Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
129: Wandering
37 Plays13 days ago
Episode 129: Wandering
Sometimes it's hard to see God at work in our lives. When pressures weigh us down, it's easy to give up. And that's when God steps in. In this week's message, Ryan Pfendler will walk us through how God is with His people, fighting their battles. He's with you every step of the way!
If you’d like to dig deeper, check out these discussion questions. You can complete them on your own, with your Community Group, or with family and friends.
Normal Goes A Long Way Website: https://www.normalgoesalongway.com/
Normal Goes A Long Way Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/normalgoesalongway/
Normal Goes A Long Way Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Normal-Goes-A-Long-Way-110089491250735
Normal Goes A Long Way is brought to you by Messiah St. Charles: https://messiahstcharles.org/
Normal Goes A Long Way is hosted on Zencastr. Create your podcast today! Get 20% off when you choose Zencastr for your podcasting needs: https://zencastr.com/?via=jill
#madeonzencastr
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Episode Focus
00:00:00
Speaker
The following podcast is a Jill Devine Media production.
00:00:20
Speaker
to normal goes a long way, I'm your host Jill Devine.
Series Progression and Context
00:00:24
Speaker
And in this week's episode, we will be covering chapter six from The Story by Randy Frazee. Wandering. This is our sixth week in our series on The Story.
00:00:36
Speaker
And we've been working through the whole story of the Bible. And up until this week, we've been going at kind of a manageable pace. So the first three weeks we spent going through the book of Genesis. The last two weeks we spent covering just the book of Exodus.
00:00:53
Speaker
Today's
Recap and Humor
00:00:54
Speaker
message is going to cover the entire book of Numbers and the entire the entire book of numbers and the entire book of Deuteronomy. ah So for the next six hours, I'm going to be going verse by verse through these books. um I'm kidding, of course. So we've got some Chiefs fans here that need some good news after that incident last week. So we're going to get to that.
00:01:15
Speaker
oh ah But I wanna catch you all up on kind of where we are right now in this story.
Israelites' Journey Overview
00:01:22
Speaker
Two weeks ago, Pastor Jim told us the story of the Exodus. God rescues the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and begins leading them on their journey to the promised land. During that journey, they stop over at Mount Sinai where God gives them the 10 commandments, his law, and that's what we talked about last week.
00:01:44
Speaker
But the story now transitions from the period of the Exodus to the period that's called wandering. So far, ah the journey of the Israelites from slavery to the promised land has been a pretty straight shot, except for that one little stopover. But what ends up happening is they start this period of wandering in the desert for 40 years. What was once a direct journey begins this season of just aimless wandering. And
Hardships and Divine Provision
00:02:11
Speaker
so how did we get here?
00:02:13
Speaker
I think it would be helpful to give you a bit of perspective on the amount of time that has passed in the story. So it takes about three months to get from Egypt to Mount Sinai. And then when the Israelites get to Mount Sinai, where they get the 10 commandments, they then camp out there for over 11 months. Now, during this time, God has been providing for his people. He'd been sending them down food from heaven so that they could eat. The food was called manna.
00:02:43
Speaker
And so God's people are eating, they are surviving, but they have now been in a desert surviving off of manna for over a year now. And that's where we pick up today's part of the story. We'll
Spies and Fear of the Promised Land
00:02:57
Speaker
go to God's word. Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord. And when he heard them, his anger was aroused.
00:03:10
Speaker
The rabble with them began to crave other food. And again, the Israelites started wailing and said, if only we had meat to eat. We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost. Also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite. We never see anything but this manna. The manna was like coriander seed and looked like resin.
00:03:40
Speaker
When the dew settled on the camp at night, the manna also came down. So after a year, God's people are starting to grow tired of the desert. They are starting to grow tired of the manna and they start to complain. They tell God that we want other food and God starts out pretty angry at them, pretty frustrated. But God actually gives in and sends down meat for them to eat. He he fulfills their wishes and does what they ask.
00:04:10
Speaker
And
Generational Punishment
00:04:11
Speaker
so the the Israelites, you know they get some great new food and they pick up their camp and start the final leg of the journey to the promised land. And they actually make it to the very edge of the promised land. They get right to the end of the journey. And Moses sends out 12 spies to go scout out the promised land and and see what it looks like. And those 12 spies come back and give Moses their report. They gave Moses this account.
00:04:40
Speaker
We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey. Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, we should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it. But the men who had gone up with him said, we can't attack those people.
00:05:09
Speaker
The stronger than we are. That night, all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, if only we died in Egypt or in this wilderness, why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder.
Modern Parallels and Escapism
00:05:37
Speaker
wouldn't it be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to each other, we should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.
00:05:48
Speaker
The Israelites get to the end of their journey and they are just too scared to face their battles. And they decide that rather than face the battles in front of them, they wanna go back to Egypt.
00:06:04
Speaker
And this is the part of the story where God decides that he's had enough. As surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you the very thing I heard you say. In this wilderness, your bodies will fall. Every one of you, 20 years old or more, who was counted in the census and who had grumbled against me, not one of you,
00:06:30
Speaker
will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jafuna and Joshua son of Nun. As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected. But as for you, your bodies will fall in this wilderness." This is the good news.
00:06:58
Speaker
God says, that the Israelites will now no longer enter the promised land for an entire generation. And so we enter this 40 year period called wandering. Now, a lot of people say that ah God punished the Israelites by making them wander for complaining. But as we just read, the problem wasn't just that they had complained. The problem was that they wanted to go back to Egypt. They wanted to go back to the very place that God had rescued them from.
00:07:29
Speaker
They were tired of the desert. They were tired of the manna. They were scared of facing their bowels. And so what they do is they reject God's promised land for the pleasures and the comforts back in Egypt.
Temporary Pleasures vs. God's Promise
00:07:47
Speaker
Now, I'll say it can be easy to be dismissive of the Israelites and their complaints and their desire to go back to Egypt. But I have to remind myself that these people have been surviving in a desert for a year now. And I can imagine that after six months just sitting camped by the side of a mountain with five months left to go, they're probably thinking, okay, how long do we have to wait to get to this promised land? How long are we gonna kind of sit here camped around doing nothing? And then they get to the edge of it. They're like, wait, wait, who do we have to fight?
00:08:26
Speaker
when we get there?
00:08:32
Speaker
It can be easy for us to judge their doubts, but the truth is, the Israelites just don't wanna deal with it anymore. They don't wanna face the desert anymore. They don't want to eat the manna anymore. They don't want to fight the battles in front of them. They are tired of waiting, they're afraid,
00:08:54
Speaker
What they want is for God to make things easier for them. They want God to make them safe and happy and comfortable. And they decide, well, you know what, God, if you're not gonna make us safe and happy and comfortable when we want, we're gonna go and make ourselves safe and happy and comfortable by going back to Egypt.
00:09:17
Speaker
And as we sit here in this air conditioned room,
00:09:23
Speaker
It's easy to judge the Israelites and some of us probably wanna criticize them and think, oh how could you wanna go back to what God had just rescued you from? How could you want to go back to Egypt? How come you can't see the bigger picture and just push through your hardship and get to the end, you're right there, why can't you just push through and make it to the promised land?
00:09:51
Speaker
It's easy to think that we could handle eating manna every single day as we prepare to go to El Magway after church today. But hear me out on this. Maybe. Maybe be surviving for a year in the desert is pretty hard. Now surviving for a year in the desert is gonna be the next F3 men's workout. But as attractive an opportunity as that might seem, maybe that's actually pretty difficult.
00:10:22
Speaker
maybe over a year ah in the heat and the rocks and the sand would put you at the end of your rope. Maybe a year of waiting and surviving in a place like that would make you start to ask, okay, Lord, how much longer do we have to keep waiting? Lord, how many more battles do we have to fight?
00:10:51
Speaker
And I think there are a lot of us here that understand the pain and frustration of asking, Lord, how long?
00:11:03
Speaker
Lord, I have been out of a job for so long now. How long do I have to wait before you answer my prayers and give me work again? Lord, I look around me and I see everybody else dating and getting married and having fun with other people. How long am I gonna have to deal with this loneliness?
00:11:23
Speaker
Lord, my wife and I are ready to start a family. How much longer do we have to wait for a baby? Lord, I've been dealing with depression and anxiety now that have crippled me for so long. How much longer do I have to deal with that?
00:11:42
Speaker
Lord, I go on Instagram and everyone seems just so happy. How much longer before I get to be happy?
00:11:54
Speaker
When it comes right down to it, the Israelites are wrestling with the same things we wrestle with as followers of Jesus today.
00:12:05
Speaker
The Israelites were following God because they were putting their hope in that promised land to come. And we follow Jesus because we put our hope in that promise of the new heavens and the new earth and the life to come. But what ends up happening is along the journey towards the life to come, we start coming into contention with the realities of this life. As we wait for God to renew the world, as we start our first steps of following Jesus,
00:12:36
Speaker
As we live in this world, we find that life right now still has hardships for us to face. We still have battles to fight before we get there. And when you have been dealing with hardship and you've been fighting battles for a long time,
00:13:01
Speaker
I'll tell you what, the the escapes and the pleasures of this world can seem a lot more attractive than faithfully waiting for the promises of God. And for us today living in the modern world, there are so many good escapes to distract us from our hardships and our battles, aren't there? There are so many accessible pleasures that we can run to to distract us from the pain of living in this world. And so we ask ourselves, maybe I ask you, you know why should you faithfully bear through your hardship? Why should you faithfully bear through and see your family through their struggles when you could just bury yourself in your work and make a bunch of money? That looks pretty good. Why should you bear through
00:13:56
Speaker
The pain of loneliness, when you can just distract yourself with another hookup, another night drinking the night away down in Soulard, why would you put up with that when you could distract yourself? Why would you deal with the pain of mental health struggles? Why would you put yourself at risk of in-person community when you can just distract yourself and run and escape from the real world into the digital world of Netflix or video games or whatever other digital distractions you have.
00:14:33
Speaker
Sooner or later, we ask ourselves, why should I faithfully bear through my battles? Why should I faithfully face my battles when I can just escape them? Why should I faithfully wait for God's plans when I can make myself happy right now?
00:14:54
Speaker
Historian Darren McMahon wrote a book on the history of happiness. It's 600 pages and a 600 page book on happiness actually doesn't make you all that happy. um But in his book, he examines this question, this issue.
00:15:15
Speaker
He says that for the past few centuries, we've been living in a time where we have been able to pursue right now pleasures unlike any time before. We have the money and the access and the flexibility to pursue our pleasures, to maximize pleasure and minimize hardship unlike any other time in the history of the world.
00:15:42
Speaker
And so a lot of us kind of live with this idea that life is basically about doing the things you enjoy doing and avoiding the things you don't enjoy doing. That looks hard. I don't have to do that because I can just do something that's not hard over here. I can distract myself over here. And when we look at today's chapter in the story, that's what the Israelites are doing. They are trying to maximize their pleasure and minimize their hardship.
00:16:11
Speaker
And they think they can do that by going back to Egypt.
00:16:17
Speaker
In our time, people have been pursuing pleasure, escaping hardship more than any other time in history. And at the end of his book, mcmahon this this historian, Darren McMahon, tells us what we've learned.
00:16:38
Speaker
about being human through this massive experimentation on the pursuit of happiness. He says, in what evolutionary psychologists call the tragedy of happiness, human beings display an undeniable tendency to quickly accommodate themselves to their pleasure, to grow bored, and then to become anxious or uneasy in their satisfaction.
00:17:09
Speaker
Like junkies in need of a fix, we need variety to our pleasures or greater doses of the same thing when the initial rush wears off. What history and psychology have taught us is what God's word tells us, that when you run from God's promises in the pursuit of right now escapism,
00:17:36
Speaker
When you run from the God's plans for the escape of pleasure, it ends up as tragedy. It always ends up leaving you unfulfilled.
00:17:53
Speaker
History, psychology, God's word, they are telling us the same thing, that there is no amount of money that can satisfy you. There are no amount of hookups that can plug the gap of loneliness in your heart. There are not enough Netflix shows out there to distract you. There are not enough vacations you can take. We think that these escapes will make us happy and they always leave us unfulfilled and wanting more.
00:18:28
Speaker
The truth is that even if the Israelites had made it back to Egypt, they would have been unsatisfied once again. Dissatisfied, proper English.
00:18:44
Speaker
Even if the Israelites had made it back to where they wanted to go, there was no food that was good enough that could have satisfied them. there was
Punishment and Grace
00:18:54
Speaker
no amount of safety in Egypt that could cover up the pain of slavery. And that's the truth of what's happening in the story. That the Israelites wanted to trade God's future for the pleasures of Egypt and go back to a place that would enslave them in a place that would never satisfy them like God's promised land would.
00:19:23
Speaker
And so God makes his people wander rather than let them go back to Egypt. But it's not because he hates them. It's because he doesn't want them falling back into slavery again. He doesn't want them falling back into the very thing that he rescued them from. And so God makes his people wander as a punishment.
00:19:52
Speaker
But the truth is it is also gracious. Because what God does by making his people wander, instead of letting them go back to where they wanted to go, letting them do what they wanted to do and go back to Egypt, he saves future generations from the burden of slavery.
00:20:14
Speaker
And as the story goes on, as the Israelites wander for this 40 years, They face some of those battles that they were hoping to avoid, and they find out later what they could have found out sooner, that when they face their battles, God fights for them. And as they wander through the desert, God still provides for them. We read that God sends down that bread from heaven to provide for his people all those 40 years until they reach the promised land.
00:20:50
Speaker
even when God's people wanted to walk away from him, he doesn't walk away from them. Even when God's people wanted to turn their backs on him, God still fights for them and provides for them all the way until the promised land.
00:21:13
Speaker
And what we find in the story as God's people today is that God is faithful to us even when we are unfaithful to him. God stands with us and walks with us. He fights for us and provides for us even when we wanna walk away and abandon him. And this character of God who fights for his people and provides for his people, it is there all throughout the story.
00:21:42
Speaker
When we get to Jesus, one of the titles he used for himself was the Good Shepherd. And he said that when one of my sheep runs away from me into danger, you know what I do? I go after them and I find them and I bring them back home again. It's a God who fights for his people and provides for his people all the way until we reach the end.
00:22:15
Speaker
And what the story also tells us is that a life of escapism, a life of running from our battles towards the pleasures of this world will never satisfy us.
Jesus as True Fulfillment
00:22:30
Speaker
But the story tells us what will. During his ministry, Jesus went to a well one morning to get some water and he meets a woman there.
00:22:42
Speaker
And this woman had spent her life running and escaping from relationship to relationship. And she hoped that with every new relationship, she would be finally once and for all fulfilled and what ended up happening was every new relationship ended up in tragedy. This woman was looking for fulfillment that nothing in this life could provide her.
00:23:11
Speaker
And when Jesus meets her, here's what he tells her. He says, everyone who drinks from this water will thirt will be thirsty again. Everyone who drinks the water of escapism and distraction will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst ever again.
00:23:41
Speaker
As you live your life in this world, you are gonna face hardships just like the Israelites. You are gonna face battles just like the Israelites. And when you face your battles of unemployment and loneliness and online comparison and anxiety, depression,
00:24:13
Speaker
when you face those battles. You are gonna want to run into the arms of pleasure and escapism, just like the Israelites. But those wells will always leave you unsatisfied. They will always leave you wanting more. But if you face your battles faithfully,
00:24:36
Speaker
If when you face your struggles, you turn to God instead of turning to sin, that is when you meet the God who fights for you. And he fights for you all the way until the promised land. He fights for you all the way until you reach the end. And that fighting with you until the end, that is what the church is for. That is what this church is for.
00:25:07
Speaker
Jesus said that wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am right there with them. Which means Jesus is here with us this morning. And in a time when you can pursue any distraction you want and go online and watch any worship service you want, listen to any sermon you want, we gather here today in this corner of St. Charles Not because we need to fill the building, we gather here together because we need Jesus. I come here when I'm preaching or not preaching because I need Jesus. Because I've run to every other well in this life and it's left me unsatisfied. And I come here to find the one well that fills me up. The one well that will never run dry.
00:26:04
Speaker
And for those of you that have pursued every other well and every other escape, and it's left you with tragedy, Jesus comes to you and says, I am here. Come to
Community and Support
00:26:23
Speaker
me and you will never thirst again.
00:26:30
Speaker
And so everywhere we gather together in the name of Jesus, that is where we fight our battles. Everywhere we gather in our homes, in our families, in our community groups, in our prayer chains, in our church, this is where we fight our battles in the name of Jesus, the only one who can satisfy.
Further Resources and Upcoming Content
00:26:57
Speaker
And that same Jesus
00:27:10
Speaker
If you'd like to dig a little bit deeper, head to the show notes at normalgosalongway.com and you will find some questions to help you do so. And then come back on Thursday for the kids version of chapter six with Miss Hannah and Miss April.