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Church in the Wilderness 1
Deuteronomy 8:1-5
When you trusted Christ you were saved. You were as sure of eternal life that
moment as you’ll ever be – then, now, a billion years time. And you might want to know – why the wait
then? Why doesn’t the Lord just
teleport me into His presence, then we could cut out all this suffering
and temptation and waiting in the meantime.
Well, there’s different ways of answering
that question. One answer is to
say: the Lord has work for us to do.
Before Jesus went up to heaven He gave us marching orders to go
make disciples of all nations. It
wouldn’t really work if we all just ascended up to heaven with Jesus
would it?
I’m eternally grateful for the people who
told me about Jesus and I’m very glad they weren’t teleported to heaven
before I heard the gospel. And I’m
sure there will be people grateful to hear about Jesus from me who will
be glad I wasn’t teleported to heaven before I told them the gospel. There’s a reason we’re here. There’s work to be done.
That’s one answer to the question ‘Why don’t
we get zapped into glory the minute we become a Christian?’ And it’s a true and good answer and we
should never forget it. We are on
planet earth to make Jesus known, and everything I say over the next few
weeks should be thought of in that context. But here’s a really urgent question to
ask - Why then is it so hard to be a Christian in the world? If we’re meant to attract people to
Jesus, shouldn’t the way of Jesus be a bit more attractive?
Because here’s how Jesus advertises the Christian
life. In Luke 9, verse 23 He says:
‘If anyone would come after me, they must deny themselves, take up their
cross daily and follow me.’
Essentially that’s Jesus marketing His Kingdom to the world – come
on in, come one, come all, come and die.
It’s a free offer. Anyone
can join. Come and die with
Jesus. Come and die daily. Count every day as if it’s your
last. ‘Deny yourself, take up your
cross daily and follow Jesus.’
That’s the Christian life.
It’s not getting teleported to glory. It’s joining Jesus in suffering now.
And we ask meekly: Jesus, Is there another
way? And He shakes His head and
says No, there’s no other way. If
anyone would be a Christian they must deny themselves, take up their
cross and follow Jesus. There’s
only one way to true life. And
that is to join Jesus in death.
There are many images of it in the
bible. Jesus talks about how a
seed grows.
SLIDE
It dies, goes into the ground, then it comes up in new life. In John 12, verse 24 Jesus says:
I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground
and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many
seeds.
Only the death brings the life. And then Jesus applies that to our
spiritual lives, He says:
The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates
his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26
Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will
be.
We are all meant to be like seeds – going
down into death now – dying daily today – because tomorrow we will rise
up anew. That’s how it happened
for Christ, and that’s how it happens for Christians.
SLIDE
Death then life.
It’s always been that pattern.
Think of how the Bible begins. Day one: God creates everything and
there’s darkness. Then God says ‘Let there be
light’. Day two: There are chaotic
waters everywhere (and these waters symbolize judgement in the
bible). But then on day two He
makes a space for dry ground. Or on
day 6 He makes Adam first but it’s not good because he’s alone. So then He plunges Adam down into a
death-like sleep and wrenches out a piece of him, only then is Adam raised up and he
finds his true soul mate. It’s death
then life.
But you know why everything is on the pattern
of death then life? Because ultimately
Christ was the one plunged down into the death of the cross so that He
could be raised up with His true soul mate, His bride, the church – us! That is the ultimate death then
life. And it provides the pattern
for everything else from seeds to the sea to sunshine to everything – the
whole universe cries out ‘death then life’ because that has always been
the glory of Jesus: a glory planned from eternity – cross then
resurrection. Death then life.
Why are we not teleported into glory right
now? Well we need to die
first. And I don’t just mean our
heart needs to stop beating. I
mean we have to die in the sense Jesus talks about. Every day, taking up our cross and
dying. Counting our own lives as
nothing compared to Christ. Dying
to ourselves, dying to our own selfish desires, dying to the praise of
others and the fear of others and the allure of money and success and sex
and pride. Saying in our hearts
and to the world, there’s nothing that compares to Christ. He is life – everything else is a dead
loss. There’s a death that we’re
all called to. Dying with Jesus –
that’s the way to life.
And one of the most brilliant illustrations
of this truth is the church in the wilderness.
SLIDE
We’re going to spend some weeks thinking
about the Old Testament people of God and how they were saved from slavery for the
promised land.
The second book of the bible, Exodus, tells
the story of how the LORD’s people were taken out of Egypt, out of the
land of slavery and oppression. And
His desire was to bring them into the land of Canaan – the promised land,
a land flowing with milk and honey.
And this was a grand dramatization of what
our salvation looks like. We’ve
been saved from slavery to sin and darkness and are being brought into
God’s new creation future. But the
path for the Israelites took them through 40 years of desert.
SLIDE
And that’s what we’re going to think about
over the next few weeks. The
people of God were taken out of slavery with a mighty hand and an
outstretched arm. Think of the Red
Sea.
The Egyptians pursuing the Israelites, the
Sea blocks them in. No way out and
then... Moses lifts his staff and the waters part and the Israelites go
through. 600 000 men go through
the waters, maybe that means 2 million Israelites all told. And they come through safe to the other
side, saved from the Egyptians, freed from their slave masters.
But as they came out the other side it wasn’t
the promised land. Not yet. It was desert.
And the Christian journey is similar. We’re not transported immediately into
glory, there is testing and trial and hunger and humbling. Even after we’re saved it’s death then
life. It’s church in the
wilderness.
And one of the clearest places to see the
link between the wilderness wanderings of the OT and our own experience
is 1 Corinthians 10. You might
remember it from studying it a couple of months ago. But Paul writing to a new testament
church in Corinth wants them to learn some lessons and so he reminds them
of their forefathers, the Israelites.
He says:
Our forefathers
were all under the cloud and they all passed through the sea.
The cloud he talking about is the great
pillar of cloud that the LORD travelled about in as He accompanied the
people. They were all under the
cloud – under the care of this LORD who travelled with them. And they all passed through the
sea. Paul says,
2 They were all baptised into
Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
Paul says going through the Red Sea was like
a baptism. Because baptism is a
sign that you are united to your leader.
Think about the scene at the Red Sea,. There’s no way the
Israelites could possibly survive.
The Egyptians were coming and the Sea blocked their path. But with Almighty power, Moses is able
to get through the waters and because their leader can get through the
waters, the people can get through.
So they all follow Moses through the waters – now they’re united
to him – they will go where he goes.
Well Christians have the same
experience. We can’t get through
the judgement ourselves (remember the waters are a symbol of
judgement). But Jesus with
Almighty Power has gotten through.
And in baptism we throw our lot in with King Jesus and say ‘I am
united to Jesus my Leader – He has gotten through death and hell and
judgement, and I’m following Him – He’ll get me through.’
Well Paul reminds Christians that we’ve had
our baptism into Jesus, and the OT Israelites had a kind of baptism into
Moses. But Paul says – don’t think
of the Israelites as having different spiritual experiences to you. No – v3:
3 They all ate
the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink;
for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that
rock was Christ.
Now
we’ll look at this in more detail in the weeks to come, but Paul is
calling to mind an incident where the Israelites are thirsty in the
wilderness. And the LORD says ‘I
will stand on a rock, Moses you strike the rock and water will come out
for the people.’ And so this is
what happens. And ever since this
event, the Israelites start calling this LORD who accompanies them ‘the
Rock’ – because this LORD was so much associated with the Rock that gave them
with water. Throughout the Old
Testament the LORD who accompanies the Israelites is called ‘the
Rock’. And Paul says ‘That Rock
was Christ.’ Christ has always
been the LORD who is with the people.
If the OT believers ever see God, or talk to Him face-to-face or
it talks about the LORD moving about with the Israelites – it’s always
Christ that the bible is talking about.
Christ has always been making His Father known.
So the Old Testament Israelites were not
Christless people at all. They may have used different names for Him,
like the Rock, but Christ has always been the One who dealt intimately
with the people. The LORD
accompanying the people is the eternal Christ.
SLIDE
The great reformer John Calvin used to say:
“Christ was always the link joining men to God, and God did not
reveal himself otherwise than through him. . . . For there has always
been between God and man a distance too great for any communication to be
possible without a mediator.”
The Spiritual Rock that accompanied them –
this hands-on LORD – that Rock was Christ.
SLIDE
So you see Paul is really wanting to draw the
links between the Old Testament wilderness wanderings and our New
Testament Christian experience.
They were baptised, brought through waters of judgement to be
saved – and so are we. In the
midst of their wilderness experience they knew the spiritual nourishment
of the Rock - Christ - and so do we.
And as Paul goes on to say in this chapter the Israelites were
tempted with idolatry and sex and grumbling – and so are we. We’ll look at all those issues at another
time. But Paul’s whole assumption
is that their experience is meant for our benefit. In verse 11 he says:
11 Now these
things happened to them as examples and were written down for our
instruction, on whom the fulfilment of the ages has come.
All this stuff in the Old Testament is for
us. We need to put ourselves in the shoes of those Israelites and learn
from them. So that’s what we’re
going to do in this series.
And it’d be great if you wanted to follow
along and start reading especially Exodus and Numbers, and if you like,
Leviticus and Deuteronomy would help too.
And we’ll see if we can learn together what the LORD wants to
teach us about life in the wilderness.
Because that’s where all of us live if we are a Christian. Figuratively speaking – every Christian
is in the wilderness.
We’ve been baptised, we’ve been saved from
slavery and judgement, we’re hoping in glory –the land of milk and
honey. But here we are in the
desert – I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but life is not always very
easy. It’s often intolerably
difficult to be a Christian in this world. Well that’s wilderness for you – it’s
an inhospitable place. And we need
to ask, what does Christ want me to learn now, in the wilderness.
We’re going to examine issues like:
Passover
Crossing over
The LORD’s Provision
His Presence & Guidance
Leaders
Thinking about the Past
Thinking about the Future
Idolatry
Immorality
Grumbling
Christ in the Wilderness
On that last one, let’s turn to Matthew
chapter 3 from v16
16 As soon as
Jesus was baptised, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven
was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and
lighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, "This
is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."
4:1 Then Jesus
was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2
After fasting for forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3
The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell
these stones to become bread." 4 Jesus answered, "It
is written:`Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that
comes from the mouth of God.'"
Do you see what’s happening here? Jesus comes to step into our
shoes. We’re the ones who get
baptised and then are led into the wilderness. Well Jesus comes to live our life for
us. He gets baptised. And the Spirit comes upon Him in a
special way. And the Father
declares His love for Him in a special way. And then He is led into the desert for
temptation. Forty days – a symbol
of the 40 years of the Israelites.
But where Israel failed in the wilderness, and where we fail all
the time in our wilderness – Jesus succeeds. He answers the temptations with the
word of God. He proves faithful
throughout the wilderness testing.
And I need to say this right now – I’ll say
it again in more detail when we look at Christ’s temptations – but we all
need to know that our salvation does not depend on how well we do in the
wilderness. Our salvation depends
on how well Christ did in the wilderness.
Fundamentally it’s not about our
life under temptation – we fail God’s testing all the time. Fundamentally it’s about Christ’s
triumph over temptation. He
stepped into our shoes and He succeeded where we fail. So now we go into the wilderness, with
Christ, knowing that He has secured my passage to the promised land – the
new creation. I am united to Him
in my baptism and I am now going where He has gone – through temptation
and into glory. But – I am also
going to tread the same path – through temptation and into glory.
There are still many things for me to learn
in this wilderness time.
And we’ll just finish by turning to Deuteronomy
8. And we’ll see if we can learn
why the LORD puts us through the wilderness. Page 187, Deuteronomy 8, verses 1-5.
Here is Moses on the brink of the promised
land. It’s now the end of the 40
years of wilderness wanderings. A
whole generation has died out along the way and Moses is instructing the
next generation who are about to go in and take the promised land. How should they think of these
wilderness wanderings?
This is what Moses says:
Deuteronomy 8:1 Be careful
to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and
increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on
oath to your forefathers. 2 Remember how the LORD your God led
you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test
you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would
keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and
then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had
known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every
word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4 Your clothes did
not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 5
Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD
your God disciplines you.
Why go through the wilderness?
Well notice verse 2 – the LORD leads.
SLIDE
It’s His idea. It’s not a mistake. If you’re a Christian and things are
really hard right now I assure you Jesus is not asleep at the wheel of
your life. He’s leading. And He leads all the way. The
Israelites would have been tempted to think that the LORD led them during
the good times – when He provided water from the rock, then He was
leading them, but during their thirst He was off His watch. No. The LORD leads the whole way through
the wilderness. During hunger and
plenty, when you are parched and when your thirst is slaked, He leads all
the way. Why?
Verse 2.
To humble you.
SLIDE
It’s a word Moses repeats again in verse
3. He humbled you. He uses the word again in verse 16. To humble you.
It’s not pleasant to be humbled. Pharaoh’s great sin was that He refused
to be humbled before the LORD (Ex 10:3) and that instead He humbled the
Israelites (Ex 1:11f). You see
‘humbled’ is a word that can sometimes be translated ‘afflicted.’ It’s sometimes associated with
bruising, with violation, with oppression, with bringing calamity upon
someone. What does it mean that
the LORD leads His people through the wilderness to humble them?
Well there’s nothing the LORD hates more than
pride. More than haughtiness,
loftiness, being lifted up and arrogant.
He is just so against self-sufficiency and independence and
pride. Instead the bible is always
saying things like:
God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. (James 4:6)
And so He works hard to humble us. Do we prize humility the way the LORD
does? He will lead us through a
howling wilderness to humble us.
We say ‘Why are you doing this?
I’m becoming weak and powerless.
I’m unable to live to my strengths.’ And the LORD says ‘Exactly. I’m leading you to humble you.’
And then verse 2 continues...
to test you in order
to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his
commands.
The LORD wants to see what’s in our
hearts. And it’s not pretty is it?
It doesn’t take a howling wilderness to
reveal my self-centredness – it only takes low blood sugar or a computer
malfunction or a traffic jam or...
what is it for you? The
wilderness is the place where what is in our heart comes out. It’s funny isn’t it – church is often
the last place where what is in our heart comes out? We manage to conceal much of it. But the wilderness is the place where
what’s in our heart is laid bare so that the LORD and the LORD’s people
can deal with it.
So the LORD leads, to humble, to test and to
know and then, v3, Moses repeats ‘To humble you’ and then ‘to cause you
to hunger’
Let those words sink in. To cause you to hunger. Here is what the LORD is doing in your
life. If you’re a Christian you
are in the wilderness and you are in the wilderness because the LORD is
causing you to hunger. Is that
your view of the LORD? Or is your
view of the LORD that He could never cause me to hunger. No, no – His word says He causes us to
hunger.
There’s a famous evangelistic presentation
that millions have used around the world.
It’s first line is this: God loves you and has a wonderful plan
for your life. Now of course
that’s true. But what does that
look like? I love this poster.
SLIDE
Yes God loves you and has a wonderful plan
for your life but that plan definitely involves being led through the
wilderness and that might mean being thrown to the lions. We follow a LORD who causes us to
hunger. In our natural selves we
crave certain satisfactions. We
demand to be full of certain joys.
We refuse to feel empty.
But we have a LORD who causes us to hunger. Who sometimes starves us even of things
we know are necessary. Bread is
pretty necessary. Our LORD
sometimes starves us. Why?
Verse 3: To feed you. His desire is not for you to be famished
but to be well fed. Well fed with
what? Well verse 3 says:
3 He humbled
you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither
you nor your fathers had known,
Our LORD has
for us bread not baked with human hands.
He starves us of junk food to feed us
with the bread of heaven. Jesus
called Himself the bread of heaven in John 6. We’re about to sing to Jesus our Bread
of Heaven. But our Father longs
for us not to fill up on junk food.
Sometimes He even leads us to stop filling up on basic and
necessary food – Christians fast you know. But whatever hunger the LORD causes you
to have it’s so that you will be fed with the Bread that truly
satisfies. Jesus said:
48 I am the
bread of life. 49 Your forefathers ate the manna in the
desert, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes
down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51 I am the
living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he
will live for ever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the
life of the world."
One of the
key things the LORD will do in our wilderness testing is to starve us of
our cherished things and even to starve us of necessary things – to show
us what is really necessary. To
draw us closer to our LORD, our Rock, our true Bread, Jesus.
Notice how
verse 3 continues:
to teach you that man
does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth
of the LORD.
When you are in the wilderness, led, humbled
and hungry, every word from the mouth of the LORD becomes precious. Because you don’t have anything
else. You’re not in Egypt anymore
– you don’t have those securities.
Everything is now about dependence. You depend on daily bread, daily water,
daily guidance. All you have is
the LORD who is with you and His promise of the future.
And so every word from Him is precious. His words assuring of you of His
presence, His words promising a better hope. You eat those words like the starving
eat bread.
And then the final verb is in verse 5:
5 Know then in
your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God
disciplines you.
The LORD is training you the way the most
living father trains their child.
He has not abandoned you.
The wilderness is not the sign He doesn’t love you. It’s the sign He does love you. He is disciplining you because He is a
good Father.
Why the wilderness?
To lead you, to humble you, to test you, to
know what’s in your heart, to cause you to hunger, to feed you, to teach
you, to discipline you.
This is what the LORD is up to in your life
right now. Do you recognize
it? Do you – as v5 says – know
these things in your heart?
He has saved you, He will lead you to the
promised land and He is with you in the wilderness. Let’s pray.
A moment to think about those verbs:
To lead you, to humble you, to test you, to
know what’s in your heart, to cause you to hunger, to feed you, to teach
you, to discipline you.
Let me read to you verses 15 and 16:
15 He led you
through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land,
with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard
rock. 16 He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something
your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the
end it might go well with you.
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