Wilderness Grumbling

Wilderness Grumblings:
http://www.zshare.net/download/946931767576ae0c/ To Listen

I so love the book of Exodus. Reading it so closely parallels my Christian walk and I imagine the walk of many Christians. The nation of Israel is rescued by God, get comfortable, began straying from God, need rescuing again, call on God and then are again rescued by God. Isn’t that a common story? How easy it is to forget God’s presence with us when things are going well, when things get comfortable. How quickly we remember who is in charge of it all when things become uncomfortable and hard. Such is this story today. If you have been following the Exodus story you know that God used Moses to deliver the nation of Israel, who were serving as slaves in Egypt, out of Egypt. It is in this story that persons get an up close and personal look at the intervention of God in our world. It begins with the deliverance from the Egyptian Army as the red sea is parted for Israel to go through and then returns to cover and drown the Egyptian army who is in pursuit of Israel. It continues at Horeb when there is no water in the wilderness and God provides water. It continues on into our story today. The Israelite have been wandering through the desert for about 47 days now. There provisions have run out. They are worried that they will die here in the desert. They begin grumbling and complaining to and about Moses and Aaron. “We were better off enslaved in Egypt at least there we had plenty to eat.” Their growling stomachs overtake the memory of oppression in Egypt. They forget the promise of Cannan. They question whether they should be following Moses. Moses seeks God’s help. God provides. He provides enough for each day and on the 6th day he provides enough for two days so that the Sabbath can be observed.

When I read this scripture yesterday I was immediately struck by it’s immediate application to my own journey right now. 9 years ago I awoke in the middle of the night with a message from God. Revelation 3:2-3 Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. For me the message was clear. Since a little girl, baptizing my brothers and my sister in the bath-tub, I knew that God had a call on my life. Funny that my sister sent me this face-book message this morning: Happy preachin'! Funny that the gal who used to baptize me in the bathtub, wheelbarrow, toilet, or whatever water she could find is preaching at the Methodist churches! Could have saved me alot of trauma if you woulda just sprinkled!
On that night 8 years into my Social work career God said “Kelly, renew that; remember it, it’s time to do what I asked you to do.” I’ve spent the last 9 years continuing in that career and trying to find an easy and comfortable route to answer that call. I’ve never denied that my promised land was right here, behind a pulpit or in a hospital room, or in the funeral home. However, I kept looking for the easy way out. I kept trying to find a route that wouldn’t take me through the wilderness. Would it really be the financially responsible thing to do to leave a good paying job where I do serve people and go blindly toward this promised land not knowing how I would pay my bills? In December I took a 2 month mental health sabbatical from my job. During those two months I said to a friend “I’m done with Social Work and I know why. I go in these peoples houses everyday trying to help them find solutions for getting out of these hard places they find themselves in. The one answer that I have for them I can’t give them because I work for the government. Jesus is the answer, I can’t give them Jesus. I had this revelation yet I returned to the bondage of Social Work and I continued on. Over the past few weeks our church has been doing a church wide challenge of reading the Bible in 90 days. The first couple of weeks were purely focused on God’s call not always being the easy thing, on God’s call sometimes meaning to choose what is hard rather than what is easy. Too many times we want to stay where it is comfortable. Moses didn’t want to answer God’s call. He was plenty comfortable where he was. Sometimes God has to push us. I got pushed very hard on Friday of this week when my Social Work career of 17 years in child welfare ended. I had known for a couple of weeks this was a real possibility. The demands of keeping up with a caseload and meeting the mandates of the State had finally taken a toll on me. I couldn’t keep up. I’ve told others I felt like I was riding a stationary bicycle. I would work and work and work and at the end of the day, my caseload would look the same. As I faced the possibility of being dismissed from my job I prayed that God would lead the decision. I put my trust in that decision, knowing that God had a plan. During that couple of weeks songs of encouragement continually flowed into my space. God sent messengers along the way to affirm me. God sent scriptures to encourage me. I grieved a lot. I fought to stay in Midian, or in Egypt. I fought not to be kicked out into the wilderness. The wilderness: where I wouldn’t be assured of making my house payments, paying my light bill, putting food on the table. The wilderness: where I would have to be fully and totally dependent on God. As I sat in my car the morning I was to make my final plea. I received a call from the pastor of a church in Arden that I sometimes fill in for, asking me to preach for him in October. Later that same day, I received a facebook message from your pastor asking me to preach at Longs for him on Oct 2. Yesterday I received the call from your pastor asking me to preach today. In 48 hours God sent me 5 preaching assignments and in essence said “follow me, I will provide.” So, here I am, in the wilderness, looking toward the Promised Land and trusting in God for my daily provisions. That is exactly where the Hebrews stood. Let’s take a closer look.
In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Isn’t it our nature that when things go wrong. When bad things start to happen, we always have to find someone to blame. Much of the time we blame our leaders. It’s much easier to do that than to look within and see what we could do differently. Complaining is contagious and thus we have the whole nation complaining about Moses and Aaron. There is chaos. Rather than putting their corporate minds together to come up with a solution to the problem, they put they corporate minds together to fuel anger against Moses and Aaron. We have the makings here of a coup, of an uprising from the people against their leaders. I remember sitting in the stands at my brother’s high school basketball game one time. The coach’s mother was behind me and the boys were not playing well that night. She would holler come on boys and she would turn to the person next to her and say don’t they understand his job is at stake. I found that absurd but learned that it was true. If the team doesn’t do well it is the coach’s fault. It doesn’t matter what talent he has or doesn’t have in the group he’s been given. When things go bad in the corporate world, the blame ultimately lies on the CEO and when things go wrong with our nation, it is ultimately the fault of the President. And here in the desert, the fact that they are out of food becomes the fault of Moses and Aaron.
They have forgotten that it was Moses who heard their cries and pleas in Egypt. It was Moses that interceded with God on their behalf. They forget the horrid conditions of their slavery in Egypt. They exaggerate the “good” in Egypt. They long to go back. They would have rather died by the plagues and had a full belly. They also forget all that God has already brought them through. They forget the parting of the sea. They forget the provisions of water. Name your bondage. What keeps you captive? What keeps you from making that first step of faith toward your promised land? Is it fear? Have you forgotten the number of times that God has made provisions for you? Who are you grumbling against? Who are you blaming? Is it your pastor, Your Boss, Your county commissioners, your senators?
Moving on: in the next few verses we see that God hears the grumbling and as is the Nature of God, God graciously hears the grumblings and responds, assuring Moses that provisions will be made for the people. At the same time he wants to make sure they understand where these provisions are coming from. He wants them to understand who is really in charge. Then the LORD said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.” God spells out to Moses how the provisions are to be handled. Each person is to gather 3 pounds of Manna when it appears for each person that is with them. They are to gather no more that that. Why is that do you think? Well reading on we see this. So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that it was the LORD who brought you out of Egypt, 7 and in the morning you will see the glory of the LORD, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us?” 8 Moses also said, “You will know that it was the LORD when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the LORD.”
9 Then Moses told Aaron, “Say to the entire Israelite community, ‘Come before the LORD, for he has heard your grumbling.’”
10 While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the LORD appearing in the cloud.
11 The LORD said to Moses, 12 “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.’”
Moses tells the people, you know what, your deliverance from Egypt was not my plan, it was God’s plan. When you grumble against us, you are grumbling against God. God is going to reveal himself to the people, once again. They have taken for Granted the presence of God in the cloud that is leading them every day. They have forgotten that God is with them. They have quit trusting. They have lost faith. And as Aaron tells them of the provisions God is going to make for them God appears to them by making the cloud brighter or altering it in some magnificent way to remind them of God’s presence with them. What has God placed in your life to assure you of his presence. Have you forgotten it? Have you taken it for granted? Have you forgotten who is in control of your life? Have you forgotten who is leading you? God has a promise for you. He will provide. You have to trust in his presence. You have to trust that he is intimately aware of your circumstances and he is leading you to the Promised Land.
The provisions are not the only lesson to be learned in the desert that day though. Let’s look at the rest of the story: The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. 18 And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.
19 Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.”
20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.
The other lesson in here is one of disobedience, of greed, and again of lack of trust. God had told them. I will provide for you daily. Only gather enough for one day. Some of them have to put them to the test. What id the fine. They couldn’t do this by their on means, on their own. The extra food turned into maggot infested food. God is sending a message. Quit depending on your selves for your provisions. You need to recognize that you can’t do this on your own. You must trust in me.
Friends what has you in bondage this morning? Is it an addiction? Is it a grudge against someone? Is it a job? Is it an unhealthy relationship? Is it material things? Is it the way you’ve always done things. Change, even good change is difficult for us. We get comfortable in the familiar, even when the familiar is not good for us. Letting go is not easy. Sometimes we hold on to our bondage so tight that it threatens our very lives. We have to make that first step. We have to put our toe in the red sea, heading toward the desert and many times we have to go through the desert to get to the Promised Land. What this story tells us today is that God is with us in that desert, we have to trust though. We are so tempted to try to figure it out on ourselves, to be self-reliant. But our own plans, our own efforts; like the manna, spoils. Remember the story of Peter walking on water. Jesus calls to Peter to get out of the comfort of the boat and to step out into the sea. Peter does. He fixes his eyes on Jesus and steps out of the boat and begins walking on water toward Jesus. But the moment he takes his eyes off Jesus he begins to sink. Jesus rescues him. “Oh ye of little faith.” Is God calling you to step out of the comfort of the boat this morning? Well fix your eyes on him, he will sustain you. He will provide you with your daily bread.
This morning you are called out of bondage. You are called into the desert of the unknown. You are called into the presence of God. You are called to Trust and Obey. Step out. Take that step of faith God has been urging you to take. Depend on Him. He will not fail you and He will bring you to the Promised Land.