Sermon Tone Analysis

Bread of Heaven

· Children you can be dismissed, enjoy your time in the Word this morning

· greet one another in the Lord.

Jamie Stinemetz

· elder

· wife Cassie and my two boys Hudson and Tate are part of the core team

· setup team (the few, the proud, lately the cold)

· Exodus kids where Cassie and I teach 1-5 grade a few times a month.

· Fearful and Wonderful task of preaching the Word!

Chiropractor 15 years treated patients of all ages from newborn to my oldest patient right now being 94 (I take all the credit for her longevity).

I especially enjoy taking care of the 75 and up crowd.

· I rarely meet one without an ache or pain…and I always think I can help

· because they tell the best stories.

No offense young people but like, I don't get it, when you are telling me about throwing shade at your bestie for not thinking your outfit is totes adorbs.

Looked at the older brother who Translated, dirty look to friend for not liking her outfit.

So anyway, good storytelling.

Getting to know each patient can cause a setback in schedule.

An elderly patient talks about the Good old Days

· spring in their step,

· ‘their shoulders spun like windmills,

· their necks turned like an owl

· back was as strong as an ox.

· One particular 84 year old fellow has told me a dozen times how he used to feel like a million bucks every morning, but now he feels more like a couple of copper pennies rubbing together.

True story, a dozen times.

But what these people aren't remembering is how bad things were in the good ole days.

These same people with stories about

· jumping off moving trains as kids,

· steer wrestling with a bad ankle,

· falling off a three story roof and breaking 10 ribs;

· one lady running face first into her garage door as a teenager while chasing her mom's cat.

The good old days aren't near as good as first remembered when we take x-rays and see scar tissue, bone spurs, degeneration, compressed discs and surgical hardware.

The good old days did some very not so good things to their bodies!

But they seem to forget that part, we are guilty of this as believers when remembering our past we remember only the good and begin to grumble in our present circumstance.

If we aren’t remembering things rightly we will wish again for what was good and not wait for better or best.

as believers we are assured the best has come and will only get better!

F.P. Adams said, “ Nothing is more responsible for the Good Old Days, than a bad memory.”

This morning in the book of Exodus, God’s people are doing something similar, not remembering rightly, and as we study the Word hopefully we will be drawn to God who remembers us rightly, In Christ.

follow along in your bible or on screen, These are God’s words.

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ESV

They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt.

And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.

On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.”

So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, “At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord.

For what are we, that you grumble against us?”

And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him—what are we?

Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord.”

Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, ‘Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’

” And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.

And the Lord said to Moses, “I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel.

Say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread.

Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’ ”

These verses demonstrate our three movements this morning:

Remembering Rightly

God’s Provision and Presence

Gods Promise of a Better Meal

REMEMBERING RIGHTLY

God’s chosen people find themselves in a predicament: They are free from bondage in Egypt but they are falling prey to a bad memory and their faith is wavering as they wish for the good old days.

They are not remembering rightly and so their obedience becomes unfaithful.

IF YOU’RE LIKE ME, you first read this like I read the

David and Goliath account

· Fight’s for God against his enemy: God’s Champion

· The content hungry Israelite

· Instead we cower from battle and grumble

when I first read this, I said this is ridiculous what are they complaining about, and some of you are more compassionate then me and are thinking, oh these poor people they are having such a rough time!

First of all, this wasn’t a bad stay at a hotel where the pillow was lumpy, and the biscuits and gravy didn’t settle well.

exactly one-month earlier God brought his people out of a murderous, abusive captivity that had gone on for 400 years.

The exodus here, like the Second Exodus in Christ, was led by a returning deliverer.

Moses, the Egyptian-raised Israelite who had fled into the wilderness, pursued by Pharaoh, had returned to lead them.

Now they were free! and they walked out, all 600,000+.

Secondly, they shuffled past the Egyptians burying the firstborn of man and beast.

and they walked out healthy!

says they walked out of Egypt loaded with gold and not one person was feeble.

Then to top it off the most dramatic Baptism in the bible at the Red Sea, a few verses earlier we see Miriam singing.

Now here in ----God’s covenant people were experiencing the first part of the way God’s covenants all begin with his people.

Departure or separation.

God’s covenants throughout the Bible are begun with a separation.

EXAMPLE: Jesus crying out on the cross, My God My God why have you forsaken me,” is the clearest example of this initial separation

-- God separates his people, consecrates them under the lambs blood, yet they don’t want to depart completely.

in each covenant description the beginning is hard, But it’s not the end.

So don’t feel too badly for them just yet, their pockets are full of gold they are free from slavery and God has separated them to be his covenant people.

However its been 30 days and so now the WHOLE congregation is together from V2. and they have walked for 30 days and are seeing their children and spouses losing weight, they are watching their supplies dwindle, their healthy cattle turn weak and their weak cattle dying.

In vs 3 They

start grumbling.

And not just any grumbling; they grumble in a most peculiar way.

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ESV

and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

They say in V3, we would rather have died by God’s hand in captivity than be killed with hunger here in freedom.

They preferred a full belly and slavery to hunger.

Hunger is a powerful urge, it is impossible to ignore your hunger.

And the Israelites had become Hangry.

Sin had entered their hearts, but hunger wasn’t their sin.

Not remembering rightly was.

Like the 84 YO patient who remembers waking up feeling like a million bucks, but has forgotten the family’s farming bankruptcy that took 10 years to recover from.

the people of Israel are remembering their full bellies in Egypt but have forgotten being forced to make bricks without straw.

They grumbled:

· meat and the bread in abundance was the best thing.

· That living their lives the past 4 generations in slavery was better than this.

They were not remembering rightly the chains of bondage because the good old days were whitewashed with time and were glorified by their present difficulty.

They grumbled at Yahweh because they had forgotten the past.