When God is Your Travel Agent
(Exodus 15:22-27)
1. All of our lives are filled with uncertainty; Some of us accept that reality and adjust to the unforeseen as best we can.
2. Others frantically create rules or routines to give ourselves the sense that we have reduced life’s uncertainties -- when, in fact, we often have not.
3. Different cultures vary when it comes to how comfortable they are with the uncertain. I recently wrote an article for the Kokomo Tribune about this.
4. Nations like Germany and France are not comfortable at all with uncertainty, so they create lots of laws and tremendous bureaucracy to gain a sense of control. Even if they violate the rules, as long as the rules are in place they feel safe.
5. Nations like England and Ireland are comfortable with uncertainty. As a matter of fact, it is debated as to whether the UK actually has a constitution.
6. Conflict between family members can often be explained based upon this one issue.
7. In the Kingdom of God, we need certain basic standards, boundaries; these develop an important quality called faithfulness; but we also need a level of freedom, because faith -- trusting God -- can only be developed in a context of uncertainty. That is why those of us who are obsessed with control can only go so far.
8. The Christian life involves risk taking. It does not involve recklessness, foolishness, or being led by one’s emotions -- but risk is part of it.
9. J.B. Phillips said, “Anyone who opens his personality to the living Spirit takes a risk of being considerably shaken."
Main Idea: If the goal of your life is to avoid as many problems as possible, then don’t take a journey with God!
I. Traveling With God Means Accepting DISAPPOINTMENT (15:22-25a)
(show map)
A. The EXCITEMENT wore off (22)
• 3 days into the desert without finding water…supplies diminished…
• The excitement of crossing the Red Sea and the great worship experience had worn off…
• Some people, like Moses, had steady faith; but others were up and down…
• One sign of spiritual maturity is not to be controlled by ones emotions, but by convictions and trust
• revivalistic evangelicalism creates spiritual manic-depressives
B. BITTERNESS is a real issue, even for spiritual believers (23)
• when they came to Marah, they were not wrong to be disappointed…
• sometimes You can follow God and He will lead You right into bitterness and disappointment…part of His developmental and testing program…
• the people complained bitterly because they were in bitter circumstances
• instead of praying or asking Moses to pray, they took a “guilty until proven innocent” stance and blamed Moses…
• Is it wrong to be thirsty? Is it wrong to be disappointed? Is it wrong to admit a circumstance is bitter? No. But the children of Israel had God on probation, failing to realize that they were the ones who were on probation…
• Too many times people think God needs them, when the reality is they need God!
C. They GRUMBLED (24)
(show bitter Marah)
• Marah, meaning bitter, is still used of salt water….Marine life, mariner…
D. God provided RELIEF (25a)
If the goal of your life is to avoid as many problems as possible, then don’t take a journey with God!
II. Traveling with God Includes RESPONSIBILITIES and TESTING (25b-26)
A. A foreshadowing of the Mosaic COVENANT (25b)
The Tragum of Jonathan…"And they journeyed three days in the desert, empty of instruction, and found no water."
Physical thirst is combined with spiritual thirst by King David 450 years later, "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land where there is no water." (Psalm 63:1)
Even Jesus used this hunger and thirst analogy: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." (Matthew 5:6)
B. God stretches us, but He CARES (26)
Perhaps some Israelites doubted God’s special plan for the Hebrews, and they feared that God would make a spectacle of them as He had the Egyptians…
But God promised to heal them by preventing the plagues in the first place!
If the goal of your life is to avoid as many problems as possible, then don’t take a journey with God!
III. Traveling with God Is A LONG-TERM Venture (27)
A. Always a NEXT STEP
• With God, You never arrive until You are at heaven…
• No “final experience,” but constant development…
Their need was met, but they still preferred the routine of Egyptian bondage because then, at least, they knew what to expect…
Many people will trade freedom for uncertainty…bondage over something new or different or unanticipated…it takes faith to attempt something different for God…
• But God takes us further and further down the road….that’s why we must learn to cope with and deal problems as they arise;
•
In 480 B.C. the outmanned army of Sparta’s King Leonidas held off the Persian troops of Xerxes by fighting them one at a time as they came through a narrow mountain pass. Commenting on this strategy, C.H. Spurgeon said, “Suppose Leonidas and his handful of men had gone out into the wide-open plain and attacked the Persians--why, they would have died at once, even though they might have fought like lions.” Spurgeon continued by saying that Christians stand in the narrow pass of today. If they choose to battle every difficulty at once, they’re sure to suffer defeat. But if they trust God and take their troubles one by one, they will find that their strength is sufficient. (Sermoncentral)
B. Next stop: Twelve SPRINGS
(show twelve springs and 70 palms)
• 12 would be associated with the 12 tribes…a spring for each tribe
• 70 would be the number associated with the elders of Israel….psychological assurance
C. No private SIDE EXCURSIONS
• There was one plan; one pillar of fire, one direction…
• Some Israelites may have wondered off or stayed behind…who knows? But God had only one plan!
• Although we are individuals and God deals with us individually, it is also true that we are part of a group…some of the trials that happen to others will happen to us…
If the goal of your life is to avoid as many problems as possible, then don’t take a journey with God!
CONCLUSION
To laugh is to risk appearing the fool
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental
To reach out for another is to risk involvement
To expose feelings is to risk exposing, your true self
To place your ideas, your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss
To love is to risk not being loved in return
To live is to risk dying
To hope is to risk despair
To try is to risk failure
But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing and is nothing
They may avoid suffering and sorrow but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love or live
Charmed by their attitudes they are a slave, they have forfeited their freedom
Only a person who risks is free
Contributed by: Michael McCartney (Sermoncentral)
