Exodus 13:17–22Scripture
Isn't it interesting, because I can stand here pretty easily and definitively say that I trust the Lord. Well, but there are moments in my life where I have to remind myself and say that out loud in my car: "Wait a minute, I trust the Lord."
That oftentimes the immediacy of our trouble begins to wreak havoc against our profession.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 0:12
And the reality is that although our profession is true, we tend to wax and wane a little bit when it comes to trouble hitting our life. It is interesting, because now we have seen, we've been reading in Exodus, that the Israelites have been in trouble for a long time. I think somewhere in the neighborhood, well, definitely over 400 years of trouble, of slavery, of hardship, of oppression. And we are learning that this was all designed by the Lord, and he knew the time and the place that he would deliver them, and he allowed them to remain in captivity because it was a part of his will for their lives, and ultimately to demonstrate his glory, not just to the nations, but to the world and all who would hear the stories. And that's pretty awesome for us, because we weren't slaves for 400 years. It's pretty awesome for us to glory and get excited about God's deliverance. But the fact that there's deliverance means that there's captivity. And we see most clearly what deliverance is, and we can glory in that deliverance, because captivity preceded it. And so we want to often give God glory, but we want to do so absent of trouble. We want to give God glory for peace, but you have to understand that he gives peace because there's a need for
Introduction
It. He gives peace that the world does not give. You try to find peace that the world gives, and you can't find true peace, because you're living in a world and in a time and at a place where peace is not easily accessible, and peace is greatly needed. Amen. So we then are excited about the peace that God gives because there's need for it. And so that's troubling for us. We want to celebrate his peace. We want to celebrate his promises. We want to celebrate his deliverance. We want to celebrate his perseverance. We want to celebrate his providence. But on the back end of those, or the opposite side of each of those, is trouble. That's why we celebrate the goodness of those things. So you don't get one without the other. That won't get many amens, but I'm just trying to help you face facts this morning. But that means you get this that he provides. How many of you know that everybody in this world is going to face a little trouble, believer and non-believer alike? We all know that. So that's just, i'm spitting facts there. But what God gives is something to help you in the midst of your trouble, right? It is a peace that other people don't have in their storms. So we celebrate that.
Our celebration of that does not mean that we then are removed from storms.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 3:28
It means we have access to something in the midst of them that no one else does, because storms are rampant for us, even for believers, in case you didn't know. How many of you can testify to the fact that you've been a believer for a little while and you still have some trouble? Okay, because that's facts. No matter what we say from the pulpit, or how pastors try to encourage you, and you run out of here leaping and yelling and shouting about the goodness of God, and he is good, you're running and leaping back into trouble. And so discouragement settles in the hearts of men when reality settles in to the minds of men. And so let's be real about the Scripture. There is much to celebrate when we get to this point in the text we're about to read in Exodus 13: about the goodness of God, about his will, that his will reigns supreme above our will. Thank goodness for that. I don't want man directing my life. I don't trust men to direct my life, other people to direct my life. I don't trust myself to direct my own life. So it's mutual. It's not just a you problem. It's a me problem. It's an us problem. I don't trust me. I trust God. And so I'm thankful to hear that his will reigns supreme, that his mercies are new every day. We need them new every day.
There's a reason his mercies are new every day. He's dealing with us. We need new mercies flowing to people who need mercy. All right, so it's a good thing.
We have an us problem. Okay, so chapter 13 says this. I love it. Verses 17 through 22. I'm going to read through here, and then i'm going to break this down into some points. My goal this morning is to point out, you know, the point of the gospel is the good news of God. So I think that we fail if we go into the gospel and we try to make every Scripture prescriptive. There are some things that are prescriptive, meaning that it's for all people at all times in all situations, but I just want to let you know that there are some things that are not. Now, he hasn't literally parted a Red Sea for me. That's not prescriptive. Matter of fact, there are some people who have had cancer and died, and the deliverance that we see here is not necessarily the deliverance they saw.
Are you with me? So we sometimes tend to take things we see in Scripture and apply them to everyone's situation because we're believers, and that's dangerous. That's wildly dangerous, ladies and gentlemen. That is not the way the Bible is meant to be interpreted. But we see him moving on behalf of the Israelites in a specific fashion, in a specific way. We see him covering the nation, providing leadership in the front and protection from the back. It's like, "Oh, follow me," and then on the back, "I'm going to just, you know, try to come at them."
You know, like God is covering them and he's protecting them so they can get to their destination. But if protection is prescriptive for all believers, where was that with all the apostles when they got killed? Are you with me? So we can't look at the text and go, "Now, because God protected them, he's always going to protect us." That's dangerous, because the facts are, all the apostles died gruesome deaths. It was because of his will. It was part of his will that they died so. All right, let's read this, now that I've encouraged your hearts to death. All right, Exodus 13: "When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines." No shortcuts. No Google Maps. No quickest route set in your settings on your Google GPS. Matter of fact, it's like Brook's phone. It's broken, and we do quickest route, and it takes us some fingly way. It's not even a word. I made it up just on the spot. Just fingly way, just around and gooseneck, and we end up there, but we go 50 miles around in the opposite direction. We all laugh when Brook says she's going to put in the directions, and we're like, "Please, Lord, no. Please, Brook, no. Don't use your phone. Something's wrong with it." Something's wrong with your phone. It takes us the long way. And maybe her phone's more godly, I don't know. But they go the long way here. That's what they do. There's no nearest direct route. So "when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the philistines," the direct route, "although that was near. For God said, 'Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to egypt.'" So God knows you, and he knows what will break you, and he understands what you can handle and what you can't handle. "But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness," it's a lot longer, folks, trust me, "toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt." Listen to this.
This is just thrown in there. Did you guys catch this? "And the people went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle." He didn't take them the nearest route, because they would face battle. But they went out equipped for it. They were equipped for it, but he didn't take them that way, because they weren't mentally equipped for it.
You can look equipped on the outside but not be equipped.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 9:48
Okay? And this is really fascinating. "Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, 'God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.'" He wanted to get to the land that was promised to his great-grandfather. "And they moved on from Succoth and encamped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness. And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people." I love this. It is good to know that God leads us in our lives. It is good to know that. I have three things I want to talk about very briefly this morning, and then I'll have you meditate on them the rest of your week. And I know that we have thought about this stuff, but I want you to really notice God in this. Because we notice us, but I want you to see God. We see us, but I want you to see God. We consider how God might move for us, but we don't
Point 1God's will is not always faster, but better
Consider how God is moving for him. And this is about God. First thing: God's will. God has one. Now, I know some of us unintentionally believe that God's will is subservient to our will, or that he loves us so much that his will becomes subservient to our will, or he loves us so much he'll allow our will to happen. But God has a will. And we do know that oftentimes, if not always, his will is different than our will, because his ways are higher than our ways. And if we have a will, it's probably not his. I'm just going to be honest with you.
It might be. You might hit the lotto. But what the Bible constantly says is we don't really function like he functions in any capacity. We don't think like he thinks.
We don't act like he acts. We don't move like he moves. We don't talk like he talks. The reality is that the life journey from the point of salvation is becoming more like him, because we are opposite of him. And so God has a will. So it's part of the duty of every believer to understand and to know his will.
How do we know his will? By being in his Word.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 12:37
That's how we know his will. Not by some esoteric nudging from the ethos out there, but by his Word. Matter of fact, the Holy Spirit, you want to get him involved? The way the Holy Spirit helps you when you read the Word is he illuminates spiritual truth in the Word, so that you see the spiritual truth behind what is spoken on the page. So he illuminates what God has given us. This is a treasure, ladies and gentlemen. It is his will for your life. It's his will. You know, I talk to a lot of people: "I just have such a hard time reading the Bible." And I don't denounce that. I don't doubt it. But the reality is that many of us struggle with reading the Word because we see that his will is so diametrically opposed to our own. It's not that we don't like sitting down and reading words. It's that it contradicts our heart, and it's painful. It's calling us to a lifestyle that is not what we would lay out or design for ourselves. Ladies and gentlemen, fast is not always better. And we live in a microwave, nuke-it generation. I'm just telling you that right now. Can you relate? I mean, now, my wife loves, moving? She hates it. She hates it. She hates it. I have grown to hate moving. I realized that in our last move, when we moved from Harrisonville to Pleasant Hill, I was like, officially, again, officially don't like moving. I used to love it when we were younger. If I were to give an image of myself as a young man, it would be somebody jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, opening my mouth with it flapping in the wind, going, "Woohoo!" You know, something adventurous and new, just give me that. So if anything got mundane, or into a flow of a routine, I'd be like, "We got to change something up." And I loved it. Now I'm older. Old is relative. Amen. Depends on who you're talking to. I'm ancient, and pretty much dust to dust and ashes to the young people in this row. To other people here, like, "I would love to have your one knee problem." I found out my knee hurts right now, like here, that hurts right now standing here, because I'm getting older. And then I realized that my knee hurt because I put my thumb in my back right there, in my, this has nothing to do with Scripture, but just hang on for a second. I'm just venting now. I'm sorry. Thumb right there in my back, and I don't know if it's a sciatic nerve or something, but right there, oh, knee gone. Right now, like, literally gone. I could probably jump up and down now. That's called getting old and crooked and weird, and stuff's pinching now, and I wake up and I'm achy. You know what I mean? Like, I'm getting old. And so the more you move, the more movement begins to hurt and break down people. And that's in essence what he was asking them to do. Now, it seems horrible to be in captivity for 400 years, but if you've been somewhere and established your life for 400 years in a place, and then you move, I mean, that is not an easy ask. It's not an easy ask. This last time, I actually paid somebody to come pack up our car. Glory, hallelujah. Our house, not our car.
It was amazing. They moved all the furniture. I actually sat there and watched them, because I had thrown out my back. It's probably why my knee hurts now, still thrown out from moving. But moving is not fun. Now, can you imagine moving several million people? All right, I remember being in a car with young people when we moved here. We had two little guys that are now 24 and 22. They were little guys, little curly-haired little guys. One was in the truck with me. One was in the car with Brook. And we were moving, and it was snowing. It was like you couldn't see the road, and icing, like a solid sheet of ice and snow out there. We were going like 10 miles an hour trying to get here. We unloaded and unpacked the truck with a bunch of help from people in the snow and in the ice. It was crazy. It was stressful, landon riding in the truck with me, bouncing around in the truck. It was unnerving, because moving is not easy.
Imagine doing it with two million people. Everybody having opinions. "Are we there yet?" The proverbial several-million-people "Are we there yet?" Conversation. You know what I mean? Just, moving is not easy, and especially if you're taking the long route. "When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near."
Nearer is not always better. Faster is not always better.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 18:40
Shortcuts often seem appealing because they promise faster results with less effort, but they can lead to unexpected complications that outweigh their initial convenience. Let me give you some examples that I wrote off, and you might have many more that you could consider. A student cheating on a test. Seems like that would be helpful, but in the long run this does not pay dividends. A contractor using cheap material so he can finish the job faster, instead of taking the time, stopping and going and getting the proper thing to finish the job. He ends up having to come back and fix what he did by tearing out entire walls to replace what he could have done right the first time if he spent more time on it. At the end of the day, you end up spending the time anyway. You just make it fast for you now, but you end up spending the time on it eventually. If you cheat on a test, you're going to have to go back at some point and learn that, because it's going to be what you're doing for an occupation one day. Are you with me today? You're going to put the time in it. You might as well put the time in it now.
And the reality is we try to figure out how to get there quicker now, and we think we can avoid the time. You don't avoid the time that it takes to prepare. It just takes time to prepare. Amen. How many of you have cooked a pizza a little too fast and a little too hot? Oh, it looks beautiful on the outside.
The pepperoni is glistening, the bread is all brown, and it looks wonderful. And then you cut a piece and you take a bite, and it's like, just dough. Just dough. On the outside it looks beautiful and perfect. On the inside it's not finished, because you cooked it too quick and it didn't have time to finish. Because faster is not always better. How many of you have thrown a piece of pizza away that cooked too fast? Now, I turn mine to ash, basically, just because I forget about it. You also don't want to leave it in there too long, 'cause ashes to ashes, dust to dust, service with your pizza. Basically just a black hockey puck in there. Like when the pizza starts out like this big and it ends up this big and it's black. Don't eat that. I know for a fact that is not a good piece of pizza.
And isn't it good to know that God knows just how long to leave you in there?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 21:16
Longer than you want, but not too much to burn you to a crisp, until you're perfectly ready. Perfectly ready. A person responding too quickly in anger via a text message to somebody. I was speaking from experience on that one. You might want to give that one 24 hours at least before you respond. Are you with me today? Or a parent being mad and correcting too quickly, and you end up giving out a punishment that's too much for what happened. Matter of fact, the punishment doesn't just have one thing on it. It has 10 things on it. Can I get an amen? As a parent, I'm like, "Oh, you're going down. You're going down, brother. You're going down for what you did." And you give a list. And then as a parent, if you don't want to undermine anything you have just done, you got to actually hold them to it. I remember one summer, I corrected one of my sons for doing something. I said, "You can't play xbox the entire summer." And a day later I regretted that punishment. I regretted that. You punished yourself. And then I actually punished my youngest son: "Because you're in the same room, you get the same punishment." I just, like, I gave it to another kid who didn't even do anything. I punished them both. Go ask them at the end of the service. They'll still laugh about that. And the crazy thing was, I didn't ask enough questions, and come to find out he didn't even do the thing I punished him for, because I moved too fast. Faster is not always better. Are you with me today? Rushing into a relationship because you're tired of being alone. Well, that's not a good idea. That's not a good idea. Don't rush. Don't rush. Just wait. Taking out a loan for something you can't afford now because you want it now. "But it's faster. I can get it quicker." Shortcuts might promise speed and ease, but they rarely deliver lasting success or fulfillment. It's funny, that new car you can afford, and I'm not saying you shouldn't go get a new car, but the new car you can't afford, did you go get a loan for it? I'm not saying it's bad getting a loan for everything, but the new car you can't afford the loan for, and you go and get it, you're excited for that until your first payment comes. It's funny how quickly the excitement wanes, isn't it? Because if you base your life on what makes you excited, you'll be miserable. Near is not always better. Faster is not always better. And see, the stuff that happens quick, it offers this promise that you're going to be fulfilled if you have it, and if you have it quicker. And the reality is that I found that
True fulfillment doesn't come from the things we get quickly. True fulfillment comes from the things that take time to marinate and slow cook.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 24:26
God's way may take longer, but it builds character and strength and faith, and equips us for what's ahead. So that's the first thing: God's will is not always faster, but it is better. I'll say this, another thing about God's will, when we see the people that
Point 2Equipped does not always mean ready
Are equipped: equipped does not always mean ready. "For God said, 'Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.' But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle." Now listen to this.
The Hebrew word is chamushim, and it means this: equipped for battle, armed. Chamushim, and it means by fives, by five people, or in ranks of people. So listen, here's the visual imagery that we see as commentators look at this: that they were equipped for battle. What does that mean? They were actually marching in ranks, numbered ranks. They were marching in numbered ranks. And most commentators believe that when they went door to door and they asked for silver and stuff, they were actually either equipped with what they had on their own, or they became equipped for battle with actual things to fight and battle. Okay? In ranks. So they have that. They're in ranks, and they're marching, prepared for anything that might oppose them. This is a visual demonstration. Can you imagine over two million people marching in ranks? That would be a sight to see. Kind of a little bit intimidating, would it not? It would seem intimidating. But God knew they would scatter to the four winds if any battle came their direction. Yet they were equipped. They were marching in ranks, and they looked like they were ready. Kind of sounds like the church today. Let me give you an example of what often we see in the church. We see a lot of people marching in ranks that look equipped and ready for battle, but then COVID hits, and everybody scatters to the four winds and never comes back. Not everybody, but a lot of people. Are you with me today? Which is scarier: a bunch of giants that will rip your head off, or a cold?
Track with me now. I know this sounds crazy, and it's serious. COVID's serious. People died. It's serious. I'm not trying to be, but listen, let's connect that opposition with people who were ready to storm the gates of hell in the church, but COVID happened. We shut down this church for a season, and then just their readiness, it looked like they're ready to storm the gates of hell, but we found that they were maybe just more comfortable staying at home than being in community. And their profession, we got to see the reality of their profession by their behavior. Are you with me today? I mean, is this too much? Listen, when we talk about COVID, I know that's a sensitive subject. It's a sensitive subject. So is the body of Christ. So is the body of Christ. And let me just tell you, just because you look equipped doesn't mean you are. And the true test of you being equipped is not in the way you look. It's not in the image you put out. It's when the rubber meets the road we get to see how equipped you really are. And if it's not COVID, it might be, it might be you losing your job, and the faith you've been professing, and how much you trust God, we'll get to see that on display. Now, you look equipped. You look like you have faith. But we'll see. That faith you profess will be tested. Are you with me today? And that's what we see here. Now God, in his mercy, in his mercy, knows they look like something they're not. So he's gentle, and he takes them the long route.
You can be equipped and called and still not be ready.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:27
You can look like you're ready, walk like you're ready, talk like you're ready, and still not be ready.
God determines your readiness, not you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:38
It paints a picture of people outwardly organized and seeming prepared, but inwardly fragile. I think this is most of us. This teaches us that readiness is more about spiritual maturity than physical preparation. And that's the key there. And oftentimes those don't line up. I'm not saying all the time. I'm saying oftentimes. Oftentimes people look one way physically, but spiritually they're the opposite. Let me give you an example that is more personal in nature, and I apologize about this, but it's my world on Saturday, right before I come here on Sunday, so I share stories about this. Let's see. So I do arm wrestling practice on Saturday. It's really fascinating, because there's meatheads that come in there, and I mean, like, literally 300 pounds of just solid muscle. And i'm like, "What are you on?" You know what I mean? Like, 'cause this ain't normal. And so it's kind of even scary getting up to the table with just a solid, bodybuilder-looking, just muscle guy. And then I'll see somebody like my son, who is 150 pounds, is basically bone and skin, because he's six-two, right? And he gets up to the table with somebody that's really huge and wins. How does that happen? Well, he looks ready to arm wrestle. Seems ready. Matter of fact, he seems like he'll be a force to deal with. Like, there will be a reckoning day, and it's going to happen, because this giant's coming to destroy the little guy. But I found that you can look ready and not be ready. It's interesting in arm wrestling, because he's strong enough to beat Landon in every part of his arm and his body except for his wrist. He has huge forearms. Actually, his forearms, the guy that you arm wrestle, might be as big as Landon's waist, but his wrist is weak.
And so you're only as strong as your weakest point.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 32:07
And if your weak point is weak, then everything else that's strong does not matter. So in arm wrestling, if you can take someone's wrist, you can take their whole body. It's very important. So in the life of a believer, everyone has a weak point, and God knows it. He knows it. Now, here's what's beautiful about God knowing our weak point: you might not even know your weak point. I found quite often, if you want to know your weak point, talk to somebody else, because they will easily see your weak point.
Now, that's a painful practice, right? To go to somebody and say, "Hey, where do you see weakness in me? Where do you see my weak point?" They'll know. They'll know what it is. And if they've done life with you long enough, they'll be happy to tell you what it is. And that could be a benefit to you, because then you could pray and work and talk with the Lord and have him begin to work and sharpen that weak point in you. This is the importance of a body. I've often found that people have strengths where you have weaknesses, but we don't like to hang out with them, because those people make us uncomfortable. But the access to that strength comes through community and discomfort.
The pearl you want is on the other side of irritation.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 33:38
You don't get the pearl without the irritation. You know how a pearl is actually made inside of a clam? You know how it's made? A piece of sand gets in there and irritates it to such a degree that a pearl is built around that piece of sand to stop it from irritating the body of the clam. Are you with me? So the pearl is actually manifested through the irritation. Some of you want pearls, but you don't want the irritation. And the way you get pearls through relationship is by being around people who are strong where you're weak. That makes you uncomfortable. Makes you uncomfortable. But that's beautiful, and it's God's way that he goes about developing that in
Point 3God's promise reaches across generations
Us, through community. Through community the body is strengthened. Through community. Oh, man. Okay. God's promise. "Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, 'God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.'" Now, I'm just going to do this really quick. God made a promise. And let me tell you, the promise was only realized by a certain generation, but it was made to many generations. See, some of you want the promise of God, or a promise that God has made, to come to fruition in your timeline, because we're selfish like that. It's not good enough that we will lay a path for somebody else to become a beneficiary. We must be the Alpha and Omega of everything we hope for. The reality is, this church, let's just talk about this church body, this church body does not become all that God wants it to become in my lifetime. Our hope is that we build a foundation that can be built on for generations to come, that outlive us. Are you with me? That's the point. So we have to look beyond ourselves, and we have to think more generationally. He's the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He's generational. He thinks generationally. God thinks hundreds of years, and we think 30 years. "God, you got to hurry up. You got to do stuff quick." He don't do stuff fast. Faster ain't better when he makes a promise. And Joseph was a part of the lineage that received God's covenantal promise to Abraham, which included the promise of the land of Canaan. And he was so excited about it, he made his brothers swear that when he died, he knew he wasn't coming in his lifetime, "Take my bones there, man, because I want to get there. Even if it's my bones, I want my bones to rest in the promise." And in Genesis 12:7, "To your offspring I will give this land." That's what was said to Abraham, his great-grandfather. God reiterated this promise to Abraham multiple times, specifying that his descendants would dwell in the land of Canaan after a period of oppression in a foreign land, Genesis 15: 13–16. God renews the covenant with Isaac, Genesis 26:3 through 4, and later with Jacob, who was Joseph's dad, Genesis 28:13–15. Jacob, Joseph's father, passed on this knowledge to his children. Isaac passed on the knowledge to his children. Abraham passed on the knowledge. Are you with me? What are you passing on? What promises do your children hope in? You know the only promise that matters? Did you know, here's what's crazy about this, children's church didn't pass on the knowledge. Are you with me today? It's crazy. There's like a subclause, I don't know if it's in your translation: "Rock City will pass on the knowledge so you don't have to as parents." Crazy. That's in my version. Is it in yours? No, it's not in mine either. "Reverb will pass on the knowledge to your teenagers so you don't have to."
You know why young people feel hopeless? Because they don't know of a promise.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 38:41
You know why they don't know of a promise? Because too many parents are depending on the church to do what their job is.
And your job is to pass on the promise.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 38:54
And you may not do it, not because you don't want to. You may not do it because you don't know it yourself. Are you with me? But it's our duty to pass it on. I know we don't eat around the table like we used to back in the day, you know, when the dinosaurs roamed the earth. I know that. And I'm not saying that you should do that if you're a Christian. We're starting to do that more, because we found that it is really beneficial to do that. It's kind of like the one time I can be like, "You would eat with us." And they're boys, so they want to eat. So if they want to eat, they need to come there and eat. So we work that out. But there might be other places, like in car rides to the school, or picking them up, or taking them to a friend's house, that you can begin to deposit the promise. On your child's deathbed, I wonder if they'll be hoping in the promise like Joseph did. "I just want my bones to make it to the promise." The promise was held so high in his life that his whole life was marked by that promise, and the course of his life, in every moment of his day, was an anticipation of the promise. How many of us anticipate?
I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm excited, for one day we will be given new bodies, and we will enter into a place as believers where there are no tears, there is no sickness, there is no trouble, there is no sin. I long for that
Point 4God's presence leads us by day and night
Day. I hope in that day. I wonder if our young people have hope. God's presence. This is the final one. We see God's presence here. "And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night." That they might travel by day and by night. Dude, when's the break? When's the break? I need a break. No. Notice here, this is interesting, because, I mean, how unloving is God, that they're traveling day and night, day and night. "Night and Day," is that a song? And they're just traveling all the time without a stop. What kind of ridiculousness is this? There's a reason for that. Because the Christian life, if this is a shadow and type of the Christian life, you don't get time off. There will be periods of darkness in your life. Can I get an amen? Of treachery, of difficulty, of being difficult to navigate, of darkness, just evil darkness. And then there will be times of ease and lightness, and you can see your way clear, and everything seems to be easier. There'll be times of both day and night. And there's an expectation we will follow him both day and night. Okay, now, why would you need to clarify to me in God's Word that I would follow him in the daytime, in the light? Why do I need to know that? When everything is going good, and my job is great, and I have a good paycheck, and I'm paying all my bills, and everything's easy, why do you need to tell me to follow you then?
Because oftentimes that's the hardest time to follow.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 42:41
Track with me now. I found that people who are atheists will begin to pray when it's dark. I don't know, there's a show, so funny, the whole show, this individual, I get really careful about endorsing shows, because I watch shows on a device that cuts a bunch of stuff out, but Big Bang Theory, it's kind of a funny show. One of the main characters in there, what's his name, Sheldon Cooper, is an atheist. Does not believe in God at all. But something happens. He wanted to go to this Comic-Con, and he didn't have a ticket. And so it was earth-shattering to him. You know, earth-shattering. And he begins to say, "I'm going to pray." And he gets to praying to a god he doesn't believe in, because his darkest moment had come to reality. It's silly. It's, how dark is this really? You can't go to Comic-Con.
Anyway, but, right, to him it was tragic. And how many of you know darkness is relative? Amen. And so he prays to a god, because in our tragic moments our hearts tend to go upwards and search for the answer, because we have discovered the answer isn't in our trouble. How many of you have ever hit a rough spot, and how much your prayer life enhances in that time, how much you call out to God, and you're seeking the Lord? And then when everything is good, how you love God, it isn't that you don't love him, but you can just find yourself easily forgetting about him. And so the instruction here is both day and night, because both have their risk of aborting you following, both hardness, both darkness and both lightness, both difficulty and ease in their own way can rob you of following Christ. And we need his guidance. We need his guidance when everything's light. We need his guidance when everything is dark. And the reality is he's going to lead you into both. Now, track with me now. Track with me. I can't linger here very long, but I'm not going to preach a gospel that's not biblical. And the reality is we see great proof texts that God has led people into lives of ease, what we would label as ease, and into lives of difficulty. And each person has experienced both in their journey. Both. I've said it often, and I'll close with this: everybody wants to be on the front line of God's ministry, but no one wants to be shot at.
Everybody wants to be a light in the darkness, but no one wants to be in darkness.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 45:46
Everybody wants to be a peace in someone else's storm, but we don't want to enter a storm. And the reality is God will lead you places where you can be for that situation what others cannot be, because it needs light, because it needs peace, because it needs some form of sanity in the midst of all the craziness. And you just might be that light on a hill that should not be hidden. So
You can do one of two things. You can read the gospel and understand that God's will sometimes leads you to trouble, but he never leaves you alone in trouble.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 46:32
He's got you from the front, and he's got you from the back.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 46:53
He's got you from the front, and, we learn next week, he's got you from the back. He was in front of them and behind them. In God we live and we move and we have our being. We live and we move and we have our being. He doesn't move in front of us and leave us outside of him. Anywhere you're moving, whether in light or darkness, you're in him. And that's important to know. That's important to know.
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