Good evening. How is everybody?
You guys doing all right? All right. I'm going to read
from Exodus 16. I want to talk to you about the
wilderness tonight. Some of you may know what the
wilderness is like. Maybe we can learn something through it.
All right. Exodus chapter 16. I'm going
to begin reading at verse 2. I'm going to jump down to like
27 for a minute, and then I'll pray, and then we'll do this. All right. All right, Exodus
chapter 16, verse two says this, it says, 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 rain bread from heaven for you, and the
people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that
I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not. And
on the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be
twice as much as they gather daily. Let me jump to verse 27.
It says, On the seventh day, some of the people went out to
gather, but they found none. And the Lord said to Moses, how
long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?
See, the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore, on the sixth
day, he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his
place. Let no one go out of his place
on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh
day. Now the house of Israel called
its name manna. It was like coriander seed, white,
and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. And Moses
said, This is what the Lord has commanded. Let an omer of it
be kept throughout your generation so that they may see the bread
with which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the
land of Egypt. And Moses said to Aaron, Take
a jar and put an omer of manna in it and place it before the
Lord to be kept throughout your generations. As the Lord commanded
Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept. And
the people of Israel ate the manna 40 years till they came
to a habitable land. And they ate the manna till they
came to the border of the land of Canaan. All right, let's pray. Father God, thank you for your
grace. Father, thank you for the opportunity
to come before you this evening and hear from you. It's you,
God, that we want to hear from. It's your words that we need
and it's your words that we ask that you plant inside of our
hearts and write them on our hearts that we might not sin
against you, but glorify you and praise you and honor you
and respect you with our lives and all that we say and all that
we do. Father, we know that it's by
grace that we're even here tonight. And so we just thank you for
that. And we thank you for this opportunity. And we thank you
for one another. And Father, we just ask that
you would open our ears and our hearts to hear from you and speak
to us and form us and shape us into the image of Jesus. In Christ's
name I pray. Amen. So, if you're anything
like me, you stress a lot, because life brings you stressful situations,
right? And it just seems to me, and
I think that probably you can relate to this, that you get
into a stressful situation and you really question whether or
not God is going to be there, whether God is going to show
up, like how is this all going to work out? You may have some
anxiety about it, some stress about it, so on and so forth.
And then like God shows up in these amazing ways and he does
things in our lives that that we're like, dang, man, like,
I can't believe that I even question God. Why do I stress out the
way that I do? He has shown up in all these
different ways in my life, and I should know by now That He's
here with me, that He's for me, and that I can trust Him in this
moment. And in that moment, we think
to ourselves, man, I know this now. Only to find ourselves in
another stressful situation and completely questioning whether
or not God is there and whether or not He's ever going to show
up. And it's almost like this repetitive process. And I'm going
to sort of teach us tonight, I think the Scripture teaches
us that it actually is a process. that there's this sense in the
scripture that we could say, I'm saved, like I am forgiven.
I've been born again. God has saved me from wrath. I am confident that I will be
in heaven with him. There's a sense that I'm saved.
It's like past tense. And then there's this sense in
the scripture that teaches like I'm going to be saved. Like,
someday I will be saved up out of this place, and I will be
with God forever. There will be no more tears,
no more hurt, no more pain, no more sin, no more nothing. And
I will be, someday I will be saved, right? And that's kind
of future that it talks about, save. But then the scripture
also teaches about being saved, that we're actually in the process
of like working out our salvation. Right? Like the Apostle Paul
says, like, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Meaning,
like, that God has saved you. Now, learn what that means for
your life and how the gospel, the good news that Jesus has
died for you, how that begins to work out throughout your life
in this process. Right? So, in the book of Exodus,
this passage I read for you, for those of you who don't know,
the people of Israel, they were in slavery in Egypt. Okay? And there's a sense... So Moses
is sent in there to free the people of Israel out of Egypt,
out of slavery. They've been in bondage and slavery
for 400 years. And so there's a sense that they
are saved. They have been saved out of slavery.
And there's also this sense that they're going to be saved because
they're on their way to the promised land. They're on this journey
to the promised land. But then throughout this whole
journey, they're in the wilderness. And the book of Exodus, it's
a historical account, but it's also a picture of our lives.
That as we're here and we believe that Jesus has saved us, that
we're also in the midst of this process through the wilderness. Another way to say this, you
might say that, hey, you can take a man out of prison in a
minute. But it can take a whole long
time to get the prison out of him. Right? It's a process. You know, you got a 1201 release. You can be released in a minute.
But it can be a whole lifetime of a process of working out that
you are free. You don't have to live in the
slavery that got you into jail. You don't have to live like that
anymore. You can be free. The cuffs are off you. You are
out of the cell. Right? But that becomes a process. And it's through the wilderness. This is what we've got to grab
on to. It's through the wilderness that God forms us into people
who trust Him. It is through the wilderness.
where we are formed into people who trust God and depend on God. So, the wilderness, right? What
is the wilderness that they're in? What is the wilderness to
us? It's a process, first of all. Just think of it. The wilderness
that we find ourselves in, that they found themselves in, was
intentional, actually. It was a process. But the wilderness
is a place that's desolate. There's no life. There's no sustainability. There's no way, essentially,
for something to really thrive and live and be full of life. It's a really, really difficult
place because of that. There's no food. There's no water. And what's interesting in this
wilderness that they're walking through and they're living in,
this journey that the people of Israel are going through,
is that God led them there. God actually brought them into
the wilderness. And there was a reason behind
it. In fact, we know that they were
there for 40 years. Now watch. They were there for
40 years, but they didn't need to be there for 40 years. They're
actually walking around in circles for 40 years because they didn't
trust God. Because they still, even though
they were saved out of slavery, they still had a spirit of slavery.
they still had a spirit of bondage inside of them. Their attitudes
were still in bondage and in slavery. So watch, like in verse
3, it says, and the people of Israel said to them, right, he's
saying to Moses, now this guy, I think, right, we, a lot of
us know this story to some degree, right? Like Moses, they, these
people have been in bondage. They've been in slavery, like
we could go, I know like several months ago, or a few months ago,
I talked about what that slavery was actually like in the book
of Exodus. And it was horrible. They were beaten and killed. You know, their firstborn sons
were murdered off at one point, and yet they're saved out of
that. They're in the wilderness. They're
in a really difficult situation now, because now they're figuring
out how to live in the wilderness. And it isn't long before they
say to Moses, and the people of Israel said to them, would
that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt.
It would have been better to die in the dope house. than have
to go through all of what I'm going through. I mean, like,
what? Did you forget how bad it was? Did you forget how difficult
it was? And now we're thinking that this
is difficult, right? I mean, but that's what we do,
right? We so easily forget. They said,
we wish we would have died in the land, you know, where we
sat by the meat pots and we had bread to the full. At least we
got food there. You know, but it's like, yeah,
but you were a slave for the food Think about it for a minute
like right so they're beginning to think back on this already
so that quickly they begin to manifest The reality that man
it's not just that you've been in slavery that you just needed
to be freed from these circumstances That you were in there's something
inside of you. That's a problem. There's a there's a you still
have this slave spirit And that's actually why they didn't go straight
into the promised land, right? So what? So talking about the
wilderness, Moses says this in Deuteronomy, this is a different
book, he says, and you should remember the whole way that the
Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness, that
he might humble you, testing you to know what is in your heart,
whether you would keep his commandments or not. And so God has saved
them out of Egypt, and now he's bringing them through the wilderness.
He's the one who led them into this really difficult situation
to begin for them to see what is really the bondage that's
in their heart. So the reason why they're in
the wilderness wasn't for like, oh, this is the quickest way
to the promised land. The way through the wilderness actually
had more to do with education, training. learning to trust God,
learning to depend on God, learning that He is above us, we are below
Him, and that He is for us, He's not against us, and that through
the wilderness, I can be shaped into that type of person, right?
So, it's very easy, I like to say, that it's really easy for
us to sit on the couch and talk about how we could run a marathon,
right? Like, we sit on the couch, like,
I could totally do that. Like, I could totally run that marathon.
But you really can't tell if you can run a marathon until
you get up off the couch and you start to actually run and
see how far that you can actually go. It's another thing to go,
oh, I'm a Christian. I love God. Right? It's easy to say that, like we
say, on the mountaintop. But it's really in the valley
where we find out who we trust, right? Like, you've heard me
say before, man, it's easy, and this is me, I'm just talking
about me, alright? On Sunday, to worship God. And I mean it when I say it.
I'm praising God, I'm listening to His Word, I'm committing my
life to Him, so on and so forth. But my Christianity really begins
to manifest itself not on Sunday during service, but on Monday
when I get up. And I begin to look at the bank
account. And I begin to, you know, listen to my kids that
aren't listening to me. Right? Or try to get them to
do what I want. And try to have a fruitful marriage. And try
to have fruitful relationships in my life. And all these ways
that what I talked about on Sunday begins to work out in my life.
and whether or not I'm going to be captive to fear, and the
world, and everything that comes with that, and the stress of
life, or am I really going to, in those moments through the
week, through life, trust God, right? Well, it's in the wilderness
that we truly learn to do that, right? We say, well, how does
a person, how does somebody really become a joyful person? I mean,
if you think about that for a minute. Right? We all know people, maybe
we've been some of these people, but many of us know people who
have just been sort of given things their whole life. And
the reality is, somebody who always gets what they want is
often a person who is very shallow. They don't have a deep character. They don't have depth to them.
They don't have lasting relationships, because things stay superficial,
and it stays about them, right? It's really in not getting what
we want a lot of times, where we learn to not only depend on
God, but where we actually really begin to find joy in things other
than things, right? We begin to find joy. We actually
begin to appreciate things in a way that brings joy. Right? So, we talk about kids being
spoiled. They're spoiled. Well, what does
that mean? Right? I mean, it means that they just
are given whatever they want all the time and their attitude
is not really one of joy. It's one of self-centeredness.
It's really in these times of dry, difficult times where we
understand how things could be. Right? How things maybe even
should be, how they would be, but God. But God, who is rich
in mercy, that, man, I really want things to be this way, but
I know how they could be. And they're not and so what I
have I am content with and I am satisfied because you know what?
I know that it's a blessing of what I have a lot of us in this
room can say to ourselves Hey, i'm not where I want to be, but
I know i'm not where I used to be And because of that because
I know that I can I actually have joy in this moment even
though I don't maybe have, like the circumstances aren't the
best they could possibly be. You become a person that literally
the word joy actually comes from the Greek word grace. You know
that? That joy, actually joy comes
from unmerited favor. It comes from grace. Knowing
I don't deserve this. Actually, I know what I do deserve.
but yet that's not where I am. I'm somewhere beyond where I
could be by myself. And so becoming a strong, deep
person, being the person that God calls us to be, and being
the person that Jesus calls us to follow him in being is something
that happens in the wilderness. It's a process, right? In fact, we know for certain,
right? If God just gave us everything that we wanted, That would be
really bad news, right? I like to say, hey, if God ever
comes to you, if he ever comes to me and he says, hey, tomorrow
you get everything you want. And when you get up, no matter
what you pray for, no matter what you want, I'm going to give
to you. I always say the best thing that I can do tomorrow,
if that is true, is just stay in bed. Because my life has been
a perfect example of somebody who does not know what I need.
Right? Like, a lot of times I get what
I need, or I want, what I think I need, and it's the very thing
that has destroyed my life. Right? And so, it's through the
wilderness that we begin to trust God. Why? Because it's in the
wilderness that we are forced into believing that God provides. Relying on Him. That He can provide. And I don't know what that wilderness
might be like for you today. Maybe you're in here tonight
and you're saying to yourself, Man, I'm in the wilderness. Meaning
I'm in this really difficult situation. I don't know how I'm
gonna do this. Some of you may be at Grace Centers of Hope and
you're saying to yourself, I have no clue how I could possibly
make it through six more months in this program. I have no idea
how I can work at this store. I don't know, fill in the blank.
I don't know how, even in going through this program, how my
relationships could ever possibly be restored. What am I going
to do about my relationship with my kids? What am I going to do
about my relationship with my parents? What am I going to do
about a job? I don't have a job. Or maybe some of you are just
in really, really difficult situations, whether it's relationships or
finances or so on and so forth, and God is allowing you to be
there. And that doesn't mean that He's
not for you, but He's actually leading us to a place of somebody
who is going to believe that God will provide, not everything
that I want, but everything that I need. Everything that I need
to glorify Him and live for Him, and He's gonna do that, just
like we see here. Verse four, it says, Then the
Lord said to Moses, Behold, So there in the wilderness, I am
about to rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall
go out and gather a day's portion every day that I may test them,
whether they will walk in my law or not. The sixth day when
they prepared they will bring it in twice as much as they gathered
it So I think we see something really ironic happening here
now like the people of Israel, right? They've been saved out
of Egypt as I mentioned to you now Egypt was like super plush
Nile River think of that, right? So we're talking tons of fruit
tons of food tons of lush plush Living like every which way you
can think about it Egypt had it, right? There's Yet, everything
is there that you think you would need to sustain life and to be
super successful. In the desert, there's nothing,
right? There's just difficulty, no water,
no food, no way to sustain life. There's no food in the desert. But yet, God has been the one
to lead them in there. And one of the things that I
think that teaches us is this. is that your circumstances could
be absolutely amazing. You know, got the car, got the
man, got the job, got everything. Everything that makes your situation
plush, that you can think of. Yet, if God isn't there, there's
no sense in being there. Because if he's not there, it's
ultimately going to lead to death and not life. And at the same
time, you could be in a situation that everything, you know, considering
this is like, this is terrible. I've got no man. I've got no
woman. I've got no car. I've got no
job. I've got nothing. The circumstances
seem terrible, but if God's there, then you've got everything you
need. Because if God is there, then you know that through that
passage in the wilderness, you have something bigger than you
looking out for you, protecting you, and providing for you to
bring you into a place that's greater than you could possibly
have been in Egypt, where you think you have everything, but
yet if he's not there, it leads to nothing. Now, how many times
have we figured that out in life? And maybe that's right where
we are. And you're sort of questioning, man, if God was here and if he
was for me, this certainly wouldn't be happening. When in reality,
God is like, no, I've led you out of what you thought was going
to be a plush life. I'm leading you into something
bigger and greater but in this process you're gonna learn something
you're gonna learn to depend on me You're gonna learn that
that really I when all you have is God you realize he's all you
need And that's where a healthy foundation actually begins to
be built now so we can all say Now, it's not as simple as saying,
OK, I'm in the wilderness. So therefore, God must be turning
me into some incredibly grateful, amazing person. Right? Because
just because you're in the wilderness doesn't mean that that process
is going to make you into a fruitful person. In fact, we know a lot
of people, maybe us, who have been through the wilderness for
a long time. And we're still ungrateful and prideful. and have poor attitudes. And
actually, we get angry at God, right? So, it's not just as simple
as, hey, going through the wilderness and just living there and being
there is going to be the process that it takes to actually build
you into the person that God has created you to be. You can
go one or the other, right? You could actually turn into
a person with a worse attitude. Or, you could turn into somebody
who actually becomes formed into the image of Jesus and has joy
and grateful and encourages others. And even in the midst of your
difficulty, you become a testimony to other people. that, wow, you
know what? We don't need all these things,
that God is actually enough for our lives. And so the way that
happened, now watch this. They're in the wilderness, okay?
They're in this difficult situation. God provides for them. Now, when
they were saved out of Egypt, he just flat out did it. They
just walked out, right? But in order to be sustainable
in the desert and for them to grow into people, that depended
on him, they actually had to participate. They had to participate. And this is really contrary to
us, because we're like, you know, we're the type of people that
are like, you know, we just want somebody to do it for, you know,
like, we just think, all right, I surrender, now fix me, right? I mean, or, you know, what pill
should I take, you know, to fix this? It's like not like that's
not how God works like not saying that he can't use a pill I'm
just saying there's a process to becoming More and more like
Jesus in our lives and growing spiritually in our lives and
part of that is it's gonna take participation So for example,
if you ever listen to me, you know, I somehow at some point
I'm gonna talk about food, right? so So Caleb, he's my youngest,
right? He's seven. When he was a little
baby, it was not uncommon, well, it's still not uncommon around
my house to have Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, right? As you would
know, if you've listened to me before. But even as, you know,
like an infant, in my house is a good time to begin eating Reese's
Peanut Butter Cups. And so, now imagine when Caleb
was just a little infant, I would say, You know, of course, I was
smashing one of those big, thick Reese's peanut butter cups and
going, bro, this is so good. You have got to experience how
tasty. Like, this is what life is about,
bud. You're gonna, you know, you work
and you eat Reese's peanut butter cups. Like, this is what is good
about life. And and so now I can like break
that off I and I did this this is why I know I can break that
off and kind of Like put it up to his mouth, but like unless
he's like, you know like unless he participates he can't experience
the sweetness of a Reese's peanut butter cup Right? He couldn't
experience what it was like to savor all that a Reese's Peanut
Butter Cup was, right? And so, I'd have to get him.
He had never tasted it. So, it wasn't enough for me just
to go, hey, taste the sweetness of a Reese's. Like he'd, you
know, you know, sort of googly-goggly. I don't know what that is. And
so, for me to sit here and tell you, hey, just taste the gospel. Taste it and just talk about
it and you to walk around with a you know, just talking about
God is good. God is good That's not enough Like you've actually
got to taste it for yourself to experience The goodness of
the gospel and the way that you taste that in like I'm going
to show you just a minute Is this one of them is is that you
have to recognize that man, right? He says in what is it in Deuteronomy? Moses says that the reason why
God fed you like that was for us to understand that man doesn't
live by bread alone But by yeah by peanut butter alone but by
every word that comes forth from the mouth of God and what he's
teaching them is You don't need just physical food You need spiritual
food you're first and foremost a spiritual being and And you
were created to have a relationship with God. And God has communicated
to us. He has sent you a text message.
Literally. That's cheesy, isn't it? But
He really has. He's actually sent us a Word
to communicate to us. And it's one that we actually
have to participate in. Like, you've got to read the
Word of God. You've got to digest the Word
of God. You have to taste of the Word of God and see that
it is good. Right? You've got to actually do that.
What does that entail? Well, it means actually reading
it, actually being in community with one another, so that when
you're in the wilderness, like I had a professor one time that
told us in seminary, he said, hey, you need to teach your,
Romans 8, 28, you know that passage, right? For we know that all things
work together for good to them who love God, who are called
according to his purpose. Right? Like, that's not something,
this is a good application, Liz, that isn't something that just,
That you can learn in the wilderness That's not something you learn
when you're in difficulty, right? You maybe have heard me say that
before right if you come up to me when I am really stressed
out and you start talking about You know God's gonna work all
things together for your good Really You know, I can't see
it, bro Like it's And I'm not saying that we shouldn't quote
that scripture. Don't get me wrong on that. But the point
is, you've actually got to digest that, get that written on your
heart, before you get into the wilderness. So that when you're
there, it's in you. And you say, I know what it looks
like. I know the situation that this looks like to everybody
else, and I know what people are saying, and I know what they're
doing, and I know what they expect, but God's working all things
together for my good and for his glory. Why? Because it's
written in there. And then when you do that in
community with other people, you study the word of God together,
right? And even in a situation like
this, and you hear that, and then when space is down and he's
talking about, man, this is just, You know life is too difficult
everything else. What can I do? I can come up
to him and say no man. God is for you He is not against I know
what it feels like but God is for you Right, you have other
people who are able to that you have that written on your heart
You have that written on your mind. You have that written on
your soul. I'm accepted I'm a child of the
one true King and And I know what my family is saying. They
don't see my progress. They don't see any of the process
that I'm in. Maybe it's relationships or what
have you, and everybody sort of expects you to do the same
thing maybe you've done, which isn't a really good thing. And
in those moments where you're feeling defeated, whose voice
are you listening to? Right? Moses says that we weren't
made to live by bread alone. but by every word that comes
forth from the mouth of God. Now, how does that actually work,
right? You do that, you start reading the word of God, but
it's not, watch, the manna comes not just once, it comes every
day. Every day the manna comes. So
that means to make it through the wilderness, it's really not
enough to show up here on Wednesday night or on Sunday morning and
just hear me talk about it, or hear somebody else or Pastor
Clark talk about the gospel. It means that, in fact, when
Jesus said, give us this day our daily bread, which many of
us have said thousands of times in our lives, what he's talking
about is the manna. He's saying that we need to have a relational
food. It's not just food of actually
just something outside a word written on a page, but that we
have a relationship with God. That we develop communication
with God. That I recognize that it's not
just a book. That Christianity isn't a set
of rules or standards or commandments. Christianity is about a person.
It's about a person that I can have a relationship with and
his name is Jesus. Imagine if it's sort of like
we find ourselves in the wilderness and you stop for directions.
Imagine like you're lost somewhere and you stop at a gas station
for directions. And when you go in there and
you ask that guy, you're like, hey, I really need to be getting
to this cross street. And he just kind of looks at
you and is like, dude, you are so lost. I could tell you all
the directions. I could tell you, but you'd never
get there. You could never remember. And
if I were to just give you an information dump, there's no
way that you'd ever make it to your destination. So you know
what? I'm gonna get in the car with you. And I'm gonna get in
there with you, and I will drive you to the destination. I'm gonna
be there with you and through the process because it's not
a piece of information you need, it's a person you need. It's
a relationship that you need. And so when we go to read the
scripture, we get the manna and recognize manna. I'm not just,
I can't just make it by giving, by God, going to God and asking
Him for the things I need. I actually need to go to God
as the thing I need. And I go to him, and I pray to
him, and I read the scripture, and we go to him in recognizing,
God, I know I may want these things, but I know they're just
never gonna work out unless you are in the midst of it. And so
it's you that I need more than anything, right? It reminds me
of like as a kid, maybe as a young teenager, I'd say to my mom,
you know, Chad was my best friend. I'd say, hey, Chad and I are
going out or whatever, and she'd always be like, where are you
going? And I'd be like, I don't know. I really didn't know she'd be like, what
do you don't what do you mean? You don't know and I'd be like,
I don't know You know, all I knew is that we were going together
and that's all that really mattered right like It was kind of like
dating amber right my wife. I didn't give a rip what restaurant
we were going to if we were going out It wasn't like, well, I'm
not gonna date her if we're not going to, you know, this restaurant. I could care less, man. All I
knew is I wanted to go with her. Wherever we were going, I'm going
with you, so it doesn't really matter. I mean, we go to God
and we say, hey, it's not just about where God is taking us,
where we want Him to take us, but recognizing wherever we go,
we want to be with Him. I want to be with God. And so
that is something that happens daily in a relationship. So how
do I actually get that relationship? Right? How do I actually develop
a relationship like that? I think you have to see that
all the bread in the wilderness that is happening in the book
of Exodus, it's all pointing to a greater bread. greater food,
greater spiritual food than what we can possibly imagine. In John chapter six, Jesus intentionally
takes the people, right? This is where he feeds thousands
of people with fishes and the loaves, right? And he intentionally
takes them out into the wilderness. He takes them outside the city
and he takes them out into this desert place. And he's teaching
them and it gets to be around dinner time and so on and so
forth. And he gets them into a situation where he says, what
are they going to eat? And they're like, I don't know.
What are they going to eat? He puts them in a situation where
they don't know what they're going to do, how they're going
to eat. And what does he say? He multiplies the fish in the
loaves and he feeds thousands of people. And then what does
he do? He does that for a reason, not just because they were hungry
and he wanted to keep teaching. He wanted to teach them who he
was. And that's where he says, I am the bread of life. I am
not just the one who can help you spiritually. I am the one
who gives you spiritual life. A spiritual life is a relationship
with me. And of course, when he says that,
there's several of them that go their own way. They can't
handle it. They don't get it. Because when he says to them,
believe in me, they're like, believe what? Believe what? That I'm the one who gave his
life for you. I'm going to give my life for
you. And unless you eat of my flesh, Unless you eat of me,
I am the sustainer of life, you'll die. You can't live. Because you and I, think about
it like this. In verse four, Moses says this,
I'm going to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people
shall go out and gather a day's portion every day. And what does
he say, what we talked about? That I may test you, whether
they will walk in my law or not. Now you and I both know we haven't
passed the test. I haven't passed the test. If
I get real about my life when I get into the wilderness, in
fact, a lot of us could say, man, our attitude has been terrible.
And a lot of it is because I've been blaming it on my circumstances
and blaming it on other people and saying that, you know what,
if they would just act like this and they would just live like
this and they treat me right, then I would begin to live the
way I'm supposed to live and my attitude would be better.
And we've been blaming it on those things in the wilderness
and God has really been bringing us through there to actually
get us to a place where we depend on him. And if we're real about
it, we recognize I haven't passed that test very well. In fact,
how can I have the relationship that he's talking about? That
one where Jesus gets in the car with me and takes over the wheel
because I'm not good at giving up the wheel. I'm good at taking
the car keys. and taking the car and driving
it into a tree. How can I actually have that
relationship? Because I have failed the test over and over
again. When Jesus says, believe in me,
trust me, what he's teaching them is that I'm not just the
one who has come out here to teach that you need me, I'm also
the one who has passed the test. I am the one who has come through
the desert. Jesus in Matthew chapter 4 was
the one who just having been baptized and his father says
over him, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Jesus gets up from there in Matthew
chapter 4 and where does he go? He goes out into the desert.
And it's in the desert that he is tempted by Satan. And he is
tempted to trust in Satan, to trust in all these other things.
What does Jesus say to him? Man shall not live by bread alone,
but from every word that comes forth from the mouth of God. In fact, Jesus, when he's in
the desert, all of the places that you and I fail, all the
places that the people of Israel failed, he fulfilled. And he passed the test. In fact,
there's a spot where Jesus, when he's out in the desert, Satan
takes him up on top of a mountain. And he says to him, if you worship
me, I will give you all of the kingdoms of the world. And Jesus
doesn't give in to the temptation. And what's ironic about that
is that Jesus already was king. And he didn't need to do that.
He didn't need Satan to give him all the kingdoms of the world,
but yet Jesus never took them. In fact, instead of taking the
kingdoms of the world for himself, he allowed his father to walk
him up another hill, the hill of Calvary. Not the hill that
led to a throne where he got to just rule and tell people
what to do. It was a hill where he gave his
life on the cross. And he gave up his kingship. He gave up his kingdom, so to
speak, so that we could be gained inside that kingdom. So that
we could be accepted. So that we could have that relationship
with God. See, we can have that relationship
because Jesus passed the test. And it's in as much, watch, it's
in as much as you believe that, that Jesus really did live for
you, and he died for you, that you believe that you're forgiven.
that He didn't have to forgive you. He didn't have to give His
life. That's what the cross screams
to us. What the cross screams to us is that I am guilty. I have failed the test, but yet
God hasn't condemned me for it. God condemned his own son, not
because he had to, but because he was willing to. So in the
same moment, I am able to say, as I like to quote a lot, cheer
up! You are so much more wicked than
you ever thought. You can at the same time say,
cheer up! I am so much more loved than
I ever dared dream at the very same time. because Jesus not
only had to die to save me, he was willing to die to save me. And because of that, I have a
relationship with God by faith. And so when I'm in the wilderness,
that is the manna. It's not just reading the Word
of God, although it is. It's not just hearing from my
friends who help me and edify me. It's actually believing and
depending and trusting on God and being able to recognize God
is for me. He is not against me. He is going
to use the situation that I'm in to shape me, to mold me into
somebody who can trust Him and be used for His glory. And that's
what the cross does, right? You often hear me say, greater
love, Jesus said, there is no greater love than this, than
to lay down one's life for his friends. There is nothing more
that God could possibly do to prove to you and to I that He
is for me, even in these circumstances, even in the desert that I'm in.
And it's really important because the world, our old relationships,
our past, our own head, they're gonna be constantly speaking
into our mind too. When we're tired and it's difficult,
we're gonna start to be convicted, prosecuted. And here, you know
what? You can't do this. You can't
fulfill this. You're not good enough. You call yourself a Christian.
How is that possible? Your attitude is no, you know,
so on and so forth. And in those moments, right,
who are you ultimately listening to? It gives me the ability,
listen, if you're a Christian, it gives us the ability to say,
you know what? I am guilty. I can stop pretending. I can stop performing. and acting like I've passed all
the tests, it gives you a realness, a depth about who you are. And
not just a superficial outside. It's that when you're in a stressful
situation, you can actually admit that and say, you know what?
I don't know what's going to happen in this situation. And
be able to get real with people and admit your guilt rather than
trying to defend yourself all the time. right before God, because
you can be, as a Christian, we recognize, I am guilty, but I'm
not convicted. That is awesome. I am guilted
and not convicted. Can I just share a quick story
with you? It's not super quick, but I promise I won't take more
than like five minutes. But I just experienced something
like this, and it's something that, you know, when I was talking
about at the beginning of the message, when I said, hey, we
get ourself into stressful situations, Right past things are gonna come
up in our lives that we've done and we get into stressful situations
and we begin to question whether or not God could possibly in
the midst of it and Praise God he can use that to remind us
again that he is for us Well, let me let me share this this
this story with you. So this is just last year in
November in fact I've never shared this like in in front of this
many people not that I care but I So, so there was the last November,
I went to Ecuador with a mission team. I was leading this trip
to Ecuador on this mission trip. We had like 25 bags of luggage.
And we were in, I had like 15 people with me. We were in Fort
Lauderdale getting on the connecting flight to fly down to Ecuador. And Amber is with me. A lot of
you know Amber, my wife, right? And these are like 14 other people
from my church, right? And we're on this mission trip.
So we're getting ready to board the plane. All of our luggage
is on there. And there's this, I see, like, we hit our boarding
pass. This guy is checking passports,
I could tell, as we were getting on. And so Amber was like in
front of me, I had my bag and I saw it and said, can I see
your passport, ma'am? And she showed it to him. And
so then it came to me and he said, can I see your passport?
And I took my passport out, showed it to him. And he looked at it
and he looked back at me and he said, Darren Weiss. I said,
yeah, he said, turn around, you're under arrest. And I said, what? And I'm telling you my whole,
I almost, I think I almost passed out. And I said, what are you
talking about? He said, you're under arrest.
Turn around. He wouldn't tell me anything about it. I'm in
the tunnel. And I turn around. And now Amber,
she knows all my stories from the past, but she had never experienced
anything like this. And so I am cuffed. I am thinking
to myself, what in the world is what's happening right now?
What did I do? Or who has my name? Why would somebody be trying
to smuggle drugs into Ecuador? All I could think of was that
show, smuggler, whatever that thing is. Imprisoned overseas or whatever
that that show was I'm thinking but I'm going into they start
these two sheriffs and two US Custom Border Patrol ICE were
there cuff me. They're walking me through the
terminal I'm with all these people from my church now in this moment.
I am thinking myself you have just totally lost your church
You are no longer a pastor you have lost your job You have like
you can tell them as many stories from the past as you want, but
you just got arrested And so I'm like, I have no idea. I got
my Ecuador mission trip shirt on and all this other stuff.
They sit me down in the terminal and I'm like, honestly, I have
no idea what this is for. I don't, and I started to tell
them my history that years ago, you know, I was into drugs and
so on and so forth. And they said, well, it's a possession
of heroin out of Detroit. And I thought, oh my goodness.
So they're like, listen, we're going to call Detroit. And if
they don't want to come get you, we're going to let you go. And
I'm thinking, Detroit wouldn't even come get me in Oakland County.
They're never going to come. They're never going to come get
me in Fort Lauderdale. And so I'm sitting. But I think,
I have no idea what this charge is. So she finally brings up
the case number. And the first two numbers are
from 01. And I'm like, well, there was this time. actually
several times, where I was arrested in Detroit and they let me go.
And so she's like, well, maybe that's what it's from. So to
finish up that part of the story, essentially Detroit calls back.
They say, now, in the meantime, they're saying, it doesn't matter
what Detroit does. You can't get back on that flight.
and we've pulled all your luggage. 25 bags that we were taking tons
of donations down there, right? And there were actually so many
bags that it was taking them so long to pull them all off
the flight. By the time Detroit called, it
was like a half hour later, and they said they didn't want me,
the flight was still there. And we were actually able to
get back on to the flight. It was amazing. I got back on
the flight. All of our mission team is like just, ah! you know,
clapping and everything else. And I'm telling you, it was one
of the most frightened times I've ever had in my life. And
they told me, they said, regardless, when you come back into the country,
you're going to get arrested again if you get on this flight. So I'm like, well, you know,
they didn't come get me that time. So and I actually I thought about
I didn't know if I didn't mean to take this long But I was gonna
actually I actually took a picture of me and the sheriff's Like
a selfie to so that when I got back into the United States from
Ecuador, I'd be like look I actually been through this once and I
did do that. I actually have a picture I can
show you but this is actually where I was actually going with
this story so I come back and I'm like I still have a warrant
for my arrest. And I recognized, OK, I did do
this. I do remember being arrested. I have no idea. I've gone out
of the country 10 times since 2001. Amber and I have been on
vacation. I've been on mission trips. I've
been pulled over, so on and so forth. But it's never been a
lien on me. And so I come back into the city,
right? And I'm like, I've got to actually
take care of this. So I had to go to the court, turn myself
in. Now, granted, somebody put this
in the computer. Somebody had to have made active
this arrest warrant from 2000. It was from 2001. And I go into
court. They release my bond. They set
me up with a court date. And I went in there. That time,
they couldn't find my file. I went in there a second time,
they couldn't find my file. And I talked about, who entered
it in the computer? I went there a third time, and
the judge said, if you don't produce evidence on him today,
we're going to set him free. This is dismissed, and he's going
to be gone. And in that moment, I wanted to stand up and say,
your honor, I know where that file is. It's covered under the
blood of Jesus Christ. And you are never, you are never
going to be able to find that file because it's gone. And I
don't know how you brought it up. I don't know who began accusing
or whatever it was, but I was set free. And I know that's kind
of a long story and they don't all pan out that way, but I can
tell you in that process of months, having to get a lawyer and everything
else and me recognizing, you know, people would say, yeah,
but you know, look at what you do now and so on and so forth.
I'm like, yeah, but I did do it. I'm guilty. And I've got to go take care
of that. And then to be guilty and yet not be convicted was
just a reminder to me, God is for me. He is not against me. I am covered in the blood. And
even when it seems like you don't have any idea what is gonna happen
in this situation, trust Him through it. And it will only
in the end make you stronger. Because it's in that that we're
able to remind ourselves that He is there. Let me pray. Father,
thank you for tonight. Father, thank you for the bread
of life in Jesus and that we can have a relationship with
you even though we are guilty Even though the enemy accuses
us, even though people are trying to prosecute us, no weapon formed
against us shall prosper. You are for us and you've proved
it. And you're gonna use it to shape us and mold us into the
image of your son as we trust you. So give us that faith in
this moment through the wilderness. In Christ's name I pray, amen.
Have a great night, you guys.