Trust in the Desert | Exodus 16, 1 Kings 17, Matthew 6:25-34

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Morning, South. Morning. It’s good to see you all this morning. If I get nervous up here, I’ve got this to keep me grounded. This is what Clara made for me in first service, so I’ll be ready to go. Happy Father’s Day for you fathers out there. Hopefully you have a good time today. Hey, if you’re new or new-ish around here, my name’s Aaron Bjorklund.

I’m one of the pastors here. If you’re tuning in online, thank you for joining us there as well. I hope today you’re able to connect even through the medium of a screen just with a fraction of what it means to be part of this church. Yeah, so if you are new, then like we said before, I say it every week, we have this space in the lobby just for you.

It’s a place for you to just find out a little bit more about South and see if this might be a community that you could connect into. Yeah, and today we’re continuing in our series called The Space Between. It’s a series where we’re exploring wilderness experiences or seasons of waiting. Most of the time when we’re in a season of waiting, it feels like a season of wilderness, and we’re gonna continue that today.

But before we do that, and I know we just prayed, but for my sake, just to feel grounded and ready to hear God’s word, I just wanna pray one more time.

Maybe take a deep breath and just allow yourself to be fully arrived here in this room, wherever your mind is wandering right now

Spirit of the living God, we come here in this room that was designed for people to gather before your Word and to learn your way

All the lights, the stage, the sound system, it’s all meant to help us as your church learn your way

But none of that’s means anything unless you speak And so now, even in this moment, I ask that you would speak, that your voice would speak loudly to your people So for those of us who are dull of hearing or weak of eyes, we would see and we would hear your heart for your people today. Help us. We need you today.

Amen and amen They had just experienced one of the most vibrant, life-giving worship gatherings you could possibly imagine. I don’t know if you’ve ever had one of those moments, maybe when you first met Jesus or you’re just swept up into the worship and it just is overwhelming and good. I’m telling you, this worship gathering was better than that.

Because the presence of God was actually looming among them, and they were looking back and they were reflecting on the reality that God had rescued them. They had, they’d been pinned against danger And God had showed up. They just walked into a dark tunnel with Pharaoh the most powerful man in his day behind them, and then God had invited them to walk into this dark tunnel, and they found with each step, the ground was dry They walked all night.

Unbelievable. They couldn’t fathom the deliverance of God, and then as the dawn r- broke and the sun started to rise, they t- turned around to see that their enemy, the one who was trying to viciously steal them back into slavery and destroy them, had been taken out They were so overwhelmed with gratitude, and they were a nobody people.

They weren’t a nation. They were just a bunch of ragtag slaves. They meant nothing to the world, and yet the God Almighty had showed up for them. They were so overwhelmed by it that they just couldn’t help. The singing started to happen. Deep from within, they just sang, and they worshiped him, and they worshiped him, and they worshiped this good God for his mercy, and his kindness, and his love, and his deliverance for little old them.

They probably, I’m … They probably would’ve worshiped all night. They probably would’ve worshiped forever because it was so overwhelming. And let me tell you, it wasn’t just their gratitude, but the music was so good. The band was good. That tambourine player, oh my goodness. Everyone was talking about that tambourine player.

Seriously good time of worship. But eventually their voices gave out, and they turned their eyes with hope in their hearts, and freedom for the first time in 400 years as a prospect of their future, and they started to walk towards the Promised Land. And day one and day two, I’m sure there was just conversation along the road.

They’re talking about God’s faithfulness and how God had redeemed them, and how God had protected them, and how God had pulled them out of slavery. And then day three, yeah, they were getting thirsty and they were starting to feel that thirst. But what … The straw that broke the camel’s back was the fact that they came to a spring of water, but it d- turned out it wasn’t a spring.

The water was

horrible. It was bitter water. It was dangerous. They couldn’t drink it, and it’s one thing to be thirsty, but it’s another thing to have the hope of being able to quench that thirst and then find out that you can’t drink the water, and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. 72 hours after this worship gathering, the people grumbled.

They’d forgotten already how good their God was doing tricks with water they just walked through water. And now they turned and they did what they knew how to do. They complained to Aaron and to Moses. They didn’t have the audacity to complain to God because they had already forgotten that their God worked in tangible ways in this world.

He’d shown up as a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud. He had shown up by moving physical water. But when their thirst came in, they fell back on their base instincts. They saw Moses, and they saw Aaron, and they knew how to verbalize their frustration, and so they grumbled against Moses and Aaron.

Moses turned to God and he said, “God, they’re crying out to me.” And then you know what? God was merciful This young fledgling nascent nation, He looked on their situation and He was kind, and He said, “Moses, why don’t you take this particular log or branch and throw it in the water?” And the water miraculously became fresh, and they drank their fill.

And not only that, they, God showed them and guided them to a place where there were fresh springs of water and trees, and they camped there, and they had their fill, and they reflected on the faithfulness of God, and it was a sweet kindness and mercy from their Father. That brings us to Exodus chapter 16, where it says this: “The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin.”

S- Sin the location, not sin the bad thing you do, “which is between Elim and Sinai, and on the 15th day of the second month.” This is a month after all of this happened, after they’d come out of Egypt in the desert. The whole community, what did they do? They grumbled against Moses and Aaron again, and this time it wasn’t thirst, it was hunger when things go poorly for them, they just, they couldn’t help it.

They looked back on their previous situation, it looked so much better. When you’re hungry, you look back on the morsels that Pharaoh provided, and you think of pots of meat and feasts. They’d been under the oppression of Pharaoh for 400 years. He had killed their firstborn children, and they wanted back Because they were hungry, they’d already forgotten

So they grumble against Moses and Aaron. Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down.” He’s merciful again. He says in verse four of 16, “The Lord said, ‘I will rain down…'” It’s a picture of torrents of rain. “‘I will rain down bread from heaven, and the people will go out each day and they will gather it, and he will rain down provision of meat.'”

On the sixth day, they are there to prepare what they bring in

But on the se- sixth day they’ll bring in twice as much as they gather on the other days. So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know,” verse six, “that the Lord is the God who brought you out of Egypt. And in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him.

Not against me, Moses, or me, Aaron, but your grumbling is against him.” “Who are we that you should grumble against us?” Moses said, “You will know that it was the Lord when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he had already heard your grumbling against him.”

Now, they should have known better, and here’s why. They shoulda, coulda, woulda known better because back when they had the water experience, when they were thirsty, God had given them some instructions that they’d forgotten. If you go back to chapter 15 verse 26, it says this. God said he saw a pattern in his people already, and he said, “Okay, I get that you’re going into the wilderness, and you’re going into a land that feels desolate, and you’re gonna have needs.

Just here’s how you are going to be as my people. If you’re gonna be my people, here’s the rules. If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to my commandments and my instructions, I will not bring you into any of the diseases I brought on Egypt, for I am the Lord your God, and I will heal you.”

So he said, “Just so you know, when you run into things, when you run into lack, just follow my s- instructions, and I’ll take care of you.” And then immediately following that, they become hungry, and they grumble again. And he says, “Okay, I think they need a test. This wilderness is gonna be a testing opportunity for them to learn that my way is a way that doesn’t make sense to them, but my way is a better way.”

The people of Israel, as they came out of Egypt, God could sense this pattern. It was a pattern that he saw in humanity from the very beginning when they fell. It’s a pattern where humanity sees provision that they have to take for themselves. It’s a pattern when there’s bad things that happen, they- they start to try and fight for it with their leaders.

They- they try and work harder. They try and do whatever it takes to take care of them and their own, and God needed them. He really needed them. In order to set up the kind of world that he wanted for humanity, he needed them to learn a lesson that’s not where resources come from. Resources actually come from, every time, God.

So he set up this training program for them here in the desert

So verse nine, “Then Moses told Aaron, ‘Say to the entire Israelite community, “Come before the Lord, for He has heard your grumbling.”‘” While Aaron was speaking while Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they took… looked towards the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord. He’s right there among them as a cloud. They see Him there as a representation in this cloud, and the Lord said to Moses, “I’ve heard your grumbling of the Israelites.

Tell them at twilight they will eat meat, and in the morning they will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.” And He set up a training program, and here it is. Every morning, there would be this dew that would evaporate, and there’d be flakes of thing, this substance on the ground that they later called manna, which means what in the world is this stuff?

But they would be able to gather, and here’s the regulations around this. And it’s regulations not because God is stingy, it’s because this was a training program. He said, “I want you to pick up as much as you need for your family t- that day. Go out.” And for those who had big families, they gathered a lot, and for those who had small families, they gathered a little, and it was just enough for that day alone.

And if they were to save any of it, it would rot by the next day Sure enough, some of them obeyed and some of them tried to, do the rational thing, the thing the world says you should do, which is to store it up and to make provision for as, gather as much as I can for my family just in case it doesn’t come tomorrow, and then it would show up with maggots the next day So they did this for six days, but then the twist of this training program is on day six, he wants us to gather twice as much, and then it’s not gonna spoil on the seventh?

So every other day it’s gonna spoil, but this time it’s not gonna spoil. The lesson is clear. They’re supposed to learn to follow the instructions of his way because he has a way of operating in this world that may not make sense to our broken minds and our broken souls, but it makes sense in the economy of the kingdom of, and the King of Kings, the creator of the universe, who sustains all resources by the word of his power.

It makes sense to him, and it makes us trust. Reminds me of a story where Jesus is out. He meets a woman by the well, and then his disciples come back and they wanna feed him, and he says this. He said to them, “You know what? I have food that you know nothing about.” Yes The world says that if you don’t see the resource, it doesn’t exist.

If you can’t conjure the resource, it’s not useful to you. If you can’t work hard enough, if you can’t sustain it, if you can’t make it happen for yourself, then it doesn’t exist. Jesus says, “My economy,” from His disciples th- hundreds of years later, is that I- we will be a people that start to learn that there is food that you can’t possibly fathom as a resource.

I have food that you know nothing about. Story in Exodus continues. So some of them obey, and they find out miraculously the pattern worked. Enough for this day, enough for this day, enough for this day, enough for this day. Twice as much so that they had enough to not collect at all on the seventh day.

Amazing, amazing provision. But some didn’t. They were hard-hearted, and they still tested God. So they’d come out on the seventh day, and they couldn’t find anything. Lo and behold, God’s way may not make sense to our broken world, may not s- be- make sense to our broken minds, but it’s a testing program, ’cause He’s trying to teach them something He’s trying to teach them that when you operate as the people of God in an economy that doesn’t make sense to the world…

I get it, it’s counterintuitive. It doesn’t make sense to his world, i- inside this world. There are resources that you cannot possibly imagine. There are resources for your soul. There are resources for them, and this was the training program. In the wilderness, you discover there’s food you know not of, and it’s the only thing that frees you to stop grasping.

This is the beauty of freedom in the economy of God’s kingdom. In God’s economy, you don’t have to grasp. Why? Because there’s enough for today. There’s enough for tomorrow. Now, okay, why is that in- so important for God’s people to learn? Why d- why does He want us to be so dependent on Him? Because if He is going to create a people of God, which is what He want- wanted to do with Israel, is He wanted them to be a kingdom of priests, a kingdom in which there was a…

They were able to provide for the nations. The only way you get to the place where you hold your resources with an open hand and provide for the needy and not fear tomorrow, that you have to hoard it all for yourself. The only way you can break the clutches of fear and danger and self-protection, the only way you can break the inclination to try and be more powerful than your neighbor so that you can get resources, hoard resources for me, for mine, for me, for mine.

All of the source of destruction in the entire world that we know comes from a fear of lack, a fear that there won’t be enough. And He says, “Not my people, because I will teach them. In wilderness experiences, I will teach them that there are resources that they know not of, so that they can give, and they can let it go, and they can trust, and they can be free, and they can be free, and they can be free.”

Amen. This is the training program of the wilderness. When you have nothing else to turn to, you find that God was pr- was the provision all along. This is part of the reason why the wilderness exists. In the wilderness, you discover there’s a food you know not of because He shows up. And it may not be in the way you always want Him to, but He is good, and He is faithful.

The only thing that frees you to stop grasping is this kind of wilderness experience. The wilderness teaches you to trust

And when you learn to trust And when they learned to trust, those small pockets of moments in Israel’s history when they actually did trust, they were so counter-cultural to their world. The nations looked upon Israel and said, “Their God is great. Their God is faithful. Their God makes no sense to us.” And the nations were drawn to them.

And when they failed to trust, they were just like every other nation, striving, fighting, trying to make it on their own, alone in the world. So your wilderness, my wilderness, is a training program for you to learn to trust the one who creates life So that you can give life away without any fear

The story goes on. The people of Israel called the bread manna, meaning, “What in the world is this stuff?” It was like coriander seed, and it tasted like wafers made with honey. It was good. Moses said, “This is what the Lord commands. Take an omer of manna and keep it for the generations to come so that they can see the bread I gave you in the wilderness when I brought you out of Egypt.”

So Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar and put an omer of manna in it. Then place it before the Lord to be kept for the generations to come.” I want you to take some of this what is it bread, and I want you to put it in a jar so that you can show it to the next generation that God is faithful in the wilderness.

I want you to be able to tell stories about His faithfulness. I want you to point to this provision that He made in this wilderness experience so that it has the energy to sustain you in the next wilderness experience. As the Lord commanded Moses, Aaron put the manna with the tablets of the covenant of law so that it might be pre- preserved.

The Israelites ate manna for 40 years they h- had this provision until they came to the land, which was also a prov- provision that was settled. They ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan. And in case you were wondering, an omer is a 10th of an ephah

That clears it up for me. I was wondering. No idea what that means. So One of the things they did, and one of the things I wanna move to is I’m gonna invite the team up, and we’re gonna just have a time where there’s just a little bit of music behind us, and I feel like maybe, just maybe, there’s a few of you who’ve b- who’ve seen the faithfulness of God in the wilderness, and you have a jar of manna that you need to share about today.

So I- I’m gonna trust God with an open mic, and I’m gonna invite some of you to just come and share. We’re just gonna take a few minutes. And here’s a few… This is how we’re gonna do this. I’m gonna have this microphone and I’m gonna stand down here right up here close to the stage, and I’m gonna ask you to come up and just share.

I want them to be brief so we have the opportunity to hear from several of us. And what I’m asking is for you to share the story, maybe fill in this blank: God was faithful to me in my season of wilderness when He… Fill in the blank. And maybe share for one or two minutes. I’m gonna stand up here ’cause first of all, there’s a little light.

Second of all, as a sound engineer, you don’t bring the microphone in front of the PA. It just squeals. So I’m gonna ask you to come up, but here’s a couple other things. There are some of the, us who are wired to want… There’s a microphone on the stage, and you might run up and wanna share something.

There’s always something to share, and that’s fine, and maybe that, God’s inviting you to do that. But there’s some of you maybe out there who are less inclined to share these kind of things And maybe He’s given you a story of manna, that He’s inviting you now, nudging your soul right now, that this church, just like Moses was asked to show this manna to the next generation, there’s someone in this room that’s in the middle of wilderness and they need your story.

They need you to pull out your little deposit of manna and say, “He was faithful. It may not have looked the way I wanted it to look, but He was faithful. Here’s my story.” So there’s the parameters. May God speak in and through you as you share some stories, and I’m just gonna open it up now. Gotcha. Feel free

About five years ago, I became really sick with my liver and I didn’t know it. There’s not really many symptoms behind it but I became very sick and ill and to make a long story short I ended up going to the doctor and they put me on the transplant list. Six months later I had w- an episode they call hepatic encephalopathy, where I was having seizure-type activity and I lost my job because I didn’t have long-term disability.

So I had to f- file and go through, Medicare and it’s, That’s an ordeal, big time. And during that time I, I was wondering, “God, where are you?” I’m, I have three sons. I have, what… I don’t have a job. What do I do? And I actually called the pastor of the church I was attending in Texas and I was speaking to him and I was feeling lost and he told me this story about the, them wandering in the wilderness and them depending every day for manna and that’s what…

He said, “That’s what you have to do.” He goes, “Do you have food today?” I said, “Yeah.” And he goes, “Do you have a roof over your head?” I said, “Yes.” And he said, “That’s all you need for today.” He goes, “Tomorrow will take care of itself.” And six months later, after this episode, I did end up having… Got the call that they had a liver for me and I ended up having a liver transplant.

But the irony of it, and I tell this to anybody that wants to listen, I feel that God sa- Jesus saved my life twice, once on the cross, and again by providing me with a donor that saved my life. Yeah. Thank you. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. God called me out of the hippie movement, and I was already Christian and

He gave me evangelism and ministry of feeding his lambs, feeding his sheep, and feeding his sheep. And I thought I would be single the rest of my life, like Apostle Paul, and I felt, I was called to do that. And then

I brought, leading into my life And it was His provision. We were 42 when we got married, and we had our daughter when Kathleen was 44. Yeah. Now we have a grandson. He’s about six months old. Wow. God has provided a fa- us a family, and, Amen … our daughter having a family, so this is His provision- He’s a man now

that for us. And if Kathleen, that’s awesome. She’s amazing, yeah.

God is so good

Your soul

God, you’re so

If you’ve seen us before, you’ve heard us talk about my mom’s story. If you don’t know these two strangers next to me, this is my brother Joshua, this is my dad, Jonathan. And I just felt called to come up and just share throughout my mom’s 11 years of cancer. She fought cancer for 11 years. She had different seasons of revelation as God just revealed different aspects to her in just the vast and very extensive wilderness period that she experienced.

And one of the more recent ones is, we actually have a picture on our wall of p- Jesus standing on the water with Peter. And she went through this season where she was just really focused on that message. And in her life, she– I always saw it as two factors. She either had the medication that Kaiser would provide or the mainstream, and then on the other side, she had the healthy, crunchy, if we’re being honest stuff that she did that really just kept her super healthy, the diets and all that.

And she told us, she told me that she recognized that she had– She was stepping out. She was Peter stepping out of the boat, and on one side, she had these mainstream medications. On the other side, she had the healthy stuff, the diets. And she realized that even if she was focusing on what she thought was healthy, what she thought was more of God, she was still losing sight of God, and she was still not focusing on Him.

I think it’s just a really beautiful reminder, especially after her passing, that no matter what we walk through, if we lose sight of the main thing, like Jesus’ death and resurrection for us, our hope of salvation and our promise of eternity, even if we’re doing the right thing, the godly thing, but we lose sight of that, it’s just really easy to lose sight in the wilderness.

So even if you don’t see the progress, even if you don’t see the hope, there are many seasons where we didn’t see the hope where the diets weren’t working, where it just got worse and worse. God healed her several times, but God chose to take her home, and you could think He failed, but really He didn’t, because the true miracle, the only miracle that truly matters, was done two thousand years ago, and it secured our- Amen

our place in eternity with Him. So I just wanna encourage you, no matter what you walk through nothing matters here on this earth, here on this life, because He has already done it for you. He loves you enough that no matter what you do, no matter what heart posture you have through it, you still have a place in eternity next to Him at His table, which is where my mom is now.

So it’s just a beautiful- Yeah … beautiful reminder.

And I would just add that for this current season, especially today, I’m thinking of God showing up every day and providing what we need, and it is a day-by-day, step-by-step process. And with what is provided for us, with what is with what Jesus provides for us that we’re taken care of day by day. And, Amen

I think of those who stored food away. I think of those who put their faith in not Jesus. And I’m certainly guilty of that. But it’s such a good reminder that we are provided for, and to focus on that and not look in other places. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you.

My wilderness began about 27 years ago when my wife of 29 years abandoned the marriage

It shook me deeply

And for seven years I was in that wilderness Until the Lord introduced me to Nancy, my precious wife

The Lord was with me in the wilderness

I’m a more humble person now. I’m proud of how humble I am.

I’m a wiser person now. I know my Heavenly Father better Yeah And the last 20 years, he’s just poured out the blessings Amen. I’m grateful. Amen. Amen

God, you’re so good

God, you’re so good God, you’re so good. You’re so good to me. Maybe one more, one more testimony of His faithfulness in the wilderness

It’s funny you say that. I was praying, “Should I get up here and talk?” And I said, “If Aaron says one more…” You’re welcome. So here I am. I’m Kevin Rail. My wife passed away from ALS about 15 months ago now. That was a big wilderness, the start. You saw Jacob up here earlier. As she got diagnosed, I was actually going up with my son, and she had friends staying with her, ’cause her health was bad before we knew why it was bad.

So I went ahead and went that night, and I had missed church because I was gone, and Jacob was up here singing “I’ll praise you on the mountain, I’ll praise you in the valley.” I was in the deepest valley of my life, literally on a mountain- Huh … as Jacob… And Jacob was used through that. Every time he sang, the message was for me.

But to keep it short, ’cause I could go on for a long time, but my wife, as she was diagnosed with ALS, really was not a true believer in Christ. We’ve got the saying on the wall, “In the way of Jesus with the heart of Jesus.” She was trying to live in the way of Jesus, ’cause she knew what people expected, but she truly didn’t believe.

She didn’t have the heart of Jesus. And as she got weaker and could do less and less, people, many of the people in this church… I can’t look that way. We love you. They came alongside of us, and as she could do less and less each day, they showed her that they loved her for who she was. They loved her because she was a creation of God, not because of what she could do.

And through that love, they showed the love of Christ, and she became a true believer. And in her last months of life, through the hardest times, we also had the most joyful times- Yeah … because she truly knew the love of Christ. She truly knew she was enough. Amen. So that was the manna in the wilderness- Amen

was her salvation, her knowing that she was enough and that God loved her. Amen. Amen.

Actually, would you stand? I’ve asked the team to lead this song, and I… Maybe you’ll see some of the crossover with some of these lyrics. The chorus talks about making us a vessel, and it- my hope, my prayer for South is that we would let the wilderness seasons turn us into a vessel that stores the story of His faithfulness.

A vessel like these jars that would store the manna of His trustworthiness and of His faithfulness. So let’s sing this song together. In the crushing, in the pressing, you are making new

In the soil I now surrender. You are breaking new ground. So I yield to you and to your careful

When I trust you, I don’t need to

So Make me an offering

In the crushing, in the pressing, you are making new wine

In the soil I now

So Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar and put an omer of manna the substance that reminds you of my trustworthiness, and put it in it then place it before the Lord to be kept for who? For the generations.”

for all of the nations

So that my people would be a people that know that I have resources that I’ve longed to lavish upon you. In fact, I did lavish upon you in the garden, and you chose a different way. But I have resources, and I want to give them to you Resources of my presence, resources of sustenance, resources of a kind word, of a hug appropriately timed.

Whatever those resources might be that you need. But also, my prayer for South is that we be a church that says, “If we’re gonna suffer, if we’re gonna be in the wilderness, make us a vessel. A vessel into which the manna of the kindness and the goodness of God can be placed.” Church, can we do that? Figure that out?

Try and remember in the midst of our moments of hunger and thirst? Let me pray for you. Father, I pray for this church, where we’re so forgetful, and You’re so kind. You’re so faithful to come back and sometimes just give us water when we complain, sometimes train us. Y- You know exactly what’s right. But my pray, my prayer for this church, and for everyone in this room, is that they would be able to learn and remember that You are a faithful God, and that You will provide even when we see no way at all.

Bless them, I pray, with this truth so that we might be a people that can pour out our freedom to the rest of the world. In Your beautiful and Your matchless name I pray, amen and amen. We love you, South. If you need prayer, feel free to come up. There’s people up here to pray. If you just need to anchor some of this moment for yourself this morning, feel free to come up and get prayer.