Fear Spoils What God Provides

Transcript

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[0:00] I'm just going to warn you now that our scripture reading is really long today, like really long. So we're legitimately going to take a stretch break because I lose focus partway through a long scripture. So I find if I move a little beforehand, it helps me focus longer. And I don't know if I'm the only one, but I might not be. So just in case, there will be an optional stretch break just before we start scripture.

[0:32] So today we're going to continue our discussion on the book Welcoming the Stranger. We pick up in chapters five and six. In recent months, we have covered in our sermons or in all church discussions, hopefully you were there for one or both, the basics of chapter five, which covers a broad overview of places, in scripture where the topic of the stranger is brought up through either through commands or through story, as well as a theology of migration that shows how God's people have been migrants and they've identified with migrants throughout scripture.

[1:16] And in fact, this theology of migration covers the realization that Jesus himself was a stranger in Egypt. And we are going to talk about that. So let's start with chapter five. So we are all strangers here in this life as our true citizenship is in heaven.

[1:32] Because we have preached on that in the past year, we'll focus mostly on chapter six today. So here the authors address common concerns and fears that many people, including Christians, have about immigration.

[1:48] And rather than dismissing these worries, so there are going to be times in this sermon where it maybe feels like we're dismissing these worries and telling you simply not to fear. But the truth is that these worries are legitimate.

[2:04] So instead of dismissing these worries, the authors engage with them. One concern is that resources like jobs or housing or social services or what have you are limited and that newcomers may compete with or take away support from the poor and vulnerable citizens that are already here in the US. The authors explore how this worry plays out and how Christians should think about justice and stewardship in context of scarcity.

[2:35] Another major point of concern for people is national security. So there are fears that more open immigration could lead to increased terrorism or unsafe borders. The authors, Matthew Sorens and Jenny Yang, do acknowledge these issues and discuss how legitimate security concerns intersect.

[2:56] What does that mean for people like us who are weighs like us who are weighs like us who are weighs like us who are weighs like us who are weighs like us who are weighs like us who are weighs like us who are weighs like us who are weighs like us who are weighs like us who are But we still need to follow what God has commanded us to do. And so that brings us to our sermon text for today, which is Exodus chapter 16. But before we do that, I am serious, I do want you to get up and stretch because it really is a long scripture. So go ahead and if you feel so called, get up and move. Give the person next to you a high five.

[3:51] All right. And then let's go ahead and open to Exodus chapter 16. We'll be reading from the NLT today. Then the whole community of Israel set out from Elim and journeyed to the wilderness of Sin. Between between Elim and Mount Sinai. They arrived there on the 15th day of the second month, one month after leaving the land of Egypt.

[4:26] There to the whole community of Israel complained about Moses and Aaron. If only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt, they moaned. There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness. You have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death.

[4:48] Then the Lord said to Moses, look, I'm going to rain down food from heaven for you. Each day the people can go out and pick up as much food as they need for that day. I will test them in this to see whether or not they will follow my instructions.

[5:06] On the sixth day, they will gather food and when they prepare it, there will be twice as much as usual. So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, by evening, you will realize it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt. In the morning, you will see the glory of the Lord because he has heard your complaints, which are against him, not against us. What have we done that you should complain about us? Then Moses added. The Lord will give you meat to eat. And the evening and bread to satisfy you in the morning, for he has heard all your complaints against him. What have we done? Yes, your complaints are against the Lord, not against us.

[6:00] Then Moses said to Aaron, announce this to the entire community of Israel. Present yourselves before the Lord, for he has heard your complaining. And as Aaron spoke to the whole community of Israel. They looked. They looked out toward the wilderness.

[6:17] There they could see the awesome glory of the Lord in the cloud. Then the Lord said to Moses, I have heard the Israelites complaints. Now tell them in the evening you will have meat to eat and in the morning you will have all the bread you want. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God. That evening, vast numbers of quail flew in and covered the camp. And the next morning, the area around the camp was wet with dew. When the dew evaporated, a flaky substance as fine as frost blanketed the ground. The Israelites were puzzled when they saw it. What is it? They asked each other. They had no idea what it was. And Moses told them, it is the food the Lord has given you to eat. These are the Lord's instructions. The Lord's instructions.

[7:44] What does that mean? What does that mean? What does that mean? Then Moses told them, do not keep any of it until morning. But some of them didn't listen and kept some until morning. But by then it was full of maggots and it had a terrible smell.

[8:01] Moses was very angry with them. After this, the people gathered the food morning by morning, each family according to its need. And as the sun became hot, the flakes they had not picked up melted and disappeared.

[8:18] On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much as usual, four quarts for each person instead of two. Then all the leaders of the community came and asked Moses for an explanation. He told them, this is what the Lord commanded. Tomorrow will be a day of complete rest. A holy Sabbath. Day set apart for the Lord. So bake or boil as much as you want today and set aside what is left for tomorrow. So they put some aside until morning, just as Moses had commanded. And in the morning, the leftover food was wholesome and good without maggots or odor. Moses said, eat this food today, for tomorrow is a Sabbath day dedicated to the Lord. There will be no food on the ground today. You may gather the food for six days, but the seventh day is the Sabbath. There will be no food on the ground that day. Some of the people went out anyway on the seventh day, but they found no food. The Lord asked Moses, how long will these people refuse to obey my commands and instructions? They must realize that the Sabbath is the Lord's gift to you. That is why he. Gives you a two day supply on the sixth day. So there will be enough for two days on the Sabbath day. You must each stay in your place. Do not go out to pick up food on the seventh day.

[9:56] So the people did not gather any food on the seventh day. The Israelites called the food manna. It was white like coriander seed and it tasted like honey wafers. Then Moses said, this is what the Lord has commanded. Fill a two quart container with manna to preserve it for your descendants. Then later generations will be able to see the food I gave you in the wilderness when I set you free from Egypt. Moses said to Aaron, get a jar and fill it with two quarts of manna. Then put it in a sacred place before the Lord to preserve it for all future generations.

[10:37] Aaron did just as the Lord had commanded. Moses, he eventually placed it in the Ark of the Covenant in front of the stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant. So the people of Israel ate manna for 40 years until they arrived at the land where they would settle. They ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. The container used to measure the manna was an omer, which was one tenth of an ephah. It held about two quarts. We made it.

[11:09] All right, let's go ahead and pray. No, you can clap, sure. Let's go ahead and pray. God, thank you for your word. We ask your blessing over it now. Speak to our hearts and to our minds. This we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

[11:30] So I am a really terrible journaler. I always intend to journal and to write in it every night. And I have a couple of journals, actually. And I journal occasionally. But I certainly don't do it every night. As I always, like, when I do journal, I think, I should do this all the time. This is great. And I don't. I think of all the ways I could use my journal to scriptures and how they speak to me at certain times when I read them. Or maybe just keep track of what happened on any given day. Or maybe as a gratitude journal to give thanks. But I never stick to it.

[12:13] Most of the time when I do write in my journal, it happens when I need to remember how a situation was going badly. And I didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. But then suddenly God showed up and reminded me that he had actually been there all along. I have a short memory for those times. Because then the next time I find myself in a sticky situation, I'm going to be like, oh, I'm going to be like this.

[12:42] I'm going to fall off like this. I'm going to fall off like this. I'm going to fall off like this. I'm going to fall off like this. or carried me through. But you know who else struggled with a short-term God memory? The Israelites. At the time Exodus 16 takes place, they had only been in the wilderness for two and a half months.

[13:27] Don't get me wrong, that is a decent amount of time to be stuck in the wilderness. I've only ever camped for a week at a time. A week at a time. It's a decent amount of time. It's long enough for their food supply to start to seriously dwindle and for fear to take over. But only two and a half months before this, God had miraculously showed them himself and his glory through the ten plagues over Egypt and the miracle at the Red Sea. The Israelites have been freed by God's mighty hand. The Red Sea has closed behind them. And yet, in the wilderness, fear rises. And that fear leads them into sin. Don't judge them harshly. Because wasn't chapter 6 of Welcoming the Stranger about our fears of immigration that lead us to neglect God's commands about welcoming the stranger? So this is not just Israel's story. This is ours. It's about our short-term memory considering God's provision.

[14:42] It's about our short-term memory considering how God can alleviate our fears if only we follow him. Exodus 16 begins with a complaint. If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt, we would have been saved. But you have brought us out into the wilderness to starve us to death.

[15:06] Under normal circumstances, I understand that scarcity of food, as they were experiencing, would feel like the end of the world. But hasn't this entire group of people just experienced God's miraculous provision and salvation in several very tangible ways? It has not been even a whole year. It has not been even a year since their last crisis. It's been a couple months. Not to mention their long-term understanding of God's love for them. And yet fear causes them to rewrite the past. Their history as abused and despised slaves has instead become a story of the good old days. Egypt no longer represents chains but safety. Oppression becomes comfort. And so is the world. Fear does that. Fear distorts our memory. Fear convinces us that bondage is better than trust in God.

[16:13] As Christians, we know this pattern well. We are saved by grace. Yet fear can still grip us. Fear of the future. Fear of scarcity. Fear of losing control. Fear of people who are different from us. Fear of anything that's different from what we expect. Fear of the unknown.

[16:36] Salvation does not automatically remove fear. The question is, what do we do when fear shows up? It's important to know that fear itself is not a sin. And God does not condemn the Israelites for being hungry. Hunger is real. Anxiety is human. And severe hunger can, of course, lead to death, which is ultimately what they fear. The sin comes from what fear produces, though. It produces grumbling instead of prayer. Mistrust instead of faith.

[17:17] It produces turning against leaders and against God. Fear becomes sin when it drives us away from faith and toward this sinful sort of self-protection at any cost. And this has real consequences, both spiritually and socially.

[17:38] Fear in the wilderness was not just about food. It was about identity and security. The Israelites were afraid of not having enough, of not being safe, of dying in the wilderness. But they were also afraid for their place in the world. They were afraid because for over 400 years, they hadn't had to trust in a God as a group. Sure, they knew the stories of their ancestors. They knew the story of Abraham, who was led by faith on a journey to a place he didn't know or expect or even know where it was. They knew these stories. But as a group, they had had, even though they were slaves, they have had a journey where they haven't really had to place their trust in God.

[18:31] And so they were really forging a new identity as the people of Yahweh. Were they going to become a laughingstock to their enemies and the surrounding nations for foolishly trusting in God? They thought they would have to somehow go crawling back to the Egyptians on their hands and knees, begging to be allowed to be slaves again. Can you imagine the humiliation and the fear of that? The humiliation and the fear of having to crawl back to the people who enslaved you, wondering what punishment you're going to receive. They thought they would have to scrounge in the wilderness for enough food to simply get them back to Egypt to humiliate themselves before their abusers. That same fear fuels how people respond today to immigrant slavery. When fear dominates, people begin to say, there won't be enough for us. They're a threat. We need to protect what's ours. But scripture is clear, fear that leads to exclusion, dehumanization, and indifference to suffering is not neutral.

[19:46] That is what is sinful, not the actual fear. When our fear gives way to injustice, we have a problem. Because our God is a just God. Our God saw his people Israel when they were slaves, when they were oppressed and abused, when they were fearful, when they were hungry. Our God sees our struggle. But our God also sees the people whom we abuse in our fear.

[20:17] Throughout the Bible, God ties love of neighbor to memory. He says, Sleep like strangers in the land of Egypt. Fear causes us to forget that truth. That all of us at some point were strangers dependent on his grace.

[20:36] God responds to fear not with punishment but with provision. He sends manna, daily bread from heaven. And just as an aside, God provided the manna and we still don't know what it is. The word manna is literally translated as, what is it? So God's provision is still a mystery to us in many ways, but it is there and it is perfect nevertheless. Now God's provision came with some boundaries.

[21:10] No hoarding, no stockpiling, there will be enough for everyone, and it seems simple enough. Just trust in God and you will have plenty. But the people were afraid. There are a lot of people in this nation, and they sure have been traveling a long time. There's no telling when they'll reach their destination.

[21:34] Maybe they'd better gather extra, just in case. Just in case one day God doesn't show up. Just in case he's just saying this to get them to stop whining for a day. Okay? Yes, they know they were told not to, but it's better safe than sorry.

[21:54] But what happens when the people hoard the manna out of fear? The manna rots. What is grasped in fear becomes corruption. And this is a warning to us. When we cling to our own understanding or resources or power or privilege out of fear, we poison what God intended. We poison what God intended for good.

[22:20] Jesus later echoes this wilderness lesson when he teaches us to pray, give us this day our daily bread, not weekly bread. We don't have to pray just once a week and be done with it until next Sunday. Not hoarded bread, but daily bread. It forces us to reaffirm our trust in him fresh each day. We have to make a conscious decision. We have to make a conscious choice each day to trust in his provision. Jesus also reminds us, do not be afraid.

[22:56] Don't be afraid that you'll lose your privilege if you have compassion on those that Jesus had compassion on. And we saw last week in Matthew 25, he identifies himself with the stranger. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.

[23:15] Don't be afraid. If you welcome Jesus in, don't be afraid you're going to lose your resources. Don't be afraid of that other that is staring you in the face. Don't be afraid of, again, losing your privilege to welcome in this stranger.

[23:34] Fear leads to sin, but faith leads to love. And love is the mark of discipleship. There is something to be said about following the rules of this nation. We must follow the rules of the nation, but above all, we must follow God's law. And God's law tells us without any room for debate that we must love the stranger and we must welcome the stranger.

[24:05] Now we live in a wilderness moment of our own. The world is changing. Migration is real. Uncertainty is real. But the God of God is real. The Gospel asks us, will we let fear guide us, or will we trust the God who provides?

[24:23] Will we see strangers as a source of anxiety, or neighbors as Christ calls us to love? The opposite of fear is not denial, it is trust. And trust leads to obedience. Fear can make redeemed people act like they are still enslaved. But God invites us to a better way, a way of trust and generosity and faith.

[24:52] So my hope for us is that we will be a people who refuse to let fear that leads to sin into our lives and instead walk in the faith that leads to God's love. Let's pray. God, thank you that you are a God of love and mercy and compassion.

[25:16] May we trust in you in all areas of our life, that we may also be your people who walk in your love, your mercy, and your compassion, and show it to all whom we meet. These things we pray in Jesus' name.