up and you can boil it, you can mash it.

Yep.

And there's uh uh and it can it can be uh gathered together and also baked into bread.

And so this this manna uh is this provision that just came down from the heavens.

But when the Lord gives them this manna, you know, as we as we look at this, we should be thinking it's not just food, because our food isn't just food.

Our food is who we are, our food is how we live in the world.

It tells us, it contains our stories and it tells us, it tells us who we are as a people.

And so that's what the Lord is doing when he gives them this food, and so he's teaching them by this food, he's teaching them what their work is, how it is that they're supposed to labor.

And he teaches them what their portion is, how it is that they should think of their needs and how those needs are distributed throughout the community.

He's teaching them about time, and he's teaching them about rest.

That's something like a culture, you know?

How you work, what your portion is, what your time is, what your rest is.

I have a friend who worked in Spain and she came back and told these just fantastical stories about siestas, and it just said it just sounded wonderful and magical and mysterious.

And I said, please, please tell this, tell the siesta story again.

Let me hear it.

There cannot be such a place as this, where theyesta, and then they're and you hear about tapas, and I had never heard of such a thing, and you try and have it here, and it turns out it's just a little bit of food for a lot of money.

But I think they do it differently in Spain, it's different sort of tapas in Spain, as they describe it.

So their food is who we are.

So first their work.

In verse 16, it says, This is what the Lord has commanded.

Gather of it each one of you, as much as he can eat.

You shall each take an omer according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.

So, the first thing that the is established by the manna that the Lord gives from heaven, this bread that just appears every morning, is he gives them work.

It is the portion of their food, but it is also the portion of their labor.

It it doesn't just, you don't just stand outside in the morning with your mouth open, like cloudy with a chance of meatballs, and wait for the food to happen into you.

It there's labor that the Lord distributes on a daily basis for his people.

It's out there, and you have to go out and gather it and bring it back in.

And then once it's gathered and brought back in, you're gonna want to come up with a bunch of different ways to prepare it.

And so you can, yeah, go as the ways that I listed before, that they could prepare the food.

So they're given a daily labor.

A daily labor with this food.

This is the way that the Lord works for us still.

He gives to you daily labor.

Your labor comes to you at the rate of one day at a time.

And that is the way that you are meant to participate with it.

You are not meant to take more for yourself from a given day or less for yourself from a given day.

But your labor, what the Lord requires of you, is given to you at the rate of today.

Today.

And on today, the Lord's day, I'm skipping ahead of it, but you don't have to wonder what the labor of the Lord requires of you on the Sabbath day.

You know that it's not it's no labor.

You know that today he requires of you just rest.

Just rest.

I'm skipping ahead, but it's part of it.

Now, also in this verse, we see that he is describing to them what their portion is, how they are to take the food.

And so he describes for them their work and their portion.

It says, you shall each take an omer according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.

So this tells us that the way their work is determined, in a sense, by the portion that they're given.

And the portion that they're given is by the household.

You're supposed to go out and you're supposed to gather for your household.

So there could be some sort of distribution of labor, but it's distr it's distributed among the household.

This means that the way that he's structuring the culture of Israel is not that there's a proletariat that goes out in the morning and gathers just so they can give it to the bourgeoisie in the later morning.

It's not divided where there's a slave class that goes out to gather and then a master class who would go out and and receive the fruit of other people's labor.

No, it's for your household, each household.

Each household had work to go and gather in accordance with their household.

And the propor and the portion that they are meant to gather is determined by the Lord.

They are supposed to gather one omer according to the number of persons.

Now, these these old metrics in the Bible, they're they can be difficult things to push down, to pin down.

And I uh what I was able to discover is that uh an omer is about two quarts per person.

I don't really know what a quart is either.

So for those of you who do, then you know that an omer is two quarts per person.

So the next time you ask for two quarts of something, you can just be like, I'll do about an omer.

Give me an omer of that.

That's what you could say.

So there's a portion that's that's meant to be gathered.

And listen to how it works out.

In verse 8, as he's describing the portion, says, as after they've all gone out and gathered for the first time, it says, But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.

Each of them gathered so much as he could eat.

Their portion was given to them perfectly by the Lord.

It was all all of them received just as much as they could eat.

It was the perfect amount for each of them.

Some of them went out and gathered.

They were like, it's manna.

This is the first manna morning.

I don't know if these things are gonna keep happening, but we're gonna want to get some that we can hold on to for a long time.

So they gathered a lot.

They come back and they would measure it, and the ones that gathered a lot, it they measure it according to an over, and it's like, yep, just exactly what you need.

Nothing left over, perfect.

And others were were like, oh, manna, that sounds nice for the day.

Or, you know, after tasting it or whatever.

And they try the manna and uh they didn't gather that much.

They did they didn't hoard manna for themselves, and it was measured according to the omer, and they have they have no lack.

They have no lack, they didn't miss out on anything.

The the portion was perfectly given to them by the Lord.

And so this demonstrates the way that the that God has organized the fruit of our labors, the fruit of their labor.

That just as he portions the labor for his people, so too does he portion the fruit of our labor for us.

You can't go out into a day and rest from it more than the Lord has given to you in it.

If you do, you'll you're just trying to exhaust yourself for no reason, to no end.

You'll gather it up and you'll see, I don't even have any remainder.

You know what days like this are like.

You know, you see, because really what happens is you start stressing and hustling and moving around and and they're become, and then you make a mistake, and then the mistake that you made, you end up actually just having to go back and do something twice.

That's kind of what it's like.

And we see that portion is determined by the Lord here.

Considering the portion of the fruit of our labor, God Paul takes this very text and he applies it in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 in verse 15, and he he describes this principle as a universal principle, and he applies it to our generosity.

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

So that we ought to think of generosity this way.

We ought to understand that if we try and gather and hoard more for ourselves, that there'll be nothing left over.

We actually won't gain any more from that.

But if we are generous and we take only what we need, and then we're generous with the remainder of what the Lord has given to us, then we'll see we have no lack.

We have no lack.

So we ought to be generous and give.

We ought to be generous with our money.

We ought to be we ought to bring the full tithe into the storehouse, the full tenth of what you make.

Bring, give to your church.

Share with those in need, be generous, be open-handed.

You will have no lack in doing so.

And with your hoarding, you'll realize there was nothing to gain from it.

You didn't really gain anything from it.

So Paul takes this very same principle.

So we see how he's establishing this culture among his people.

He's showing them what their work will be, he's showing them how it will be distributed among the households, he's showing them the portions that they can take.

What they're learning is that they can, with absolute trust, know that all that the Lord provides for them is all that they need.

You can know that.

All that the Lord provides for you is perfectly attuned to your needs.

To your needs.

So you can look out and you can see, you know, other people's houses or other people's cars or other people's jobs or other, you know, whatever it is, whatever metric you're using, other people's time off.

You can you can look at the portion of those things and you can start to grumble and cultivate that natural culture of resentment.

And what you're neglecting there, what you're grumbling is demonstrating there, is you're saying God doesn't know how to give me what I need.

But he does.

This culture that he's establishing for the Israelites who receive manna from heaven, they they could know, they would learn it every day.

God has given to me, given to my household, exactly what we need.

He knows our needs, he's attuned to them, and he perfectly provides for them.

So he establishes their work.

He establishes the the portion, the fruit of their work that they ought to expect from the hand of the Lord.

And he shows them time.

How they're supposed to relate to time, how how it is that the Lord will continue to provide for them over time.

Verses 19 through 20 say, and Moses said to them, Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.

But they did not listen to Moses.

Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank, and Moses was angry with them, probably because of the smell in the camp.

What does this show us about time?

They we are they are being taught to respect and receive as sufficient the labor and portion that they had been given for the day.

And if they start to reach into tomorrow and they start to try and take take from tomorrow, uh say if they if they look into tomorrow and they start to say, you know, I know we got bread enough for today, and I know we were provided enough for today, but maybe if we gather a little more today, because I'm worried about tomorrow, I'm worried there's not going to be provision for tomorrow.

I'm worried it won't, that the Lord, yes, he was faithful today, but tomorrow, who knows?

It's looking pretty rough.

And they start to take, they start to gather into today what's supposed to accomplish tomorrow's labor, or what's supposed to accomplish tomorrow's provision.

Then you know what happens?

They start to stink.

Around them, it just starts to, it's their labor, it turns out it was fruitless.

It was too much.

It was an anxious labor.

It was, uh as it's described in the Psalms, it's like the bread, they're eating the bread of anxious toil.

You know, this is it, this is the trick of our culture.

We have a culture of like trying to teach you more and more to eat the bread of anxious toil, to uh uh to optimize today so that you don't have to worry about tomorrow.

But the reason that you don't have to worry about tomorrow is not because today was so perfectly optimized, or because you were able to gather a greater portion for yourself today than the Lord has allotted to you.

The reason that you don't have to worry about tomorrow is because you know the Lord will perfectly provide according to your needs tomorrow.

It will be given to you tomorrow.

When we learn uh the way that the scripture is teaching them to relate to time, he is he God is teaching his people to have a culture that relates to time, that relates to the future without anxiety.

Imagine.

Imagine a whole culture of people that relate to the future, that relate to tomorrow with no anxiety.

This is a this is exactly the principle that the Lord teaches in the Sermon on the Mount in uh Matthew chapter six and in verse 34, he says, don't worry about tomorrow's troubles.

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Why can he say that?

Because he understands the manna.

He he the Lord is perfectly formed into the the culture of the kingdom of God.

And so he has a perfect understanding that I don't need to worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow I will have all that I need for then.

It will be perfectly provided for me by the Lord.

This is the way that God distributes his grace.

God distributes his grace for the day.

You can know this if it's getting late at night and you're you're trying to wrestle something, one last drop of productivity or something out of the day, or one last victory in an argument with your spouse out of the day.

Have you ever tried anything like that?

And there's uh in while you're while you're there trying to wrestle this out of the day, and you start eating the bread of anxious toil and considering if I don't do this, then what will tomorrow look like?

What will be there for me tomorrow?

You misunderstand the way the Lord distributes his grace.

The grace that had been distributed to you for the day was sufficient for that day's troubles.

You can trust that the Lord will accomplish for you tomorrow all that you will need.

The grace that he will distribute to you for then will be all that you need.

Sometimes this time of year, uh, my wife and I will do that thing where you look at the calendar and you go, ah, you know?

And we'll we'll we'll look at all of these things that are gonna have to happen.

It starts to feel like all of those things are going to happen to me at once.

And it's such a stack that it's like I'm gonna have to figure out how to deal with all of those things.

And the truth is you won't.

Because all of those things will happen to you in this pattern.

They will happen to you uh with one day at a time.

That's the way the future will unfold for you.

It will unfold for you one day at a time.

And all that you require for that day will be perfectly provided for you by the Lord.

This is why in Lamentations 3, 22 through 23, it says, The Lord's loving kindnesses indeed never cease, and his compassion never fails.

They are new every morning.

Great is your faithfulness.

You want to learn the faithfulness of the Lord?

Just look for it for today.

Today, do you have the strength, the energy?

Do you have the provision for all that the Lord requires of you today?

I promise you do.

I promise you do.

And you may be at the end of your rope, and you may think this certainly can't last another day, and it won't.

Because in the morning, his grace will be there for you.

The Lord's loving kindness, it doesn't stop.

His compassion, it never fails.

It's new every morning.

See these principles, this daily provision principle that is given to us in the scriptures, it's being taught in the most tangible way to the Israelites while they're wandering in the wilderness.

They can just see it in the manna.

See how he's forming their culture?

Forming the type of people they are?

What type of, what's the what we know what herders are like, they wander around, we know what farmers are like, they're civilization type of people that grow crops and things.

And it and what are the bread from heaven type of people like?

Oh man, they're it's wild.

They're never worried.

You ask them about tomorrow, and it's like, yeah, tomorrow we'll have troubles.

But I'm not worried about those troubles.

Today's got troubles, and the Lord's given me what I need for these troubles.

I bet tomorrow's gonna be about like that.

That's what the bread from heaven people are like.

That's what we can be like.

We're bread from heaven people.

That's what our culture can be like.

And then finally, as he's taught them about their work and about their portion and about their time, he teaches them about their rest.

And he forms them as a people of rest, sort of like, sort of like the that siesta story, that mythical siesta story.

Exodus 16, 25 through 26, Moses said, Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord.

Today you will not find it in the field.

Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.

So here's what's meant to take place.

On on Friday, on the sixth day, they are meant to go out and gather twice as much.

That's that's um uh two omers per people in the house.

That's four quarts per people in the household that they're meant to go out and gather.

And then there's this incredible miracle that takes place because that night, if they if they save up twice as much for Friday and Saturday, it doesn't, there are no worms in it the next day, it doesn't stink the next day.

The Lord preserves it for them so that they have food for the next day.

And what they're prohibited from doing is going out to try and gather manna on the morning of the Sabbath day.

Instead, what they're meant to do on the Sabbath day is nothing.

They're meant to do no labor for their own provision.

It is a day of pure receiving.

But there is a participation that the Lord called them to on the six days, which was their work and labor, the way they co-labor along with the Lord in his provision for them.

But on the Sabbath day, there's no co-laboring.

It is merely a day of receiving mercy from the hand of the Lord, receiving rest from the hand of the Lord.

This is true of our Sabbath day, of our Lord's Day.

You may be thinking, well, this isn't a Saturday, this is a Sunday, yes, but the in the New Covenant, the Sabbath day moved from the Saturday to the Lord's Day, where we celebrate and remember the resurrection, which brings us into the eternal rest.

And so we remember the Sabbath day by remembering the Lord's day, by gathering together in worship of Him today, and by withholding from all of our labors that are staring us down with a full week to come.

We say, I will lay those down.

I will not seek to take for myself something from tomorrow and gather it for myself today, because it will stink.

It won't be fruitful.

It actually won't work.

How do you know it won't work?

Because we are taught by the manna that not only does the Lord allocate our labors for the days, but he allocates our portion for the day.

He allocates the fruitfulness of the day.

And so when we try and rest something, when we try and when we try and blur the Lord's day, when we try and blur the Sabbath day of this time, we realize we're gathering for ourselves things that we won't be able to have.

They were not meant for us to gather.

And you know what they will do?

They will stink.

It won't work.

You'll be exhausted, you'll burn out, you'll wear down.

Because here is the portion of your labors.

One day at a time, six days of labor is sufficient for seven days.

And so the seventh day is a day of rest.

In that day of rest, what we are being taught and what we are being reminded in our hearts is that all of our provision is given to us by the Lord.

All of our provision is from Him.

All that we need, all that is required of us, is given to us by the Lord.

Now that's true of our material provision.

But it's even more true than just our material provision.

It's true of all that is required of us before the Lord, to stand with him eternally righteous before him.

St.

Augustine is the one that arrived at this principle, and it's it's a glorious principle, which is that all that the Lord requires of you, he freely gives to you.

Consider that.

All that the Lord requires of you, he freely gives to you.

And so how do we know that?

How do we participate in a thing like that?

How do we remember that, or where do we see that?

We do that, we do that by eating the bread from heaven.

We are the people who receive the bread from heaven, and who is, what is the true bread from heaven?

Jesus takes up this image of the manna, this image of the bread from heaven in John 6.

And he teaches this in John 6, verses 48 to 51.

John 6:48–51

He says, I am the bread of life.

Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.

This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven.

If any one eats of this bread, he will live forever.

And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

There's a true bread from heaven.

Now, this story of Christ saying this has a bit of a context.

He wasn't just walking around being like, I'm bread.

What happened was he fed five thousand people from just a couple of loaves and a couple of fishes.

There's a huge crowd, and he feeds them all.

And then Jesus walks across the water, you know, so which is a story unto itself.

And as he walks across the water, there the crowds are looking for him, and they're looking for where his disciples are, and they find him on the other side of the lake.

And so there's this 5,000 people, maybe a little more or a little less, gather around Jesus again, and and they're like, hey, hey, remember the remember the bread day?

Remember when you gave us all that food?

That was we liked that day.

What if we did another one?

Like right now, and Jesus says, You're only, he says, you don't care who I am.

You're not interested in hearing from me.

You're not considering the words that I'm showing.

You don't even get what the bread that I fed you then meant.

Saying, you just gathered around me so that I might give you this free bread.

That's all you're interested in and hearing.

But but what you need to understand is I'm the bread of life.

There's enough of it for any who come to me.

And if you eat this bread of life, who is me, my flesh, if you eat my flesh, it's like, think of it like the it's the most bread you can imagine.

The bread you eat today, it works for a little while, and you get to stay alive from the bread that you eat today.

Because it works.

Bread works for us.

And it keeps you alive.

Now imagine, imagine just the maximal version of bread.

What's like the most bread I could possibly imagine?

If bread has this effect where it makes me live, what's the most bread that I can imagine?

I eat it once and I live forever.

I am the bread that provides all of your needs.

All of your needs.

Well, what are those?

You need to stand righteous before the Lord.

And in your sin and grumbling, you can't.

But God has mercy upon whom he has mercy.

And so in the midst of your grumbling, he is willing to come down from heaven, take on flesh, and give himself to you as the true food, to lay his life down as real atonement for your sin, to give to you his righteousness.

And when you feast on his righteousness, his body, his blood, you are nourished in such a way where you will live forever, because all that the Lord requires of you, he freely gives to you in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the true bread.

He's the bread that came down from heaven.

He is the one who nourishes us, he is the one who causes us to know we don't live by bread alone.

But we are nourished in an eternal way by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

That is our true nourishment, our fellowship with God, the one who gives to us of himself, so that we might be nourished even unto eternal life.

You receive freely.

Now, what type of culture is that?

What type of culture gets formed by a people like that?

Like what's your food culture?

What's your food culture, church?

You're the bread from heaven type of food culture.

I don't, I don't, I'm not disturbed when I look around and I see that the the earth has given way and it low and it no longer provides for me like I counted on it to.

You're the one who says, I look to the heavens.

That's where my help comes from.

And I know that tomorrow I will receive all of my needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus, because he has already paid the greatest sacrifice for me to receive that.

I know the depth of his love towards me because he didn't spare his own son.

So I'm not afraid of tomorrow.

And the grace that he gives me is sufficient for the day.

This is the true bread from heaven.

This is the true culture that we are meant to have.

We're bread from heaven type of people, not herders, not hunters, not farmers, although you may be those sorts of things.

Unlikely.

This is not the place to live if you are.

But you are bread from heaven, people in Jesus Christ.

Let's pray.

Lord God, we praise you for your provision.

Lord, I pray that you would work into our hearts the humility to be able to receive our portion for the day.

Lord, that you would cause our hands to labor diligently and that you would establish the work of our hands so that the labor that you call us into alongside yourself for the provision of our households, the love and care of our families and our communities and our church.

Lord, you would make those fruitful because the fruitfulness comes from you.

Lord, I pray that we would have the humility to receive the lives that you have given to us one day at a time.

That we would not in pride cultivate our anxiety as we look towards tomorrow and seek to draw from today solutions to problems that you reserve to provide for us tomorrow, that we might trust your faithfulness is sufficient for the day.

And Lord, I pray that you would work in our hearts a coming together in rest.

Rest in joy and celebration, the rhythm of weekly that you have established for us, Lord, that we might be a bread from heaven people.

Pray that you would work that into our hearts.

In Jesus' name, Amen.