So You Wanna Go Back To Egypt Part 6
It’s A Manna of Transformation
Today we are going to finish up our series So You Wanna Go Back To Egypt.
If you missed any of these messages you can find them on our website,
Hbcc.org, click the sermon/pod cast link and you will have the choice
of reading the unedited manuscript or listen to the message.
I want to review where we’ve been,
To help you to see that desert difficulties are necessary to transform us into
the people God intended,
to know God is serious about holiness,
And even though you may not yet be ready,
To describe the last lesson of the desert you will
need to pass to enter into the Land of
Promise.
Just a quick note of clarification arriving in the Land of Promise is not the
end of the spiritual journey.
Having learned the lessons of the desert you are now ready to
face the greater challenges of lie in the Promised Land.
Where we’ve been—encouraging contemplation and introspection.
During this series we’ve used that generation of Israelites that Moses lead out of
Egyptian captivity to a Land promised by God to Abraham,
As our own personal metaphor for following God on the pathway of
holiness.
I’ve asked you to rate yourself on various topics.
On a 1 to 10 scale who do you trust to provide for your needs:
Self was a 1, God was a 10.
I asked you to make Living the American Dream a 1 and Following God a
10.
Finally I asked you to rate your desire with a 1 being the desire to be happy
and a 10 being the desire to be holy.
These are all valid issues that each one of us must face in our spiritual journey.
Your answers determine how you are going to face the training, correction
and disciplining of desert hardships.
Your answers will determine if you are going to be spiritually
successful or spiritual destroyed. (Stirratt, p. 112)
At the start of your journey you made a commitment.
You acknowledged that your life wasn’t right,
You knew you were enslaved to the things of this world and
desperately needed a liberator.
You wanted to stop wasting the times of your life and start living
your life to the full.
You believed that Jesus was the liberator that you needed,
The one who could empower you to live.
Then you committed yourself to following Jesus,
To being His disciple.
You asked God to accept your faith,
You signed on with an obedient sprit.
You vowed to start living your life in accordance with God’s will.
When you learned that there was some sin in your life you refused to tolerate
it.
You repented, you asked for forgiveness,
maybe you had to fight to put it to death or maybe God
delivered you instantaneously,
but regardless you were determined to allow
nothing to hinder your fellowship with God.
At the start of the journey
You were willing to follow God even though you were not sure where He
was taking you. (Stirratt, p. 118) (Matthew 8:19)
You were willing to obey even when it didn’t make sense. (Stirratt, p. 119) (John 14:15)
You were willing to face the challenges and make the changes necessary to
stay committed to the journey. (1 Peter 1:3-9)
You were willing to sacrifice, to be inconvenienced, to love others, for the
sake of the Cross. (John 15:13)
For you there are no PLAN B’s (Stirratt, p. 116)
You are determined to win the prize for which God has called you
heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:14)
All this and the joy of the Lord was your strength. (Psalm 28:7)
Spiritual vitality coursed through your veins.
You knew, convinced in the depths of your heart that God has
delivered you out of your spiritual Egypt and made you His
child. (Galatians 4:6)
Others saw the change in your life:
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control started to become the characteristics
of your life. (Galatians 5:22-23)
It’s in the desert wilderness journey that God tests your resolve.
Are you going to stay true to your vow?
Are you going to continue in obedience or are you going to wanna go
back to Egypt?
“It is possible to begin our victorious march into God’s plan for our lives and then
fall prey to the foolish and evil patterns of the world around us.” (Stirratt, p. 128)
God is Serious about holiness
Fellow sojourner sometimes the scriptures terrify me.
Matthew 7:21 (NIV)
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Jesus warns us of lip service.
The problem is clearly stated through the Prophet Isaiah:
Isaiah 29:13 (NIV)
"These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
Formula and doctrine need to be deeper than on my lips,
What I believe must be motivated by a heart set aflame by love.
Its only in the furnace of affliction that we become holy.
(Isaiah 48:10)
Galatians 5:6 (NIV)
The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
God save me from just giving you lip service,
Talking the talk but not really walking the walk.
God is serious about holiness.
The scripture declares that no one born of God will continue to sin. (1 John 3:9)
The Apostle Paul warns us that we can’t live the way we used to live.
Galatians 5:19-21 (MSG)
It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.
My way is no way and if I refuse to surrender my will to the will of God,
If a refuse to keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25)
Then I head back to Egypt, I’m not getting into the Land of Promise.
And the whole way back into hell on earth is with a Hallelujah on my lips because
I’m banking on the lie that once saved always saved.
If you’re living to get your own way all the time,
You missed out at the very start of this journey.
You were like the ones Mosses called the rabble.
Numbers 11:4-6 (NIV)
The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, "If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost--also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!"
The rabble didn’t have faith, they only had the formula.
For the Passover it was blood on the door post
For the rabble today it’s Acknowledge and Believe but no
commitment, its going through the motions to look like a
Christian, but its not something of the heart.
I throw my hands to heaven and cry I don’t want games, I want God.
I don’t want second hand religion, I want to live a devout and holy life.
I don’t want the rules of men, I want the fellowship of the Trinity.
Sojourner the trials and tests and tribulations of the desert wilderness reveal what’s
truly in our heart.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (NIV)
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders
nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
The hardship of the desert reveals the heart of the believer.
If you harbor wickedness in your heart,
And by harbor I mean you know its wrong but you don’t want to let to
go,
don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re going to enter
into the promised land, you’re not.
Let me give you some synonyms for wicked—
Unpleasant, troublesome, having a bad disposition, ill-natured, mean.
spiteful, distressing, contemptible.
I’m seem to be more familiar with these behaviors than
wicked ones.
Let me add a couple more I’m familiar with.
Hating someone, refusing to forgive someone,
Not meeting the need of someone when its in your power
to do so that’s all wicked too.
Then there’s the heart wickedness I fear the most
“We need to do it the way I want to.”
“You need to believe the way I believe.”
“I am right, God told me.”
If we continue to sin, we don’t get in.
Sexually immorality, adultery, prostitution, homosexuality are all characteristic of
an impure life.
Purity and holiness are closely related.
God wants his people to be pure and each one of these
activities are a misuse of God’s gift of sex.
If we continue to sin we don’t get in.
Idolatry, what does your heart love most?
Stealing, greed,
One two many and your drunk, telling lies, spreading gossip about
someone, cheating people,
all inconsistent with a devout and holy life.
If we continue to sin, we don’t get in.
Sojourner, God is serious about purity and holiness,
About you becoming like Jesus.
King David, Mary of Nazareth’s ancestor, sang this truth
Psalms 24:3-5 (NIV)
Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false. He will receive blessing from the LORD and vindication from God his Savior.
We sing it today—
Give us clean hands, gives us pure hearts, let us not lift our souls to another.
But then I see, my hands aren’t clean, my heart is not pure,
And I’m finding these little idols,
especially the one that starts and ends in “I.”
Then I find my self on my face before God again.
My relationship with God is not what the scripture describes.
In those times of contemplation I find myself so lacking.
I’m missing the mark of holiness.
I’m not going to make it into the Land of Promise,
I’m not going to stand in the holy place.
Sorrow fills the heart.
I find that I’m not living for the one that died for me.
There is so much more that I feel is to be experienced in my
relationship with God.
Maybe like me you’ve made New Year’s Eve types of resolutions,
You vow to do better,
You are going to discipline yourself into being holy.
Get accountability partners to hold you to your schedule
of practicing the spiritual disciplines.
You’ve made progress,
There has been spiritual growth,
You have put to death many of what the Apostle Paul calls the
misdeeds of the sin nature. (Romans 8:13)
But after you have exhausted yourself in the effort you only see,
that much more clearly,
that you have fallen short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)
Then the words of Jesus come to my ears
Matthew 5:48 (NIV)
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
I come to the conclusion that I can’t.
I want to,
I want to perfect,
I want to be holy,
I want to be like Jesus,
But what a mess I’ve made of it.
I just can’t.
Am I going to complete the journey?
Am I going to make it in?
Matthew 7:13-14 (NIV)
For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
I don’t want to be on the broad road,
I want to be on the narrow path of holiness that leads to an eternity of
fellowship with my Creator.
I want to love from the heart,
Obeying God, meeting others needs, being a good
steward, becoming more like Jesus.
But what I really want, to be a lover, a lover through and through,
One who walks and talks with God,
One who knows the intimacy of His fellowship,
is still elusive.
My heart fills with sorrow,
Not the sorrow of doing wrong,
But the sorrow of not being able to do what is right.
I can’t do it.
The Last Lesson of the Desert
That dear friends is the brutal and harsh lesson of the desert wilderness journey.
I can’t, You can’t.
If you think you can, you’re still wandering in the wilderness.
Pure, holy, perfect, that’s impossible.
Mark 10:27 (NIV)
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."
Do I really believe that?
Can God create the huge changes that need to happen in my life?
Can He change the intent of my heart,
Can He change what motivates me?
Can I have an intimate relationship with God?
The answer to that question is Yes.
The journey through the desert wilderness to the land of promise is all
a manna of transformation.
You’ve been transformed with each lesson you have learned.
You’ve learned to trust God to provide everything you need.
You’ve learned that God provides a safe haven.
You’ve learned that God will supply all your needs.
You’ve learned to live on manna.
You’ve learned that you want to follow God more than anything else.
But now you long for so much more,
You don’t need the presents of God, his gifts, his provisions,
You want His presence, you want to be with the one who saved your
soul.
When you fully come to the realization that you can’t and only God can then
something new and wonderful is about to happen in you.
For what you can’t do for yourself,
God can do.
When you are seeking Him with all your heart encouragement is on its way.
Ezekiel 36:25-27 (MSG)
I'll pour pure water over you and scrub you clean. I'll give you a new heart, put a new spirit in you. I'll remove the stone heart from your body and replace it with a heart that's God-willed, not self-willed. I'll put my Spirit in you and make it possible for you to do what I tell you and live by my commands.
This is a promise to those who have learned the brutal harsh lesson of the desert.
What you can not do, make your own heart right before Him,
He can do for you.
It’s a Godly sorrow that motivates you to pray with the King David
God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don't throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me. Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails! (Psalms 51:10-12 (MSG)
Or maybe you’re more familiar with this translation:
Psalms 51:10-12 (NIV)
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
It is God who can make you pure and make you holy and make you perfect.
God is deadly serious about all His children becoming a unique expression
of Jesus.
God is deadly serious about you fulfilling your calling.
God’s command is to be holy, to be perfect, to live a devout and holy life,
To be like Jesus.
God’s promise is that He will do this work in you, changing your heart.
But you have to see this,
you have to want this,
you have to realize that you can’t do this.
What God commands and promises He is able to do for His children.
He will transform you from being ego driven,
into being a lover.
He will transform you from being self-centered,
into being Christ centered.
God will transform you deep inside so that you can say with the Apostle
Paul:
Galatians 2:20 (NIV)
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
When God works this great transformation within you
your entire attitude will change,
you will desire one thing,
The attitude of you heart towards your God will be
“not my will, but yours be done." Luke 22:42
Not what I want but what you want,
because it is now what I want,
regardless of what I might prefer to make me happy.
Not what I want but what you want,
not in some things, not in the easy things,
but in all things.
When God does that work inside of you then you are ready to leave the
desert and enter into the Land of Promise.
In the Church of the Nazarene we call this entire sanctification.
It means you have passed the basic training of the desert and
are now ready to face the tougher challenges of a
disciple.
Once in the Land of Promise there are different challenges but we will consider
those at another time.
Most Christians never cross into the Promised Land because they never learn the
lessons of the desert.
They are saved, they are God’s children, they are co-heirs with Christ,
But they are slow learners.
They have not mastered the elementary teachings of the
faith. (Hebrews 6:1)
They still need spiritual milk
Because they will choke on solid spiritual food.
(Hebrews 5:12)
If you want to leave the desert wilderness and enter the Promised Land then I
suggest you do this.
Romans 12:1 (MSG)
“Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.”
The saints of yesteryear called this consecration.
Nazarenes said you needed to put are all on the altar.
Others have called it settling the Lordship issue,
When you first believed Jesus is your savior,
Now He must be savior and Lord.
Consecrate—you purposely set aside your life to God.
Consecrate—you devote your life for God’s purposes.
Consecrate—you dedicate every area of your life for His glory.
Consecrate—you present yourself as a living sacrifice.
Once you have, in all sincerity of heart, consecrated yourself to God
then in faith, you trust God to do what He said He would do.
Psalms 27:14 (NIV)
Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.
When you are ready,
God will graduate you from the desert wilderness,
from the training and correcting and discipline course of the
elementary teachings of the faith
and lead you into the Land of Promise
equipped for battle.
The desert wilderness is hard, at times no fun at all, but God uses the tests, trials
and tribulations to transform you into a person fit to enter into the Promised
Land.
The desert is all a manna of transformation.
“of being transformed into Christ’s likeness with ever-
increasing glory.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)
Have you learned the lessons of the desert?
Are you ready to take that next step,
That step of consecration?
You can choose to go back to Egypt and live your life just the way you want to.
Or you can persevere following God in the desert with the faith that He is leading
you to the Land of Promise.