As a people of God, we need God to speak to us. We need him to teach us. We need him to give himself to us. And we need this so that we, as the people of God, as we are on this wilderness pilgrimage between the two advents of Jesus Christ, may indeed follow him be empowered by him, serve him until that day that we enter into the fullness of Christ's glory with him. This is not only the content of this hymn that we just prayed in asking the Lord to do these things in us. This is the big message of the book of Numbers as a whole. The Book of Numbers is a book in which we are shown, and it is explained to us, that God dwells with his people. And it is the presence of God with his people that sustains his covenant people, even in the midst of the sin and rebellion of that people. The book of Numbers is a picture to us of the God who comes near and the God who dwells with his people by taking upon himself the same position as his people. Numbers unfolds for us this ongoing life of this new nation that has been redeemed out of bondage and slavery to Egypt has been brought out of Egypt has been saved from the Egyptian army who was brought safely through the Red Sea and was brought to the base of Mount Sinai. We're here now. We find that they have been living there for a year. And what have they been doing during that year? They have been constructing the tabernacle and they have been receiving the word of God about what it means for them to be this new nation, what it means for them to serve the Lord and to bear witness of the Lord to the surrounding nations. By the time we get to the book of Numbers, the tabernacle has been finished. and the glory cloud that has been following the people of God has taken up residence in the tabernacle in the Holy of Holies. What is the tabernacle made of? It is made of the exact same substance that the tents that the people of God are living in is made of. It is made up of animal skins. That was what they needed for their tents to have shelter in the midst of the wilderness. Because the wilderness, what is it? The wilderness is a place of death. It is a place where there is not life. There is not thriving. The desert is not the place that you say, let's go to the desert because it is awesome. No one, or very few people, I would say in their right mind, when they are considering where are we going to go for family vacation this summer, you don't think, let's go to the desert. Some people do. In fact, I know some of those people. But for the most part, that's not what we think of. We don't think of that being the kind of place that we want to be. We see it as something that we want to pass through. And so the Lord is arranging the people of God. He's arranging the camp. He is instructing them about what it means to be His people. He is providing for them the tents in which they are living. And He has taken up residence in a tent like theirs. Now, it's also different. It's arranged differently. It has different sections. There is an altar that sits outside of his tent, an altar that you cannot pass by to get to the tent without a sacrifice. And there's only a certain few people who get to walk past the altar after the sacrifice is made. And even when they go into another tent, it is not everyone that can go. So there are special places within his tent that are different and yet the tent is constructed out of the same materials. God has taken up residence in animal skins in order to be with his people in the wilderness. God is moving his people. from the redemption that has been accomplished in bringing them out of Egypt to the redemption that will reach consummation when they enter into the promised land. And during that time, God doesn't just say, God speed to you. He takes up residence with them in a tent made out of something similar to what they have tents made out of. And the entirety of the people of God are arranged in a very specific way. so that the lives of the people are centered on God. When we come to the book of Numbers, there's a lot of strange stuff. There's difficult passages. There are lists of names and numbers over and over. There are different lists with different names, different numbers. It can tempt us to want to pass over these things. But in passing over them, what happens is we miss what the Lord has for us here because the entirety of the book of Numbers is arranged according to these census lists. In fact, there are two primary census lists, the first one here that is described for us in Numbers 1, and then later, the census list that is described for us in Numbers 26. When we look at these two census lists, we see not only is God with his people in the wilderness living in the same condition that they are. What we see is that God has faithfully sustained a people through an environment of death. Why are the people of God in the wilderness as long as they are in the book of Numbers. It didn't take that long to get from Egypt to Sinai. And when you read through Numbers, once the people of God actually start moving, it does not take very long to get from Sinai to the banks of the Jordan River. The issue is not geography. The issue is not that it just takes that long to move a people group that far. The issue is not distance. The issue is the lack of faith. God had called his people, given them promises, proved his faithfulness by fighting for them over Egypt delivering them from those forces, delivering them from the waters of chaos of the Red Sea. And he has brought them safely to this holy mountain. He has brought them safely to his worship. And the point is that he is going to bring them safely into the promised land, even though they have to go through wilderness and that once they get there, they're going to have to fight. God has shown himself to be powerful, and God has shown himself to be faithful, and that is to encourage and inspire the people of God to respond with faith. What happens, though, is that they don't. And as a result of their lack of faith, they are judged. And God says, because you have not believed Your generation is going to die off in a 40-year pilgrimage through the wilderness. And once your generation has died off, then the second generation will once again be brought to the banks of Jordan so that they can enter the promised land. The 40 years of their being in the wilderness, their 40 years of having to sojourn a place of death, is because of their lack of faith. And what is amazing is that as God judges them with that 40-year wilderness, he doesn't leave them and say, I'll come back when the 40 years is over. What tent continues to be in the middle of the camp? What tent continues to be in the middle of when they are marching? the tabernacle. God's presence with his people, not just in the wilderness, but his presence with his people enduring the very judgment that he has issued to his people. God is bearing the judgment of his people's sin with them. Now the temptation then is to think, well If this is a sinful people, as we saw in Sunday School this morning, marked by evil desires, if this is how they are, if they're sojourning through 40 years of this wilderness wandering, living under the judgment of God, then surely what'll happen is by the time all of them die off, there'll be this small little remnant that will then be renewed in the covenant and have the opportunity to believe the Lord and follow him into the promised land. What the censuses do for us is help us to understand that though that is what we would kind of think would happen, that is not what happens. In fact, in the two censuses between numbers one and numbers 26, we're not gonna go through the numbers in here, but next Sunday morning in Sunday school we will, so just a little plug there. But the difference between the number in numbers one and the number in numbers 26 is a difference of less than 0.3%. What does that mean? There is basically no statistical difference in the number of the people of God between the first generation and the second. And the second generation are those who grow up under the curse. And yet, even though the Lord has judged, And even though the Lord is with them in the judgment, it has not resulted in them being lesser because they have been sustained. And as a result, what happens is the people of God who have been marked by God's judgment and living in the death of the wilderness until they die off, that people of God, they are not finished. They are not done. They are not wiped out through that process. God has made a promise to his people and beloved, his promise is not conditioned on your obedience. The ability for God to accomplish the purposes that he has in creating and redeeming in order that he might have a bride for his son and that there might be a people to live and to dwell with him, to enjoy him, to glorify him, to sing his praises and to be one with him and one another. These purposes that he has beloved are not conditioned and they are not determined and they are not thwarted. by your obedience or disobedience. God is going to accomplish his plan. God is going to accomplish his purpose. And what we see in the book of Numbers is the way that he goes about doing that is enduring the very judgment that he issues on his people. God is not only with his people in the wilderness, his presence is a sustaining presence. And as a result, even though the first generation comes to be marked by a lack of faith resulting in death, the covenant people themselves are reborn in that second generation. Death is not the final blow for the people of God in the book of Numbers, because a new generation is created by the Lord as he sustains his people to the point that there is no statistical difference in the number of the first generation and the number of the second. These lists of names and numbers show us this amazing faithfulness of God to his covenant promise. I will be your God. You will be my people. I will be your exceeding great reward, and I will cause you to grow and to multiply so that the number of you is greater than the sand on the seashore. of any place where you would think the people of God are going to find themselves in trouble, where maybe the numbers aren't, you know, it's a little sketchy here. What we see is God is so faithful to His promise, even to a sinful people, that their numbers are the same. It's a wonderful message for us. as we find ourselves sojourning in what we would call a world that is marked by sin and death. This world is not a world that is characterized by life. It is not characterized by thriving. It is not characterized as a place where the triune God is exalted and where the people are experiencing his blessings. We live as we are sojourning as the people of God between these two advents of Jesus Christ as those who have a calling to follow the Lord in the midst of a lost and dying generation. And what we are seeing here, beloved, is as we find ourselves living in this time of decay, in this time in which sin's power and sin's presence is still actively working in the sons of disobedience, what we see is that the people of God do not have to fear this wilderness because the Lord is with us. not just spiritually, not just theoretically. He is with us because he has taken up residence with his people, housed, not just in the Old Testament under the skins of animals, but he has come to his people housed in the skin of humanity itself. John 1 describes Jesus Christ as God come in the flesh and the verb that he uses to describe this coming is tabernacled. Jesus Christ has tabernacled with his people as God who resides in the skin of humanity. And He does so not because His people is perfect and sinless and they're ready to enjoy this wonderful fellowship with Him, but it's because they are in sin. That they are trapped in this sin and death and the transgression that continues to haunt all those who come from Adam. But God doesn't just say to us, hey, I'm with you in spirit, Y'all do your best. He comes and he takes residence with us. He looks like us. He experiences what we experience. And it is because of that that he is a thorough and perfect high priest who knows our weaknesses because he has experienced them himself in the tent of a human body. And by the way, When Christ is raised, he is raised to what? A human body. His residence in a tent made of skin is not just in the tabernacle, and it's not just in his first coming. He forever now, as God, lives in skin. You and I are gonna be resurrected to new bodies. with this ministry then of Jesus Christ. What it encourages us to see, beloved, is the calling that we have to live as God's people in the midst of a world that is still languishing in sin and in death, in a creation that is longing for redemption, as Paul tells us in Romans 8. As we live in this world, as we live in a society that hates God, as we live in a society that does not value Him, that does not value His Word, that does not value faith, unless it is a faith that gives immediate earthly reward. As we live in this society, we are called as the people of God to see ourselves not defined by this earthly existence of sin and death, but to see ourselves as those seated with Christ in the heavenly places. And because we share in Christ's resurrection life already, It is from that point that we bear witness to Christ in this lost and dying generation. Everything that we need, not just for spiritual life, but everything we need for a life of faith in this world is given to us and empowered within us by the principle of a new life, a resurrection life, a heavenly life. The faithfulness of God to you is not something limited to this world and it's not limited to things that can be understood in earthly ways. What God has granted to you is that principle of new life as participants in a new creation, as those who have a share in the resurrection life of Jesus Christ. His faithfulness to you, beloved, is an eschatological faithfulness. It is a heavenly faithfulness. And so the power that you have to live, to respond to the Lord, to give yourself in devotion to him and to be his church, participating in his ongoing ministry is a calling that is heavenly. It means the realities that you and I face, not just our ongoing sin and not just the sin of the society in which we live. but the ongoing problems of sickness as sin continues to decay our bodies. The ongoing problems of sin decaying our emotions and our psychological conditions. Sin as it continues to work within us in the different ways that it decays us physically and as the way it works decay within us emotionally and the way that it can work decay within us socially. as the people of God, as that sin is still at work, and as the effects of that sin is still taking place, beloved, you are not defined by the ongoing activity of that sin. But the heavenly reality is at work within you. And it is as the more that you cling to the heavenly realities of who you are in Christ and the calling you have to be his church, then we are empowered to overcome these struggles. We are empowered to overcome these sins. We are empowered to not just confess that we are one, but to actually live as one. But to do that, we have to take up the second meaning of what these censuses tell us. And that is this. Not only does the census help us understand God's faithfulness to us by being present with us, going with us through his own judgment to sustain us and give us second life or a resurrection life. Not only do the censuses tell us that, the censuses tell us this. that what it means then to be someone who has entrusted yourself to this God who is doing these things is that you give yourself to Him in service. What the census is telling us here is that as the people of God are transitioning in the life that they have and following God, that it calls them to raise their hand and to be numbered. Now, what do I mean by that? Up to this point in the Exodus history, the people of God have not had to do any fighting whatsoever. Did you notice that? That doesn't mean that enemies haven't come against them. What it means is they have not done any of the fighting. And so as they are leaving Egypt, do they fight their way out of the city? No, the Lord supernaturally takes them out of the city as He is doing things against Egypt. the people of God find themselves being trapped but between the Egyptian army and the Red Sea where once again they start whining and complaining and oh why have you brought us out here just to die what's going on what happens do they all of a sudden supernaturally you know all of a sudden take up arms and charge the Egyptian army and take care of things no what happens The Lord, in the presence of the pillar of cloud and fire, once again stands between his people and their enemies and he conquers. But now, in the new section of the history of this new people, What they are learning is that as they go into the promised land, the Lord is still going to be fighting for them, but this time it's gonna look different. The Lord is still going to go before them, the Lord is still gonna fight their battles, only this time they will be holding swords also. Before this, the Lord has gone before them, fought for them, and what it has looked like is them watching him. Now what's going to happen is they will have swords. And the census is helping us understand who is to be counted on when the fighting begins. Who are those who will be taking up the sword to fight along with Yahweh? What the census helps us understand is that there is a calling and there is a responsibility in being part of the redeemed people of God. Let me put it another way. There is no free ride. The Lord redeems us, but then calls us. He gives us a calling. And he says, because I have redeemed you, here is how you are to serve me. That's a very unpopular message today. Not just in the world, but in the American church. Hold up, are you saying that being a Christian brings with it corporate responsibilities and obligations? Does it mean that in claiming the name of Jesus Christ, that also means that I raise my hand and say, I'm here, you can count on me, I'm part of what is happening? That there is a responsibility and an obligation for me to share my time and my treasures and my talents with this corporate people of God. And you mean that it's not something that I just get to pick and choose when it happens? Do you mean that God actually establishes some requirements for what it looks like to be a part of the corporate people of God? As those living in a society that has been on an individualism that wants to always express itself in terms of voluntary association, what we are learning here is the gospel calls us to something involuntary. It is not a pick or choose type of situation. And that what it means to be a part of the corporate people of God is that your name is registered. And in making that registration, you say, you can count on me because I am going to participate in this ongoing ministry of Jesus Christ as he is working in and through this corporate body of Christ. Church membership is not something that we do in order for us to just be able to keep track of records. And that is why in church membership, at least in the PCA and basically all the different NAPARC denominations, membership comes with vows. And what are those vows? Well, they are vows that simply affirm faith in God. We've got to start there. We've got to start with being believers. But those vows go, vowels, vow, I always do that, I'm too Southern. The vows go beyond just simply that I believe in Jesus. Because the vows then also affirm that you are going to serve one another. Then the vows go on to say that you are going to support the ministry of the church. And then the vows go on to say that you are going to follow and listen to the officers who are the captains leading us through this wilderness. And numbers one, what you have in that first portion of the census are these are the list of the captains. These are the ones who are overseeing the troops. And we have captains who are overseeing the troops here. We call them officers, elders, and deacons. There is something about membership in the church of Jesus Christ, beloved, that goes merely beyond your own personal experience of Jesus Christ. But in saying this, it is not divorced from that personal experience of Jesus Christ. Because the personal experience of Jesus Christ that one has by faith is an experience that draws you into the fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and gives you a shared life with every other person that is drawn into the fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You see, the Trinity itself forms for us what we understand about the life and communion of the Church of God. God has shared his life with us. God shares his blessings with us. And as we come to share in his life and in his blessings together, we share those things with one another. Sharing, outward living, not living for the self, is the very mark of the Trinity and is to be the very mark of his church. Now what that means then, beloved, is that there is going to be a temptation that you see in the people of God in the book of Numbers, which is a temptation that you and I also have to wrestle with. And that is, once you are in the wilderness, faced with the challenge of being counted on in the people of God and having to follow God in such a way that you also have to start taking up the sword and fighting along with God and with one another. When you are tempted with that, as we see in the book of Numbers in the wilderness, there are some that decide, we don't want that. Instead, we would rather go back to life in Egypt. And so there is always going to be a temptation for us as the people of God to want to go back to what life was like before we named Christ. The other temptation that you see in the book of Numbers is that when they are faced with that same calling, They are tempted to, instead of going to the promised land, but also instead of going back to Egypt, what they decide is, what we'll do is we'll just set up camp in the wilderness and we'll turn the wilderness into the promised land. And we too, beloved, we are faced with the temptation that as we are following Christ and as the calling comes to us to give ourselves to his ministry in the church, that sometimes what we can do is decide that, well, that is just too difficult. So what I'll do is I'm gonna keep naming Jesus, and I'm gonna keep coming to the services, and I'm gonna keep being a part of this outward expression of the ministry of the church. But I'm also going to give myself to turning this world into what I want to experience in the kingdom of God. And as a result, time, treasure, and talents get redirected away from God and his church, and they get directed to the self. And as a result, there's a problem. So, what does this mean, beloved? Well, I don't want you to hear me this morning saying that you need to be giving yourself unquestionably to this church and that if you are not giving 100% of everything that you are and have to this church that you're in sin. Right? I am not saying that. That is not expected of you. And we know that because there are two individuals that tried, that thought that that was the case. Ananias and Sapphira, once again a plug for Pastor Olson's Acts sermons that are in the evening. They thought that what was expected of them when they came to Christ is that they were supposed to sell everything they have and give it to the church. But what happened was they sold everything they had, but then they kept some of it for themselves. Now, there was not anything wrong with that. The problem was, because they thought they weren't supposed to keep anything for themselves, they told the church, here is everything. And so they lied. And they said, you can have everything that we got from the sale of this stuff. But it was a lie. And what does Peter say? You lied to the Spirit. And as a result, now, what that helps us to understand, beloved, is that the early church was not a communist, was not functioning under a communist economy. Yes, they are described as freely sharing their blessings with one another, but it was not compulsory and it was not required that they give everything to the apostles and the apostles start divvying out what the communion needed. I'm not telling you this morning that the calling of Christ is that you give up everything about your life to the church. That's not what I'm saying. But what I do want you to hear this morning is that because of the faithfulness of God to us in the wilderness, because he has taken up residence with us in the wilderness, and because he has sustained us through his judgment, By Jesus Christ taking on flesh, Jesus Christ going to the cross and dying for our sin and being raised from the dead, beloved, God has sustained you through his judgment of death. He has brought you into new life. And this means more for you than just simply you having a personal experience with Jesus. It means that God also is forming you into his temple, as Paul tells us in Ephesians 2. And what it also tells us is that as the temple, who is the ongoing presence of God in this world, through which he is accomplishing his mission, Jesus encourages you and says, whatever you give up in order to serve me, you will receive more than a hundredfold when you enter into eternal life. And so beloved, you have been brought into new life in Christ. You have been made alive. You have been raised up. You have been seated with Christ in the heavenly places. And the principle of new life resides in you. The principle of the heavenly places is at work within you. And so find ways for you, empowered by the heavenly places, to find the ways that you can share your time, your treasures, and your talents with the church. so that others may be drawn into the life of Christ, so that Jesus Christ and his gospel may be witnessed to, that it may be proclaimed, and that it may work what it is supposed to be accomplishing within this community. Give yourself, not just when it's convenient, but allow your life to be defined by this gospel of Christ so that not only do you experience the redemption from Egypt, but you have your camp structured in the way that becomes centered on God. And as you center yourself on God, beloved, give yourself knowing that whatever you give is not something that is lost, Because what you are giving away is something that is earthly that is going to pass away anyway. As one who is raised up, seated with Christ in the heavenlies, empowered by the heavenlies, give yourself to that heavenly perspective. Let us pray. Our Father, we do praise you that you have not left us to sojourn through the wilderness on our own. That you have not left us in the position of having to bear the responsibility of our sin alone. But that you have borne that sin for us in Christ on the cross. And that you now call us to take up His cross and to follow Him through this life into that promised land that is coming when our Savior returns. in the fullness of his glory forevermore. But Lord, help us as your people this morning to see that this is not just good news for us in our standing before you, but that this is good news for us in the calling we have as your bride. That you have given us something better than this world to live for. but that it is not something that we have to wait for in order to experience. You in Christ are already causing us to experience the new creation. You in Christ are already causing us to live in the heavenly places, that you in Christ are already giving us all things. that eternality has already taken up residence in this body because of your son. And so, Lord, protect us as your church from the sin of wanting to return to Egypt. And protect us as your church from the sin of wanting to turn this wilderness into your kingdom. And instead, help us to wait with the patience that comes to us in the heavenly places, but an active waiting, a waiting that is marked by faith in Christ, a faith that is marked by devotion to Jesus Christ, a devotion that is expressed not only in personal lives of holiness, but a corporate life of service and witness. And so use your means of grace, our heavenly father, to indeed help the individuals that make up your church, that indeed we would have personal lives that are marked by holiness, personal lives marked by listening to your word, personal lives marked by striving to respond to that word. personal lives marked by an honesty about our sin, a confession of that sin, and a reveling in the heavenly forgiveness that is ours in Christ. But help us also as a congregation, Lord, to bear witness to these truths, not only with our words, but with lives of sacrificial service. that we would truly take up Christ's cross, crucifying the things of this flesh and crucifying the perspectives of the world, a perspective that teaches us that faith is valuable only if it brings with it worldly blessing. Oh, Lord, help us to see the heavenly blessing, to taste of it, and to be reoriented to it. Adjust the taste buds that we have away from the failing, temporary things of this world that our palates might indeed be enlarged in order to drink deeply and to taste the richness of the world to come. We pray that you would help this body give ourselves to a service to you, service and sharing our time, treasures, and talents with one another and with our God. And we pray that you would bless this congregation, that as we share these things with one another, that you would empower us to take up swords and fight along with you. That we, in that fight, would bear witness to the life-giving source and power of our Savior. Father, bless our missionaries as they have taken up the sword in foreign lands. Help them to fight well and help them to be encouraged in their sacrifices. They have given up the comforts of living in a culture with which they are familiar, as they have given up the comforts of living economically in a way that is so sacrificial. as they wrestle with the very important real world concerns of how to educate their children in a foreign land, how to learn the language of another people, how to express the gospel in a meaningful way in a place where there is a very real language barrier. We pray that you would help this church not only bear witness to these spiritual realities in Christ, but that we would share with one another the blessings that you have given to us. As we give to your church, as we come by one another and put our arm around a brother or a sister who is struggling, as we as we give physical expression to the love of Christ to those who need it, as sin is still working its decaying influence in this group of people. Help us to give ourselves to the social life of this church. Help us to give ourselves to one another as we pray, praying especially for those who are feeling the effects of their sin. We pray for those who are struggling with health problems and ask that you would bless them with faith to persevere, looking to Christ as they endure pain. That we pray for those who are dealing with the emotional and psychological pain of having seen a loved one pass away, as they might experience loneliness, looking for a spouse, as they might already be in a marriage where communication is not taking place very well. Lord, help the fellowship of this body be that foretaste of the fellowship of the heavenly places so that we would indeed be encouraged and motivated in the words of Christ to give up the things of this world for the things of the world to come. and that to know that in giving them up now for a time, there is indeed an eternity of blessing in which we will never even remember the sacrifices of this world. And so Lord bless us as a church, not just as a group of disparate individuals naming the name of Christ, but as the corporate experience of the life of Christ in this world. Do this for the glory of your great name and for the joy that is ours in being your people. It is in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.