Redeemer: Growing, grumbling, and going with God. Exodus 15:22-18:27

Redeemer: Growing, grumbling, and going with God.

Exodus 15:22-18:27

We are covering a large portion of Exodus today. I’m sure there are many ways it work through a passage like this, but for our time this morning we are going to look at it in sections and apply it to our life as we walk through it.

Exodus 15:22-27 (Bitter water made sweet)

They come to a place where there is water, but the water isn’t drinkable. It’s bitter.

Marah… this moment becomes such a part of their history that they reference it when they go through hard things- when they thought it would have gone better. Naomi does this when she refers to herself as marah when she and Ruth return home without husbands and as widows. And I can’t help think that when she calls herself Marah, that there is something to the fact that God does a good thing in her life when she thought it wasn’t going well, just like God does here with Israel.

Following God requires listening to His Word rather than people.

15:26, saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer.”

Following God requires doing what is right in His eyes rather than what is right in the eyes of people.

God’s people are called to follow Him. Following Him means that we do as He says, and in doing what He says we end up where He wants us to be. This is true in relation to every facet of life. You can see in the history of Israel how often they made the destination the most important thing about their relationship with God. But, God’s focus for us is His presence with us as we follow Him.

And in our relationship with God we learn that…

Your current destination is preparation for what comes next.

You must learn to depend on God’s presence rather than circumstances.

Circumstances are temporary and it’s not our circumstances that bring us comfort, it’s God in the midst of our circumstances.

Circumstances cannot become our foundation, God and His Word are our foundation.

God calls us to build our lives on faith. This is what He did with Abraham, the father of the nation of Israel. And, this is the pattern throughout all of history between God and HIs people. In each and every thing that we go through it’s God’s desire that we build our lives on who He is, what He says, and what He has done.

There is a temptation to let the people around us influence what we do and how we do it, but God’s people build their lives on the foundation of faith… and a foundation of faith is built on God, the object of our faith and not our destination or our circumstances.

Exodus 16:1-36 (Bread from heaven)

In our previous passage they needed water… in this passage we see that they need food. And, they don’t just need food for a day or two, they need food every day, and will need it for the entire 40 years that they are in the wilderness.

Even though they have seen God’s power, protection, and provision over and over, they doubt God’s goodness because of their situation. And, this is something that can happen in our lives today. The doubt of the Israelites comes out in the form of grumbling.

Grumbling is something that comes up in these passages over and over again. We saw it in the passage we looked at last week, and we will see it over and over again as it becomes a pattern for the Israelites as they follow the Lord through the wilderness.

The word grumble is the combination of two Hebrew words that mean “growl” and “rebellion.”

Where there is a lack of faith there is an abundance of grumbling. In the same way that praising God is evidence of faith,grumbling is the demonstration of doubt, self-centeredness, and forgetfulness.

Israel ignored what God had done and grumbled at Him as they faced another difficult situation.

Grumbling is judgment and is born from flesh and fear.

James 5 tells us not to grumble and judge our brothers. In fact, the book of James calls us as Christians to live by faith, and tells us that our faith is evidenced through our obedience… and the opposite of faith with obedience is grumbling. Because grumbling is when we lean on our flesh and out of fear of others and our own weaknesses judge what God has done in our lives, and in turn judge those around us.

Grumbling or muttering against where God leads us is the same thing as grumbling against God’s Word.

if our steps are steps of obedience, then where we are is the result of God’s leading… and that means when we are facing uncertain, difficult, and unwanted circumstances we are right where God wants us to be.

Ultimately Grumbling is how we demonstrate our distrust of God’s plans and His ways.

Grumbling demonstrates our distrust of God. We don’t always like to see it that way. But we cannot get away from the truth of God’s sovereignty over our lives.

You have to remember that the grumbling that is happening in Israel is because of their redemption. The Israelites grumble about what they are going through on the other side of their redemption (16:1-3)

We struggle with the idea that there will be difficulties on the other side of our salvation. But, God doesn’t promise a life without hardship, but He does promise His presence with us through all that we face.

Now, God has promised an eternity without hardship through Christ. But, this life, the one we live between our redemption and the return of Christ is filled with difficulties. Why? Because as God says to Moses and the Israelites, his plan is to glorify Himself through the Israelites. And, he is working through them and through their circumstances to bring glory to His name while at the same time growing their faith and providing what they need.

Grumbling against your circumstances is the same thing as grumbling against God, because God is the author of your circumstances.

In Exodus God brings Moses and the Israelites back to what He has done by redeeming them from Egypt. In 16:6 he tells Moses that through his provision He will prove Himself as their Redeemer.

16:6, “at evening you shall know…”

God promises daily provision because His plan is for us to be daily disciples.

(The Lord’s Prayer, Galatians 2:20)

Jesus tells us to pray for daily provision, protection, and presence. So that we will live here on earth in line with God’s will for us in heaven.

Paul says that the life we now live in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us on the cross.

Just like God’s redeeming work for them in Egypt is the foundation of their obedience as His people, God’s redeeming work for us through Christ on the cross is the foundation for our daily obedience to Jesus.

Jesus told us to take up our cross daily to follow Him. This means that each day we start fresh with a commitment to surrender it all to live for Him. Trusting Him, depending on Him, and surrendered to His will for us each day. (Not saved each day in a new way, but each day belongs to Him by faith.)

God tells us to remember what He has done in the past to help us stay faithful in the present.

Exodus 17:1-7 (Water from the Rock)

here again we see the Israelites in a predicament, they immediately grumble against God and instead of remembering all that He has done in the past they want to go back to before He redeemed them and they were “comfortable” as slaves in Egypt.

It’s really sad how quickly we will give up God’s presence and provision for what we feel like we can control with our own hands.

Exodus 17:8-16

Amalek (lifting up Moses’ arms)

This always gets to me in many ways… one as someone who has been called to serve God in a position of leadership I know what it’s like to be weary. but one of the things that gets to me is to think about Moses as he drops his arms and knows that men of Israel begin to die.

Can you imagine the grief that he probably lived with knowing that if he had just kept his hands up… and then the fact that Aaron and Hur also felt some of that weight as they joined in with Moses to hold his arms up?

But we see in this situation that following God’s plans comes with more than we can handle or do without Him and without others.

God’s plans require dependence on Him and one another.

The success of Israel’s army depended on Moses keeping his staff in the air. But, Moses couldn’t keep it lifted up long enough on his own. Aaron and Hur had to help Moses keep his arms up so that Israel would win.

The idea that we live for God on our own is not the way that God has designed our life to go..

The success of God’s plan depends on His power and the surrender of His people.

God’s plans require Him…

God’s plans require our surrender to His ways. In this situation Israel’s success depends on Moses keeping a staff lifted in the air- not the fighting ability of Israel- they weren’t an army… We must surrender to God’s ways and trust His power and promises.

Exodus 18:1-13

Jethro’s praise

I love that Jethro comes to see this mighty thing that God has done. And even though he wasn’t one of those who was saved from the Egyptians, he erupts with praise!

God’s redeeming work results in the praise of those who hear the story!

God’s plan is that we will tell the story of what Christ has done for us and in doing so others will have faith and trust Him and praise Him for Jesus too!

Exodus 18:14-27

The success of God’s kingdom depends on His presence not our plans.

Moses was taking on too much for one person. The kingdom didn’t depend on Him, it depends on God. And Jethro shows Moses how to help the people grow to depend on God and not on just on Moses.

Jethro’s advice, God’s presence, Moses’ success

18:19 “I will give you advice, and God be with you!”

Jethro understood that no matter how good his advice was for Moses, success was in God’s hands.

But, we do have to put what God says into action, and we have to do it in a way that fits with what He has said.

God has told us to know, do, remember, and pass on the truth of the gospel. This is what God intended with Israel in Deuteronomy 6, what Jesus tells the disciples in Matthew 28 and Acts 1.

It’s what Paul tells Timothy when he tells him entrust the gospel and the church to faithful men who will be able to teach others as well.

We see that the kingdom of God is built on faith in God and His Word, and one thing we learn here is that…

God’s kingdom grows through multiplication, not addition.

It seems that many people and churches have taken to the idea that God grows the kingdom through addition. By addition I mean that you have one group that just keeps adding people to it over time.

Growth by addition is better than no growth at all. But, growth by addition misses the nature of God’s plans and purpose. It does so by keeping leadership singular. The growth of the kingdom becomes a burden rather than a blessing.

Gospel growth isn’t meant to be a burden, it’s meant to be a blessing to all, both those in leadership and those who are following.

There are dangers in every kind of model, but the ones present in the addition model are especially dangerous. One of the biggest dangers is that it allows the church to become led by experts and professionals. Why is that dangerous? Well, it’s not how God would have it to work. God desires for the members of the kingdom to contribute through more than their talents and workplace skills. God desires for all of His people to grow in the Word and to be a part of His work.

Growth by multiplication means that where you have one leader, you multiply the leader so that you have more leaders. This allows for more, and it allows for growth to be a blessing rather than a burden. The church is blessed by having more and more men who know the Word and who can lead according to the Word. The leaders are blessed because they see the work of the Lord going forth and are able to do their part rather than the whole thing.

There is always a person or a group that is involved in the bigger matters. But, even then the judgment or decisions must be made according to the Word of God and not according to the ideas or opinions of men. And by bigger issues it might be the ones that are harder to discern… not just ones that might make the biggest headline.

On a more personal note… God’s plan is for disciples to be disciples who make disciples.

Addition would be one person leading people to Christ over time… but not each person who comes to Christ leading others to Christ.

Jesus’ tells us each one of us is a disciple maker… Mission 555. The growth of the kingdom doesn’t depend on just a few people in each church- it depends on each member being faithful to depend on God’s promises, power, and presence.