Expectations - Exodus 15:22-27

It's good to see each of you here today. And again, welcome to Faith Bible Church. And we just have a couple of announcements we would like to bring to you. We just encourage you, each Sunday morning at 9 .30 we have an adult Bible study.

And this morning, pastor went through Psalms 24. Next Sunday, I think you'll be going through Psalm 25. And so it gives you a head up if you want to read that ahead of time so you can enter in. Because it's an informal time when we discuss the scripture.

It's a blessed time. And as normal, we have the 11 o 'clock service each Sunday. And if you notice in your bulletin also, we have a prayer meeting tonight at 6 o 'clock. And we just spend the time in prayer.

It's a real time of fellowship. And we enjoy that. So I would encourage you to come out to that. And then this coming Saturday, we have a women's Bible study. March 19th. And the ladies are going over 1 Kings 10 coming up.

Give you a heads up. And if you don't have the questions, you can talk with Barb and we can email them to you if you for some reason don't have them already. And then this coming Saturday also, we have a men's Bible study at 3 .30 in the afternoon.

They're going over Genesis. And if I figure right, we'll be in about Genesis 4 .16. And talking about when Cain left and went out into the world. It's quite an interesting study. So I encourage you men to come out for the men's Bible study.

Also, I would encourage you on the back table, a magazine back there that comes. It's a two monthly, bi-monthly magazine. The Voice magazine is from an organization. We belong to the IFCA International.

It's a fellowship of churches. And I would just encourage you to pick up a copy of each time that they put it out. They have a subject through the whole magazine. This one, the first article is meeting the needs of the broken among us.

To give you some idea of the gist of what the magazine are. And the next article is ministering to the afflicted. The next article is ministering to the grieving. And each of them are by different men.

And then broken by natural disaster is the next article. And ministering of compassion. And then there is finding hope in the death of a child. And then ministering to those with dementia. Ministering to the broken marriage.

Ministering to the broken with PTSD. So I encourage you, look for the magazine. It says Voice on the back table. It's free. Pick it up. Take it along. Read it. I think you'll enjoy it and appreciate it.

With that said, I'll open us in a word of prayer. Our Heavenly Father and our God, we come to you this morning. And thanking you for the blessings that you shower upon us continually. We realize, Lord, that we are totally dependent on you for all that we have.

And we thank you, Lord, that your desire is to be a blessing to us. We would pray, Heavenly Father, that you would be with each individual that's come here today. May they receive a blessing from you and from your word.

And from the time of praising and music. We would pray for our pastor, Iljin, that you would speak through him and through your word. And the things you've laid on his heart. We do think, even as we think of the magazine and the theme there.

We realize there are many broken hearted people. And yet we read in your word that you heal the broken hearted, Lord. And we thank you for that. We think of the people today who are in the midst of war.

Many of them probably believers and who know you. We would pray for their protection. We pray, Heavenly Father, for our country and the world at this time of trouble, Lord. Pray that you might have your will and way in all of these things.

And we would thank you for it. And now we look forward to a blessing from you this day. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. And let's all stand and sing.

Jesus Heals the Leper and Commands Obedience

This morning's scripture reading is from Matthew chapter 8. Matthew chapter 8. We're going to read verses 1 -4. If you'd like to take your Bible or just listen along. Matthew chapter 8, verses 1 -4. When he had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.

And behold, a leper came and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. Then Jesus put out his hand and touched him, saying, I am willing. Be cleansed. Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

And Jesus said to him, see that you tell no one, but go your way. Show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded as a testimony to them.

Bitter Water at Marah and the Test of Grumbling

Please turn with me to Exodus chapter 15, verses 22 -27. Exodus chapter 15, verses 22 -27. So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea. Then they went out into the wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water.

Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people complained against Moses, saying, what shall we drink?

So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There he made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there he tested them and said, If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his sight, give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you.

Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees. So they camped there by the waters. This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray. Father, we come before you as your blood-bought children of God.

We thank you that you are so gracious in providing for every of our needs, and thank you so much that you are fully in control and that you are fully righteous. Thank you that you have rescued us from our sin through Jesus Christ.

Father, we remember today all the people who are suffering because of the violence. Father, we pray that you would provide comfort to them and that ultimately that they also would hear the gospel and worship the Lord Jesus Christ.

Father, we commit ourselves to you, and we pray that your spirit would speak to us through your word. In Jesus' name, amen. This narrative picks up right after the song of praise as the Israel have witnessed the Lord's total victory over the Egyptian army, the most powerful army of that time.

For the next couple of chapters, we will see the faithfulness of God's people tested in the wilderness. Although they went out of Egypt fearing and believing in the Lord, they worshiped the Lord as they exited Egypt.

We will see a less than satisfactory reaction by the Israelites. Starting with today's text, Israel will be tested several times. First, today's text shows us they will be tested as they don't have drinkable water in front of them.

Then, they will lack food. Then third, they will not have any water. And each time, the Lord will miraculously provide for their need despite their grumbling. Unfortunately, even after they witnessed the Lord who generously and faithfully provided for each of their need, God's people will resent and grumble even more.

This text is important for us today because the grumbling has not stopped with the wilderness generation. And today's text particularly is focused on grumbling due to having an unmet expectation or a false expectation from God.

And that's the kind of expectation the church struggles with. We have this expectation that God has to do blank. Rather, it is God has to provide you with a new house, a new car, or a new relationship, or just fill in the blank as what you expected God to do but He didn't.

And that leads to grumbling. And that's an act of disobedience and rebellion. And today, today's text tells us that despite His people's grumbling from their false expectations, the Lord graciously provides for what they need.

Despite His people's grumbling from their false expectations, the Lord graciously provides for them. First, although people grumble due to their unmet expectation, the Lord graciously provides. Although the people grumble, murmur due to their unmet expectation, the Lord graciously provides.

Verse 22 starts with, So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, then they went out into the wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. This is the first test in the wilderness.

Prior to this, the Lord gave specific instructions and He delivered people, His people, from Egypt. The precise location of the wilderness of Shur is, of course, debated. Some say it is on the eastern side of the Suez Canal that's near Egypt, while others say it is the northwestern part of Arabia, the modern-day Saudi Arabia.

Here, one thing is certain about the wilderness of Shur. It lacked water. In fact, Israel did not find water for the three days they were walking. Now, verse 23 shows us an even greater letdown. At this point, it is important to point out that the Israelites were not weak.

They were not wimps. Lest we think we can do better than the Israelites, let's consider what these few verses tell us. The sun is beating down on them, and their water pouches are quickly emptying out as they're crossing the wilderness of Shur.

Their kids are complaining, and their livestock are slowing down. And they had been traveling under the desert sun for three days without seeing a single source of water. Three days without water. And they're running out of the water they've brought.

It's becoming quite dangerous now. If they run out of the water that they've brought, they can't last more than a couple of days in the desert. Now, from a distance, they see a pool of water. It's blue, and it's reflecting the sun's rays.

And some of them, those who do have the strength, out of excitement, they run toward that pool of water. And they bend down. They scoop up with their hands. Some of the water feels cold and nice. Upon their first sip, it's bitter.

Immediately, they spit it out. It's so bitter and disappointing that they name the place Mara, which means bitter in Hebrew. So whenever they think back to that place, they're asking, hey, remember that one place?

The bitter. That bitter place. Yeah, we're calling it bitter. We're not even giving it another name. That's all it's known for. And that's what they went through in the wilderness. Now, what do they do when they're met with an unexpected difficulty, an unexpected outcome?

After all, they just saw miracles. God just delivered them from the Egyptian army as the sea collapsed on the Egyptian army as they were chasing after them. Well, verse 24 tells us that they complained.

And the people complained against Moses, saying, what shall we drink? Here, the question itself is not at fault. It's the attitude. That's a valid question. Three days of no water in sight, and the water they do get to, it's bitter, can't be, it's not drinkable?

But the narrator, Moses, tells us what the problem was. And the people complained against Moses. Here's what they do not do. They don't cry out to God, who is, in fact, leading them in the form of the pillar of cloud.

They can actually see God's presence as the form of the pillar of cloud. But they don't go to him. Here's what they also do not do. They don't remind each other of God making the whole Nile, which became blood, undrinkable.

Then after seven days, he made it drinkable again. Hmm. Maybe the same God who made the Nile drinkable could actually make the pool of water drinkable? No. Instead, they decide to complain. They decide to grumble.

They murmur. Murmuring is the opposite of gratitude. Grumbling is the result of discontentment with God's leading. After all, it was God who led them to the pool of water. They were following the pillar of cloud.

When their expectation was not met, they were all too easy to show their discontentment visibly. However, in response, Moses, the faithful servant of God, he goes to the Lord. He doesn't grumble. He goes to the one who can actually solve the problem.

So he, Moses, cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. Despite his people's ingratitude and dissatisfaction, the Lord graciously provides for his people.

The Lord performs a miracle to make the water sweet. The water is now pleasant in the mouth. The water is now drinkable. And this scenario is all too common in our walk with the Lord today. We hold our expectations above God's leading.

In one sense, our grumbling comes from a rebellious view that your plan for your life is better than God's plan for yours. It's to see the unexpected and unfavorable outcome and say, God, my plan was better.

If you had given me this at this time, it would have been better. Or another says, Lord, I could have done it better. At the core of murmuring and grumbling is the sense that you can do better than God.

It's to view yourself better than God and his sovereign and wise plan for your life. And for the church, there are two ways to fight this. It's the two ways that Israel did not go to. The first is to remember God's faithfulness.

First, we ought to consult Scripture to find out how faithful God has been to his people. Even in this book Exodus, God orchestrated so many supernatural and natural events to fulfill his promise to bring his people out of enslavement once and for all.

Not only that, this occurrence of redemption and freedom for God's people occurs over and over again in Scripture. And ultimately, we look to Christ who fulfilled the ultimate redemption. Christ who faithfully stayed on the cross so that his people would be completely free from sin and death once and for all.

If Christ stayed on the cross to face God's wrath, on your behalf, the most excruciating experience that any being could go through, why would he abandon you now? Why would he mess up his plan for your life?

And sometimes I would even recommend writing down how God has been faithful in your life, in your personal life. Maybe God provided the right amount of money to pay the bill at the end of the month when it seemed impossible.

Maybe God brought the right person in your life at the right time, just when you couldn't take it anymore, who was a blessing, who said the right words to get you through. Write those down. And when you look back, you can assure yourself, God who's been faithful to me up to this point will be and is faithful to me now.

He is faithful to what he has promised in his word. How can I ever think or doubt of his faithfulness just because my life got hard in the present? Second, discerning God's leading. Remember that God was actually right in front of the Israelites when they reached the bitter pool.

They could have easily called out to him instead of grumbling to Moses. After all, God had a perfect record of turning undrinkable water drinkable. He did that with the Nile, which was the largest body of water in that area.

Couldn't he do it again with the pool of water that they just found? Yet they did not even try to see how God was leading them, what God's intention was. They just assumed that he made a mistake. What are we going to drink now?

Great. And when we face something unexpected in our lives, I think the solution is go to God. Pray to God and ask him to help discern why you are going through what you are going through. This is not to say what you're going through is easy.

What Israelites went through was not easy. Three days of journeying, and there's no drinkable water, and then they find water source, and it was undrinkable? That is hard. Let's not kid ourselves. I couldn't last a day.

But what they didn't do was the problem. They didn't go to God. Moses cried out to the Lord. Israelites grumbled against Moses. And when we do face difficulty in our lives, that's the right path. Go to God and ask him to help.

Ask him to help you discern what's going on. God's path is not always straightforward and predictable, and that is for our good. God has worked miracles through confusing and oftentimes seemingly impossible situations.

And, of course, the cross is the ultimate example. It seemed like Satan and the world had won against the Lord by crucifying God incarnate, Jesus Christ. Kill him. Herod and Pilate worked together for the first time.

It seemed like they've won. But the cross was the victorious event of all history, defeating sin and death once and for all. We must go to God. Second, what will happen if the Lord's people follow him?

Or the better question is how? What is the appropriate response for the Lord's people? If God's people follow him wholeheartedly, the Lord will continue to protect them. If God's people follow him wholeheartedly, the Lord will continue to protect them.

Now, after Israel failed the first test in the wilderness, God graciously teaches them how they can walk with the Lord faithfully, correctly, righteously, how they can have a relationship with their God.

There he made a statute and an ordinance for them. And there he tested them and said, if you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his sight, give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you.

The statute for them, the rule for them, shows how God's people can remain loyal to their God. First, they must listen to their Lord, their God. We see this in the first and third steps. Diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and give ear to his commandments.

In order for God's people to have a covenant relationship with the Lord, they had to take his word very seriously. God's word were not to be ignored by his people. They must be constantly listening to God's word.

In another sense, whatever enters their ears better be from God. They better not be filling their minds with lies. No, it must be God's very voice. Second, they must do what is right in his sight and keep all his statutes.

This is a logical next step from the first requirement. If God's people take God's word seriously, they will naturally do what is right in God's sight. Obedience to God's voice shows up through actions of obedience.

You know that you're obeying God by the life you live. Now, note that they must do. What they must do is they must do what is right in God's sight, his sight. This means the world does not set the standard for what is right and wrong.

This also means your feelings and desires do not set the standard for what is right or wrong. Your family and traditions don't set the standard for what is right or wrong. It is purely God's prerogative to set the standard for what is right or wrong.

And that is extremely important in our current time when the world seems to say all the wrong things are right and the right things are wrong. The world seems to celebrate the wrong and vilify the right.

The world, the society, people want to decide for themselves what is right in their own eyes, not according to God's eyes. And that works with gender, sexuality, wealth, politics, so many things that are governed by doing right in anyone else's eyes but God's.

And for God's people, they were to stay loyal to him by doing what is right in God's eyes. And not just partially, not just when it's convenient for them to do, but as it says, to do all the commandments, to follow all the commandments wholeheartedly.

God's people do not get to remove the inconvenient portions of scripture. We do not follow his word only when it is safe for us. God does not seek partial obedience but full obedience from his people.

And what happens when God's people stay loyal to him? God promises, I will put none of the diseases on which I have brought on the Egyptians for I am the Lord who heals you. God promises a continual protection and provision for his people.

The diseases that were in Egypt would not even touch his people because God will be the one who protects them, who heals them. God will be the ultimate physician. And we see the Lord being the healer all throughout the Old Testament.

And we see that in God when he became man, Jesus Christ. Everywhere Jesus went, he healed the sick. It is not that healing was the main focus of his ministry, but healing pointed to what he came to accomplish, to heal his people from the most deadly and dreadful condition of all, sin.

In the end, all the extraordinary accounts of healing in the New Testament point to Christ's main purpose of healing the world, redeeming the world from sin and its effects. And how he does it is by dying on the cross himself.

He faces the consequence for our sin on the cross. He takes that upon himself so that we may be healed. Every time Jesus touched the sick, sin and its effect could no longer enslave them because they had been freed by the Lord, because it is the Lord who's the healer visited them.

Third, how does the Lord provide for his people when they are disobedient? Despite their disobedience, the Lord graciously provides for his people. What is obvious from the statute is that Israel failed to obey that.

They did not listen to God. They did not do what is right in God's eyes. Instead, they grumbled against God's chosen representative, Moses. The law from the previous verses show us how much God's people failed to obey.

What does God do in response? Does he give them another chance? Here, let's go around for three more days and see how well you do this time. Maybe when you do pass that, we'll get to a nicer encampment with more water, not bitter water at all.

Now, verse 27 shows us directly after that, Here, the word for wells is springs, springs of water. Twelve springs of water. The source of water here is not just any pool. It's fresh. It is not stagnant nor putrid.

But the water is freely flowing out, constantly flowing out. It's cold and refreshing just like any spring of water. In the dreadful heat of the desert, this would have been more welcoming than a pool of water.

And what did God's people do to earn this? Did they have to prove themselves again? Lord, Lord, we can do it better this time. We just had a slip of our memory. We can do it. We know you can provide for us.

Just lead us three more days again. No, they didn't have to do a thing. In fact, if we look at God's people's track record, they really haven't done anything to earn what they have just earned, what they were just given in verse 27.

And this is God's grace. Israel did not have to be retested in order for them to drink clean, freely flowing, delicious water. Israel, in fact, failed the test. Yet, the Lord prepared an encampment with bountiful water for them to enjoy as they encamp, settle long-term.

Elim was truly the place of rest after many days of journeying in the wilderness. The 70 palm trees that would provide shade, a refuge from the burning sun. Mara was not the place of rest. God intended to lead Israel to Elim for rest and encampment all along.

And Israel falsely believed that Mara was the destination, that Mara was the long rest stop. And this is important to know because that's who God is. Oftentimes, when we are tested, when life does get hard, we lose the focus of God's grace.

We lose the focus of God's character that is gracious from the front cover to the back cover of the Bible. Many people falsely claim that the God of the Old Testament is the God of wrath, while the God of the New Testament is God of love.

This could not be farther from the truth. There's only one God, and He has been gracious all throughout because that's who He is. His mercy and grace flow out of Him. That's His name. God freely offers His blessings and Himself to His people despite their inability to follow Him perfectly, despite their many failed track records.

And, of course, we see the perfect picture of God's grace on the cross. That's why John 1 starts with, we have beheld His glory, and it's the grace upon grace. Why is that? Because Christ, when He's pouring out His life, His blood, when He dies for us, for His grace, out of His grace for us, so that we may be freely given eternal lives, that's when He's most glorified.

It's His grace that we see on the cross that flows out, freely given. You do not have to get better in order to start believing in Christ. You do not have to get your life together in order to come before Christ.

You come just as you are, and you just receive. You don't have to pay Him back. You never have to pay Him back because that's who He is. God is gracious. He freely gives to His people. He doesn't ask for anything in return, and you get to live in that identity.

That's what flows, obedience. Obedience flows from grace. You get to obey God because you have been saved at such a high cost, yet freely. That's how we live in Christ. Let us pray. Father, we're thankful that we get to see how gracious You are all throughout Scripture, that we do not earn Your favor, that Israel did not earn Your favor.

In fact, if they received what they've earned, they would have been wiped out, but God, You have been so gracious to Your people all along, and we can look back to that in so many places in the Bible.

And thank You that the ultimate picture of grace we see on the cross, something we could not have earned whatsoever because we were so sinful. Father, we pray that we would remember what Christ has done for us and live accordingly in freedom.

In Jesus' name, amen.

And let's stand for our closing song. All the Way My Savior Leads Me.