WEBVTT 00:00:01.239 --> 00:00:05.019 Everybody feels sorry for Moses. Joshua got the 00:00:05.019 --> 00:00:09.960 land. Moses got God. Which one sounds like the 00:00:09.960 --> 00:00:18.820 loss to you? Tonight we're standing on a mountain 00:00:18.820 --> 00:00:22.780 with an old man who could smell the river. Forty 00:00:22.780 --> 00:00:25.199 years of dust behind him. The Jordan breathing 00:00:25.199 --> 00:00:29.239 cool air up the valley. And the land God promised 00:00:29.239 --> 00:00:32.880 spread out below like a table already set. Moses 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:36.079 can see it. Close enough to count the trees. 00:00:36.320 --> 00:00:39.600 Close enough to taste the water. But he already 00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:42.659 knows he won't cross. Which raises a question 00:00:42.659 --> 00:00:46.579 most of us never think to ask. What if the wilderness 00:00:46.579 --> 00:00:49.840 wasn't the waiting room? What if the years of 00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:53.159 manna, the daily reaching of the hand, the conversations 00:00:53.159 --> 00:00:56.359 with God in the dust, what if that was the point 00:00:56.359 --> 00:01:00.200 all along? So pull up a chair with us. Plates 00:01:00.200 --> 00:01:01.920 have been cleared from dinner, coffee's still 00:01:01.920 --> 00:01:04.299 warm in a few mugs, and we're opening scripture 00:01:04.299 --> 00:01:06.879 together from our midweek Bible study. We're 00:01:06.879 --> 00:01:09.439 glad to see you here at the table, and I will 00:01:09.439 --> 00:01:17.849 see you on the other side. I realized when I 00:01:17.849 --> 00:01:20.250 was listening back to last Wednesday night's 00:01:20.250 --> 00:01:23.629 episode that I neglected one very important thing, 00:01:23.689 --> 00:01:26.670 that I had forgot to ask Wayne for his thumbs 00:01:26.670 --> 00:01:29.209 up. So I need a double thumbs up tonight, Wayne. 00:01:29.370 --> 00:01:32.370 There's the double thumbs. That gets us back 00:01:32.370 --> 00:01:37.510 on track. So I want to begin by using tonight 00:01:37.510 --> 00:01:42.250 the best trick in the book on how to be a good 00:01:42.250 --> 00:01:46.500 preacher. And that is, I'm going to start off 00:01:46.500 --> 00:01:50.319 by offending you about what you know about the 00:01:50.319 --> 00:01:56.200 Bible. Because you have been reading this story 00:01:56.200 --> 00:02:02.340 wrong your whole life. And so have I. So has 00:02:02.340 --> 00:02:06.560 everyone who has ever stuck a flannel board Moses 00:02:06.560 --> 00:02:09.699 on a Sunday school wall and told a room full 00:02:09.699 --> 00:02:12.759 of kids that the wilderness was the hard part. 00:02:13.370 --> 00:02:18.349 Before the good part. Forty years. That's how 00:02:18.349 --> 00:02:24.090 long Israel walked, not can't walk. Every time 00:02:24.090 --> 00:02:29.810 we teach it, we treat it like a delay. Like God's 00:02:29.810 --> 00:02:33.830 GPS recalculated and the scenic route just took 00:02:33.830 --> 00:02:38.990 four decades. As if the real story begins when 00:02:38.990 --> 00:02:42.620 Joshua crosses over the Jordan, and the real 00:02:42.620 --> 00:02:49.039 tragedy is that Moses never did. But here's the 00:02:49.039 --> 00:02:53.020 thing nobody talks about on flannel board Sunday. 00:02:54.199 --> 00:02:57.599 Moses is the one who knew God face to face, not 00:02:57.599 --> 00:03:03.039 Joshua, not Caleb, not any of the ones who made 00:03:03.039 --> 00:03:07.419 it to the other side. Man who never crossed the 00:03:07.419 --> 00:03:10.039 river is the one who saw the face of God. And 00:03:10.039 --> 00:03:14.919 somehow, after reading the story, we still feel 00:03:14.919 --> 00:03:21.060 sorry for it. But what if the wilderness isn't 00:03:21.060 --> 00:03:26.000 the detour? There's a man on a mountain tonight, 00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:36.280 40 years of sun and sand behind him. breath of 00:03:36.280 --> 00:03:41.360 that river, and he's not going to cross, and 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:44.699 he already knows everything he needs to know. 00:03:45.479 --> 00:03:50.419 Friends, tonight our scripture reading actually 00:03:50.419 --> 00:03:52.960 is a selected number of readings coming from 00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:56.259 the Pentateuch, which means the first five books 00:03:56.259 --> 00:03:59.139 of the Bible, and I will begin reading first 00:03:59.139 --> 00:04:04.729 with Deuteronomy chapter 34, 1 through 6. Moses 00:04:04.729 --> 00:04:08.590 went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, 00:04:08.789 --> 00:04:15.169 to the top of Pixah, opposite Jericho. Yahweh 00:04:15.169 --> 00:04:18.810 showed him all the land. Yahweh said to him, 00:04:19.069 --> 00:04:23.470 This is the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, 00:04:23.550 --> 00:04:27.550 and Jacob. I have caused you to see it with your 00:04:27.550 --> 00:04:33.730 own eyes, but you shall never go there. So Moses, 00:04:35.089 --> 00:04:38.629 the servant of Yahweh, died there in the land 00:04:38.629 --> 00:04:44.350 of Moab. No one knows his truth, even to this 00:04:44.350 --> 00:04:49.329 very day. Now from Numbers chapter 11, 4 through 00:04:49.329 --> 00:04:52.810 6. The mixed multitude among them began to crave 00:04:52.810 --> 00:04:57.370 intensity, tensely. And the Israelites wept again 00:04:57.370 --> 00:05:01.720 and said, Who will give us meat to eat? We remember 00:05:01.720 --> 00:05:06.540 the fish we ate in Egypt and for free. The cucumbers, 00:05:06.819 --> 00:05:10.000 the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. 00:05:10.220 --> 00:05:15.019 But now we have lost our appetite. There is nothing 00:05:15.019 --> 00:05:21.120 at all except the manna to look at. And one more 00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:25.339 tonight from the Exodus, chapter 16, verses 14 00:05:25.339 --> 00:05:30.920 and 15 and 31. When the dew that lay had gone 00:05:30.920 --> 00:05:34.319 there on the surface of the wilderness, it was 00:05:34.319 --> 00:05:38.079 a small round thing, as small as frost on the 00:05:38.079 --> 00:05:42.600 ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said 00:05:42.600 --> 00:05:47.579 to one another, What is it? Moses said to them, 00:05:47.939 --> 00:05:51.019 It is the bread Yahweh has given you to eat. 00:05:51.079 --> 00:05:55.079 The house of Israel called it manna, and its 00:05:55.079 --> 00:05:59.839 taste was like wafers. with honey. Thus ends 00:05:59.839 --> 00:06:04.639 reading the word this evening. They called it, 00:06:04.699 --> 00:06:09.980 what is it? That's literally what manna means, 00:06:10.139 --> 00:06:14.920 the word. It's a question, not a name. Every 00:06:14.920 --> 00:06:19.300 morning for 40 years, read on the ground, and 00:06:19.300 --> 00:06:24.259 they never stopped asking. Wafers with honey 00:06:24.259 --> 00:06:29.959 from the hand of God. And they named it the question 00:06:29.959 --> 00:06:34.500 mark. Now let's look at that section, Numbers 00:06:34.500 --> 00:06:38.240 11. Israel has manna every morning, bread from 00:06:38.240 --> 00:06:40.779 the hand of God, lying on the ground when the 00:06:40.779 --> 00:06:43.699 dew lifts. They don't plant it. They don't earn 00:06:43.699 --> 00:06:47.420 it. They don't even fully understand it. They 00:06:47.420 --> 00:06:52.399 named it, what is it? And kept on eating. Wafers, 00:06:52.399 --> 00:06:59.959 honey, 40 years. Daily unexplainable provision. 00:07:00.759 --> 00:07:06.819 And they're weeping. The whole camp is weeping. 00:07:08.319 --> 00:07:16.779 Because they want cucumbers. Not just any cucumbers. 00:07:17.879 --> 00:07:22.879 Egyptian cucumbers. From the country that worked 00:07:22.879 --> 00:07:27.100 them to death. from the place that threw their 00:07:27.100 --> 00:07:32.620 sons into the Nile River. They are standing in 00:07:32.620 --> 00:07:36.120 the middle of miraculous daily provision and 00:07:36.120 --> 00:07:38.899 feeling homesick for the place that had broken 00:07:38.899 --> 00:07:45.199 them. Because, at least in Egypt, you can see 00:07:45.199 --> 00:07:50.160 food coming. You knew where your next meal lived. 00:07:50.720 --> 00:07:56.379 You could plan. Mana doesn't let you plan. Try 00:07:56.379 --> 00:08:00.040 to store it overnight and you wake up with worms. 00:08:00.800 --> 00:08:04.600 And that's not a design flaw. It's actually the 00:08:04.600 --> 00:08:09.139 point. Mana keeps you reaching out your hand 00:08:09.139 --> 00:08:13.779 every single morning and discovering again that 00:08:13.779 --> 00:08:20.839 someone, capital S, showed up. It requires trust. 00:08:21.759 --> 00:08:26.779 on a 24 -hour cycle. And trust on a 24 -hour 00:08:26.779 --> 00:08:31.519 cycle is exhausting when you'd rather just sign 00:08:31.519 --> 00:08:36.360 a lease and stock the pantry. But notice something. 00:08:37.539 --> 00:08:41.519 The manna didn't appear because Israel sat still 00:08:41.519 --> 00:08:45.179 and waited for it. The manna appeared because 00:08:45.179 --> 00:08:49.240 they broke camp and walked every morning, packed 00:08:49.240 --> 00:08:51.960 the tents, moved the family. Follow the pillar. 00:08:52.460 --> 00:08:56.399 And when they got to the next place, bread was 00:08:56.399 --> 00:08:59.559 already on the ground. The provision met them 00:08:59.559 --> 00:09:05.080 in motion. It never once showed up at yesterday's 00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:09.419 campsite. And the craving really isn't about 00:09:09.419 --> 00:09:17.279 food. Craving is about control. Egypt was brutal, 00:09:17.419 --> 00:09:23.840 but it was predictable. The wilderness is divine 00:09:23.840 --> 00:09:32.720 provision, but it's daily. And if we're honest, 00:09:32.980 --> 00:09:37.539 many of us trade the miracle for the mortgage 00:09:37.539 --> 00:09:42.519 that meant that we could stop wandering. And 00:09:42.519 --> 00:09:45.679 there's a pattern here. And once you see it, 00:09:45.679 --> 00:09:50.529 it runs through the whole Bible. Settlement provision 00:09:50.529 --> 00:09:55.710 is good. The vineyards that come, the cisterns, 00:09:55.730 --> 00:10:00.429 harvests, storehouses full of grain, God gives 00:10:00.429 --> 00:10:06.269 them and blesses them. But they all share one 00:10:06.269 --> 00:10:10.970 feature no one talks about. They're storable. 00:10:12.549 --> 00:10:16.070 You press grapes on Tuesday, the wine is still 00:10:16.070 --> 00:10:18.809 there on Friday, whether you prayed that morning 00:10:18.809 --> 00:10:23.649 or not. And you can go a long time in the settlement 00:10:23.649 --> 00:10:26.789 without noticing whether God showed up today 00:10:26.789 --> 00:10:32.289 or not. The math ends up working without the 00:10:32.289 --> 00:10:36.850 miracles. Wilderness provision is different. 00:10:37.570 --> 00:10:42.929 Manna cannot be stored. Every day is the same 00:10:42.929 --> 00:10:48.269 reach of the hand. And that's not inferior provision. 00:10:48.870 --> 00:10:54.649 That's intimate provision. It keeps you and God 00:10:54.649 --> 00:11:00.490 close. Now picture Moses up there with God on 00:11:00.490 --> 00:11:06.129 Mount Nebo looking out. Sun is low. The whole 00:11:06.129 --> 00:11:09.799 land is spread out. for him like a table that 00:11:09.799 --> 00:11:14.059 has been set for somebody else. His feet are 00:11:14.059 --> 00:11:17.059 bare on the rock, the way you stand when the 00:11:17.059 --> 00:11:19.679 ground is holy and you learn to recognize it. 00:11:20.600 --> 00:11:23.720 Forty years of reaching for manna every morning. 00:11:23.779 --> 00:11:26.840 Forty years. Conversations so close, the text 00:11:26.840 --> 00:11:29.620 says it happens with a man who talked to him 00:11:29.620 --> 00:11:35.059 like his friend. And the river, a promise, the 00:11:35.059 --> 00:11:40.700 Jordan River, it's right there. He can hear it 00:11:40.700 --> 00:11:45.159 pulling south towards the Dead Sea. He can smell 00:11:45.159 --> 00:11:48.879 it, the wet breath off the Jordan he's been walking 00:11:48.879 --> 00:11:54.059 towards since Egypt. Canaan, the promised land, 00:11:54.240 --> 00:11:58.379 is close enough to count the trees and hear the 00:11:58.379 --> 00:12:07.059 birds singing. And he's not crossing. And he 00:12:07.059 --> 00:12:12.190 grieved that. Deuteronomy chapter 3 tells us 00:12:12.190 --> 00:12:18.490 plainly. He asked, please let me cross over and 00:12:18.490 --> 00:12:23.190 see the good land beyond the Jordan. He wanted 00:12:23.190 --> 00:12:32.409 it. He pleaded for it. God said no. So let's 00:12:32.409 --> 00:12:35.549 not turn Moses into a saint that just somehow 00:12:35.549 --> 00:12:40.129 floated above the hurt. He is a man. standing 00:12:40.129 --> 00:12:43.350 on a mountain with his heart in his throat, looking 00:12:43.350 --> 00:12:50.210 at the thing he will not get to touch. And the 00:12:50.210 --> 00:12:54.730 text still calls him the man who saw God face 00:12:54.730 --> 00:13:03.629 to face. Joshua gets the land. Moses gets the 00:13:03.629 --> 00:13:10.419 face. Who really got the inheritance? The wilderness 00:13:10.419 --> 00:13:14.580 was never the in -between. The wilderness was 00:13:14.580 --> 00:13:19.120 the address. Now, let me jump back in time. I 00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:22.100 had mentioned Moses taking off his sandals. Let 00:13:22.100 --> 00:13:28.440 me go back in the story, back to Exodus 3. Moses 00:13:28.440 --> 00:13:31.759 is not in Canaan or the Promised Land when God 00:13:31.759 --> 00:13:35.840 speaks to him. He's on the far side of the desert. 00:13:37.389 --> 00:13:42.450 Tending somebody else's sheep. He is about as 00:13:42.450 --> 00:13:46.269 far from a rival to anything promised land that 00:13:46.269 --> 00:13:50.169 you could get. And God says, take off your sandals. 00:13:50.490 --> 00:13:57.070 The ground you are standing on is holy. And you 00:13:57.070 --> 00:14:00.990 don't take your sandals off to keep moving. You 00:14:00.990 --> 00:14:05.669 take them off to stop. To plant your feet and 00:14:05.669 --> 00:14:10.500 feel. The ground and what is underneath it talking 00:14:10.500 --> 00:14:13.039 to you and telling you the whole time without 00:14:13.039 --> 00:14:17.580 you ever noticing. Not the palace. Not Canaan. 00:14:18.740 --> 00:14:24.100 The back of beyond. The place that genuinely 00:14:24.100 --> 00:14:31.159 felt like exile. Like failure. Like it was supposed 00:14:31.159 --> 00:14:38.179 to be temporary. And God calls it holy. The ground, 00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:43.460 where Moses stopped expecting anything, God names 00:14:43.460 --> 00:14:49.080 that as his address. But the sandals come off, 00:14:49.179 --> 00:14:52.980 so you can hear what the ground is saying. They 00:14:52.980 --> 00:14:56.460 don't stay off. Moses puts them back on. He had 00:14:56.460 --> 00:15:01.539 to. If Moses had stayed at the bush, Israel would 00:15:01.539 --> 00:15:05.820 have died in Egypt. Bush wasn't the destination. 00:15:05.899 --> 00:15:11.710 It was his. God didn't say, stay here where it's 00:15:11.710 --> 00:15:16.870 holy. God said, now go back and bring my people 00:15:16.870 --> 00:15:23.990 out. Stopping is how we hear. The walking is 00:15:23.990 --> 00:15:28.549 what we do with what we've heard. And it's worth 00:15:28.549 --> 00:15:34.210 noting, Moses does appear on the other side at 00:15:34.210 --> 00:15:38.250 the transfiguration. An unmarked grave, east 00:15:38.250 --> 00:15:42.009 bank, never crossed in life, but when glory breaks 00:15:42.009 --> 00:15:44.950 through on that mountain, Moses is standing there. 00:15:45.649 --> 00:15:48.889 The wilderness person is not forgotten. The wilderness 00:15:48.889 --> 00:15:52.210 person shows up as the hinge to the whole story. 00:15:52.929 --> 00:15:55.950 And you may recall that story. We just talked 00:15:55.950 --> 00:16:01.049 about it a couple weeks up the stairs. Now, this 00:16:01.049 --> 00:16:06.860 isn't just about Moses. It's also about us. Standing 00:16:06.860 --> 00:16:09.360 in the kitchen at six in the morning, coffee's 00:16:09.360 --> 00:16:11.600 the only thing between you and the coming day, 00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:14.259 and it doesn't feel like your horizon has moved 00:16:14.259 --> 00:16:18.840 for months. Whatever you thought your life was 00:16:18.840 --> 00:16:22.740 heading towards, the job, the healing, the relationship, 00:16:23.139 --> 00:16:29.019 the answer to whatever, still out there, still 00:16:29.019 --> 00:16:32.700 across the river, and your feet are still here. 00:16:33.359 --> 00:16:39.980 Same tile, same coffee mug, same reach. You're 00:16:39.980 --> 00:16:47.779 a wilderness person. But 99 % of us are 99 % 00:16:47.779 --> 00:16:51.960 of the time. And we have been told our whole 00:16:51.960 --> 00:16:54.200 life that that means we're in the waiting room. 00:16:55.460 --> 00:16:58.460 But we're not in the waiting room. We're at the 00:16:58.460 --> 00:17:04.660 address. And some of us, I've been so busy craving 00:17:04.660 --> 00:17:09.960 the settlement. Whatever our version of milk 00:17:09.960 --> 00:17:14.359 and honey looks like. Maybe we've been stepping 00:17:14.359 --> 00:17:18.019 over manna the whole time to get to the horizon. 00:17:18.660 --> 00:17:21.740 And it's not because we're faithless. It's because 00:17:21.740 --> 00:17:27.319 we're tired. Tired isn't the same thing as faithlessness. 00:17:28.140 --> 00:17:32.789 And the enemy of manna isn't disbelief. It's 00:17:32.789 --> 00:17:36.309 exhaustion. Because when you're exhausted, the 00:17:36.309 --> 00:17:39.250 miracle of the ground looks exactly like just 00:17:39.250 --> 00:17:43.549 more work. One more thing to have to bend down 00:17:43.549 --> 00:17:46.269 to pick up when your back already hurts and that 00:17:46.269 --> 00:17:49.450 horizon doesn't seem like it's moved for weeks. 00:17:51.970 --> 00:17:54.690 But manna doesn't require you to be grateful 00:17:54.690 --> 00:17:58.190 to nourish you. It doesn't ask you to approach 00:17:58.190 --> 00:18:02.069 it with the right attitude. It doesn't hold your 00:18:02.069 --> 00:18:05.390 weaknesses or your weariness against you. It 00:18:05.390 --> 00:18:10.309 just asks you to reach down. So, what do we do 00:18:10.309 --> 00:18:14.809 with this? Well, we stop long enough to hear. 00:18:15.509 --> 00:18:19.329 Then we move with what we've heard. Provision 00:18:19.329 --> 00:18:24.269 met Israel on the road, not in a chair. Recognizing 00:18:24.269 --> 00:18:27.250 that the ground is holy does not mean you stop 00:18:27.250 --> 00:18:32.220 walking. It means you stop walking past. And 00:18:32.220 --> 00:18:36.180 carry this into the coming week? What are you 00:18:36.180 --> 00:18:39.480 craving right now that maybe it's the promised 00:18:39.480 --> 00:18:44.440 land promising? And is that craving costing you 00:18:44.440 --> 00:18:47.119 manna that you might be standing on right now? 00:18:48.680 --> 00:18:53.700 Israel wasn't wrong. Canaan was coming. They 00:18:53.700 --> 00:18:56.279 were wrong about what they had missed while they 00:18:56.279 --> 00:19:00.829 were walking. Don't let your horizon cost you 00:19:00.829 --> 00:19:06.190 your ground. So, go from here knowing the burning 00:19:06.190 --> 00:19:08.690 bush is your address. Not the one you're headed 00:19:08.690 --> 00:19:11.410 towards, but the one where your sandals are right 00:19:11.410 --> 00:19:14.410 now. When the man is on the ground and tomorrow 00:19:14.410 --> 00:19:17.309 morning, taste it. Before you look to the horizon. 00:19:17.829 --> 00:19:21.700 And then keep walking. May the God who met Moses 00:19:21.700 --> 00:19:24.539 on the far side of the desert, not in the palace, 00:19:24.680 --> 00:19:27.099 not in the promised land, but in the ordinary 00:19:27.099 --> 00:19:30.559 dirt of an ordinary Thursday, meet you and yours. 00:19:31.119 --> 00:19:42.400 Amen? Amen. Thanks, guys. Maybe tonight you realized 00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:45.200 something you hadn't noticed before. That the 00:19:45.200 --> 00:19:47.819 wilderness isn't always the detour. Sometimes 00:19:47.819 --> 00:19:51.920 it's the address. Sometimes the miracle isn't 00:19:51.920 --> 00:19:55.339 waiting across the river. It's lying on the ground 00:19:55.339 --> 00:20:00.039 in front of you, quiet as frost when that morning 00:20:00.039 --> 00:20:03.420 dew lifts. And if you're tired, really tired, 00:20:03.680 --> 00:20:06.859 kind of tired, we're bending down for one more 00:20:06.859 --> 00:20:09.920 day. It's worth of manna feels just like too 00:20:09.920 --> 00:20:12.799 much. Hear this, tired is not the same as faithless. 00:20:12.980 --> 00:20:16.000 God never asked Israel to feel strong before 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:18.420 reaching for the bread. He just asked them to 00:20:18.420 --> 00:20:22.109 reach. Tomorrow morning, their eyes and may still 00:20:22.109 --> 00:20:24.809 look the same. The ground under your feet may 00:20:24.809 --> 00:20:27.970 already be holy. And if you heard something tonight 00:20:27.970 --> 00:20:30.269 you hadn't quite considered before, something 00:20:30.269 --> 00:20:33.210 that maybe made you look at your story, your 00:20:33.210 --> 00:20:36.450 own life, a little differently, go ahead and 00:20:36.450 --> 00:20:38.609 toss that old like in the offering plate the 00:20:38.609 --> 00:20:41.069 way we used to do down at the church. And if 00:20:41.069 --> 00:20:42.849 you'd like to keep walking with us through this 00:20:42.849 --> 00:20:45.950 Lenten season all the way to Jerusalem, make 00:20:45.950 --> 00:20:48.910 sure you tithe your subscribe. That way you'll 00:20:48.910 --> 00:20:51.609 know when we're gathering and starting down the 00:20:51.609 --> 00:20:54.150 road again together. And until then, friend, 00:20:54.390 --> 00:20:55.349 be blessed.