Into The Wilderness
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Welcome:
Welcome
Welcome
A Song of Ascents. Of David. 1 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side— let Israel now say— 2 if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when people rose up against us, 3 then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; 4 then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; 5 then over us would have gone the raging waters. 6 Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth! 7 We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped! 8 Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
“Into the Wilderness”
“Into the Wilderness”
Series recap - Pilgrimage: a journey of ascent / Songs that were sung on the wway up
last week was about the way up of God
24 The path of life leads upward for the prudent, that he may turn away from Sheol beneath.
11 You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
PILGRIMAGE / ENCOUNTER / HOPE
Today: “Into the wilderness”
Part of the pilgrimage of faith is to recognize that at some point you are actually in the wilderness and not yet in the promised land. Last week we talked about how our lives with God are a parrallel to what the people of israel did before they went to the feasts at Jerusalem, they journed, they prilgriumaged to the holy city to celebrate, to rememver, to sacrifice, to fellowship with God
And as they ascended, they sang, they sang songs of faith as a way not just to pass the time but to re-identify through this holy rythym what it is to be Gods children.
That they were Captive to the enemy - Utterly Hopeless
rescued & delivered in power -
But led into the wilderness.… to wander for 40 years before they were able to enter the promised land under their leader joshua….
I wonder if you have ever taken some time to understand why the wilderness is something God uses over and over again with his people.
THE WILDNRNESS DOES NOT REPRESENT GODS ABANDONMENT OR LACK OF CARE
We often think that in the bible the wilderness is a bad place or somewhere to avoid, but what we actually see…. is that The wildnerness is a mechanism by which God does some of his greatest work - in his people.
Write this down: GOD USES THE WILDERNESS (SEASONS) FOR HIS GLORY & OUR GOOD.
Write this down: GOD USES THE WILDERNESS (SEASONS) FOR HIS GLORY & OUR GOOD.
We see him use it for the people who had just been delivered from egypt
we see him use it as a the place where John the baptist comes out of to bring forth the impending arrival of Jesus and baptize people ready to see Jesus in the flesh.
we see him use it as the first thing that happens to Jesus after the holy spirit descends on him and he is led by the spirit into the wildnerness to be tested by the devil:
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
WHAT IS SIGNIFICANT ABOUT THE WILDERNESS?
What can we learn? as we understand our on journey with God today and into the future togther with Jesus.
1.TOTAL LOSS OF CONTROL
1.TOTAL LOSS OF CONTROL
Moses had delivered them but Egypt was still in them.
They were out of oppresion but they were still oppressed!
SWTITCH OUT THE IDOL THATS FAKE FOR THE ONE WHO CAN ACTUALLY HELP YOU….REAL THING
Idolatry is still alive and well in 2026.
We make idols of everything: We think this fake thing, can give us the help we think we need. Pleasure, Satisfaction, Fulfilment, Hope…
None of that happens the way our souls want it to so so in our own control of our own lives we seek for it again and again and we never actually find it
we switch out Idol for Isdol for Idol.
8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
unless you let GO, you wont be able to fully taste how Good the kingdom of heaven is….
Thats why the WILDERNESS time of wandering was such a purposeful one for Gods people - They had to come to a place of knowing what it looks like to no longer control
They had to let GO of some things, to truly take up the new things that God had for them
They were so oppressed that they preferred to be treated as slaves then roam as free people:
1 They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. 2 And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, 3 and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
WHAT NEW THING IS GOD TRYING TO DO IN YOUR LIFE THAT ISNT HAPPENING BECAUSE YOUR STILL TRYING TO FORCE THE OUTCOME, OR CONTROL IT>?
if Gods in control, you and i cant be. Its really that simple.
The wildnerness represented a total loss of control, and a focus on God.
2.WHERE A RADICAL DEPENDENCE FORMS
2.WHERE A RADICAL DEPENDENCE FORMS
Sometimes you gotta get a bit hungry to really appreciate the food you get given.
its the same way with God and our spiritual lives
We are not meant to depend upon ourselves
radical dependence on God is only formed on the pilgrimage with god. As you journey with him in trust he reveals to you your real need of him.
You dont know what you dont know! The Israelites needed to find out how dependant they were on GOD!
A Song of Ascents. Of David. 1 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side— let Israel now say— 2 if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when people rose up against us, 3 then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; 4 then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; 5 then over us would have gone the raging waters. 6 Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth! 7 We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped! 8 Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
the test of your help only truly is known when the help is needed.
to test the strength of a structure, you need to stress it
in the wilderness the people of God got to understand very clearly and daily where their help came from.
Where the provision came from (bread from Heaven, Water from the rock)
Psalm 78:15 “15 He split rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.”
Where the daily bread came from.
If you arent going to God on a daily basis for what you need, you are going t find it difficult to follow him. Its meant to be a daily thing
1 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
**we briefly touched on this last week but our pilghrimage with Jesus as our leader our good shepherd means a trust that we have no where else in our lives** Do you have that?
The disciples are a great example of this:
57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60 And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Radical dependance is the only way following Jesus works. He was and is making a point, with me you may not no where tmrw leads, but i gurantee that when you get there you’ll be right there with me. Safe and SEcure… at true peace.
THE POINT ISNT TO “KNOW” THE DETAILS, THE POINT IS TO KNOW THE SHEPHERD
sometimes God will lead you somewhere that its not easy to figure it out. There isnt an easy solution. It seems hard. Its a grind. Its a battle. Why? God is revealing something to us. If we rely on him, we will get what we need
“where does your help come from?”
You learn this lesson in the wildernerss, not the promised land.
Psalm 29:8 “8 The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.”
3.WHERE DEEP FORMATION HAPPENS
3.WHERE DEEP FORMATION HAPPENS
the work of disciple is not a quick thing. You dont become a disciple by downloading an app, or just going to church sometimes
you don’t become a disciple one day and the next you are one.
Its takes FORMATION.
1 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2 Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
The wilderness forms us
its not something that forms as the surface, its seen at the surface but its formed at the deep levels of the human spirit,
Gods people had to know God before they could enter their God-given destiny, otherwise they would just walk away from God all over again:
28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
the wildnerneess is where we learn what really matters.
4.WHERE CONFIDENT TRUST IS BUILT
4.WHERE CONFIDENT TRUST IS BUILT
We learn to trust God when we go through hard things
We dont learn to trust God when everything goes right for us.
How confident are you in the one who is leading you today?
…….WHERE JESUS SHOWS UP.
4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’
NOTES:
Psalm 29 “A Psalm of David. 1 Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. 2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. 3 The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over many waters. 4 The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. 5 The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. 6 He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox. 7 The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. 8 The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. 9 The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all cry, “Glory!” 10 The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as king forever. 11 May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!”
6 “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. 7 You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. 8 You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous. 9 “And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea, 10 and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers. And you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day. 11 And you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into mighty waters. 12 By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go. 13 You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments, 14 and you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant. 15 You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them. 16 “But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. 17 They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. 18 Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies, 19 you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. 20 You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. 21 Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.
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TRIAL
the trial is what the wildnerness always looks like. The wildnerness doesnt have the creature comforts and thats the whole point. Things need to be stripped away and the true work to happen afterwards. but until the trial begins
TESTING
TRUSTING
