True North | Week 3 | Bill Bush

Well if you can relate to this then you understand pretty much what the Israelites were acting like all through the story of the Exodus that we've been looking at in this true north series. The story in the Old Testament, the Exodus where God had had supernaturally

got his people freed from being in slavery for hundreds of years and then they're going off on this trip to this promised land that should have only taken a few days but God said I need to take you a little bit longer route because you're not ready.

And it shows up really quickly how they're not ready they are, and it seems like everything they're coming into they're just frustrated all the time. They're always got this look on their face. They're they're they're basically Christopher walking through the wilderness.

You know what? I don't know if you guys have a worse sense of humor or a better sense of humor because last service I only got groans when I said that. Like I thought I was gonna get booed off the stage. I

think the boos made me happier though because this is how I feel about everything right now. No. But as as as they you they were they were God took care of them supernaturally but all along the way they kept running into stuff. We looked at last week they got you know they're they're stuck up against the Red Sea and it says the angel Lord was with them. He's he's guiding them and and then next thing you know they're like yo you brought us out here to die didn't You know, and Pat the first week opened up and says you know they start complaining about at least we had three vegetables you know.

It seems like every time God's taking care of them they're still making that face. And we're gonna see today why. Because last week we looked at this big idea that I said, hey, when we want, every time we want to escape it's actually an invitation from God to engage.

To engage in a deeper relationship with Him and a deeper trust with Him. And today we're gonna unpackage a little bit more of what that looks like. How do I engage? How do I handle life when I want to make this face all the time? How do I go through that? How do I it's weird.

How do I navigate by true north? How do I navigate by Jesus when he's following and God is guiding us and it doesn't make any sense? I need to trust him and I need to navigate, steer by that true north of who he is. And today's big idea what we're gonna see is simply this. We need to connect to God

not just collect from God.

We need to connect to God not just collect from God. And we're gonna see that the Israelites were making this mistake. That it seems like that all they were worried about is collecting. Getting something from God. And and what God really wants to do is to connect to us. And you know what? He will allow us to be in scenarios that we feel really freaked out about tomorrow.

Because he wants us to trust him today. He wants to connect with us right now. And the problem is if I am afraid of tomorrow, I'm always focused on that,

of what might happen, what might not happen. I will always live freaked out today. So God is gonna try to take us on this journey where He's gonna try to teach us, hey, you need to connect to me. Not just try to collect something. I need this God, I need that.

He wants to have a relationship with us because He loves us and He made us. So what does this look like? Well, we're gonna go into the story to Exodus chapter 16. What's happened since the Red Sea, this takes place about a month later, a couple weeks, something like that. And they've gone into

this new land. I said last week God miraculously got them across this Red Sea now and the Egyptian's army is dead and they're dead, but you know where they're at? They're out the other side. They're in this place called the Wilderness Of Sin.

Sin just means it's the Sinai Peninsula. Doesn't mean it was the sin, but it was it was a barren place. And they rightfully started to freak out. First, if you go back and read the story before, they start complaining about no water, and now they're gonna complain about food.

And before we judge like, oh man these displaced are so stupid. They had a pillar of cloud by day, fire by night, the angel of the Lord Jesus was with them and they still whine every single day.

Before we complain, we should understand that we I think we do the same thing. All the time. How many times has God taken care of us? I mean we're still here right? And yet we go right back to worried. Like, if God saw him, why didn't he give me this? Why didn't why didn't I collect something from him that I wanted?

So here they are. So this is what's going on. That's where they're at, and what we're gonna see is how do we connect to God? What what are we talking about here? I'm not gonna read the whole chapter.

I'm gonna read part of it and I'm gonna point out a couple points that that come from the rest of the chapter. But let's read the first four verses here. It says, when the whole community of Israel set out from Elam and journeyed into the wilderness of sin between Elam and Mount Sinai,

They arrived there on the fifteenth day of the second month, one month after leaving the land of Egypt. So they've left Egypt a month ago. Then verse two. There too the whole community of Israel complained about Moses and Aaron. There too. It seems like every place they go, they start complaining.

Verse three, if only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt, they moaned. So like, if only the Lord had killed us. But first it was, we used to have free vegetables. Then it was like, well at least it was a better place to die. And now it's like, we should have died. We'd be better off dead.

Why didn't God just kill us rather than bring us here?

I mean he's taking care of them every time and now they're moaning about it. He says, there we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. So now they complain about meat and bread. But now you've brought us in this wilderness to starve us all to death.

Then the Lord said to Moses, look, I'm gonna rain down food from heaven for you. Each day the people can go out and pick up as much food as they need for that day. I will test them in this to see whether or not they will follow my instructions.

So he goes, I'm gonna rain, I'm gonna take care of them. Even though they're complaining, I'm still gonna take care of you. Isn't that cool? That should tell you that even Old Testament God, which everyone wrongfully thinks is angry God, and New Testament God's happy God, God is not like what's that word for

bipolar. There you go. Whoever said that's probably bipolar. That's why you knew it. Just kidding. Now you're offended. Hopefully you're on one of your up cycles. Sorry. Just joking around. I'm joking. I don't even know who said it. I don't even know where it came from.

Where was I? You know this is your fault by the way. This service does this to me every week. When he set a test that makes it sound like God's like alright, I'm sick and tired of y'all. I'm just gonna make it hard on you. You're getting a test.

You know like back when I was a poor youth pastor I worked at a church that had a school on it so they would ask me on my days off sometimes I would substitute teach to make some extra money.

And I'd go on in and teach and the hardest thing was, the hardest ones to substitute for was the middle schoolers because I was the middle school pastor. And so it's weird. You come in and you know when you were in middle school what'd you think when you saw a sub? Free day.

And that was still the age where they didn't change classes so I had them, these six years I had them the whole day. One class. Well it's even worse when they see a substitute teacher who's also their youth pastor. You'd think they'd have more respect. Nope, they just want to goof around.

And yet I knew how to teach and then this school took their education seriously. They would list and think here's what we want you to teach. I knew the teachers. They knew I knew that I could do this. So I had they gave me real lesson plans.

So I would start to teach. They start goofing around and they goof around. They wouldn't listen. They goof around. I finally get mad. Say alright, close your books, because they had books back then. And then I go get a piece of paper out and a pen, and they go what are we doing? I go pop quiz on what you should have already been doing.

It's like what do you mean? Pop quiz, I'm giving you a test. You can't do that, you're a substitute teacher. Can do whatever I want. You're stuck with me all day. I'm giving you a test. Well it won't matter for anything. Oh yeah it will. They go how? No it won't. You're not the regular teacher. I go I'm gonna write right here in the lesson plan. You guys were disrespectful, wouldn't listen to me, so I gave you a test and I'm gonna grade your test and I'm gonna give your teacher all the scores and I'm gonna suggest she's gonna count this.

And they're like, what? You can't do that? I go, yeah I can. And I go, you should have respected me. Should have the fear of the Almighty God in you. I was your youth pastor as well. And and so what I realized when I would do that to him, that test was simply because they irritated me. I had the power,

they made me mad, now you're gonna suffer for it. And sometimes when you read in the Old Testament, go, I'm doing this to test them. You think that God's being me, a really mean, you know, feelings hurt substitute teacher.

No, that word for test there it means like when you test a metal. When you try to refine a metal you test it. It's test is put on our thing and then you really high heat and it gets the impurities out. When he's saying I'm gonna test you he's saying I'm gonna make you better. I'm gonna make you stronger through all of this.

That's what he's saying he's gonna do. And then he says one thing, I'm gonna make it rain down food from heaven. And then he says when it comes to this bread he goes you're gonna be able to collect it every day.

And we're gonna see in the rest of this chapter what he does is is this thing called manna. That's what it says. As matter of fact, if you look in verse 31, then we'll come back. Verse 31 says, the Israelites called the food manna. It was white like coriander seed and it tasted like honey wafers.

So so in the stories and and what is going on we're gonna see is he supernaturally makes this food

just show up. And it's not something they're used to or anybody has ever seen. God supernaturally made it. We know this because when it says the Israelites called it manna, you thought that manna was they're like, oh, bread. No, that's not what manna means in Israel. You know what it means? It's the word man and

it means what is this? That's literally what it means. It's almost like they went man Yeah, and that's what they're like, man,

They like they have no idea what it is. And along the way they'll even start complaining about this. God is actually providing for their needs. There's probably a million of them to a million and a half right now walking around in this wilderness And he took care of them and fed them in a place you don't have any food for, it ends up being forty years.

And he supernaturally took care them in the most inhospitable place over and over and they still complained

because they're worried, because it's not the way it normally works. I think we still do that today. I think this last year has revealed to us where our faith really is for a lot of us because we're like, well, can't do what I normally do. I can't do this. And then, God, you're not giving me back what I normally had. Well, you're still alive, aren't you? God will take care of us the way God's gonna take care of us, and he has the ability to take care of us in an inhospitable

wilderness where no life can really make it. And he fed over a million people, and provided water for over a million people. He can take care of it right now. But they get this food called man, They're not even sure what it is, and they do. They're not even sure if they like it at first, they start to not like it.

Kind of reminds me of my grandson, greatest grandson on the planet. He started off like my son where he would eat anything. And now he's like you know pushing a year and a half and he's sitting here and he's at this age now like he would eat anything. And then just recently my wife told me, it just happened,

he went from eating anything you put in front of him to just being a picky eater out of nowhere. It's like now you give him something he used to eat all the time he's like man what is that?

I don't want it anymore and he won't eat it. He's got all picky on us. I'm like you're like when did you learn to be like picky? You just eat food. What do you know? Shut up and eat it. You ate it ten days ago. And no, he won't do it. As a matter of fact, he likes cookie. He even learned how to say cookie.

He says cookie. And apparently we're already the spoiled rotten grandparents because every time he walks in our house he walks right toward our pantry. Cookie.

Cookie. Because he knows we're gonna give them to them. But the thing that we'd figured out before was we could give them these crackers that aren't as unhealthy as cookies,

and he'd call it a cookie because it looks like a cookie. So he had that cookie. He'll eat it On his own, just in the last day or two, somehow he figured out the difference between a cracker and a cookie. No one told him. He just finally started tasting it and goes, no, I know the difference.

And what I call a cookie ain't what you've given me. You give him the crack and he's like, man, Cookie. And like gives you this look like give me what I demanded. But I'm grandpa now so of course you'd give him a real cookie. I don't care, I don't have to parent him. I could send him home with a sugar high.

And I think that we do the same thing. But God's like saying, but I'm gonna use this manna, this bread from heaven, I'm gonna use this moment to test you, to draw you closer, to help you understand that I am true north. I am the one that knows how to get I am the source, not just the resource, and I'm also the course.

God is the source, the course, and the resource for us in life. So how does that work then? Well I think as if we I'm just gonna summarize and look at a few verses here and there of basically the three major chunks of what this chapter talks about, of what he does

in leading these Israelites at this moment. And I think these three things teach us how do we connect to God, not just collect from God. It's the how to. So how do we do it? The first thing we need to do is we need to rely daily.

We need to rely daily. You need to rely on God daily and to rely on someone means you need to relate to him. You need to connect to him. You need to but it needs to be something that you choose to do every day. You need to lean into that relationship with God. You need to learn to rely on him. You need to talk to him. You need to be with him As I said because He is the source, the course and the resource.

And if you look in verse nineteen and twenty because he goes through and explains all this of what's gonna happen with this man and all that but I just want to jump to the summary of it is he says hey there's stuffs out there. You're gonna collect it every day but you gotta go out only every day. Just collect enough for that day, don't try to keep any, because they're only supposed to go out every day and get their daily bread.

Enough to live on one day at a time. It says in verse 19, then Moses told them do not keep any of it until morning. Don't try to hoard extra. Don't try to I'm gonna get extra, I'm gonna keep it so I have more, I have more. Because

if God says I'm gonna give you enough so you can eat till you're full and feed your whole family every single day but you have to pick it up every day, why would you want to get more? Because you're not sure. Do I trust that God will bring it tomorrow? Plus I don't have to get up tomorrow if I do it today.

So it says don't do it. But guess what verse 20 says. But some of them didn't listen and kept some of it till morning. So they collected extra, they kept it to try to hoard some. It says, but by then it was full of maggots and had a terrible smell and Moses was very angry with them.

You see, say they learn right away. God says the test to make you stronger is to connect to you, to teach you to not just collect from me is how I'm gonna take care of your need to eat is you're gonna go out every morning and you're gonna collect enough food for that day and that day alone.

It is a one day at a time proposition. God wants us to connect to Him. He wants us to rely on Him one day at a time.

The reason I think we get so anxiety ridden and so panic stricken and so frustrating and so just mad at the world, So Christopher Walken like with that face is because we think further down. We want more. We don't actually trust God every day. We want to know we have enough now for the whole month. We want to know we have enough now. We want to know what's happening tomorrow and the next day and the next day and we don't. And when we are so worried about tomorrow we tend all day today freaking out.

But God says if you try to do this it's just gonna turn into maggots on you. It's not gonna work. You gotta rely on me every single day.

Why would He do that? Because He wants to connect us. He wants us to go to Him every day. I heard this story. It was told as a true story, don't know the actual names. I just heard it, and preachers hear stories. But it was about an older man who had grown son who had some kind of disability, he couldn't work a real job.

So the older man had money, he was worth some money, so he took care of his son. He had his own place to live, he took care of him, and he gave him an allotment, a certain amount of money a month. And this was back before you can just Venmo it or put it in their account or anything. He had to actually get a check from his dad.

And so what he did was he gave his son a check once a month. He would come to his house and pick up a check.

Well then he'd realized his son would come and he goes, hey, let's have dinner. You wanna hang out? He's like, no, I got stuff I gotta do, which I think the dad probably thought, you don't even have a job. How are you too busy to hang out with your dad? But he was sad. He wanted to hang out with his son.

So then one month the son showed up to get the check, and the dad handed him the check, and it was for one quarter of what he normally gives him every month. And the son starts to leave, and then he looks at it and he's like, dad, did you make a mistake? This is like only a quarter. This is like only a week

of of the money I need to live on. He goes yeah. We're gonna do it different now. I'm gonna give you a check one week at a time.

So you gotta come over here once a week. I think it was Friday. He says every Friday you're gonna come over here Friday afternoon and we're gonna have dinner together, and then I'm gonna give you your check for the week. And you know what, the son got mad.

You're gonna make me drive over here and hang out with you every Friday, why? Why are you a jerk? Don't you care about my needs? It's a lot easier to give me one month at a time. And as a matter of fact, he said, I know you have enough money, you could just give me enough inheritance that I could just have it all right now.

And he goes, but son, I just wanna hang out with you. So you're gonna come, if you want the money, you're gonna come over here once a week. And the son begrudgingly did it. Fine. You know what, the first few dinners probably wasn't a lot to talk about. He's trying to figure out how to get out there as soon as possible.

But over a period of time something changed. And the son started to look forward to the time of the dead. And it started to become more than just once a week he showed up even when he didn't have to pick up his check. Well you go fast forward a few years, the father died

and he had set up a trust for his son so now he knew he would be fine. And he spoke at his funeral and said, know my dad shared the whole story and he said, you know what? I'm now set for life but I'd give it all away if I could spend that time with my dad every day now.

That's what God's doing in this story.

He's only gonna provide for you one day at a time because it's a test. He's like, you don't even know how badly you need to rely on me. And if I give it to you all at once, you're gonna think you did it, you're gonna run off on your own, you're gonna ignore me, and you're gonna get yourself into a world of hurt.

So fight all you want, but God only provides and only takes care of us one day at a time. He even says in the New Testament, let tomorrow take care of itself. It'll have its own problems, but today and what does He say in the Lord's prayer? Give me this day my daily bread.

It's one day at a time to go out. They had to go out every day and and and connect with God. They had go out and get the food. It's the same thing for us because we have to go out every day and just go seek it. God provides it. We just gotta go spend time with him. He's the one that takes care of us. We just gotta go seek him out. And how many of us don't do this every day?

How many of you are in your Word listening to God, praying, talking to God, meditating on His Word? Or is this the only time? Once a week That could be why you're so stressed. It has less to do about what's going on around us.

It's about are you truly relying on God? I believe God has tested the Christian church in our culture over this last year. And what He is showing us is how many of us rely on Him and really connect to Him,

and how many treat our faith with God as just a way to collect something from Him. God, want peace. I want happiness. I want a better job. I want a better interest rate. I want this. I want to marry someone. We

just give God our to do list and we go hey, tell me when it's ready and I'll come pick it up. Or matter of fact can't you just Amazon it to me? Can't you just like put it at my doorstep and I can just have it? But we're in a moment now where we are being forced to each day rely on God.

And you gotta understand why this is more than just about food is because even right there it says I will rain down bread from heaven. Well if you go into the New Testament in John chapter six, Jesus had just done this thing where he fed 5,000,

that was just the men. It was more like 13 to 15,000 people he fed with just a couple loaves, some fish,

and they ran out and tried to find him the next day. You know why? We got free food. So they're looking for Jesus. They finally find him and they're like hey we want it. He has a conversation. He goes you know what? You need more than food. You need spiritual food. I did that because I need you to know that you need to rely on me. And they said well you know, why won't you give us more food? Why won't you He's like because it was a symbolic. It was an allegory for what do you really need and

they're like no, but Moses rained food down from heaven for the people which is weird that they gave Moses credit for what God did But he

goes they they they're using this exact story about what God did. He goes yeah, he did, but you don't understand. There's also the spiritual element that I was trying to teach you and in John six thirty five it says this. There it is. Jesus replied,

I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. And he goes on in one of four he says on the bread he goes, I am the one. And it says that I am the bread of life. In other presses, I am the bread of life that came down from heaven.

He is this is an allegiance. These stories are pointing us to our need for Jesus. The whole testament points to Jesus. The manna from heaven is Jesus. He's the one that came down. And so if we have to go collect it every day, God sent it, he came, but you gotta go meet with him every single day. That's how it works.

Every day. They didn't get it. They went right back to the food illustration. Because then he goes on to say, you know what, you gotta eat of my flesh and drink of my blood. They're like, ew. They think he's talking cannibalistic. Goes, no, you understand that you really need this. You need more than just physical

bread. You need this spiritual bread. You need to trust me every day. And they freaked out. And it says in ironically in John six sixty six, six sixty six, good number. It says that at that day many disciples abandoned Jesus. Disciples, people that were already following him. Walked away from Jesus because he said that.

Why? Because what he finally told him is, following me is not about just collecting free stuff. I'm not gonna just throw Rome out of here. I'm not just gonna make your life easy. I'm not just gonna do this. You're gonna have to get up every day. You're have to spend time with me and

I'm gonna die. And these things are gonna happen. Go, if he's gonna die, then he's not gonna just kick out. He's not gonna solve my political conundrum. He's not gonna do this. He had a very different plan. His true north was taking us on a different course. And people realized, oh, you're not just gonna give me what I wanted?

Peace out. Jesus actually looked at the 12 disciples, you're gonna leave too? That was a test for Peter. He knew they wouldn't. And Peter goes, no, where would we go? You have the words of truth. So whether we like what you said or not this is the only way to find life. So I think some of our struggle here

is I think that God's confronting us with the same issue again today for us in the church, that come to church and say I believe in Jesus. If you do, then are you gonna get up every day and connect to him? Are you gonna rely on him by relating to Him, obeying Him, and trusting Him? Or are we gonna complain here too?

Just like the Israelites were complaining all the way through. So you gotta rely on him daily. You see, in John six, what those people running after you, they just wanted to collect something from God. They didn't wanna connect to their Lord and Savior. They weren't looking for the King of Kings.

They were looking for Burger King. That's the way I would say what relying on God daily when he tests us to make us it reveals do you want the King of Kings or you want Burger King? Burger King is the motto. You can have it your way and it's fast.

And if you want Burger King you're not gonna get along with Jesus very much. You're actually gonna get very confused by what Jesus does because He will let us be in these wildernesses. That the only way you're gonna make it is by relying on Him each and every day. So rely on Him daily and then secondly, rest weekly.

Verse 23 through 30 He says,

he told them when it came to collecting the manna every day. He said, he told them this.

This is what the Lord commanded. Tomorrow will be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath day set apart for the Lord. So he says there's gonna be a day that's set apart to worship the Lord, to rest, to not work, so don't go out and collect food. But they know that if they try to collect more than one day it rot. But this is what he says. He says, so baker boil as much as you want today and set aside what is left for tomorrow.

He goes, he's like, that's not gonna go bad. I'll take care of you on that day off. He goes, so they put aside, some aside until morning, just as Moses had commanded.

And in the morning the leftover food was wholesome and good, without maggots or odor. Moses said eat this food today, for today is a Sabbath day dedicated to the Lord. There'll be no food on the ground today.

You may gather the food for six days, but the seventh day is a Sabbath. There will be no food on the ground that day. How many times did he keep telling him, if you go out and try to not take this rest day and focus on the Lord and refocus and refreshment, he goes, if you try to go out and find something, you're not gonna find anything.

Multiple times already. But verse 27. Some of the people went out anyways. Some of the people went out anyway on the seventh day, but they found no food. Surprise! Why would they go out anyways? They're like, well maybe there will be some and I can get even extra. Or I don't trust. Or

what's gonna happen? Or they just decided to go on out there anyways. Even when God said you need to have this day that you set aside to rest and in that rest it's physical rest but it's also to refocus and make sure this day alone you relay,

you rely on God every day. You relate to him every day in time but once a week you need to have a Sabbath day that you shut it all down and you remember. And it's a way to focus and worship God

in your life. It says the Lord asked Moses, look at look at this kind of upset God. The Lord asked Moses, how long will these people refuse to obey my commands and instructions? I think I would tell God, I don't know, I didn't make them and you know everything, you should tell me. But then

that's probably why I'm not Moses. He says, but he's actually saying this because he's trying to teach Moses something. Because he goes, they must realize that the Sabbath is the Lord's gift to you. Wait, he said you need to set aside a day of rest, to not work, not to do that. Set aside a day to basically for the Lord.

But then what does he say it's actually for? Who does it benefit? Us. He said that's why he gives you a two day supply on the sixth day, so there will be enough for two days. On the Sabbath day you must each stay in your place. Do not go out and pick up food on the seventh day.

So the people did not gather any food on the seventh day. So they finally, they listened after that. You notice what he said? He goes you need this day set aside for the Lord. To focus on the Lord, but it's for you.

See, I think a lot of our stress is we've just gotten out of this habit. We don't rely on God daily. We come to church weekly,

but even we don't even show up. We say it's a Sabbath day, but is it really? Or is this just the one day you wanna hear someone open the Bible and preach something but you're on your way somewhere else. You're like the Bernie meme where it showed a heat. You know how he's carrying envelopes?

You see the one meme that said it's like Bernie's to do list? Take the dry cleaning in, Joe's thing at eleven, and then at two stop by the post office.

I mean a lot of us that's what it is. Like we get up in the day, you come here and you're like, alright I got this with the kids in the morning, I got this and this. Oh there's that church thing and then I'm gonna go back and do this.

Do you actually have a Sabbath day where you just shut everything down? You you don't get on social media. You don't run around. You don't try to get ahead of your business. You don't you don't put your kids in so many sports, so many activities, there's something every day of the week, because now you're teaching your kids the same thing. To not rely on God daily and to run themselves ragged. There is a reason why more teenagers are on antidepressants

even before the pandemic than any other time. That there's more depression and more suicide. This has just made it worse Because you know what? We've taught them that you don't rely on God, you run around, yeah, you say you believe in Jesus, you go to church when you can. If you're too busy, go to something else. You don't really set a day aside. You never refocus, you never rest, and you're falling apart.

And God's saying I'm doing this for you. And the reason he says that what they got to realize, what we got to realize is you think you're doing something for God by coming to church.

So I'm like I'm doing my duty, God's gonna love me. And really you think it's a contractual thing, you're gonna collect from God. I do the good stuff, I'm gonna collect something good from Him.

And then we go out on that extra day to try to get a little bit further ahead. Because we're afraid if we don't, well if I don't do this, what's gonna happen?

If I choose to let my kid go to the youth group instead of the sport they're playing, they're gonna fall behind. They won't get a scholarship. They won't get this. Can I just tell you something? I've coached all the way up into the college level. You know how many high school athletes even make a college team?

Less than oneten of 1%.

So you're gonna take that risk to sell out teaching your kid that relying on Jesus is number one. But then showing them with everyday action that that's not really what you believe.

See, we don't have to go out into the desert here and pick up some strange food that God created. But we're doing the same thing. We don't trust God.

We don't connect to God. We're just trying to play a game where I can collect something from Him. And then we wonder why it doesn't work. See, if we don't stop and refocus and rest, it's like overtraining at exercise.

I mean I realize, man, I've always just exercised because I like to eat and I could just out exercise my eating.

Well I've gotten to that age that I can't do that anymore. Because to be honest, I'm exercising just to slow the decline. I'm not going up anymore, I'm just trying to make the train stop going downhill so fast.

I'm like come on, ah! So now I gotta eat. But here's the problem, sometimes you think well I'm getting older, getting harder, I'll just work out extra. No, when I work out extra all the arthritis, I got over trained, it actually makes me worse. Sometimes the best thing you can do is slow down. So we gotta rely daily,

rest weekly. And then finally verse 32

of this passage says, Then Moses said, this is what the Lord has commanded. Fill a two quart container with manna to preserve it for your descendants. Then later generations will be able to see the food I

gave you in the wilderness when I set you free from Egypt. And you'll still have it. You'll see it. You'll see this. I'm gonna make this supernaturally survive. It ended up in the Ark of the Covenant by the way. So when the Indiana Jones, when the Nazis popped it off and their faces melted,

you would have saw the 10 commandments and some manna in there. And they would have said, man, What is that?

And so what he's saying is what does he tell him to do? He's like, you need to take some of this to remember. Put that in a holy sacred place. Treat this memory as important. In other words he says the way we connect to God in a really practical way is you rely on Him every day. You gotta rest at Him every week.

And the last thing is you need to remember always. So always remember. Meaning you should be having these moments where you trust him and he acted and you saw the trust and then you got to put that in a memory. Write it in a journal, treasure it in your heart. Teach your kids like as

you grow raise your kids tell them about your stories of you know what happened when I was younger and I trusted the Lord? Share those stories. Pass them on. Get it going so you can always look back and remember.

Another thing is getting into the Word of God. This is actually a recounting of all these treasured memories of God taking care of His people. In other words, when you look back on God's faithfulness, it enables you to move forward without fearfulness.

When you have more times to remember back of, well, you know what? That seemed impossible, but he showed up. You look back. In other words, if you remember his care, you won't despair. There you go.

If you can remember his care you won't despair. If you remember what he did before, basically it's a test. He's made you stronger. Every time you go through something you get stronger. It's like when I said I exercise. You know when I first started working out I could barely lift up a bar.

And I'm working my way back towards that, but still

at one point you get stronger. Know, remember how do you get stronger? You go through, you lift, it's hard, it's hard, it's hard, and all of sudden now I'm lifting 100 pounds, now I'm lifting 200 pounds. Then all of sudden you're going alright, I'm gonna try to get two fifty today, that's so hard. Well think you get up to lifting 300 pounds. What happens when all of a sudden a two seventy pound thing comes like, well you've been lifting 300, now there's two seventy pounds you got to move.

That's not that much to you, you can lift more than that. Someone who never lifts is gonna look at it, that's an impossible thing. I can't even get past that to you, it's easier. But guess what? It wasn't too long ago that that was impossible to you too.

I guarantee if we lean into and learn and learn to connect to God through this last year like he wanted to and we rely on him daily, we rest weekly, and we remember always, there's gonna come another problem. There always is. Something else is gonna happen later on. We're gonna at least it wasn't as bad as this. And you know what? A lot of us that really grew through this are gonna realize that other problem probably is

as bad as this, but we're stronger now. So it's not as big a deal. That's how you learn to not be panicked about everything. You get strong enough that certain things stop bothering you.

That's the whole point. That's what God was sending him out in the wilderness for. You're not strong enough, you can't handle this stuff. A little bit of adversity and you fall apart. I need to toughen you up

by having a relationship with you. That's why we need to remember always, you need to look back and remember these moments and remember the victory.

Because it's weird, like when we look back and we look at great moments in history, like this is weird. Was thinking about this. I don't if this would be great, it's an epic moment in history. I've seen some of these pictures

that are And you ever have those times where you're looking at these pictures and you go, that's gonna be in a history book someday. Well actually it'll be in the history website someday. But you know how like you see certain pictures you go, that's gonna be something that if Jesus doesn't come back our grandkids are gonna be learning about in school.

Like those picture of the crowd that got into the to the Senate on the floor and the bison guy with his arms there, sadly he's from Arizona, what a thing to be proud of. But he's sitting there and I'm looking at that going, you know what, this is one of these pictures that we're gonna, they're gonna learn about in school.

It's one of these times where it's like you ever have those moments where it's like there's years that you realize, well they had some fun but there's nothing that memorable about it, you know. The 80s maybe.

Then there's times you go this is a lot of epic moments happening. And have you ever thought about some of those epic moments thinking, when you look at history and go it must have been cool to be there. Wouldn't it be cool to be there? We always want to. Like let me show you a picture.

Close this up. Does anybody know where this is? It's black and white. It's old. This is a famous picture taken in Tokyo Bay in 1945 at the end of World War II. The absolute end. Germany had surrendered before Japan.

We had fought for years. The whole world, over eighty million people died in world. It was the deadliest period of time in the history that we have of recorded history. I mean in four and a half years over eighty million people died as a direct result of that war.

And so here we are at the end of the war. The American fleet gets to sail into Tokyo Harbor. You know they had attacked Pearl Harbor just you know four years before. And for the first year or so of the war we were actually losing to Japan.

And now you're sitting here, here is this fleet, that's just part of the fleet, the person took the pictures on it. But you see the little dot specks in there? Those are

fighter planes and bombers. There were several thousand of them, the American planes that fly over. Several thousand at the end of this war. And that must have been impressive because Japan probably didn't even have 100 planes left.

And they outnumbered us by far at the beginning of this war. It was kind of just a symbolic thing of saying wow, we not only won, we won strongly. This is a kind of an epic moment, because that's the battleship, the USS Missouri. It was in the movie Battleship, but this was where they signed the peace agreement,

which the president four years early, 1941, said this day we'll live in infamy, and then they declared war and they said we will only accept unconditional surrender. On this day Japan unconditionally surrendered.

An enemy that had the whole West Coast freaked out after they took out Pearl Harbor and you had all this and you had all these years of war and now this is this classic victory shot of yeah, this is an amaze could you imagine being there?

It'd be cool to be there because we know the history, right? If you didn't know the history it'd be like well these are old planes and ships, when's lunch? But if you know the history it would be cool to just be there and see it. But not as cool for the people that were there because they went through it.

Let me point out something. This ship right here, circle it up there. My dad was standing on that ship when that picture was taken. That's his ship.

He could see over to there, he saw this go by, he was standing there, all of his crew there hanging out all over the edges celebrating. He watched this moment. He sailed in with this giant fleet into Tokyo Harbor to declare victory in a war. And you know what? I guarantee he was more teary eyed than we would be. You know why?

Because this moment was epic. Because it meant the end of what all the moments that had to happen to get to this moment. It had more meaning because the fight was so hard. I mean my dad described he liked it was pretty cool to be there. To watch at the end of this war. This war that had been so epic ending.

But you know what he didn't like? He didn't like being at Iwo Jima. He didn't like storming the beaches of Okinawa. He didn't like the fact that his ship almost got sunk to the bottom of the ocean by a submarine torpedo not once but twice.

He didn't like the fact that yeah, he got a medal for shooting down a kamikaze right as it almost hit their plane. Blew up. He was so loaded with explosives and so close it actually singed his face and hair a little bit and he was like so like

the reason he didn't run like everyone else is he only had the wherewithal to go if somebody doesn't stay here we all die. And he did that moment, and you look back and you go, that's a hero. He goes, yeah in the moment you think it's you think it's epic, I'm glad I did it, but I didn't want to be there and you would never want to be there either.

You see he's crying in this moment. This victory meant something to him. It meant something more than it could mean to any one of us in this room, even though we live under the liberty and the victory that it happened. We live something blessed by this moment. We are living in this blessing, but we weren't there.

And even if we were there, it didn't matter as much because we didn't go through the darkness. And I'm telling you, if you've ever played a sport, you've ever seen anything, spiritual warfare is the same way. What God wants to do is the same way. A victory only means as much of where you had to come from to get it.

If Jesus only came to earth because we were kind of mistakers and not so far from God, stuck in sin, heading to eternity in hell, then his death wouldn't matter as much. If he's just died to make us better people, what's the point?

But the fact that he died, because we were all bound to an eternity without God, an hopeless eternity, and he got on that cross and he died. And then three days later, when all the disciples were freaking out it was like what just happened? This is the worst thing ever. He goes I'm back baby. That's victory

and that's what it means and that's what we need to know. That here's the thing is we weren't there. We didn't go through that but you know what? God in our story of knowing Him has given us the ability to actually get CGI'd into these pictures in these ones.

These are the ones that we get to be a part of. We get to be in there. We get to engage it But only if we rely on God daily, and we rest weekly, and we remember it always. That's how we're gonna get through this. It's not gonna be everything's gonna go back to normal. It's gonna be let God test you. Let God connect to you.

And this won't just get you past this moment, this will get you past the next 10. Amen? Father God, thank you Lord. Thank you that you do love us. That you are true north. You're the source, the course, and the resource for all. And Lord I ask that you'd forgive me and anyone in this room and

anyone watching online that has forgotten that And that Lord that we could turn to you and that we would rely on you by seeking to connect to you each and every day. That we'd set aside time weekly to Sabbath and focus on you and make it a priority. Not because you desire it but because we desperately need it.

And then God, may we remember first with the stories that you've shared with us from your word, but then start building a treasure chest, an ark of our own that we carry into the battles of life with those treasured memories of the times that you showed up and took care of us in ways we never expected.

Lord, may we have the courage to just simply follow you, connect to you, not just try to collect from you as our true north. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus, amen. Amen. Hey, was fun. Yay, God.

Man, love you guys. Did I tell you that? Did I tell you that enough? I love you guys. So thanks for being here. If you need to pray with someone or talk to someone we got the prayer room over here online. Thanks for joining us. If you wanna talk to someone you can too. Just go to rockpoint.io

and hit the need to talk tab and other than that God bless you guys. Have a great evening.