God's Nation Formed: The Wilderness

Preached by Jaren Singh on 7/21/24

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast. Thank you so much for listening. We're startup church. We just planted in September, 2020 and at the Kalamazoo church, we believe that Christianity is done best when it is done together. And so if you live in the Kalamazoo area, we would love to connect, be it coming to a Sunday service, one of our small groups, or even just grabbing coffee with a member to learn more. You can visit kalamazoo.church in order to do that. We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today. You know, maybe, maybe this year for you has been one of great joy and great triumph. And if that's where you are, that's awesome. I love to hear that. You got to share that with us. Show us what, what, what has been going great in your life. Maybe this year though, you've looked at it and it's been one that's been less than triumphant. It's been one where there's been difficulty in many, in many areas, or there's been specific difficulty in one area, uh, fortunately and unfortunately, and we're going to, we're going to build up to this wherever you are at. There's a, there's a relatively high likelihood that the hardest years of your life are ahead of you. Maybe, maybe not the hardest year, maybe you had the hardest year of your life, but if you're going to live for any length of time, then there's going to be a buildup of difficult things and hard years that are, that are ahead of you. And if you feel like that, that is super discouraging. I want to leave. There's no joy in that. I hope by the end of it, you actually feel pretty encouraged at how God is going to shape you and mold you. And God is going to work on you throughout your entire life and how patient he is with all of us to continue to work with us and love us and give to us and provide us a way out when we're going through and in the midst of challenges. Amen. Amen. We're going to, we've been looking at the Israelites and we're, uh, we're going to, we're approaching it from a number of different angles and where we looked at this occurrence of them being enslaved and then being set free. And we're going to go back to that right now. We're going to look at just another aspect of, of them being set free. And the question that you may ask that I'm sure they asked is now what we've been set free, but what's, you know, now we're going to go to the promised land, I guess. And the reality is it took them 40 years of wandering in the desert in order to get to the promised land. We're going to look at why, man, God is just so cruel that he would take them, take them that much time to get there. And the response that I hope we leave with is that's not the case. Actually, God is extremely loving and extremely patient and was working with them at every step of the way to build up inside of them. What could be a, his holy nation. Amen. Amen. And my prayer is that we leave with a greater appreciation for why they spent so much time in the wilderness. And I pray that we will also lean in and allow our journeys in the wilderness to, to shape us and our character. Amen. We're going to look in Exodus 13. We're turning a little bit. And so if you just want to follow along on the screen, that's, that's okay. It says, when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. Don't you wish God would just lead us on the short path. Let me just get there. I don't, I don't know how long it's going to, let me, let me take the short way. It's a little bit more difficult. I'm going to get there and then I'll be in the promised land. And yet that's not often how God works, right? Because God knows what they need. It says, for God said, if they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt. So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt, ready for battle. Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the Israelites swear an oath. He said, God will surely come to your aid. Then you must carry my bones up with you from this place. After leaving Sukkoth, they camped at Etham at the, on the edge of the desert. By day, the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, left its place in front of the people. These Israelites felt like, we're ready for battle. What is it? It doesn't say they were unprepared for battle. It says they're ready for battle. And yet God says, no, you're not as ready as you think you are for this battle. He's like, you guys might leave. It's going to be that difficult that you're going to leave. And so I've got to take you the long way to help your character and to work out in your heart what I know that I need you, that I need to be created. You know, we'd love to just know the best path for your life. It'd be amazing if we could see, again, from 100 feet in the air, and you could look and you could say, what's going to happen when I turn, for some of us, 20? What's going to happen when I turn 25, or 30, or 40, or 60? How many kids am I going to have? Are my grandkids going to like me? Am I going to be the cool side of the grandparent group, or am I going to be the stiffer side of the grandparent group? Like, how is my life going to turn out? Who am I going to meet? Who is worth my time? Who is not worth my time? What hardships am I going to go through so I can prepare ahead of time to be ready for those hardships? And God doesn't give us that, though, does he? I think, man, and even more than that, we'd love to go 100 feet up. We'd love to be maybe more than 100 feet up. We'd love to be the one that's dictating and determining all of it, right? Seeing is one thing. We'd like to be the ones in control. And yet God says, I know the best path for your life. I know where you need to go. I know where I'm going to take you. I know inside your heart you feel like you are ready, but you're not ready yet. And that's what he's telling his people. He led them out of slavery, and now he's taking them on the long way. But he doesn't leave them there. And this is the powerful part. It says he went ahead of them. And so the joy, I don't know where you're at right now, but the joy that you can feel in your walk with God is that God is going ahead of you. God is leading your way. You feel like, I don't know which way to go. No, God's leading you, and he's showing you the right way to go. And he's not doing it some of the time. He's not doing it only a little bit. It says very clearly that he comes by this cloud that leads the way. And then at night, he also leads the way. And he says he gives you this open opportunity. It says when you want to walk, when you want to follow, God's ready. That means that at night, you're like, let me push a little bit further. Let me walk with him. He's like, I'm ready for you. I'll walk with you for sure. Like, man, I'm struggling. I'm not doing well. And he's like, I'm waiting then. I'm here for you. God is so gracious with his people in Exodus. He's so gracious with you and me though, as well. There are battles that we're fighting that we feel prepared to fight. Maybe you feel prepared to fight a battle from your past. And you feel like I have the tools and I'm ready to fight it. And maybe God's saying, no, you're not ready yet. I need to equip you. Maybe there's battles that you're going through right now, maybe your current situation, where you look and you say, how did I get here? And you're frustrated and you're challenged and you're confused. And God is working something in your life. Man, can't I just overlook this? Can I just get past this? How come I can't beat this? And God is saying, I'm with you and I'm fighting alongside you and I'm leading your way. You just need to follow. Maybe there's battles that you're fighting, that all of us are fighting in anticipation of our futures. What's gonna happen next year? Where am I gonna be in five years? This is not the plan that I had set for my life. And at every point and every step of the way, God is with us. He's walking with us. He is patient with us, but he's saying, just trust me. Just follow and just walk. The Bible says in Hebrews 12, it says, no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful later on, it will produce a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. It's a truth in parenting. It's a truth in life though. If God's our father, then we're the children. And so we're going to be disciplined in a way that feels uncomfortable. It doesn't feel good. It feels, you know, there's a tension that's created and it's painful, but it says that it's gonna produce a harvest of righteousness and peace. And that's what we're looking for, right? If you promised somebody on the road, I think the older that I get, I think the more that I realize, if you had to ask somebody, what do you want more than anything? I don't know if they have the words for it, but what they're asking for is peace. The world wants peace. I'm not talking about no wars. I mean, internal peace and comfortability that I know where I'm at and I'm comfortable with where I'm at. And I'm working with God to get where I'm going, but this world needs peace more than anything. And the Bible promises it, and it promises a harvest, like a great harvest of peace after this discipline though. This is, you know, many of us have become Christians and are followers and are loving God and pursuing God and walking with God. And maybe you're at this roadblock. Maybe there's a, work with me here, maybe there's a Red Sea in front of you, where there's no way there's, if I stay where I'm at, I'm going to die because there's, you know, for the Israelites, they've got these Egyptians that are coming after them. And so God has to provide a way out, but we're still stuck by this Red Sea. I think a truth is that potentially what's gotten you to the place that you are right now is not what's going to get you to the place that you need to go. Where you are at right now, the way you've operated and walked with God or not walked with God, you've gotten to this place, but it's likely not what's going to take you to where you need to go. Where do you need to go? God knows, I don't have the answer for it, but you and God work together and find that out. You know, the Israelites, they were enslaved for almost 400 years. And so they didn't have spiritual leadership. They didn't have much money or resources, but then were given some, you know, in some miraculous way by the Egyptians. They had no laws of their own. There was no formalized government. There was no military. There wasn't a real, a deep understanding of God. They didn't have their own culture. It was just impressed upon them. God had to work for 40 years to give them all of these things. And could he have worked faster? Perhaps, if they were humble, perhaps it could have went faster, but he didn't leave them. Where is your relationship with God undeveloped this morning? What do you need to be formed inside of you as we wander towards heaven? You know, this scripture in 1 Peter, we bring it up, and it's exciting that God calls us this. He says in 1 Peter 2, you are a, he's talking to Peter's, a letter written by the apostle Peter to a group of exiled Christians who are being persecuted, but fighting, you know, fighting the spiritual battle. And it says, you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. You know, these things are, these titles rather, they're given to us. If you are living in the light, if you have, you know, died with Jesus, died in your old life and then been resurrected to live a new life, then you're a chosen person. You're part of a royal priesthood. You are, we are a holy nation. We are God's special possession. We have received mercy and we are those who are living in the light. And that is a cause for great joy and great energy and great excitement from all of us. But we don't always feel like we're the chosen people. We don't always feel royal. We don't always live holy set apart lives. We don't always act like God's people. We don't always open ourselves up to live in the light. Right? So it's this internal struggle and battle that we're working with, that God is, he's given us these titles and these roles, these responsibilities. And then he's also said, you have to continue to work alongside me as you become the title I've already given you. It's what separates Christianity from any other religion that I'm familiar with is that God gives the title and then he says, then work alongside me. Virtually, at least in my limited understanding, but a little bit of study of every other religion, it's do this, do this, do this, do this. And then maybe you'll be called worthy. God says, you're worthy. I've made you worthy. Now live like it. It's a scary place to be. It's scary if you're like me that you wanna be able to measure everything. I played, playing sports growing up or lifting weights growing up or playing any kind of musical instrument growing up. Virtually anything you do and everything you do, there's a measurement to determine success. And there's numbers to determine success. Did I do this or did I not? Did I get this job? Did I get this raise? Or did I not? And did, in terms of basketball, did I make the shot or did I not? Did we win or did we lose? And there's a way to measure all of the time and God says, no, you're all winners. Now live like it. And you're like, that is such an uncomfortable place to be because how do I know I'm gonna live like it? How do I know I'm gonna live up to the title? When we read this, if you were to ask your classmates, if you were to ask your coworkers or if you were to ask those inside of your house, am I living like a chosen person? Can you see that I'm a royal priesthood? Am I living like I'm someone who is holy? Asking that, you're gonna get some different responses. Certainly some say, yeah, better than me. But some are gonna say, nah, not really. I was surprised when I heard that you were a Christian. In his second letter, Peter talks about this spiritual struggle and what it's building inside of us. It says in verse three, this is just verse five through nine. I'm gonna read a little before and a little bit after. So it says, divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. And we've looked at this and sat with the idea of it being God's glory and his goodness. Like it lifts him up and it makes him as big as he is, but he's also good in that he's walking with us and alongside us. It says, through these, he has given us his very great and precious promises so that through them, you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. What is the divine nature? It's what we talked about just now, right? It's living this holy life as a priesthood. He says, you're able to participate in it because of Jesus. And it says, because you're able to participate it, for that reason, make every effort to add to your faith, goodness, and to goodness, knowledge, and to knowledge, self-control, and to self-control, perseverance, and to perseverance, godliness, and to godliness, mutual affection, and to mutual affection, love. And pause there. It's not just me saying it. I didn't just make it up. This is what the Bible is saying, is that God has given you the opportunity to live a new life. He's given you the greatest title that you could ever imagine. And he says, for that very reason, continue to grow closer to him. In your gratitude and in your love, continue to walk with God. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. God gives us the opportunity to grow in these things. How does he give us the opportunity to grow in these things? Well, it's going through this wilderness, isn't it? This wilderness then. And so at the beginning of the lesson, we said that your hardest years, your most difficult spiritual years are ahead of you. And even writing it, I felt like I hope that's not true. And yet, if it's going to produce inside of us, inside of me, inside of you, the greater faith, greater goodness, greater self-control, greater godliness, greater steadfastness, greater love. And with these characteristics, then I'm able to better live a life as the holy and chosen priesthood. If that is what it's going to do, then bring it on. It'd be amazing if we could just read these and say, okay, let me do it now. Let me, I went from having less faith. I'm going to grow in my faith. I went from being kind of a bad dude. I'm just going to be good from now on. God doesn't work that way, right? He gives us opportunities to be good. He gives us opportunities to show our faith, and then we have the opportunity then to actually do it. The, so there's a couple of ways just in life, right? And people will tell you we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way, right? And the easy way is I trust what my father or somebody close to me is telling me, and I learn from their mistakes. So I learn how they did something a certain way. The hard way is thinking I know what's going on, then failing, and then being lifted up, being encouraged, and then learning the right way, right? Easy way, hard way. And you might say, well, God is only going to give me the hard way then. That's the only, and that's what we just talked about. Like God is, it's only the hard way with God. That's not true either though. And so we, you think God is able to work with us through the, in the hard way. He's able to, and he's patient. And like in Exodus, it says that he's with us the entire time. And he shows us that he's with us the entire time. He doesn't just say, I'm here, trust me. He shows us. So he's with us. If you wanna go through your life and you wanna do it the hard way, and that's the way you learn. But if on the final day, you make it to heaven, I think it's worth it, right? I don't think you're, I don't know that you'll look back from heaven and feel like, oh man, it wasn't worth it to go through the hard stuff. It wasn't worth it to learn the hard way. But it's a great fortune to us that that's not the only way we can learn. There's an easier way that we can learn. And this is stuff that we're going to, I'm gonna try to add it as much as I can. On Sundays, I'm gonna do everything I can. That was at the beginning of this lesson. That was a little bit of it. But there's spiritual disciplines that for 2000 years, people have been practicing and acting out that have served as an easy way, a cheat code to grow closer to God then. Still difficult, it still takes intentionality, but there's opportunities to grow close to God without having to go through all of the mess and the garbage. They're called spiritual disciplines is what some people call them. And there's many ways to practice. Some examples are fasting, journaling. There's a spiritual discipline that says that I'm not going, I'm just gonna read scripture and I'm gonna read it out loud. And I'm not going to, it's called Lectio Divina. And I'm not going to look at what does the commentary say about it? I'm not gonna write about it. I'm going to read the scripture, pause, listen. And then I'm gonna read the scripture again, pause, listen. And then I'm gonna read the scripture again, pause, listen. And you'd say, wow, that's a lot of work. That's better work than going through some incredible hardship, right? There's breathe prayers. There's ways you can, you learn that. I'm gonna breathe and say a prayer. And then when I breathe out, I say another prayer. And there's retreats that you can go on to experience simplicity or silence. These are aspects of growing closer to God. Is any one of them spiritual innately? Not really, right? Just being quiet isn't gonna make you grow close to God. But if you are quiet and decide I'm going to listen to God, then yeah, you can grow closer to God. Just cutting off some of the fat or the excess in your life, specifically for a limited amount of time, or maybe an extended period of time, does that help you grow closer to God? No, it helps you be able to write a book or talk about like, this is how my life is better. None of those things, none of these things that we even looked at is going to help you grow closer to God. But it's a means to walk with God closer and closer. Amen. Amen. You know, we've mentioned it, and we've mentioned it offhand more than a few times in the past month. But we are, as a church going through this series, it's an app that also has a podcast attached to it. The app has lessons every single day. And many of them are going to show us basically, how to participate in some of these cheat codes, these easier ways to walk with God. And so I would say it's called Thread. If you are not currently on there, or if you haven't utilized it to the greatest extent, just talk to me. I'd love to, you know, there's no point in saying, oh, I didn't do this. And so there's no point to do it now. Well, we're going to do it for an extended period of time. So if you've not done it yet, there's still a lot of time. And so please, please talk to me. I'll get you the code to be able to get in for free. There's, you know, we paid for some memberships. And so we'd love for everyone to be able to use it. I'd love to be able to call these guys and say, hey, can you please give us more memberships? Maybe as you think about where you've gone in your walk with God, maybe you've not, you've gotten to a place that you're here at church. And so that's exciting. But to get to where God wants you to go, it's not going to be just by showing up to church. Got you here, but it's not going to, wherever God wants you to go, which I can't say, but God knows, it's not going to be by showing up to church. Maybe it's not going to be by even just reading the Bible. Maybe it's not going to be by just talking to people or listening to, it's not going to be just by that, but there's things that we can add to our lives to help us to get to whatever the next level is for us as we wander through this wilderness up until we become those who are called to go to heaven. Amen? Amen. So I want you to ask yourself this question and consider for a moment, how might the Holy Spirit be forming you? How might the Holy Spirit be forming you? One other aspect that brings so much joy to so many of us is that we're not doing this alone. In the Exodus, it's a group of people. And certainly there were some that were pretty faithful and there were some that were way less so. And the Bible talks about that as well in I think it's 1 Corinthians 10. And so there's going to be times in our lives when maybe you're doing really well and you can give that kind of faith. And so this lesson, you're like, this isn't relevant to me right now. Great, give your faith to somebody, help somebody, that's awesome. If this lesson is pertinent to you, then find somebody to talk to about it. You know, we as a church, one of our tenants that we're not going to run away from and we're not going to shy away from is we're, we want to be those who can get in the mud with people. I want to be somebody who can do that. I want to do everything I can to help other people be those who can get in the mud. Like, and when I say get in the mud, I mean, there's, you talk to anybody for 10 minutes and if they're going to share their lives, there's mud. You talk to me for 10 minutes, there's some mud, there's some grossness. And I, we want to grow, we want to be those who are so comfortable getting in the mud because we know what it produces if they follow God, amen. So if you've got mud in your life that you see, that you feel, don't let it stay there. Talk to somebody, talk to somebody here. We can open the Bible, we can look at what does discipleship look like in your life and how are you going to grow closer to God? And we can share and we can pray and we can ask questions that are going to help whatever this mud is to be a little bit more clean up until the time when we are called to heaven. I want to close with just with a vision for our church. And again, some of us, we're not in the mud. Some of us we're doing great, but there's many, especially as I've considered this, this last six months in particular, it just feels like there's a lot of stuff and it's good stuff because people are working through it. And it's good stuff because people are working through it in the church. But think about how powerful we can be as we continue to work through our mess and our junk and we're messed up people. We can truly help other people who are messed up, who need help. We can be those who are a shining light to the world. Like we want to be a safe haven for people to come in as jacked up as they are. And to be able to feel like, well, these people are kind of jacked up too, but we're doing it together. They're not leaving me jacked up. They're working alongside God and they share this thing. And this is the church that we're trying to build. We're not going to ever be a, we're never going to be a, hear me, according to the world, we're never going to be a beautiful church. That's great. That's glorious. Why would we want to be a beautiful church according to the world? Why would we want to have, excuse me, maybe that's good for some people, but that's not who we're going to be. Why would we want this light show of a church? Why? If it's to bring people in the door and then create opportunities in small pockets, then amen. Then maybe one day I could see that, but it's never going to be the spot that we are going to use and the way that we're going to use it. How are we going to be a beautiful church according to God? We're gonna be those who have conversations with people, who share people. I don't have all the solutions. I have some of them. Come on, let me show you what I know. You think about the woman at the well. And what does she say? She says, hey, come see this man who told me everything I ever did. They follow her. And then what do they say? They said, we believe not only because of your testimony, but we've seen it for ourselves. That's the vision. That's what we want to build up inside of this church. And it's not one person, it's all of us. And it's not individually, it's collectively, amen. Let's be everything that it talks about in 1 Peter 2, this holy nation, this royal priesthood. Let's be those who live in the light, amen. Love you guys. Have a great Sunday. You're dismissed. You should pick up all of our children. Thank you so much for listening to the Kalamazoo Church of Christ podcast. If you're in the Kalamazoo area, we'd love to get connected. Please go to kalamazoo.church and fill in your information to come to a Sunday service or any other event that we have going on. In any case, you'll be hearing from us next week.