The proclamation of God's word, Exodus chapter 16. They set out from Elam and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of sin, which is between Elam and Sinai on the 15th 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. In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, What is it? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded. Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent. And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. And Moses said to them, let no one leave any of it over till the morning. But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat. But when the sun grew hot, it melted. On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, this is what the Lord has commanded. Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning. So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, eat it today for today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none. On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. And the Lord said to Moses, How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See, the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each one of you in his place. Let no one go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day. Now the house of Israel called its name Manna. It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. Moses said, This is what the Lord has commanded. Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt. And Moses said to Aaron, take a jar and put an omer of manna in it and place it before the Lord to be kept throughout your generations. As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept. The people of Israel ate the manna 40 years till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan. An omer is a tenth of a part of an ephah. like grass and all their beauty is like the flowers of the field. But the word of our God stands forever. Amen. It's a privilege to be preaching God's word this morning. Ever since we thought about this sermon series, the memorable meals nourished, I thought, man, it would be just a great one. And I was expecting Ryan's great sermon on it. And here I am, me, giving it. That's just the way God has worked in his ministry here at New City. has me now preaching it to him. So God has a sense of humor with that. I just wanted to start off this sermon by talking a little about home ownership. Specifically diving a bit into the depths of the joys of home ownership. A couple of months ago, Pep and I bought our first house. Dream come true. It's a lovely place. It's a beautiful neighborhood It's everything we ever dreamed of for our family if it suits us so well, it serves us well and The expectations of life in our new home were very high We the anticipation of moving day was just killing us. We we wanted to be there as soon as possible And some of you know how the contestants roll. When I came to New City, I was graduating. Peppa was nine months pregnant. This was a new job. And we did that all in the middle of December. It was snowing here. And that's how we roll. We gather a bunch of stressful things as a family, and we do them all at once. We just get over it. And this was very similar. Not only were we closing on a house, but we were also hosting my parents for two months. two months, and we were also, of course, having a child, and, of course, packing and preparing to move for this new house. And, well, in the middle of all this craziness, moving day comes. Our hopes and our dreams about the house were coming true. Everyone was excited, and we were genuinely praising the Lord for his goodness. That didn't last very long because two days after moving day, we had the first one of those lovely Michigan spring showers. And that resulted in our basement and second lower level of our new house being flooded and puddling with water. The water revealed that the house had issues in its foundation. I learned a lot about construction, so the footer and all that, the walls were just revealing problems with the house. And all of those problems should have been disclosed by the seller, and they should have shown up in the inspection, but in God's sovereign providence, which I learned now, he didn't allow that to happen. He wanted us to experience that for a reason. I was devastated. I didn't have this perspective on it yet. I regretted my decision of buying that house. I was sad and I even started hated coming back home to my house. This gift of the Lord became a nightmare. I began to believe that I was a failure as a husband and a father for my children, for my family, that I wasn't leading them well. I led them to this mess. Those were the thoughts that were crossing my mind at the time. In my overwhelming frustration, I was grumbling. And something like this is how I imagine the people of Israel were feeling in this passage. For 430 years, Israel had been enslaved in Egypt. They had been forced to do manual labor and hard work. They were not only enslaved, but they were mistreated and they were heavily oppressed. But they had a promise they were holding on to. It was God's covenant with Abraham. that entailed something of an American dream for the Israelites. He promised them a land, a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey just for themselves, a fruitful land, a beautiful land. And God promised that he himself would take them there. So he did. God rose up Moses as an instrument to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. He took down the most powerful person in the world in display of his supernatural power. And then he physically escorted Israel as a pillar of cloud by day and as a pillar of fire by night, caring for them each step of the way through the wilderness, providing shade through the pillar of cloud and at night providing heat and light as a pillar of fire. Then Israel arrived at the border of the Red Sea. They didn't know where to go from there. And to make matters worse, Egypt was, the Pharaoh had sent his army to follow them, to hunt them down. So they were in trouble. And God, once again, provided a way. He opened the Red Sea through Moses, and he let them cross by foot. Not only that, but he also took care of the Egyptians by covering them with water. He didn't let them cross. So Israel was safe. Israel got to the other border of the Red Sea and they celebrated. They praised God because God was just so good and he was so faithful and he was with them every step of the way. They burst into praise with tambourines and dancing. Three days went by of Israel now in the desert, in the wilderness, and Israel had no water left. They were thirsty. They were in a life-threatening situation in the middle of the desert, three days without water. Moses had led them to Merah with the promise of water, but the water was bitter. It was undrinkable, and here's when we can start to see a pattern emerge in how the people of Israel relate with God. Israel grumbled against Moses, and Moses then cried out as an intercessor before God. He cried out to the Lord, who once again came through. He made the water drinkable. But the fact that people were grumbling against Moses reveals something, reveals where they were putting their trust. And after this scene is where today's passage takes place. Israel is now a month and 15 days into their wilderness voyage. Now just a couple of clarifying details. The Bible tells us that 600,000 men left Egypt. I don't know if you ever thought about that, like what that looked like, what the amount of people looked like, but scholars more or less agree that counting 600,000 men, doesn't count elderly men that couldn't battle, because the numbers that you calculated were according to the men that could fight. So it doesn't count elderly, doesn't count children, and doesn't count women. Scholars agree that it could have been somewhere to 2 to 2.5 million people. This is a population of Chicago or Houston or something in between. Imagine trying to move an entire city like that across the desert. in the heat, and now they're hangry. They're hungry, and they're complaining against you, their leader. 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. That was what they were saying. Now it's interesting how the author portrays this situation. It's not like previous ones where Israel laments and cries out to God directly because of a life-threatening situation, right? Or adversity. In Egypt, we hear Israel crying out directly to the Lord for those 430 years. They wanted to be free. Exodus 2.23 says, Then at the Red Sea, when the Egyptians were following them, Exodus says, when Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them. And they feared greatly, and the people of Israel cried out to the Lord. The next verse immediately following that, they said to Moses, is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? There's a significant shift from crying out to the Lord in Egypt to crying out to the Lord and grumbling against Moses in the Red Sea, and now, in this passage, to grumbling against Moses and Aaron hangrily. Likewise, there's a shift from complaining about an intolerable life of suffering and oppression in Egypt to complaining about a serious and life-threatening situation like at Merah, the water. to their current situation. Now, let me explain that. Their current situation is that they weren't starving. People weren't dying because they didn't have food. As I dove into studying this chapter, I realized that the Israelites were not in this situation, nor anything close to that. The Bible says that they had left Egypt with very much livestock, both flocks and herds. Someone, of course, ran the numbers. There are some people that like to do that. For 2.5 million people to eat reasonably for 45 days, they would need 190,000 cattle or equivalent in other animals, which by those days standards was also reasonable for 2.5 million people. Also in following chapters we read that they still had livestock. So what was the grumbling truly about? Let's look at this grumbling. Grumbling, murmuring, complaining is a major motif for Israel and its wilderness wanderings. This is not the first time, as we saw, and it will definitely not be the last time that they do this. The shift of who they cry out to and the step-by-step trivialization of their complaint exposes a slippery slope into dissatisfaction and unbelief, to which we are no less prone to falling into. You get a new house, right? Praise the Lord for his sovereignty and providence, for he is always good. The basement starts to puddle. Dumb house. I knew I shouldn't have chosen this one. I never should have trusted myself in buying a house. I never should have moved out of where I was so comfortable and safe. Not that I know of anyone who has gone through that lately. Dissatisfaction and unbelief is driving Israel's grumbling. This time, Israel's grumbling is not an expression of genuine need. It's a craving, a desire brought by reminiscing about their old lifestyle and the perceived security it provided instead of looking forward in expectation to a faithful God delivering in his promise. In grumbling, was only distorting that. Grumbling distorts our view of the past. In addition to the alleged meat pots and bread to the fill that we read the Israelites were craving, Numbers 11 adds, now the rabble was among them, they had a strong craving and the people of Israel also wept again and said, oh, that we had meat to eat. We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing. The cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic, Now don't get me wrong, all those things on a grill sound like a perfect Chilean asado, which you can sometime enjoy at my place, but hey, you were slaves. The fish didn't cost nothing. The food wasn't free. You had no control over it, nor access to it without permission. It cost you blood, sweat, and tears, and in many cases, your own life. Really, you longed for those days? Not only grumbling distorts our view of the past, but grumbling also distorts our view of the present. Verse three says, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Really? The God who with powerful displays of his awesomeness, who led you out of Egypt, escorted you through the desert as a pillar of cloud and fire, who protected you and fought your battles and has provided miraculously for your every need, he wants to kill you? How self-absorbed and defined by your circumstances do you have to be to believe that? Christian, do you reminisce or long for a day when something other than Christ himself will give you some sort of peace and sense of security? Is it your past records as a college athlete or the number on your retirement savings account that you look up every month? Or the day you wish to get married? What will happen if this is taken away from you? This passage tells us, it's grumbling. Grumbling happens when we forget who God is, what he's done for us, and the satisfaction he promises to those who abide in him. As soon as the shock of the water in the basement was over, I immediately started regretting even thinking about buying a house. I became a master grumbler. We were way better off renting, had no worries, could solve any problem with a phone call. We were safe and sound, and everyone was happy. I honestly don't know how Peppa put up with me those days. But she was very instrumental in reminding me how the Lord has always been faithful and continues to bless us. The problem was with what I was choosing to focus on. The Lord has given us a new child and a new house to receive him. We wouldn't have been able to stay in our old house anyway. I realized how ungrateful I'd become and how quickly I let doubt and fear take hold of my world. rather than faith in a loving and caring father who happens to be the master of the universe. In this situation, do you know the first thing that dried up? It wasn't my carpet, but it was my praise, my gratitude to God, my perception of his grace and mercy in Jesus Christ. I exchanged the eternal truth that I know about God and his sustaining word for the transitory truth of my circumstances. And Israel was doing the same thing. They grumbled against Moses and Aaron. But Moses, in acknowledgement of God's sovereignty, he directs the scrambling to God. What are we? Your grumbling is not against us, but against the Lord. In other words, take it up with God, the same God that took you out of Egypt and has proven and will continue to prove himself faithful. The way we approach adverse circumstances reveals our unbelief or forgetfulness at best. And it is at this point where we can only depend on God's grace for deliverance. For the Israelites, God's grace was shown to them through the gift of manna. There are three things we can learn about this bread from heaven. The first is that manna is a gift that reveals God's heart. Manna was God being gracious despite his people's grumbling. Remember, Israel wasn't starving, but they did crave meat and bread, and God provided. He didn't have to, but he showed them his grace. By the way, if anyone says there's no grace in the Old Testament, point them to the manna story. Manna was given to the Israelites without toil nor trouble. They woke up every morning for 40 years, and manna was at their doorstep. No need to travel to get it, or pick it up, harvest it. They could just step outside and gather it. They could grind it, beat it, boil it, bake it, and make cakes with it. It tasted like wafers made with honey, or like cakes baked with oil, says another account. And it's interesting, because the original Hebrew word used in Numbers, when it says cakes baked with oil, Also refers to cakes made out of cream or milk, making both of these accounts of the flavor of manna, a flavor that you can anticipate of the promised land that flowed with milk of honey. Manna provided all the nutrition that Israelites needed for those 40 years in the desert. And if that weren't enough, God also provided quails that would drop down on the deserts in the evening so that they could have the meat they craved. The Lord was once again proving his love to an undeserving people. For that love to be corresponded, God would have to show himself to Israel and let himself be known. And that's exactly what he did. God gave the gift of manna to the Israelites, not to satisfy their grumbling, but rather for them to learn who he was and find satisfaction in him. Through the gift of manna, Israel would know the power of God, says verse 12. Israel would know of his holiness and their sinfulness as they were tested, because manna was a test as well, verse four. Because there was a commanded way of partaking in this gift while honoring the giver. This was a prototype, if you will, of what the law would be in Exodus 20. They would also know the Lord as their daily provider and their covenant keeper. On this side of the cross, Manna points us to a greater gift and greater revelation of who God is. In John six, we read about Jesus calling himself the bread of life. He says, truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Again, it's God proving his love and freely giving so that we could receive. No toil, no trouble. Jesus says, this is the work of God, not yours, that you believe in him who has sent me. And what's to believe? It's the gospel. the good news that Jesus Christ, God himself, took on human flesh and came into this world, that he lived a perfect life of love and obedience, fulfilling all of God's holy law so that righteousness could be ours. And in exchange, he took all of our guilt and sin upon himself so that he could pay the costly price of justice. His body was broken, his blood was shed, and the wrath of God consumed him in our place. But that wasn't the end of it. Then he rose victoriously from the pit of death, having conquered our most vicious enemy and securing our lives into eternity. Do you believe this? Are you feeding off of that heavenly bread? Are you aware of how much you are cherished by the creator and sustainer of the universe? that he would give his only son as a sacrifice for your sake. This is the Lord, our God, and this is his heart for you. Therefore, Jesus is the gift that most clearly reveals God's heart. Feeding off of the bread of heaven not only takes care of our eternal nutrition, but it should also be a staple in our regular diet. Point two, manna sustains us and gives us rest. Knowing our God, knowing that he loves us, knowing the extent of his love that he would secure for us an eternity with him at such a high cost really put things in perspective, doesn't it? Where does a grumbling fit in all of this? Now don't get me wrong, there's a place for pain, for sorrow, for grief, and even crying out and lamenting to God and before God. but all those will always be contained in the context of his mercy and his love for you. Grumbling, however, only makes us slide onto the slope of dissatisfaction and unbelief. And there I was with my bare feet on the wet carpet, and sure, it was reasonable to feel discouraged and frustrated, it is, but it's a reality that I had to deal with. that after great reminders of who God is and what he's done through, again, a godly wife, and also conversations in the coffee aisle at Meyers with my dad, and just pointing me to the Lord's faithfulness in scripture and in my life, spending time with the Lord in word and prayer, after all of that, it was clear to me that this is something that has to be dealt with. We could get over it. It would require money, time, and effort, for sure, but we could trust that God would provide. I felt my heart shifting in the right direction. I was like, okay, we can battle this. But God wasn't done with me yet. Three weeks ago, our almost two-month-old had a fever, which turned into an emergency pediatrician visit, which turned into an ER visit, which turned into three days in the hospital with him. Finally, a diagnosis, he had viral meningitis. I don't know if you know about that, but it's scary. It's not something I would want for any of your children. I can't even put into words all the doubt, fear, anguish I was feeling. It was a horrible situation. And my Google searches in the waiting room and at home were not helping me. No matter how much money, time, or effort I can put into that, I couldn't make Augustine better. I found myself grumbling again because there wasn't anything that I could do. Self-centeredness had taken over me again, making space for unbelief. But if there was something that my previous wet basement experience had taught me, it was that I needed a reminder to feed, to feed off of the bread of life. Remember Christ's faithfulness to himself and to his people. It's the only sustainable source of hope and life that anyone can access. Scripture, prayer, scripture-saturated songs, decorative Bible quotes, sermon podcasts, Christian books, et cetera, whatever it takes, at whatever capacity, remember. Praise the Lord that Augustine is fine now. And he, of course, took care of the healing. But I needed that reminder. We needed that reminder as a marriage. We needed that in our family. We needed to remember that we need to feed off of God. And that is where our hope is, not in ourselves, not in what we can do, not in what our circumstances are. Israel needed this reminder too. God asked Moses to keep an omer, which was a measure of manna, so that the coming generations may see the bread with which he fed them in the wilderness. This reminder served them daily as they waited for next morning's provision as well. In the text it said that the manna spoiled overnight and it rot. This one that was preserved as a testimony did not rot. It was there so that people could have hope, could remember. The Christian's diet therefore must consist of a regular intake of God's word. Jesus said it when he himself was taken to the wilderness. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. It's God testimony preserved through the ages for our knowledge of him and for his gospel. For as long as there is a true church around, this will be what is on the menu. It's no longer what is this, which is a translation of manna, but who is this? The person of Christ. And banquets will be held wherever Christ's people gather to feast on him. And actually we do that every Sunday when we gather on the Lord's Day, just as the Holy Sabbath was prototyped in this passage. He gives us this day of rest to honor him as a host and the meal. of a spiritual banquet. It's a phenomenal antidote against grumbling. I had to come lead worship on Sunday when Augustine was in the hospital, and I can't believe how instrumental that was in God putting my heart in the right place before him while I faced my circumstances. A gospel-centered church with gospel-centered worship is an unbeatable place for those in search of sustenance and rest. The gospel makes you aware of your hunger, leaves you with nothing to grumble about, and sits you at Christ's table to feast. And actually, here at New City, we get to enjoy that reminder also on a weekly basis with the Lord's Supper. It's another means by which we are lifted up spiritually to avoid falling into this slippery slope dissatisfaction and unbelief. But rather we're reminded of the satisfying bond we have in Christ by faith in his redeeming sacrifice and in his glorious return where we will feast with him in eternity. Jesus therefore sustains us and gives us rest. Last point, manna nourishes us and gives us life. The truth is that all of us were created hungry. We were made for an intimate and satisfying relationship with God. And because of our sin, we have sought to satisfy our hunger by feeding off of just millions of other things. Maybe financial success, academic excellence, social status, a new house, your baby's health. None of these things are bad in themselves. But if you find yourself in a pattern of grumbling over these, it may be that you have become hangry. You're craving something that you are not getting. And you're probably getting something that doesn't satisfy. Again, in John 6, Jesus says, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Just as manna was enough to nourish Israel until he reached the promised land, Jesus promises enough to be enough until he raises us up on the last day. But our hope is not only set in heaven, in eternity, where we'll be able to enjoy our Savior face to face, but also in our daily battles, in our struggles, in our sin, in our temptation, in our grumbling, in our unbelief. Our bread of life and living word is with us in the person of the Holy Spirit who takes us through situations and circumstances, as we learned a few weeks ago, that will shape us into being more like Christ. Jesus, therefore, nourishes us and gives us life. May we, by God's grace, repent of our grumbling, be made aware of our true hunger, our true need, be reminded of God's provision for us in Christ, and in Him, find our satisfaction every day. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you are our sovereign provider and the giver of good gifts. Many times it's hard to reconcile that truth with our circumstances, and we grumble. Forgive us, Lord, for misplacing our trust, doubting your goodness, and believing that we know better. We praise you for revealing your heart to us in Christ, saving our souls for eternity through the power of the cross. And we thank you for giving us your spirit that puts your word to our hearts through many means, reminding us who you are and what you've done. May we find true life and satisfaction every day and into eternity in the one true bread of life, Jesus Christ. Amen.