TGP (Unit 6 | Session 1): A Strong Craving

Introduction:

Q. What food do you crave the most?

Q. When do you most often crave it? Around holidays? When you’re stressed out?

Q. Why do you think we have cravings? What are our bodies or minds trying to tell us?

Craving the bad stuff

Main Point: Ingratitude leads us to long for something other than God’s provision

Common struggle

God always provides

But hard to see

Contest: Numbers

Named after two military censuses (chaps. 1; 26).

Hebrew name: Bemidbar (in the wilderness)

One month from where Exodus left off

One year after they left Egypt

Complaining reveals our heart

Waving a flag

Read Number 11:4-6

V.4:

“Riffraff”

Probably non-Israelites who left Egypt after the plague

Influenced the crowd

“The Israelites wept again”

A consistent issue

V.5:

“We remember...”

When nostalgia goes wrong

V.6

“Nothing to look at...”

When God’s consistent provision is mocked

Q. What did the riffraff’s complaining do to the entire group? What does this show us about complaining?

Complaints = poison

Complaining distorts truth

Q. Why do we sometimes want more than what God provides?

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

Discontent = stopping looking at God

Q. In what ways are we often like the complaining people in this passage?

Longing for slavery

2. God’s provision is better

Read Numbers 11:16-23.

V. 16

Moses gets help

V. 17

God will “come down” (from Heaven)

The sharing of the HS = bearing the burden together

V.18

The weeping of the people is mentioned multiple times

The Lord sens meat

V.21-22

Moses doubts God

V. 23

God reaffirms his strength

Q. According to verse 20, what seemed to bother God the most about the people’s complaint?

Longing for Egypt

Not good enough

God’s hurt

Q. God decided to send an abundance of quail. How does this form of punishment show God’s mercy and care?

God sends a plague (11.33-34)

Consequences = mercy

Q. What is our deepest need? How does Jesus meet this need?

Salvation

Christ Connection:

The people grumbled because they thought they needed more than God had provided. God has already provided what we need most-His Son, Jesus, who dies and rose again so we could be saved. The Lord’s arm is not weak; He is able to provide for all of our needs according to His riches in glory (Phil 4:19). And this bears witness to God’s pwoer to save sinners, providing for our ultimate need of salvation from sin and death through His gift of Jesus

Wrap Up:

What craving for other things pulls you away from God? How can you direct your craving toward God this week?