This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom, and I want to welcome you to week four of our look
through the book of Exodus. We're going to chapter a day, so that means we're in
chapter 16 to 20 this week. This is day one of week four, and we're looking at
what God does in our lives to set us free.

We've been walking with the people of Israel, with Moses as he's leading them,
and he has set them free. He set them free from the land of Egypt, he set them
free through the Red Sea, and now they're coming into this period of time where
the initial burst of freedom has happened and they're needing to start to live
the life of freedom. And as they begin to live the life of freedom, both Moses
and the people of Israel, you see in their lives, and when it comes to freedom,
living out your freedom in Christ, living out what it means for you to live in
God's grace, you see that it's often the little things that get you.

You have to learn that God is often growing you through the seemingly little
things of life, and that real freedom is often found in how you handle those
day-to-day little things. It's often in my life, your life, it's not the big
problems that get you, it's the small irritations that can become your downfall.
Moses' irritation became one of his biggest struggles, and it led to some of his
biggest failures.

For him, the irritation was the constant drip, drip, drip of the people's
grumbling, and as Moses constantly faces this irritation of the grumbling, we
learn some important lessons about how to handle life's small irritations in
order to live in freedom, even in the midst of the fact that life is not what
you want it to be, and it's just plain irritating sometimes. Small irritations
can erode large achievements, just like a river of water can erode out a big
valley. When we respond correctly though, they can create growth, or in my life,
your life, small irritations can actually create beautiful pearls, like the
irritation of a grain of sand and an oyster creating a pearl.

So we're going to listen closely, along with the life of Moses, as he sometimes
succeeds and sometimes stumbles in handling these little things that just keep
coming at you. Here's one of them in chapter 16, verses 1 to 3. The whole
Israelite community set out from Elam and came to the desert of Sin, which is
between Elam and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they'd
come out of Egypt.

In the desert, the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The
Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt. There
we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you brought us
out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.

" Here they are, the people grumbling again. Now notice they're in the desert of
Sin, which to many of us, there seems to be a picture there, but that just
happened to be the name of the place in the Hebrew language. It was a place
where they did sin, but it was also a place where they did worship.

The people are grumbling again. About one month away out of Egypt, the food is
running out and in this life of freedom, they're opening the package of freedom
and they've been learning things all the way along. We watched it last week.

In the pillars, in the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire, they learned
about God's leadership. At the Red Sea, they learned about God's miraculous
intervention. And here, they come into this desert and in the desert, on the
other side of the sea, they have the opportunity to learn, if only they will,
about God's gracious supply.

Anytime it feels like you have a lack and they felt like they had a lack, what
do you do? You can either grumble or you can look to God's gracious supply. God
is going to supply their needs in this desert.

He's going to supply them strength for the battles they're going to have in this
desert. And one aspect of how he supplied their needs stands out above all
others in our minds. No one knows about this way that God supplied their needs
in the desert.

It was the bread that came from heaven, the manna that he gave. God supplied
their need. They were hungry and he sent a manna, a white flaky substance.

The Hebrew manna actually means what is it? That's the name of this stuff. Just
what is it?

What are you having for breakfast? What is it? What are you having for lunch?

What is it? That's what they had. What is it?

God supplied their needs. But he did more than just send a bread truck. The way
that he gave them this food, this manna, taught them and teaches us some
important things about the stewardship of your freedom, how you manage your
freedom.

We're to be managers of our freedom. In fact, if you want to do a play on words,
we're to be managers, sorry about that, managers of our freedom, the freedom
that God has given. What do we learn from the people of Israel?

What do we learn about dealing with the small things that keep hitting you? One
of the ways that you deal with the small irritations of life is you constantly
consider God's care. Even though that thing is irritating you, even though life
is not what you expected it to be, even though freedom is not working out
exactly perfectly, we don't get perfection till we get to heaven, you constantly
consider God's care.

God's going to take care of you through it all. Look at what he taught the
people of Israel and what he teaches us through this manna that was given. How
he teaches us about how he meets our needs.

Four things about manna. First of all, manna was given to test them. The Bible
tells us that in verses four and five.

Then the Lord said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The
people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way, I
will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.

On the sixth day, they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be
twice as much as they gather on the other days. " Because God told them not to
gather on the Sabbath day, so the sixth day would last for two days. Here in
verse four, we see God raining bread down from heaven, not just to feed them,
but also to test them.

Are they going to do what I say? They are managing God's wealth. God gives
things into my life.

He gives things into your life. It could be simple as manna from heaven, or it
could be as complicated as everything that's going on with your work and your
check and this coming in and that coming in, and a lot of different streams in
your life. But the question really is, do you see it as just yours, or do you
see it as something that God has given?

If you see it as just yours, then you can manage it according to your direction.
But when you see it as something that God has given, then you manage it
according to God's direction. The things that God gives into my life, into your
life, whether it's money or houses or whatever it is, they are opportunities to
obey Him.

You're the manager. He puts them into your hands. That's the test.

He doesn't force you to obey Him. He doesn't force you to use them to serve
others or to love the world or to make a difference through His church. No.

He gives you those things, and then you and I get the opportunity to either hold
onto them selfishly or to use them in a way that makes a difference. That's the
test. Manna was given to test.

A second thing we learn about manna in these verses is manna was given to
harvest. In verses 14 to 18, Each one is to gather as much as he needs. Take an
omer for each person you have in your tent.

The Israelites did as they were told. Some gathered much, some little. And when
they measured it by the omer, he who had gathered much did not have too much,
and he who gathered little did not have too little.

Each one gathered as much as he needed. The people are asked to go out and
gather bread daily. Now, the question is why?

If God's going to supply bread, why didn't He just deliver it to their tent? The
fact that they had to go out and gather, that they had to do something to work
to gather it, helped them every day to recognize two important things. Number
one, they had to recognize their need daily.

I'm hungry. I better go get some food. And number two, they had to recognize
that God met their need daily.

Not once a week, not once a month, but every day they had to recognize, I have a
need. I'm hungry. God's meeting my need.

That's what it means to harvest. That's what it means to gather what God has
given. There is a hidden danger here for you and I, because we don't usually
gather what we eat, what God grows.

So we can sometimes confuse gathering and manufacturing. We sometimes think
we've manufactured it. God supplied the Israelites' need, and He allowed them to
recognize that supply.

God supplies your need. You make the money, sure. You work hard to make that
money.

But who grew the food? Who gave you the energy, the strength to make that money?
So we get to gather what God has given.

We recognize He's the one that meets our needs. That's what manna said to them.
There's a third thing about manna.

Manna was given to use. It was given to use. "Then the Lord said to them," in
verse 19, "No one is to keep any of it until morning.

However, some of them paid no attention to Moses. They kept part of it until
morning, but it was full of maggots and it began to smell. So Moses was angry
with them.

Each morning, everyone gathered as much as he needed, and when the sun grew hot,
it melted away. " There's a great example in these verses, 19 to 21. Manna was
not to be hoarded.

It was to be used. God's supply in your life is not to be hoarded because you're
worried, because you're afraid. It's to be used because you know that God's
going to take care of your needs.

Now am I saying you should never have a savings account? Absolutely not. I
believe you read the book of Proverbs saving for the fact that everything's not
going to always go like you think it's going to go.

It's one of God's principles for finance. But you don't save without a purpose.
And you certainly don't save just because you're worried, just because you're
afraid.

Christians should never save because they're worried about a rainy day. We save
because we are looking forward to God's will. How could I best be used for God?

Manna is given to use. The things that God has put into your life, the money
he's put into your life, it's not meant to be a security blanket. It's meant to
be used for God's glory.

And they understood very clearly here, because the next day it would get
maggots, it would begin to smell that God's gracious supply cannot be hoarded.
It has to be gathered daily in one sense and used daily. Now I know it's not as
simple for us sometimes, but this is a simple way of thinking that can change
everything.

Every day God's meeting my needs. Every day I want to use what God has given,
not just for my needs, but who else has needs? What else can I do to make a
difference?

If I fail to gather his supply, I'm going to live a very, very empty life. But
if I fail to use what he's supplied, I'm going to live a very stale, boring
life. This manna that God sent.

What is it? That name really fits in many ways. What is it?

It's an opportunity. It's an opportunity to serve God instead of seeing it as
just mine. The things that God sent into your life.

One of the ways that you and I consider God's gracious supply is by these
principles that are related to manna, recognizing what is it? It's God's supply
in my life. It's God meeting my needs.

And as he meets my needs, as I recognize he has supplied those needs, it's one
of the things that protects me from losing freedom in the realities, the daily
realities and struggles of life. So let's pray today that God will give us that
insight. Father, I pray this for me, for every one of us.

Some of us are surrounded by things. Some of us have very few things. But in
either case, we can begin to focus on the things instead of you.

Lord, help us to focus on you. What you've given, the opportunity you've given
us to gather it, and how we can use it for your glory. Your glory as it supplies
our daily needs, and if there's any leftover, how it can supply the needs of
others.

Help us to see, Lord, how you want to use what has been given into our lives to
show the world what you're like. You're a loving God. You're a gracious God.

You're a generous God. In your name we pray, amen. Tomorrow we're going to
continue to see how God meets our needs in the desert.