Grumbling in the Desert | Why The Key to Growth is Having A Good Memory

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[music: That's Who My God Is]

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- Well. Hey everybody, welcome to Crossroads.

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We are so glad you're here.

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And whether you're brand new or you've been around forever,

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hey, we've got something really, really powerful for you today.

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But, hey, just a heads up, later on

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we're actually going to be taking communion together.

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So this is your chance to grab something to eat and drink

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if you're ready to join us in that.

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But first, I actually want to read you a little bit

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from the Bible to set up our time together.

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Psalm 23 says this: the Lord is my shepherd,

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I shall not want.

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He makes me lie down in green pastures.

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He leads me beside still waters.

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He restores my soul.

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Now Psalm 23 isn't just dusty old poetry, like,

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it's a snapshot of the most incredible,

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interconnected rescue story of all time.

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And it's a story that you and I are invited into.

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We're actually about to sing a song

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that echoes those words from Psalm 23 that say,

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I shall not want.

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And it's a reminder that no matter how exhausted,

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frustrated, confused, or great you feel right now,

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you're not alone in it

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and that in Him we already have everything we need.

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So wherever you are, I would love for you to stand,

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sing, and use these words as a chance

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to connect with God together right now.

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- Come on, sing this with me.

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- I specially requested this song this weekend

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at all of our sites.

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And not just because I've liked it, but it actually

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is exactly what I'm going to talk about today.

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Strange blessings, strange delivery systems

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from God to bring blessings.

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Honey in a rock? Yes.

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Water out of a rock, bread on the ground. Yes.

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We're going to talk about two of those three today.

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I want to tell you something,

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when God starts getting involved in your life,

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things you think are weird and strange

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actually might turn out to be a real blessing.

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Never underestimate the creative ways that God

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will go through to get your attention

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or work in your life. That's His history.

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I want to talk about that a little bit.

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So let's sing this song that actually

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comes straight out of the Bible right now.

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- You know, so maybe, uh, maybe we've

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taken for granted the blessings of God.

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We sang in that song, if you're singing it,

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like, You got everything I need, everything I need.

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Are we that way for God?

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Maybe some of us we just need to say,

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"God, I'm sorry for being so needy.

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I'm sorry for never being satisfied.

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I have life, I have water, I have breath,

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and I just need to spend more time thanking You."

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So why don't we right now, just go right now,

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God, God, hear these silent prayers.

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We just say sorry.

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Sorry for not being thankful for the simple things.

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Sorry. Just tell Him that. Sorry. God, I'm sorry.

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I'm sorry.

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He wants a contrite heart. I'm sorry.

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And God, we say thank You.

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Thank You for the simple things You've given me.

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Thank You for the simple things of my friends,

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the simple things of my background,

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the simple things of my heart is beating

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anywhere from 45 to 80 beats a minute.

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While I'm here I'm not even thinking about it.

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Who would think that electric charges

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that I didn't generate are making this happen

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inside my chest right now?

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God, the simple things we give You honor.

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Thank You. Let's keep going.

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- I will simplify it. Just sing these words.

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I don't know if you grew up singing them

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or they're brand new for you.

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But in saying, I'm sorry to You,

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this is what we're saying. We're saying say:

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- Come on. Respond.

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- Come on, humbly we say. \

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- Father, there's no one above You.

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I know. This looks crazy what we just did.

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Like, we joined online or we came into a room like this.

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It's dark and we just sang.

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Some of us look to a ceiling and sang,

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some of us are crying, some of us are smiling,

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some of us got hands up, some of us are belting it out,

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some of us are whispering.

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Surrender to you, God, it looks crazy,

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and yet it is the thing that has brought me life.

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There is no part of my life that's not better

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because I've given it over to You.

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That's just the facts,

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because I've given it over to Your way.

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Because I've actually believed You when You said

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You love me deeply, that I am Your beloved.

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Because I actually take You at Your Word

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when you say You're a protector, a provider.

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You're Holy means You're different

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and there's no one like You.

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And so once again, I re-up and I say,

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You can have my trust no matter what I'll face.

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You have my heart.

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Thank You for bringing life like You do.

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You are wild. You are crazy.

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You don't make sense,

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but You make good things and You make life.

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Thank You, Father.

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I pray all this because of you, Jesus. Amen. Amen.

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Man, I love getting to sing together like this.

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My favorite parts of the week.

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I love you joining us online.

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I love you being in the room.

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So if you're in the room, why don't you

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turn to somebody around you and say, "Hey,

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glad you made it today," and you can have a seat.

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Hey, I love being together like that.

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Pretty soon here in a minute

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our Senior Pastor Brian Tome is going to be here.

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We're also going to take communion together.

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So grab bread, juice or bread and wine.

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We'll take that together here in just a few minutes.

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So glad you're here.

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- We can get excited about

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all of those epic scenes in the Bible, right?

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But there's a number of things that we'll often think about,

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like, I don't know what was happening back then,

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especially in the Old Testament.

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Those were all Old Testament images.

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We have this idea of the god who is an ogre

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and has capricious anger.

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At least that's the reputation for many of us.

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There are some things in there that are tough to deal with.

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But the other flip side of that, what happens

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when we see God's anger in the Old Testament,

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His intensity in the Old Testament is

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on the other side of that are

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a bunch of unfaithful people who He has loved

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and He has provided for.

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Today I'm going to talk about faithfulness.

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It's a through line through all of those stories

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we've looked at that are epic in the Bible

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and all the ones I'm going to look at today.

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So let's pray. God, thank You

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for being a God who is faithful.

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I'm reminded that there's never anything You ask me

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to do that You haven't already done

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and are doing Yourself.

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Thank You for going before us.

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Thank You for providing for us in crazy ways.

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And thank You for providing for me to have some words

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I think they're going to be helpful for Your people.

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May You be honored today by all that's said.

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I pray these things in the identity

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and character of Jesus. Amen.

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So today, basically a through line is how to be faithful,

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how to be faithful.

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I don't know that you're going to hear that

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in any Ted talk, any motivational speaker thing,

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any college class, how to be faithful.

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You're here today when you could be any other place

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because you're curious about God,

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you want more of God, and that may mean that

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you want to be more faithful.

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You want to consider what it's like to be faithful.

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Many of us were like, "Well, I'd be more committed to God,

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I'd be more faithful, I would believe maybe

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if only I had a miracle. If I had a miracle,

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if I had proof, then I would."

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You know, the problem with that is

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we look in the Old Testament, we see people

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encounter miracle after miracle after miracle,

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and it doesn't seem to do them any good.

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It doesn't seem to bolster their faith.

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We are a frail people who have short memories

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and we forget about it.

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That's the story of the Old Testament in the Bible.

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I want to go through a bunch of those stories today.

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I not only want to look at the wonder of the story,

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but I also want to look at the people's response to it.

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So there's going to like, bam, bam, bam,

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I'm going to give you basically give you

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four talks today in the span of one talk.

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Aren't you excited? Yes, I bet you are.

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Here we go.

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Book of Exodus is where we're going to be today.

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I'm going to start with Exodus 15:22.

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And here is what it says.

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That's Genesis. There it is. There you are.

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All right, here's what it says.

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Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea,

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and they went into the wilderness of Shur.

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They went three days in the wilderness

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and found no water.

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And when they came Marah, they could not drink

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the water of Mara, because it was bitter;

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and therefore it was named Marah.

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And the people grumbled against Moses, saying,

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"What shall we drink?"

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And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log,

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and he threw it into the water,

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and the water became sweet.

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There is a mysterious delivery system

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that God has to meet His people's needs,

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a mysterious, mysterious delivery system

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that woos us to become faithful.

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And here's one of those situations right now.

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Chuck did an amazing job last week talking about

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the crossing of the Red Sea. Didn't he?

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Yeah, he did, he did.

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And I could tell because you all

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were very, very supportive of him.

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All kind of claps and laughs and amens.

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I must really suck because I don't get claps.

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I don't get claps. I don't get freaking amens.

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I don't get it. There it is, there it is.

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But I gotta ask for it. I gotta taunt you to get it.

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Here we have in this story that's relevant to the story

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in just a minute, because you'll see

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there's a common theme, the word grumble

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is going to come up a lot. Grumble, grumble, grumble.

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It's like once one person starts to grumble,

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more people start to grumble.

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The nation of Israel has seen an amazing miracle,

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an unbelievable. They've seen water parted,

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they've gone over, the waters collapsed

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on their enemies and drowned them.

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That's it. Like good enough. Take me home, God.

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You need to give me nothing else.

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I believe I'm all good. We're all good.

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But no, no, no, not the case.

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Three days later. Three days later.

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This is horrible. This is horrible.

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We don't have any water to drink.

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Now, for sure, being dehydrated can be horrible,

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but like, three days later they're grumbling.

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They're all upset. Like (grumbles).

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And it just spreads.

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Like, when you're around unfaithful people,

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everyone's unfaithful.

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When you're around faithful people,

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like, everyone's faithful.

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And it starts because there's people who like I grumble.

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I haven't -- I didn't do many fun things this summer,

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for a variety of reasons. It didn't go many places.

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One place we went is I went to Vegas,

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also known as Lost Wages. I can go to Vegas.

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I have the least addictive personality there is,

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and I don't actually go to --

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Lib and I didn't go to gamble. She hates it.

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I only stay up late, late at night and gamble once a day.

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Doing that, did pretty well too, I must say.

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Actually, I forgot to tithe on my winnings.

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I actually got winnings this time.

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Of course, I would actually say to God,

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"Well, I've lost other times. Does that even it out?"

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You know. No it doesn't.

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But but when we went, we go, we've gone.

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We go, like, maybe once every other year or so we go,

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so we're going to go this and there's shows.

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We do shows at night, we hang out,

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do stuff together, it's really good.

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We went to this comedy, The Comedy Cellar,

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and I had my assistant just book us tickets.

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And so she booked us tickets.

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And when we went, I realized, oh my goodness,

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we had been here one time before like five years earlier

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or something like that.

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And we sat with our -- we took our kids,

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we all sat in the back.

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Where our seats were and it was really cool.

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And this time we had front row seats,

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like the literal front row.

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And the reason we had front row seats is because

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there was hardly anybody in there at all,

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like, a full line up of comics,

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and there was maybe 25, maybe 30 people in the house.

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It was just an odd night, and we're the front row,

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and I am now stressed out.

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I am stressed out because I know, all you people front,

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you have more of an impact on everybody else than you know.

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You d, and I can tell you, some of you suck

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because you just sit there, you sit there

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and you just suck the life out of me.

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You're like.

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If you're gonna sit in the first few rows,

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you gotta give me something.

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You gotta give me something.

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Because if you give me something,

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I'll give more people something.

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Well, I realize this because that's my world, right?

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So, oh my gosh, "Hon. Lib, we've got to be on our game here."

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This is it, so we're sitting down,

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these comedians coming up, anything that's mildly funny.

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"Oh my god. A-ha." And it was great.

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And when you get, when you tell yourself,

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"I am going to have fun today," you have fun.

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When you tell yourself, "I'm going to laugh today,"

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you end up laughing.

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And Lib and I, we led the whole place.

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The whole place came around

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and people were leaving the stage.

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They're high fiving me. They're slapping me.

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By the third comedian comes out, they go like,

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"Man, we heard backstage in the green room,

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it's a small crowd, small but mighty."

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And we're all like, yeah.

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Because the influence of a few positive attitudes

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or a few negative attitudes can be really rippling.

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And this is the way it is for the Nation of Israel.

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They just start grumbling.

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Let's do that together. Everyone say grumble on --

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Let's go grumble three times, say grumble three times

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on the count of three. One, two, three.

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Grumble, grumble, grumble.

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Yeah, yeah, it sounds horrible, doesn't it?

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Let's do it again. 1, 2, 3.

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Grumble grumble grumble.

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That's horrible. It's a horrible murmur that comes up.

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And this is what the nation of Israel is dealing with,

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what God's dealing with.

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The second section here as it goes from here

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and God provides their needs in the midst of grumbling,

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throws a log in the water, becomes sweet,

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His mysterious delivery system.

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And you're going to see more and more of them today.

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Verse two of the next chapter says this:

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And the whole congregation of the people of Israel

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grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.

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There they are. There they are again,

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unfaithfully grumbling again.

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They grumbled in the wilderness,

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and the people of Israel said to them,

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"Would that we have died by the hand of the Lord

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in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots

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and ate meat to the full, for you have brought us

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out into the wilderness to kill

00:34:14

this whole assembly with hunger."

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Man, this is -- this is horrible, utterly horrible.

00:34:21

If you want to be faithful, if you want to be faithful,

00:34:25

faithful to your God, faithful to the things

00:34:26

He wants you to do and reap any benefits or blessings

00:34:29

that may come for that or may not come from that.

00:34:31

But if you want to be faithful,

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you have to be aware of three spiritual realms,

00:34:35

three spiritual realities.

00:34:38

One of them is this: bad memory brings a bad attitude.

00:34:43

Bad memory brings a bad attitude.

00:34:44

When you forget the way that God has met your needs,

00:34:47

when you forget the things that God has done in your past,

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when you don't notice what He's done in your past,

00:34:52

man, that is bad, bad, bad news.

00:34:54

We can complain about our family of origin,

00:34:56

but if you can't remember how your dad

00:35:00

did a few nice things for you,

00:35:01

how your mom was there for you,

00:35:03

or your guardian was there for you,

00:35:06

or if you had nobody and you grew up in an orphanage

00:35:09

and you can't remember, "Yet here I am

00:35:11

because the goodness of God."

00:35:14

We forget the things that God has done in our past.

00:35:18

And this is one of the nation of Israel's problems.

00:35:20

They just came through the Red Sea.

00:35:23

They just had water that was bitter,

00:35:25

sweetened up by a log that was thrown into it.

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And now here they are, bitching and moaning,

00:35:32

wishing they were back in Egypt.

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That's what they're saying here.

00:35:38

They're saying, "Oh man, we used to have meat pots.

00:35:41

Oh, oh, the good old days was so good."

00:35:43

You were a slave!

00:35:46

Now, let me tell you something, I don't know

00:35:48

if you noticed or not, I am white.

00:35:52

I am very white.

00:35:53

So there are some things when I talk about, like,

00:35:55

I could be getting in trouble here.

00:35:56

But let me just talk about this for a moment here.

00:35:59

Of all the African Americans I've interacted with,

00:36:03

all the books I've read about slavery,

00:36:06

all the things with reconstruction and the stuff

00:36:09

that Andrew Johnson did and the thing or did

00:36:12

and shouldn't have done and Grant, all the things

00:36:16

how we how we screwed over the freed slaves

00:36:20

and broke our promise, all the sharecropping,

00:36:23

all the crappy stuff we did with sharecropping

00:36:25

and the Great Migration to to the West

00:36:27

and all, all these things I have never, ever read

00:36:31

or heard of any, any slave who ever said,

00:36:36

"Man, if only we could go back

00:36:38

to living on the plantation, because, man,

00:36:40

if we could go back to the plantation, that was good, man.

00:36:43

Master took care of us.

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He brought us vitlins or whatever, chitlins."

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Or we had, like, no one, no one, no one, no, no one

00:36:53

ever says, "Man, there was some good stuff back there,"

00:36:56

because there wasn't, it was all horrible.

00:36:57

And yet here we have the people of God

00:37:01

because they've had a few bad days going,

00:37:04

"Man, this is horrible.

00:37:06

We had it so good when Pharaoh was taking care of us."

00:37:10

Horrible. When you're unfaithful, man,

00:37:13

you have a bad attitude.

00:37:14

It's not just you're choosing a different religion

00:37:18

or spirituality.

00:37:19

It's that you have a bad attitude

00:37:21

and a bad memory of what God has done.

00:37:23

This is not good.

00:37:25

I need to regularly remember the things that

00:37:28

God has done in and through me and for me.

00:37:33

I was thinking of one just this last week.

00:37:35

I haven't told this story for a long, long, long time.

00:37:37

Just one of the crazy delivery systems of God,

00:37:40

mysterious delivery systems in my life.

00:37:43

I like to ride motorcycles.

00:37:44

I had some friends, we went out west,

00:37:47

we rented motorcycles. This was years ago.

00:37:50

And we're cruising through.

00:37:52

And I was kind of -- My friends at that point,

00:37:54

they were really good guys.

00:37:55

They're still good guys today, but they

00:37:57

frustrated the heck out of me on this trip

00:37:59

because you would have sworn that there was

00:38:01

an elementary school every five miles because

00:38:04

they wouldn't drive, like faster than 15 miles an hour.

00:38:08

It was horrible. I'm like, "Dudes, it's a sin

00:38:12

to drive under the speed limit.

00:38:14

It's a sin, like, you need to be asking God

00:38:16

for forgiveness when you ride under the speed limit."

00:38:19

So after a few days of this, we had this open stretch

00:38:23

and while stuff was happening up front,

00:38:25

and I said, "Look, I'm going to cruise.

00:38:26

I'm going to ride my ride up there,

00:38:28

you ride your bike back here.

00:38:29

We'll meet up at this T way up here,"

00:38:31

and they're fine, they're good.

00:38:33

So I take off. It's wonderful, it's glorious.

00:38:35

And as I'm cruising through, going over the speed limit,

00:38:38

a deer jumps out out of nowhere, out of a bush.

00:38:42

Jump, runs in front of me.

00:38:44

I jam on my brakes.

00:38:45

Bad motorcycle braking technique,

00:38:48

jammed on the rear brake only, not the front as well.

00:38:51

Bad motorcycle braking technique

00:38:52

that God redeemed because He is faithful.

00:38:54

What happened was my bike slid around

00:38:56

because I only did back reel.

00:38:57

The bike slides around sideways. I slam into the deer.

00:39:01

I go through through the entire deer.

00:39:03

I go 40 yards in the air as we measure it,

00:39:06

and then roll another 20 yards on blacktop

00:39:09

right down the center.

00:39:11

And because my bad braking technique and I --

00:39:13

I went through, when I went through the deer,

00:39:15

I went through deer sideways.

00:39:16

And so I landed on my side instead of going face forward,

00:39:20

in which case I would have been broken literally in half.

00:39:24

By the way, I wasn't wearing a helmet.

00:39:26

People were like, people were like, "Man, you should --

00:39:28

You should worn a helmet."

00:39:29

No, I should have worn gloves

00:39:31

because I had stitches in my left two hands.

00:39:34

This is, here are some pictures from that

00:39:35

that my friend got from us.

00:39:37

This is ripped out my drawers.

00:39:38

My drawers got ripped out.

00:39:40

Just that's friction burn rolling all the way.

00:39:43

That is the the blood and the green is the guts.

00:39:46

I went through the gut, through the center of the deer.

00:39:48

And this is the the goggles I had, uh,

00:39:51

that is just deer stuff went right through the center of it.

00:39:54

And as I was feeling myself, I realized --

00:39:57

By the way, I don't recommend riding a motorcycle

00:39:59

without a helmet.

00:40:00

Most of the times I wear a helmet these days.

00:40:03

How fast was I going? Thank you.

00:40:04

Someone's participating in the front couple rows.

00:40:10

About 70 miles an hour was what I was doing.

00:40:12

Because I say because the speed limit was 60

00:40:15

and I knew I wasn't going 60, so I'll just say 70.

00:40:18

As I went, as I was going through my hair

00:40:21

and there was blood and I realized,

00:40:22

"Oh no, it's my hands."

00:40:23

I wipe it off. I'm like, "I'm good."

00:40:25

I'm walking to the car. You saw that woman.

00:40:28

She was an innocent bystander who stopped

00:40:30

and took me to the hospital and just making sure I was all okay.

00:40:33

And in the moment, I was having my pity party with God.

00:40:37

I go through a number of these.

00:40:38

These happen with me every, every few years

00:40:41

where I'm wishing God would give me more.

00:40:45

And I don't mean more toys or something like that,

00:40:49

but I mean more experiences with Him, more visions,

00:40:51

more spiritual gifts, more tastes of miracles, more,

00:40:55

more things that I can't explain.

00:40:57

And I was in one of those, one of those funks

00:41:00

at that moment where I was like, "Man,

00:41:01

I'm reading this stuff in the Bible.

00:41:03

I'm not experiencing a lot of these things.

00:41:04

What is going on here?"

00:41:06

And as I was going towards the car, this woman's car,

00:41:12

and God, His presence was really thick.

00:41:16

But it just dawned on me real quick, like, "Wow,

00:41:20

you shouldn't be going as fast as I was going,

00:41:22

not having a helmet, and you're walking to a car

00:41:25

to go get checked out just in case

00:41:27

there's something wrong with you. Right?"

00:41:31

And I said to God, I said, "Look, I know

00:41:34

no one ever gets this one.

00:41:36

I don't know how You did it.

00:41:37

Don't know why You did it.

00:41:39

I've never heard this before.

00:41:40

And God, I am thankful. Unbelievably thankful."

00:41:44

And I want to remember that.

00:41:45

I want to remember the next day.

00:41:47

The next day we went, we stayed in a hotel

00:41:50

and someone put us up, and they were --

00:41:52

They had a little fly fishing operation.

00:41:53

And I'm a born loser fisherman.

00:41:55

Can't catch. I can't catch a cold, let alone catch a fish.

00:41:59

We go out fly fishing

00:42:01

and we're bobbing up and down in this raft.

00:42:03

And I've got bruises, even though I had leather on,

00:42:05

bruises just from the impact all up and down

00:42:07

my forearms and everything.

00:42:08

And they're steeping pus and blood,

00:42:09

and there's gauze around them, and so it's drying.

00:42:12

And as I'm trying to cast, it's snagging on my scabs

00:42:16

and pulling and it's going up and down the hot sun.

00:42:19

We're not catching anything.

00:42:20

And I'm going, "God, God, this sucks, this sucks."

00:42:23

And all of a sudden I realized, "Wait a minute,

00:42:25

I should have a feeding tube right now."

00:42:27

And so I made a commitment and I said, "God,

00:42:30

from now on, every day is a good day because

00:42:32

I don't have a feeding tube. Every day is a good day."

00:42:38

I've had bad days. I've had bad seasons.

00:42:43

And I do, because I have a bad memory.

00:42:46

Bad memory brings a bad attitude.

00:42:49

Remember the things that God has done for you.

00:42:52

Search them out. Scour the landscape of your life.

00:42:55

Write them down and revisit them again and again.

00:42:59

Story continues, verse 11.

00:43:00

And the Lord said to Moses,

00:43:02

"I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel.

00:43:05

Say to them, 'At twilight you shall eat meat,

00:43:08

and in the morning you shall be filled with bread.

00:43:11

Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.'"

00:43:16

He said, "I've heard the grumbling of the people."

00:43:18

Grumbling can be, I guess, a low form of prayer,

00:43:22

because God hears people grumbling

00:43:23

when they're back in slavery.

00:43:25

And then I've heard the cries of My people,

00:43:27

comes and rescues them.

00:43:28

And now He's hearing their grumbling for food.

00:43:31

And He says, "Hey, here, we got a system here.

00:43:35

You're going to know that I am the Lord your God.

00:43:38

I am going to use a miracle to help them remember

00:43:44

and have a good attitude about who I am

00:43:46

and what I'm doing in their life."

00:43:50

Verse next section, verse 14 says:

00:43:52

And when the dew had gone, there was on the face

00:43:57

of the wilderness a fine flake-like thing,

00:44:00

fine as frost on the ground.

00:44:03

And when the people of Israel saw it,

00:44:05

they said to one another, "What is it?"

00:44:08

For they did not know what it was.

00:44:11

And Moses said to them, "It is the bread

00:44:14

that the Lord has given you to eat."

00:44:16

So God has brought them through the river.

00:44:19

God has now given them water, or sweetened up the water.

00:44:24

And now God is giving them food.

00:44:26

This is really, really interesting.

00:44:29

It's a miraculous kind of food.

00:44:31

It's a mysterious delivery system of food

00:44:33

where flakes are falling from the sky,

00:44:36

fall on the ground, and they eat

00:44:38

these little bread morsels all over the ground.

00:44:41

And God does it every single day and every day.

00:44:44

They're supposed to gather up and they're supposed to eat,

00:44:47

and they're not supposed to hoard.

00:44:49

They're supposed to be dependent on God

00:44:50

so every day they're thankful that God has provided for them.

00:44:53

It's like God is training them to be thankful

00:44:55

so they can go, like, "Every day. Oh my gosh,

00:44:57

He did it again. He did it again."

00:44:58

The only day they can take more than one day

00:45:00

is the day before the Sabbath.

00:45:02

They're going to gather up twice as much

00:45:03

so they don't have to work on the Sabbath.

00:45:05

That's what the thing is.

00:45:07

This is a really beautiful thing.

00:45:09

I used to think about this, like, what is the --

00:45:11

What was this manna like?

00:45:13

And by the way, the people, the people say,

00:45:15

"What is it? What is it?"

00:45:17

That's what manna is in Hebrew, when you hear manna,

00:45:20

there's manna from the sky coming down.

00:45:22

Manna means, what is it? They're like, "What is this thing?

00:45:25

What? What is this that's that's falling down?"

00:45:27

And I think to myself, okay, well, if God

00:45:29

was providing bread from heaven, manna from sky

00:45:34

coming down, what was it like?

00:45:36

It had to be just like basic nutritional things.

00:45:39

It had to be like, uh, like,

00:45:40

I'm going to apologize ahead of time.

00:45:41

We're going to take communion in a little bit.

00:45:43

I apologize ahead of time, this stuff is horrible.

00:45:47

It's horrible.

00:45:48

Somebody at Crossroads needs to start a business

00:45:50

helping churches all across the country

00:45:52

have good, simple communion things.

00:45:55

I don't know who makes these things

00:45:56

and thinks the the the bread has to be bitter.

00:45:59

I don't know who makes this thing and has this,

00:46:01

like, reddish stuff.

00:46:04

I don't know what it tastes like, but like,

00:46:06

it's almost like the people who make this stuff

00:46:08

feel like communion should be painful.

00:46:12

I don't understand that.

00:46:13

When the manna from heaven comes down,

00:46:16

they only say, what is it? But it is, quote,

00:46:21

wafers made with honey is what Exodus 16:31 says.

00:46:25

Psalm 78 calls it the bread of angels.

00:46:30

It is sweet. It's beautiful.

00:46:31

It's not like if those of us who are older

00:46:34

who remember the cereal Grape Nuts,

00:46:36

you remember Grape Nuts?

00:46:37

You young whippersnappers, you don't remember Grape Nuts

00:46:40

because your your generation is too smart to buy it.

00:46:43

They've probably gone out of business by now.

00:46:45

Who's over 50 remembers Grape Nuts.

00:46:46

Horrible, horrible. Here's a throwback for you.

00:46:51

- I'm Euell Gibbons.

00:46:53

I spent years learning about natural foods.

00:46:56

Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible.

00:46:59

Natural ingredients are important to me.

00:47:02

That's why Post Grape Nuts is part of my breakfast.

00:47:05

- Grape Nuts, Grape Nuts was horrible.

00:47:09

It was horrible and he kind of gives it away.

00:47:12

"Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible."

00:47:16

No, never ate a pine tree. Don't want to eat a pine tree.

00:47:19

Here's the other thing,

00:47:20

Euell Gibbons died of stomach cancer,

00:47:24

and yet he wants us to eat Grape Nuts.

00:47:27

Grape Nuts were horrible. God didn't drop Grape Nuts.

00:47:30

He actually drops Frosted Flakes.

00:47:35

He does. He does.

00:47:38

Bread of Heaven. Sweet wafers made with honey.

00:47:44

It's beautiful how good God is. Next one.

00:47:52

Therefore, the people quarreled with Moses

00:47:57

and they said, "Give us something to drink."

00:47:59

So they got beautiful stuff that was given to them to eat.

00:48:02

And now they're back on water.

00:48:03

"Give us something to drink."

00:48:05

And Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me?

00:48:08

Why do you test the Lord?

00:48:09

Behold, I will stand before you

00:48:11

there on the rock at Horeb,

00:48:13

and you shall strike the rock,

00:48:15

and water shall come out of it,

00:48:17

and the people will drink."

00:48:21

This is back to water, understandably back to water.

00:48:25

I'm going to talk about water in a little bit,

00:48:27

but they keep going back and forth

00:48:29

between water and bread, water and bread.

00:48:32

Everything that is in the Old Testament is there for a reason,

00:48:36

not just to communicate the character of God,

00:48:39

not just to communicate our history as people of God,

00:48:42

but also to set us up for who Jesus is,

00:48:45

also to set us up to understand everything in the Bible.

00:48:49

When Jesus prays what you may know as the Lord's Prayer,

00:48:53

our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...

00:48:56

Give us this day our daily bread,

00:48:59

it's throwing back to manna.

00:49:02

Give us today enough to meet our needs today.

00:49:07

Give me today. Give us this day our daily bread.

00:49:10

When Jesus says, "I am the bread of life"

00:49:13

in the book of John, He's saying, "I am your manna.

00:49:17

I am here to interact with you on a daily basis.

00:49:21

I'm here to give you grace every single day.

00:49:24

I'm here to to meet your spiritual needs every day."

00:49:27

He is the bread of life.

00:49:29

God generally, He doesn't dump a bread factory on us.

00:49:34

He gives us due every day like clockwork.

00:49:39

And we have to condition ourselves

00:49:41

to thrive in those spiritual conditions.

00:49:44

And people who can't thrive in those spiritual conditions

00:49:46

will actually die because they won't be faithful.

00:49:50

Pick out your favorite restaurant,

00:49:52

whatever city you're in,

00:49:53

Boca, Ruby's, Lindey's, VASO, whatever it is, pick it up.

00:49:58

You can't survive there.

00:49:59

You can enjoy those mountaintop cuisine experiences,

00:50:02

but you have to figure out

00:50:03

how do I get my daily nutrients every day?

00:50:06

This is what faithfulness is.

00:50:07

It's not waiting for the massive spiritual mountain

00:50:09

where all my dreams came true and I had this vision.

00:50:12

It's every day being faithful.

00:50:14

It's every day meeting God.

00:50:16

It's every day noticing how He's been there for you.

00:50:19

It's every day walking in the love of God.

00:50:21

It's every day seeing His goodness.

00:50:23

It's every day, every day being aware,

00:50:27

that is how you are faithful.

00:50:29

You don't wait for something amazing,

00:50:31

"Now I'm happy. I'm faithful."

00:50:32

No, you're at it all the time because

00:50:35

you're looking for the manna all the time.

00:50:37

And when you get it, you don't forget about it.

00:50:41

Now, there's a strange thing going here

00:50:44

before we crack on Israel too much,

00:50:46

we also have to remember God's created us

00:50:49

to need nourishment.

00:50:50

He could have created us so we didn't need nourishment.

00:50:52

He's created us to need nourishment

00:50:54

and especially hydration. Right?

00:50:57

We need to drink water.

00:50:58

So we got to be careful that we don't crack on Israel too much

00:51:01

because when you haven't drank water for a while,

00:51:04

it'll kind of get the worst of you.

00:51:06

It's not good for you.

00:51:07

So the second spiritual realm is this:

00:51:10

we have to see to be faithful we have to be

00:51:13

into formation over hydration.

00:51:17

God is into your spiritual formation

00:51:21

more than He is into your physical hydration.

00:51:25

The nation of Israel was allowed to get parched,

00:51:29

allowed to deal with hunger for a very, very short

00:51:33

breath of time because God was forming them.

00:51:37

The most important thing on God's agenda

00:51:39

is making you look like Jesus.

00:51:42

That's the most important thing on His agenda.

00:51:45

Number one on His agenda is not giving you a raise.

00:51:48

Number two on the agenda is not giving you family beautiful.

00:51:50

Number three is not giving you cancer free prognosis.

00:51:55

No, these things are all crises to our faith

00:51:58

if you think God's job is to make you happy.

00:52:02

It's not. His job is to make you like Jesus.

00:52:07

And that means Jesus goes through a wilderness era.

00:52:11

Jesus has difficulty. And guess what?

00:52:13

You and I are going to have difficulty. We are.

00:52:15

And what's happening in it is God is using it

00:52:18

to actually form us.

00:52:22

I promise I'm not going to have every illustration

00:52:24

be a cancer illustration, but here's the one

00:52:26

for this week as Lib is dealing with cancer

00:52:28

and chemo and everything.

00:52:29

By the way, if you're curious about what's going on

00:52:31

with her, I have a email list BrianTome.com email list,

00:52:35

and I have an email coming out that's

00:52:36

going to share some of my learnings.

00:52:38

If you haven't subscribed to that, you can go ahead

00:52:40

and subscribe to that if you want to get

00:52:42

personal updates on a variety of things.

00:52:43

Some of you are already on that,

00:52:45

and you can you can get that, but it's an email

00:52:47

that goes out every month.

00:52:48

I've been doing it for years and years and years.

00:52:50

You want to subscribe to that, my next one

00:52:52

is about our kind of little journey on that.

00:52:53

But nonetheless we haven't, we have people

00:52:55

that have been faithful friends to us

00:52:57

for now for a couple of months.

00:52:59

We haven't cooked a meal from scratch in months.

00:53:02

God's so good by blessing us through other people.

00:53:05

This last week, one of the meals that we got

00:53:08

was from a woman who I've never known.

00:53:11

It was a friend of Lib's.

00:53:12

She was in a Bible study with her some time ago.

00:53:16

And this woman has lost her daughter.

00:53:19

The daughter died and she provided us a meal.

00:53:23

I don't know, you know, one thing

00:53:24

that's not supposed to happen is

00:53:25

you're not supposed to outlive your kids.

00:53:27

That's just not supposed to happen.

00:53:29

And when this woman provides me, when I found the story,

00:53:32

it meant so much to me because I was getting a meal

00:53:34

from someone who was faithful.

00:53:36

When life isn't going your way

00:53:38

and you decide to still be faithful,

00:53:40

you're on the right track with God.

00:53:43

And the reason, the reason, the reason why

00:53:45

people are dropping away from the faith

00:53:47

isn't because God isn't good.

00:53:48

It's because you're not faithful.

00:53:50

That's why you're dropping away.

00:53:52

It's not that you're smarter than somebody else

00:53:54

because you figured something out

00:53:55

because people way smarter than you are faithful.

00:53:57

It's not because this --

00:54:00

Faithfulness, like the lid, the lid

00:54:02

of your spiritual maturity is

00:54:05

how much difficulty you can handle.

00:54:08

If you can handle this much difficulty,

00:54:09

that's how much your faith is going to be.

00:54:11

If you can handle this much, that's how much faith.

00:54:13

Handle this much, that's how much,

00:54:15

that's where your faith is going to be.

00:54:18

They want water and there's a big massive rock.

00:54:21

And Moses knows they need water.

00:54:23

He takes his stick, and this is kind of a sign,

00:54:26

not just meeting their needs, but also a sign,

00:54:28

he takes that stick and Babe Ruth's it. Bam!

00:54:32

Smashes that rock, and out of the rock comes the water.

00:54:37

I used to think of this as some little itty bitty rock

00:54:39

that Moses hit.

00:54:41

No, it's a big rock that he strikes and he hits

00:54:44

because it had to feed massive, massive numbers of people.

00:54:50

A lot of people, it had to feed.

00:54:53

And God hydrates His people, but He hydrates them

00:54:57

once He tests them, once He gives them difficulty.

00:55:01

And it ties back to, again, my God has provided for me.

00:55:06

He brought water out of a rock.

00:55:08

Interesting the geologist would say

00:55:10

this part of the world has sandstone infrastructure

00:55:13

underneath with cracks and fissures,

00:55:16

and sometimes water can burst forth from there.

00:55:19

So perhaps God uses the geological systems in that era,

00:55:25

and he times it such with Moses striking the rock

00:55:28

to bring hydration for His people.

00:55:32

Friends, just understand if you want to be faithful,

00:55:34

keep in mind God's up for your spiritual formation

00:55:37

more than He's into your hydration.

00:55:39

Critical to know.

00:55:40

The third realm, the third realm

00:55:43

is prefiguring of perfection.

00:55:46

Let me explain this one, prefiguring perfection.

00:55:50

There are things that happen in the Old Testament

00:55:53

that are prefiguring, they're a prefigure,

00:55:56

a prophetic living out, if you will,

00:55:59

of what's going to be perfectly enacted in later times.

00:56:04

Everything in the Old Testament

00:56:07

is there to point us to Jesus Christ.

00:56:10

Everything in the Old Testament, everything points

00:56:13

to Him in some way or shape or form, He fulfills it.

00:56:16

And when Jesus does miracles and says teachings,

00:56:19

all of His hearers understood all these miracles

00:56:23

in the Bible, in the scriptures,

00:56:25

and that's why they made sense.

00:56:27

And that's why He was doing what He was doing,

00:56:29

He was reenacting and perfecting many of these things.

00:56:32

John 8:37 says this:

00:56:35

Jesus stood up and he cried out, "If anyone thirsts,

00:56:37

let him come to Me and drink.

00:56:39

Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture said,

00:56:42

'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'"

00:56:46

Now this he said about the Spirit,

00:56:48

whom whom those believed in Him were to receive,

00:56:50

for as yet the Spirit had not yet been given,

00:56:52

because Jesus was not yet glorified.

00:56:56

Jesus is drawing on this, on this image,

00:56:59

talking about spiritual formation.

00:57:01

He says, "Your hearts are like rocks. Hard, hard.

00:57:05

Your hearts are like rock.

00:57:06

But when God gets ahold of your life,

00:57:09

when I get ahold of your life,

00:57:10

out of you will flow rivers of water,

00:57:15

that is the Holy Spirit coming out of you

00:57:17

and blessing other people.

00:57:18

Not being about yourself, because the nation of Israel

00:57:21

at this time, they're all about them all the time.

00:57:23

That's all they're thinking about is

00:57:24

themselves, themselves, themselves.

00:57:26

But when they come out of themselves,

00:57:28

they're going to be blessing other people,

00:57:30

this is what Jesus was talking about.

00:57:34

Justin Martyr in 150 A.D., an early leader

00:57:36

in the Christian church, he said this:

00:57:38

The events of Israel were recorded,

00:57:40

and the whole law framed, to be types and images

00:57:44

of what would happen to Christ,

00:57:46

and what was to be done by Christ.

00:57:51

You ever considered that not only is

00:57:53

Jesus the rock that brings forth the water,

00:57:55

but Jesus is the rock that was struck?

00:58:00

Jesus brings forth water

00:58:04

because He was struck on the Cross,

00:58:06

He was painfully struck on the Cross.

00:58:08

And if He doesn't go through that pain,

00:58:10

He doesn't bring you forth the forgiveness and mercy

00:58:13

that you and I deserve right now.

00:58:16

Check this out, 1 Corinthians 10:

00:58:17

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers,

00:58:19

(this is a New Testament passage)

00:58:21

that our fathers were all under the cloud,

00:58:23

and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized

00:58:26

into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,

00:58:28

and all ate the same spiritual food.

00:58:30

They all had manna, they all had the quail,

00:58:32

which I'm not going to get into today.

00:58:34

And all drank the same spiritual drink.

00:58:37

For they drank from the spiritual Rock (capital R),

00:58:40

they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them,

00:58:44

and that Rock was Christ.

00:58:46

Jesus is the rock.

00:58:49

He is the rock that brings forth hydration.

00:58:52

And He is the rock because He was struck.

00:58:55

He was struck. He was struck.

00:58:57

He was battered, He was bruised, struck once.

00:59:01

Had that happen one time in the Cross,

00:59:03

but He's still giving life to us today.

00:59:06

That's why we want to be like Him and celebrate communion.

00:59:08

Let's do this right now. I'm not done talking, by the way.

00:59:11

I'm not done talking.

00:59:12

We're just going to do it right now instead of later on.

00:59:15

Take the bottom part of this, that little wafer

00:59:18

that represents stale manna.

00:59:22

Put it in your hand and represents the body,

00:59:24

the body of Christ.

00:59:26

This body has been stricken for you.

00:59:29

This body has been broken for you.

00:59:31

And Jesus in the early church instructs us,

00:59:34

whenever we're gathered together, to remember

00:59:38

that He was faithful to us

00:59:40

and to decide to be faithful to Him.

00:59:43

The body of Christ broken for you,

00:59:44

all of you who have given your life to Christ,

00:59:46

take and eat.

00:59:50

Then the other side we have some reddish liquid.

00:59:57

This is the blood of Christ.

00:59:59

If you have never had communion before,

01:00:01

or if you've never received Christ before,

01:00:02

you can receive Him right now

01:00:04

and this is your first communion.

01:00:05

If you haven't received Him

01:00:07

and this isn't what you want to do, that's okay.

01:00:10

These aren't applied you yet.

01:00:11

Maybe someday these will apply to you.

01:00:13

But these -- this applies to all of us

01:00:16

who have drank from the Rock of Christ,

01:00:19

drank from Him, been nourished by Him,

01:00:20

want to identify with Him.

01:00:22

He spilled His blood so we could be forgiven.

01:00:26

And we spill our bloods to be faithful to Him.

01:00:29

The blood of Christ, take and drink.

01:00:35

Not sweet, is it? But beautiful nonetheless.

01:00:42

Let's keep going with our story.

01:00:57

Exodus 19:16-19.

01:00:59

Here's where it gets even more intense. Here's what says:

01:01:03

And on the morning of the third day,

01:01:05

there were thunders and lightnings

01:01:07

and a thick cloud on the mountain

01:01:09

and very loud trumpet blast. [thunder]

01:01:17

Gets me every time.

01:01:18

Every time gets me.

01:01:21

Very loud trumpet blast,

01:01:23

so that all the people in the camp trembled.

01:01:26

Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God,

01:01:29

and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain.

01:01:32

And now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke

01:01:36

because the Lord had descended on it in fire.

01:01:38

The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln,

01:01:42

and the whole mountain trembled greatly.

01:01:45

As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder

01:01:48

Moses spoke, and God answered Him in the thunder.

01:01:53

Moses goes up on Mount Sinai.

01:01:56

He gets the tablets of stone, the law of God.

01:01:59

The people of God can't go up.

01:02:01

They can be at the base of the mountain.

01:02:02

And they know something's going on because

01:02:04

every time they come to the base of the mountain

01:02:06

and Moses goes up. They're like, what is going on?

01:02:08

We're hearing trumpets. There's crashes of lightning.

01:02:10

There's stuff happening up there.

01:02:11

It's been a pretty calm mountaintop,

01:02:13

unless Moses goes up there.

01:02:15

And he comes down, the dude's face is glowing.

01:02:18

Comes down the first time he's glowing like my word.

01:02:21

Geeze. Glowing face.

01:02:23

You just have to put a veil over his face.

01:02:26

Interesting, the prefiguring means perfection.

01:02:29

The New Testament tells us Moses put a veil over his face

01:02:33

so that as the glory of God would fade,

01:02:35

people wouldn't get freaked out. Because guess what?

01:02:39

There's times when you're not feeling God,

01:02:41

It doesn't mean you're not faithful.

01:02:43

There's sometimes you're just not glowing.

01:02:46

But faithful people aren't dependent on the glow,

01:02:48

they're just doing the right thing.

01:02:52

Moses comes down the second time

01:02:54

and there is a golden calf

01:03:02

there in the midst of the people.

01:03:04

This is a horrible thing because this golden calf,

01:03:09

let me get the verse here for us.

01:03:12

This golden calf is a replica

01:03:18

of the false gods that were in Egypt

01:03:20

that the nation of Israel came out of.

01:03:23

That was one part of their their deity in Egypt

01:03:26

was like calves or a bull.

01:03:29

And here they are,

01:03:30

they get recreated right here in their midst.

01:03:33

It says this in Psalm 32:1:

01:03:35

When the people of Israel saw that Moses

01:03:37

delayed to come down from the mountain, the people

01:03:39

gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him.

01:03:42

That's his right hand guy.

01:03:43

Aaron said to them, "Up, make us gods who shall go before us.

01:03:47

As for this Moses, the man who brought us

01:03:49

up out of the land of Egypt,

01:03:50

we don't know what's become of him."

01:03:52

As for this Moses.

01:03:55

Gosh, how a leader gets forgotten real quickly.

01:03:58

As for this Moses, this Moses,

01:04:00

you mean the one who parted the sea?

01:04:02

The one who, like, prayed and manna from heaven came?

01:04:05

As for you mean the one who hit a rock

01:04:07

and you've been hydrated?

01:04:08

Like how quickly you forget.

01:04:10

He's yesterday's news. We need some spirituality here.

01:04:14

So Aaron said to them, "Take off the rings of gold

01:04:16

that are on the ears of your wives, your sons,

01:04:18

your daughters, and bring them to me."

01:04:20

So all the people took off the rings of gold

01:04:22

that were on their ears and brought them to Aaron.

01:04:24

And he received the gold from their hand

01:04:26

and fastened it with a graving tool and made a golden calf.

01:04:29

And they said, "These are your gods, O Israel,

01:04:31

who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!"

01:04:34

Oh my goodness! Horrible, horrible.

01:04:38

You can't get any more disgusting than this.

01:04:42

The God who has rescued you, if you ever read

01:04:44

the Ten Commandments, it starts off where God says,

01:04:48

"I am the Lord your God who brought you out of slavery."

01:04:50

The foundation for the Ten Commandments is,

01:04:52

remember, remember what I've done for you.

01:04:55

Not only are they not remembering

01:04:57

what He's done for them,

01:04:58

they're going back and worshiping a false god.

01:05:01

They're creating a false god of the Egyptians.

01:05:05

One of the things that happens when you become unfaithful,

01:05:07

you revert to what you did before.

01:05:10

So the substance you used to abuse,

01:05:12

you start abusing the substance again.

01:05:15

The power trips used to have

01:05:16

you start finding ways to have power trips.

01:05:18

The sexual stuff you had going on,

01:05:22

you go back to where you were sexually.

01:05:24

Your financial practices and principles,

01:05:27

you go back to managing your money

01:05:30

exactly the way anybody on your street would

01:05:32

who doesn't know Jesus.

01:05:33

When you look exactly like them financially,

01:05:35

you're not faithful. You go back to that.

01:05:38

The attitudes used to have, you go back to that.

01:05:42

You just, boom, you revert all the way back.

01:05:44

That's what being unfaithful is.

01:05:45

Being unfaithful isn't like,

01:05:47

"Oh, I just don't believe anymore."

01:05:48

You go back, you revert.

01:05:50

And this is what happens in Nation of Israel.

01:05:52

It is a horrible, horrible thing.

01:05:57

When I was going into the car of the woman

01:06:04

who drove us, drove me to the hospital

01:06:06

and I had that moment with God walking to the car

01:06:10

where I realized, "Oh, no one gets this one, God,

01:06:12

this one, this one is for me. Thank you."

01:06:14

I had this, like, I had waters, I had living waters

01:06:19

that wanted to gush out of me. I like --

01:06:20

I needed, I couldn't just philosophize about this thing.

01:06:23

I needed to share it.

01:06:24

Like, I get in the car and I say to the woman,

01:06:28

I put my evangelist on,

01:06:29

I want to bring this woman to Christ.

01:06:31

She she has got to know the God that I know.

01:06:34

I mean, the reason why many of us can't remember

01:06:40

the last time we shared our faith is because we're stale.

01:06:44

We're just stale. We're not fresh.

01:06:47

And when you're when you're feeling fresh with God,

01:06:50

when yoH freshly understanding what he's doing for you,

01:06:52

it just naturally comes out.

01:06:54

So here I am in the car, and I'm like, I said,

01:06:57

"Hey, do you believe in God?"

01:07:01

And she gave me this answer that I interpreted

01:07:04

as kind of mamby pamby, all gods are

01:07:07

the same spirituality, religion kind of thing,

01:07:09

which is not the same as what we're looking at here today.

01:07:12

I said, "Do you believe in God?"

01:07:14

She said, "Well, don't we all?"

01:07:16

And it was, just hit me the wrong, wrong way at the time.

01:07:20

I just had this moment with God, right?

01:07:22

Like the gloves were off. I said, "No, we don't all.

01:07:26

There's one God. His name is Jesus. Do you know him?"

01:07:30

Not the right response. I could've --

01:07:33

Right heart, but my emotion got away from me

01:07:35

and it kind of shut that conversation down.

01:07:37

I didn't handle that really well,

01:07:39

but at least what happened there was that

01:07:41

there was this, like, purification that took place

01:07:44

where the water was coming out of me,

01:07:46

because I had just had a fresh encounter with God.

01:07:48

My prayer, my hope for you, is that

01:07:50

you are all having that today,

01:07:53

that you're remembering what God did to you at one point.

01:07:57

You might be having God doing something for you right now.

01:08:01

My prayer is that you have a clarity and a vision

01:08:05

and a focus that you want to be faithful

01:08:09

to the one who is faithful,

01:08:11

that you want to have fresh water.

01:08:14

You want to taste of His sweetness.

01:08:17

You want to be in tune to the mysterious delivery systems

01:08:20

that He brings of honey in the rock, water,

01:08:24

water out of the rock, manna on the ground.

01:08:27

You want to be in tune to that.

01:08:29

And the more in tune you are,

01:08:31

the more faithful you will be.

01:08:33

And the land of faithfulness is a connection with God

01:08:38

that you cannot imagine. It's not philosophical.

01:08:41

It's not intellectual. It's not even moral.

01:08:44

It's definitely not political.

01:08:45

It is personal. Personal with you and your God.

01:08:50

And that is the place of spiritual power.

01:08:53

That's what God wants from you.

01:08:55

That's how He's forming you right now.

01:08:57

God, I'm thankful for being patient with me

01:09:00

and forming me and restoring my memories

01:09:04

of Your amazing faithfulness.

01:09:07

I pray you've done that for us today.

01:09:09

And Lord, we want to make a fresh, fresh, fresh statement

01:09:14

that we will be faithful.

01:09:17

We pray these things in Jesus's name. Amen.

01:09:20

- Hey, thank you so much for watching.

01:09:21

I don't know what today's talk stirred up for you,

01:09:24

what it might have challenged you on or encouraged you in.

01:09:27

But hey, we'd love to pray for you or process with you,

01:09:30

encourage you however we can.

01:09:31

Now, I also want to give you a heads up on some of

01:09:34

the things that are happening around Crossroads.

01:09:37

So first, it's fall.

01:09:38

I don't know if you've ever felt like that time

01:09:40

in your life where you're just getting pulled

01:09:42

in a hundred different directions.

01:09:44

Maybe it's work, family practices, errands.

01:09:45

It's easy to feel like you're just surviving,

01:09:48

but you were wired for more than that.

01:09:50

We actually go best when we're most connected,

01:09:53

when we're living life together.

01:09:54

That's why this fall we've got

01:09:56

three powerful ways for you to grow.

01:09:58

First, Made is for anyone who wants to experience

01:10:01

greater purpose and energy and something more than the grind.

01:10:04

Secondly, we've got Naturally Supernatural

01:10:07

to help you live and lead like Jesus with confidence,

01:10:10

even in the miraculous.

01:10:11

And third, if there's a short list of things

01:10:13

that have benefited my marriage, this is near the top.

01:10:16

We've got listening training to help give you

01:10:19

practical skills to deepen every relationship in your life.

01:10:23

If you're ready to reset, reconnect,

01:10:25

or take your next step,

01:10:26

you can do it all at Crossroads.net/Anywhere.

01:10:29

Now, if you ever feel like, man, you're missing

01:10:31

some of the great things that are going on around Crossroads,

01:10:34

there's a cheat code.

01:10:35

It's the easiest way to stay connected.

01:10:37

You can just text Anywhere to 301301

01:10:39

and you'll get one text message from me a week

01:10:41

with some of the things that are going on

01:10:43

that will encourage you.

01:10:44

Next, if you are some of the faithful people

01:10:47

around here with your finances, we've got the Blue Team.

01:10:50

Those are self-identified people who faithfully tithe

01:10:52

and fuel what God's doing around here,

01:10:54

as well as those who are a part of the 10X Push.

01:10:56

If either of those groups describe you,

01:10:58

I just want to remind you that this coming Wednesday,

01:11:01

September 10th, the Blue Team is gathering

01:11:03

for our annual family meeting.

01:11:05

So if you've got the email invite,

01:11:06

you can RSVP and join us.

01:11:07

It's going to be incredible, vision 10X updates and worship.

01:11:11

And maybe you're new around here

01:11:12

and don't know what I'm talking about.

01:11:14

Like what's the Blue Team or 10X?

01:11:15

Hey, this is your invitation to find out.

01:11:17

You can even join us in live stream the family meeting

01:11:20

to see who we are and where we're going as a church.

01:11:22

And whether you're already giving or just considering it,

01:11:25

this is your chance to step in and try it out.

01:11:27

You can check it all out and find out

01:11:29

what we believe about money at Crossroads.net/give.

01:11:32

Hey, thank you so much for watching

01:11:33

and we'll see you next week.

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