Outline
Text: Joshua 5:10-12
Subject: God’s Answer for Life’s Uncertainty
The Big Idea: God’s faithfulness to provide is seen and shown when the manna stops, the road ahead seems uncertain and the promise awaits.
God stops the manna to alter our appetites
God stops the manna to reform the focus of our faith
it requires a faith that plants (Works)
It request a faith that is patient (Waiting)
God stops the manna to add new depth to our delight
TRANSCRIPT
The Book of Joshua is the story of how the children of Israel came to siege the land of Canaan, and how they began to spread out among what they would identify as the plot, place and the piece of earth that had been promised to them by the Lord. The underlying message that I believe makes the book of Joshua so profound and so worthy of honorable mention and our attention, is because of the message I believe it iterates from chapter 1 all the way to chapter last. And that is simply a message that we all ought to hang our hat of hope on every day of our life. The message that comes to us repeatedly from Joshua is this – God is faithful. Because what we see unfold in the chapters of Joshua is God bringing to fruition a promise that God had made some 500 years prior to Joshua that this land of Canaan would one day be inhabited by and inherited by the descendants of Abraham. And that promise is made some 500 years prior to Joshua. If you read from the time of Abram receiving it in the early onset of Genesis to Joshua bringing it to fruition, you will find that throughout that journey continuously that the promise of God is put in peril among His people. That in every moment of this promise being in peril and jeopardy, God proves Himself faithful; and makes a way of no way. It’s in danger when Abraham is called to sacrifice Isaac. But God is faithful; He places a ram in the bush and the promise yet lives. The promise is put in jeopardy when Esau wants to kill his brother, Jacob; but God is faithful and transforms Jacob in a place called Peniel; and the promise keeps on living. The promise is in jeopardy when Joseph is thrown into a pit by his brothers; but God is faithful. He takes him out of the pit and puts him in a palace; and the promise yet lives on. The promise is in jeopardy when, after years of slavery, there arises a Pharaoh who knows not Joseph nor God; and it seems like He is unwilling to relent and release the children of Israel out of bondage; but God is faithful. And there arises a Moses with a prophetic voice with signs and wonders that forces Pharaoh to let them go. The promise is in jeopardy when they get to the Red Sea and there seems to be no way forward and no way around and no way out; but God is faithful. He makes a way out of no way and He leads them out of bondage on their journey to a place of promise. And even when they come out of Egypt, the land of bondage, the promise is placed in peril because God finds out then that these are some of the most disobedient, disloyal disciples you’d ever want to know in life. As a matter of fact, they were so disobedient and rebellious that the Bible gives them a term reserved for disobedient folk called, ‘Stiff-necked.’ Every turn in the journey and every twist in the road, they rebel against God, they lead a mutiny against Moses, they worship false Gods, they want to go back to Egypt, they want to hire somebody to replace Moses to take them back to Egypt; and just like good sun-tanned folk they complain about everything. Sun is too hot in the day; weather is too cold at night; the water is too bitter; the food ain’t seasoned right; we want some meat, give us some cornbread, we don’t want Moses; didn’t nobody vote on that; that wasn’t brought up at the meeting, who told him he could do that; we didn’t discuss the rod at the Red Sea; and there ain’t nothing but trouble. But, yet, inspite of their stiff-necked behavior, here they are in the book of Joshua at the boundary of the land of promise for just one reason – God is faithful. And there was no problem or peril, or any level of disobedience that could challenge the promise God had made. As a matter of fact that should be a reminder that no matter how many obstacles that we face; no matter how many people would stand against us; and no matter how low you sink in life, God is faithful to perform what God has promised. And if God said He would do it; I’ve come to declare that there is nothing that will prohibit or prevent our God from doing what God says He’s going to do. As a matter of fact, let me just ask – are there some stiff-necked folk in the building who can testify that inspite of your stiff-necked behavior, God still did what He said He would do? It still worked together for your good. That the weeping only endured for a night. That the enemy became your footstool. That God met your every need. Why? Because GOD IS FAITHFUL!
As you watch this faithful God, you’ll find that the issue was never God’s faithfulness; but rather the people’s ability to prepare themselves for God to work in the midst of their situation. God had a promise ready for them, only to find out that they weren’t ready to take hold of the specified promise. So that as you read through the journey of the children of Israel, from bondage to promise, you will find that it really is a story about preparation. That everything that God is doing on this journey is literally preparing them for the promise that they cannot escape, because God is faithful. And that ought to be good news in knowing that your failures and even your foolish tendencies can not detract the promise God has for you. And so, He leads them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night that they may learn to ‘trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path.’ He shields them from enemies that would do them harm so that they may know, ‘the Lord is our light and our salvation. Whom shall we fear.’ He quenches their thirst with water from a rock to teach them, ‘All things are possible.’ And the greatest lesson of preparation that God gives these children who are wandering in the wilderness is the lesson of manna, this food that descends from heaven every day. That when they were wandering and wondering how they would make it, and where their provision would come from, and how they would be sustained in their journey, every morning, God sent something to remind them that ‘I’m not just a God who works in marvelous, magnificent and majestic fashions and forms; but I am the God Who provides for you every day. I don’t want you just to worship me in mountaintop, rod-lifting, sea-opening moments, but I want you realize that every day of your life there are resources that show up in your life, because I am a daily bread kind of God.’
Let me pause just long enough to say that I believe that, in the church, we have gotten in the habit of reserving our praise to those marvelous and majestic and mystical moments where we need God to open up the heavens and God to move the mountains, and God has to answer these major and mammoth prayers when God says, ‘I’m looking for some folk who walk in and know that even if the sea hasn’t been open, and the door hasn’t been opened, that there is some daily bread that you ought to be thankful for.’ I need some people who know that today already He has done something that’s worthy of thanksgiving; that He’s provided daily bread. He provides them with daily bread; and they call it manna. Some of you are aware that manna really is not a noun or a name. But manna is a question. An accurate translation of manna is ‘What is it?’ That’s what manna means; because God provided it in the middle of their uncertainty; and all they could wonder is, ‘What is it?’ Because when you’re uncertain of how it’s going to happen, and the Lord provides it anyway, the only thing you ought to be able to holler is ‘Manna’. Does anybody know and can you agree that there have been some moments when the Lord has provided for you, and you had no clue that it was even on the way? That God has done some things, and there was no explanation of how and why God did what He did; and if you know that then you ought to be able to holler, ‘Manna.’ When He made a way out of no way, say ‘Manna’. When He gave you the job and you didn’t even submit a resume, ‘Manna.’ When the checked showed up in the mail, and you didn’t even know they owed you money, ‘Manna.’ Somebody today you know about manna because the Lord has done some things that literally left you scratching your head, saying, ‘How did God do this?’ They didn’t know what it was; but that is the kind of God that we serve; that in the midst of uncertainty, in the midst of not knowing; in the midst of worrying and not knowing – God has a way of providing for you in a way that leaves you scratching your head. Manna! And they’ve been eating this manna for some forty years now; it’s a long time. And when they get to the land of promise, Moses passes, Joshua takes over; and they’re getting ready to invade Jericho, come over Jordan. They are about to have their infamous battle with Jericho and all they have to do is shout and the walls come down. The scripture teaches that before they make that move, something miraculous happens – God stops the manna. He stops the manna, not out of punishment; but out of preparation.
You’re about to walk into your promise and God says, ‘I’ve got to stop the manna.’ You’re about to find out how faithful I really am. ‘I’ve got to stop the manna.’ You’re about to move into what I declared would be 500 years ago. And the Lord says that in order to prepare you for where you’re about to go, I need to stop the manna. Now Lord, why you have to do that? This is what and how you’ve been provided for 40 years, and now no manna? Why does the Lord stop the manna?
I. GOD STOPS THE MANNA TO ALTER OUR APPETITES
God seeks to place in you and I a desire to want what’s different then what you’ve always had. At the beginning of 2013, I’ve tried to be proactive in health and changed my diet. I gave up beef and pork and sugar and fried foods. And you already know that, as a black preacher, that changing your diet is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. Because your DIET is linked to your DESIRE. Your diet is an expression of what you hunger for. And so God says to the children of Israel that the reason I’ve got to change your diet is because I’ve got to change the desire of your heart for you to want something different from simply what you’ve grown accustomed to. The trouble God has with these children of Israel is always made manifest in what they hunger for. While their walking through the wilderness on the journey, this is what they say to Moses when they want to go back to the land of Egypt. They continuously say, ‘We lked the food in Egypt; and we don’t like manna and bitter water. We want what we used to eat.’ And so their diet was and expression of their desire; so that what they ate in Egypt, they say, ‘….we want the garlic and the onion.’ Bible readers need to know that diet of Egypt was heavy on garlic and onion; which is the diet of bondage. Let’s just be honest and say that folk who have a diet heavy in garlic and onion, have a foul stench to them whenever they begin to speak. And you can tell folk who are still bound in Egypt because every time they open their mouths, something foul comes out; and it shows you what they are still connected to. God is trying to do something new; but they are always criticizing; always complaining; always fussing; always questions ‘who said they could do this?’; something foul comes out of their mouth, because they are still in bondage in Egypt. Don’t look now, but you may be sitting next somebody who is still in Egypt; they have foul mouths and foul lives. Don’t look now, but you might be in the presence of foul church members. They come to church and look sweet and cute, but when they open up their mouths, there’s a spiritual halitosis that’s a result of the fact that they are still consuming an Egyptian diet of bondage. You may speak in tongues and quote scripture but your breath still stinks. When you get home you may discover you’re married to somebody who’s in bondage. In fact, when you look in the mirror….(fill in the blank!) Because foul mouths are a result of a foul appetites and desires; and foul desires are a byproduct of foul lives; and foul lives and living are a result of a foul mind.
And so the Lord has been giving them manna to try to change their desire for bondage. But now they move into the beginning terrain of the promise land. And the Bible lets us know that the Lord cuts off the manna, whereby they begin to eat the fruit of the land. They go from garlic and onion to manna, and now fruit. And God says now I am trying to transition you to want something even better than manna, which is the fruit that’s better than garlic and onion. Garlic and onion is pungent; fruit is sweet. And so I’m trying to change your desire to want something better. In my Sunday School preparation for the sermon today I was reading my Bible; and what you will find is that this is the second time they’ve tasted the fruit of the land. In Numbers chapter 13, they send spies into the land; and the spies come back with the fruit of the land. And this is the second time they’ve tasted the fruit; and God says, ‘here is the problem. The first time you ate it, you treated it like a sample; this time it’s an appetizer.’ You’ve had a taste of the land of promise before, but you thought it was a sample; and now I need you to see it’s an appetizer. The reason why your neighbor is quiet is because they don’t know the difference between a sample and an appetizer. When you go to Sam’s, they give you a sample. That’s it, keep on moving. When you go to a restaurant, they give you an appetizer. That is to say that when you taste this, don’t get up and leave. Why? Because that is not the end of the meal; that’s just the beginning of the meal; and it is meant to wet your appetite for you to desire what the cook still has waiting for you in the kitchen. And I don’t know who I came to drop this on, but every blessing of God is not a sample that you walk away from; it is an appetizer that’s meant to wet your palate for something greater that God has in store for you. I wish I had somebody who just believed that more was on the way.
- That better was coming down the road in the land of promise.
- That greater has been ordered.
- That God has more on the way.
God says, ‘Do you just want that little bit, or do you want the fullness of what I have coming?’ What do you really hunger for? God is to get them and you to the place of desire that you don’t just want the sample; but you desire the full meal. Too many of us are filling up on spiritual chips; that when God says ‘here is what I’ve promised you’; you cannot fathom to consume what He really has for you, because you’re stuck on samples and filled on appetizers. And so what many of us do, we box what we came for, take it home and put it in the fridge; knowing that we may eat it later or we may not. And so many of us have all of these fillers (in Egypt and on the outskirts of promise) that when God brings you the fullness of what He really has, you box Him up and put Him away, because you’ve filled up on the preliminary stuff.
So you can’t give God your best to God because you’ve spent all of your best years getting high on the devil’s supply. (Some folks think that when they reach the point in life where now their liver won’t let them drink, their lungs won’t let them smoke anymore and the arthritis won’t let them run anybody, they say, ‘Now, God, I’m holy’. God says, ‘You’re not holy, you’re sick!’) God wants your best now!
You can’t give God your best for your life partner now, because you’ve been around the world in 80 days. And now the normalcy of a committed, monogamous relationship in God doesn’t seem to have the excited of the acrobrats and tricks you learned when you’re were sleeping with the enemy, so like BB, the ‘thrill is gone!’ God wants your best now!
Now here is the issue. The issue that Jesus picks up when He talks about this manna in the Gospel of John is the suggestion that the problem with the children of Israel is that all they wanted was the manna, and nothing more. And here is the question I need to ask is, do you want more than just enough? The question Jesus asks is – WHAT DO YOU DESIRE FROM GOD AFTER YOU’VE GOTTEN WHAT YOU NEED FROM GOD?
Here it is. The manna is what you needed just to get by; but you desire anything greater than just your needs being met. Everybody wants God when they NEED God. I would hazard to hunch that somebody is here today because they need something. You need the Lord to show up. You need the Lord to answer a prayer; and you hope the Lord is taking attendance today. ‘Here I am, God. Your turn!’ But in order to grow into the place of promise, I need you to hunger for more than just need. Do you have any desire FOR God when God has already met your needs?
Do you DESIRE holiness?
Do you hunger after righteousness?
Do you thirst for deeper, intimate relationship with God?
Or do you only come to God when the bills are overdo and the child is prodigal, or they’re laying off at the job? Is your desire for God greater than your NEED for God? What do you hunger for? So God says, ‘I’m stopping the manna to give you a new appetite.’
II. GOD STOPS THE MANNA TO REFORM THE FOCUS OF OUR FAITH
Here me today, loved ones. You cannot go to new levels in God with the same faith you had on yesterday. Every new level of God requires a new level of faith in God. Because faith is the key that unlocks the door for the place that God has prepared for you. And if you only trust God at this level, then this is the level where you will always remain and reside. God will never usher you into a place that’s greater than your faith in Who He is. And God says, I need to put a new demand on your faith because the faith that gave you manna in the wilderness is not the level of faith that is going to sustain you in the land of promise. Now, you’re not going to eat manna. Now you are going to eat fruit. Now here’s the difference – the manna just showed up every morning. But the fruit will require you to take seeds and plant them in the ground; so that you now need a faith that knows how to work some seed. God doesn’t just want you to just always desire everything to just show up, A to Z, pre-packaged where all you have to do is press, ‘Go.’ But this next level of faith requires that you appreciate the gift of a seed; and know that if I have a seed and some faith in God, that’s really all I need to produce the fruit that is going to sustain my life.
I don’t know who I’m preaching to, but God says that every time you grow in Me, it doesn’t mean that things get easier, and that everything attached to God will become easier. But sometimes all you get is a seed; and you’ve got to learn to work the little thing that God has given you. But if you work it, it will grow something big and great. God says, ‘I’m not going to give you a job, but I’m going to give you an interview; but if you work it, I’m going to turn it into something great.’ ‘I’m not going to put you as the manager; but I’m going to start you in the mailroom; but if you learn how to work it, it will turn into something great.’ All you have to do is work the seed that God has given you.
IT WILL WORK IF YOU WORK IT
Your faith has to learn to work, because when you grow in God it doesn’t get easier, it gets harder. I know that just messed your whole Christian ideology up because you thought the longer you came to church, if you just graduated, the more you read the scripture, the hymns you sang, that life would get easier. God says, that’s not the way it works. The longer you’ve been with me, the more I expect of your faith to go to work.
Not only do I need to faith that plants (this requires work); but I need a faith that’s patient (this requires waiting). Because manna showed up every day; but it went away every night. Seeds have to be sown, and you have no other option but to wait on the seed you’ve sown to produce fruit. And here is what God says, in the wilderness you’ve gotten used to everything coming within a 24 hour window; now I’ve got to see that you’ve grown to a place where you’ve got enough faith to endure a waiting season, believing that even if it doesn’t show up tomorrow, that I know it’s on the way. If it’s not easy; if it’s not overnight; if it doesn’t come without tribulation, that’s alright. Because my faith knows how to wait on God. Can I tell you how you know people are growing in Christ? Let me tell you know that people who’ve gotten out of kindergarten on your pew – because they’ve got enough faith to wait on God when it takes time.
- I don’t give up
- I don’t throw in the towel
- I don’t wash my hands of God
- I don’t expect an immediate answer after I say ‘amen’.
I have to have enough faith to believe that God is doing something. That my faith that THIS level can endure some ‘no’s’. My faith at this level can survive some dry seasons. My faith at this level can live through folks talking about me. My faith at this level can endure when it does not come easy. And it is the immature saint who gives up and quits at the first sign of trouble. But it is the grown and mature saint in God who knows that when they don’t like me, when they talk about me, when it’s hard, when it’s struggle, when it’s not productive, I still have enough faith to believe that God is sitting on the throne of heaven, and He’s working it out for my good.
God says you got to have a faith that plants through work and a faith that is patient in waiting, because that is what it takes to move into the next place I have for you. You have to have a new desire in your mouth; a new demand in your faith.
III. GOD STOPS THE MANNA TO ADD DEPTH TO OUR DELIGHT
I want you to rejoice is something MORE than manna. Watch the text. The Bible says that the Lord stops the manna after they eat of the fruit of the land, AND they’ve celebrated Passover. I’m not going to stop the manna until you know how to celebrate Passover. Scripture lets us know that this is only the fourth mention of Passover in the Bible. And it is only the first mention of this generation celebrating Passover in scripture. And God says, I am going to cut the manna off after you all have come to a place where you can finally celebrate Passover. Now for those who are not aware, the Passover is the celebration of what PASSED OVER. It was them looking back to their days in Egypt when the death angel was sent; and every house that was covered in blood, the death angel couldn’t even knock on that door. The death angel had to pass over. And so the Lord says, I’m going to stop the manna and give you the fruit when you have enough good sense to pause and realize that the only reason you are where you are is because a little while ago there was something that should’ve knocked on your door. But because I KEPT you and COVERED you and PROTECTED you, there were some things that all they could do was pass over! Is there anybody here who knows that there were some things that just had to pass over? That there were some things that should’ve happened and could’ve happened but didn’t happen that might’ve happen but couldn’t happen. Why? Because the Lord kept you and some things passed over!
God says I need you to rejoice in that. Now He says that this is the difference between you and your predecessors. This is the generation that God is speaking to; because the ones who are going in is NOT the ones who came out of Egypt. My Bible readers know, that according to the Bible, there’s only about 2 of them out of them all, who came out of Egypt; that’s Joshua and Caleb. Everybody else was of the new generation. This was not the generation that saw the Red Sea. This is the not the generation that knew Pharaoh. This is the generation of their children. God says, that the difference between you all and your mothers and fathers is that they knew Pharaoh and all the things that I had done; and all they did was complain. They knew how good I was, and all they did was complain. They knew all the way I had made, and all they still came to church Sunday after Sunday, and sat like a bump on a log, like I had never done anything for them; and all they could do was get mad that service went too long. So need some folk who can look back on what I’ve done; and can say don’t nobody else thank God for that, I know what passed over; and I know what the Lord has done for me; and I know where the Lord brought me from.’ And you can sit there all you want; but when I think of the goodness of Jesus. And I remember what the Lord has done for me!
The real shout is that this was not the generation that saw it all; but they could rejoice over what the Lord did for somebody else. Can you rejoice on what the Lord has done for somebody else? I’m thanking God for him and her and everybody else; because it is no secret what God can do….
