 the radiant church, we're so glad to come to you and to bring the word of God. So whoever you are, wherever you are across all of our platforms, I wanna encourage you right now, take your Bibles out and let's study together. Let's look at God's word. I have a word burning in my heart for us today. Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Exodus chapter 15. Exodus chapter 15, I know that a lot of us right now are feeling like this is all surreal, this change and the shift of life and everything that's going on around us. I know that there are a myriad of different emotions that are attached to what we're going through right now. There's a lot of fear that is out there. There's a lot of frustration. There's a lot of hopelessness. There's a lot of questions that we have, a lot of opportunity to let concern and anxiety grip our heart and you know, to be honest in the middle of everything that's going on, this is all new territory for all of us. I can promise you that as a pastor, nobody teaches you how to lead your church through a pandemic that is affecting the entire globe. There's no course for that. There's no class for that. There's no blog to read, no podcast to listen to. We're all in a position where we're having to really search out direction and hope from the Lord in this hour. Now it's really easy for us to check out and to allow the world to dictate for us how we respond. It would be very easy for us to just kind of like be a stick thrown into a raging river and let the current of culture and the media and our emotions just carry us downstream but that's not what we're called to do. We're called to be people that are led by the Holy Spirit and I'm praying that and I'm believing that for you, I'm believing that for all of us in this hour and in this season that there's a increase of the leadership of the Holy Spirit in our life and our sensitivity to his leadership and to his voice. As I have been praying and studying in this timeframe really over the last four or five weeks, God has just had me anchored deeply in the book of Exodus. Deeply anchored in it because I believe that there are some things that God is speaking both on a global level for the church but really more importantly for every one of us individually what God is doing in this hour and what he wants to do, how he wants to prepare our hearts for what is to come, how to face the future and how to respond to his leadership. And so that's what the series has been about called Out of Egypt and my plan to be honest was that it would end on Easter weekend. So we did Passover and then the resurrection typified through the Exodus through the Red Sea. I really thought that that was it but this last week I kept being directed back to the book of Exodus and there's so much more in the midst of this story of how God brought his people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land that I really believe in this hour it is a prophetic pattern for you. It's a prophetic pattern for me and for the entire global church of Jesus Christ. I believe that there is a Promised Land there is an inheritance that God has scheduled for us. Call it revival, call it awakening, call it a personal renewal for each and every one of us but whatever it is there's also a process that we have to embrace in order to get there. And so over the next few weeks kind of as a sub-series under Out of Egypt I wanna share what I've entitled Lessons from the Wilderness. Lessons from the Wilderness and I wanna draw your attention to Exodus chapter 15 beginning in verse number 22. It says, then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and they found no water and when they came to Mara they could not drink the water of Mara because it was bitter. Therefore it was named Mara which means bitterness and the people grumbled against Moses saying what shall we drink? And he cried to the Lord and the Lord showed him a log and he threw it into the water and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule and there he tested them saying, if you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God and do that which is right in his eyes and give ear to his commandments and keep all of his statutes I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians for I am the Lord your healer. And then they came to Elam where there were 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees and they encamped there by the water. So you remember probably from last weekend when we highlighted how God brought the Israelites out of Egypt he defeated Pharaoh by releasing the plagues he gave them a test of faith at the Passover where they applied the blood to the doorposts of their home while the death angel moved throughout Egypt killing the firstborn but those who were under the blood were protected and it was after that evening that God led them out of Egypt weighed down with the riches weighed down with 430 years of back pay and God exited them out of Egypt and they came up to the Red Sea Pharaoh changed his mind the chariots and the armies pursued them they turned around they were pinned in between the Red Sea before them and the mountains and Pharaoh's armies behind them and it was there that God demonstrated the ultimate the ultimate deliverance he told Moses put your staff over the water and as he did it, God pulled back the water and Israel went down on dry ground through the midst of the Red Sea to the other side when Pharaoh and his armies pursued them God collapsed the water on them and drowned them and defeated them and also put a barrier of separation between the children of Israel that he had just delivered and the land of Egypt and their enemies and oppressors that they had just been delivered from and so they get on the other side and all of them began to rejoice all of them began to celebrate and worship and praise God Miriam, Moses' sister took the tambourine she began to sing and declare God has defeated us defeated our enemies and delivered us and she was the first Pentecostal worship leader as she's worshiping before the Lord and I just want you to imagine 600,000 men and women and children on the other side who have just beheld a miracle of deliverance and defeat of their enemies of course we would rejoice of course it would be a powerful moment but now after the water has smoothed over and after the current has flattened down and after the song has ceased to be sung they are faced with the reality of the wilderness. The wilderness of sure this is where Moses led them into between the deliverance of their Egyptian bondage and their inheritance of the promised land that God had declared some 430 years earlier to their father of faith Abraham, Canaan in between their deliverance, their salvation and their inheritance was the wilderness and the wilderness was a place that they did not plan on spending much time nobody took into account the wilderness as they left they were so worried about Pharaoh that their focus was on deliverance and now God has saved them, he's delivered them and now their mindset had been shifted towards the promised land. It should have been an 11 day journey but instead it became a 40 year wandering it's because the wilderness was supposed to be a process an accelerated process to prepare Israel to go in and possess the promised land but God in his mercy, God in his goodness would not bring them into the promised land before they were ready and so the wilderness was supposed to be a waiting room but ended up becoming a wandering for 40 years. They wandered in circles, walking around mountains retracing their same steps over and over and over and over again and it was not because it was necessarily God's best but God was faced with an immense problem with these children of Israel that he had brought out of Egypt and the problem was this he could get slaves out of Egypt but he couldn't get Egypt out of the slaves and so what became the wandering in the wilderness was a process that God put the children of Israel through not to punish them but to prepare them to go in and inherit the promises. So here is Moses leading them into the wilderness and immediately they're thirsty, they're hungry they're not used to trying to figure out where they're gonna get their food from and water they're used to the Nile, they're used to living in Goshen which is a very rich, a very lush land but now they're in the wilderness and I believe that a lot of us right now have entered into a season spiritually that is a wilderness. We are in the middle of a global pandemic and it is in many ways a wilderness experience for us. A lot of us in our salvation experience in our relationship with God have found ourselves recently in a wilderness. God saved us out of Egypt, he saved us from our sin and we are aware of the promises that he has for us for our future but we never planned on the wilderness and for a lot of us even over the last couple of months what we have experienced in a very practical way that has affected our finance, it's affected our jobs, it's affected our freedoms and our movements, our conveniences and our comforts. We find ourselves also in a wilderness that we did not plan on. And I think one of the weaknesses unfortunately of the American gospel is that we focus so much on the salvation and the deliverance from Egypt and then we immediately talk about the guaranteed promises of God but we don't have any place in our theology for a healthy understanding of the wilderness because the wilderness is an event and it is a process that we would rather not talk about because for all the progress that God wants us to experience there is also a process by which he takes us through to experience it. And for the children of Israel the wilderness represented three things. Nobody told them but as we read the book of Exodus and we read the book of Numbers and we read Deuteronomy as they spend these many years in the wilderness we find that from God's perspective the wilderness is actually a blessing. Even though when they were in the wilderness they did not see it as such. It was a blessing because it served three dimensions or three arenas. Number one, the wilderness was a test. Number two, the wilderness was a revelation and number three, the wilderness was a highway. We're gonna spend some time talking about that but first let me put it in a modern and let me put it in a present reality for all of us because if you find yourself in a wilderness today if you say I did not plan on this and I'm suddenly feeling dry I'm suddenly confronted with fear I'm suddenly feeling panic or anxiety or discouragement or disappointment. So God why are you allowing these things to happen? I know other people are having great family times but what about me? Lord I enjoyed going to church but now I'm discovering that my spiritual vitality was not what it needed to be to be able to step into this wilderness experience. Lord I'm confronted with how dependent I am how desirous I am of things that I should not be. If you find yourself in a wilderness experience and globally we all are I wanna put this in present terms for you. The wilderness that we are in right now is number one, a test. It's number two, a revelation and number three, the wilderness is I believe with all of my heart a highway, a highway of holiness that is going to if we will allow God to use it this way is actually going to lead us deeper into our inheritance as sons and daughters no longer living in the pipe dream ideas of a slave locked up in Egypt. No longer limited as a slave mentality wandering in the wilderness. God is not content to leave his children wandering in the wilderness. It's not punishment, it's not grounding it's not punitive. God's not gonna leave you in the wilderness if we will allow him to do the first two which is allow him to test us. And number two, allow him to reveal himself to us. You see the wilderness number one for them was the test Exodus chapter 16 verse four says it very clearly. It says then the Lord said to Moses behold I am about to rain down for you from heaven and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day of bread, manna that I might test them whether they will walk in my laws or not. So it was the test of obedience. It was a test of faith. Deuteronomy eight chapter two or chapter eight verse two 40 years in the future when Israel is about to go into the promised land God says and you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness that he might humble you testing you to know what is in your heart. You see God's testing our hearts whether you would keep his commandments or not. Listen it's easy to keep God's commandments when the commandments are good when the commandments are easy when the commandments agree with us when everybody else is keeping the commandments it's easy but what happens when difficulty comes what happens when it doesn't make sense what happens when it costs us something to obey God it's a test and for Israel the wilderness was a test it wasn't a test of their outward it was a test of their inward it was a test of whether they would believe God or not this is a test of faith the wilderness was also a revelation and I believe in the next couple of weeks we're gonna arrive at Sinai which is where God always wanted Moses to bring the children of Israel anyways and it was there that God revealed himself to the children of Israel he had them all gather at the base of the mountain of the Lord and God came and it revealed himself really the 40 years in the wilderness was God showing them who he was his goodness his mercy his trustworthiness his steadfast love his patience you know what's interesting is the wilderness was not just a place where God tested Israel it was also a place where Israel tested God it says that they tested him 10 times in the 40 years 10 major tests in 10 major different ways where they continually put God to the test and I'm not talking about in a good way I'm talking about what God would reveal some aspect of himself to Israel he would reveal himself in a very merciful and a very loving inviting way God's desire for Israel was never just to give them a written code and say now keep this and if you don't you're gonna be in trouble God came to them revealed himself full of love full of joy wanting to fulfill his promises wanting them to trust him the biggest disappointment in the thing that hurt God's heart more than anything was that there was an entire generation that he saved out of Egypt that because of their lack of trust and belief in him and when I say belief in him I'm talking about who he revealed himself to be that actually became a limit and a limitation and a barrier to that generation being able to go into the promised land an entire generation died out in the wilderness simply because they would not believe God and I'm not talking about some faith mentality that said God's saying here's the formula and you didn't keep it and here's the confession and you didn't say it and here's my word and I'm not talking about some cold callous formulaic relationship I'm talking about the kind of trust and the kind of faith where God says look what more do I have to do to show you to prove to you how much I love you how much I'm for you that you can trust me how many times will you put me to the test and ultimately came to the point where God said this generation will never be able to go in because of the hardness of their heart and their slave mentalities listen never let it be said about us any of us that in our relationship with God we're saved from our sin but we're not able to step into our purposes and grow into maturity because the limitations of our own belief system keep God at a distance the wilderness was a test but the wilderness was also a revelation God's desire was that the wilderness ultimately would become a highway a highway just as it says in Isaiah 35 that in the wilderness God would create a highway that would be called the highway of holiness what does holiness means means to be set apart under God in the wilderness what was God doing he was taking them on a physical journey literally from one place through the wilderness into the land that he promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but at the same time he was taking them through a spiritual journey he wanted to develop holiness in their hearts which means set apart for God's purposes set apart for only him to be a kingdom of priests and worshipers of God that were distinct and separate that didn't get wrapped up in idolatry that were not bound by the immorality of Egypt that were not attracted to the gold and the silver of the world around them but they were focused on the presence of the Lord that was their inheritance and that was their portion see God wasn't looking for outward holiness he wasn't looking for them to just do the right things outwardly he wanted to see an inward change of their heart and so the wilderness became a highway by which God changed their hearts and prepared them to go into the promised land see the Exodus in the wilderness in the way that God took Israel through the wilderness it was not the most direct route there was a much quicker route that they could have gone via Gaza up along the Mediterranean Sea and right into the land but God did not take them on the most direct route he did not take them on the shortest route he didn't take them the easy way but he took them the right way the way that would produce holiness in their life I've got a GPS watch on and Jane and I like to go for walks and we kind of have a route that we do and we do this particular route because it has hills and because it goes on campus of Western Michigan University it goes through our neighborhoods and we kind of have it down pat and so when you do this route you kind of walk this way then you go up a hill and you've it's not the easiest way there's an easier way that we could go but we do this course because as we go up the hills we're developing endurance and strength we go this way because there are some things that we wanna see and we wanna pray about we go this course intentionally it's not just about efficiency it's about intentionality and the course that you are on right now in your life may not seem like the easy way you may be looking at your life right now going God I thought I was supposed to live the blessed life I thought you were all about giving me abundant life listen, the abundant life is not equivalent to the easy life he's looking for holiness, for God-likeness for Christ-likeness to be formed in us and it's not always looking for the straight line between where you are and the promises of God if God were not kind if God did not care if God was not all wise he would just give you everything that you wanted right now but he knows that the weight of the inheritance the weight of the blessing is oftentimes heavier than the strength we have developed to hold it so what does God do? God takes us on a journey through the wilderness and let me just tell you we're not just gonna go through one wilderness experience in our life because the wilderness is not the same as a wasteland the wilderness is God's gymnasium to develop the spiritual strength and endurance of his people so that when we do arrive in the promised land when we do come out of a pandemic when we do go back to work this current wilderness that we're facing and we don't go back the same that when we arrive on the other side and we step into our purposes and we step back into the things that we're passionate about that there's a gratitude that there's a spiritual strength and endurance and that we're prepared for the things that God has awaiting us that we don't even know about you know the Bible says I has not seen, ear has not heard nor has it even entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him well let me just tell you if you are in Christ Jesus God loves you and it may not seem like it right now but he has things prepared for you in your future that you can't even imagine that are gonna be filled with blessing that are gonna be filled with joy that are gonna be filled with life but to get there the highway is not the easy way the process requires us to embrace the wilderness why the wilderness? Charles Spurgeon the great preacher, prince of preachers when speaking about the testing of our faith said this no faith is so precious as that which lives and triumphs through adversity tested faith brings experience you would never have believed your own weakness had you not needed to pass through trials and you would never have known God's strength had his strength not been needed to carry you through I'll tell you what that's the promise of the hour you see the reason why God allows us to go through the wilderness is not what you think the reason why God takes us through the wilderness natural difficulties and I'm not just talking spiritual things I'm talking about natural difficulties just like the wilderness think about the wilderness the wilderness had always been there God did not particularly craft the wilderness of sure for that particular moment in order to spiritually test Israel it was a physical geographical existence it already existed but God led his people into that natural environment he led the children of Israel through a natural difficulty in order to develop a supernatural endurance and you and I are facing some natural difficulties God did not craft COVID-19 and deposited into the world but you and I live in the midst of a fallen world in which viruses, sickness, disease and death is still a part of our real existence and our life there is coming a day when Jesus will come and make all of his enemies our footstool and he will put away sickness and disease but in this current reality where you and I live this is the result not of God's creation but of man's rebellion but even in the spite of that God oftentimes will lead us through difficulties that are natural in the orientation listen God did not do this so that your business could feel as if it may fail God did not craft this situation so that your bank account would intentionally run out of money God did not put you in this crisis or in this moment so that your body could succumb to a disease but in the present natural reality of everything that we're all experiencing the fear, the anxiety, the loneliness, the isolation all of these things are natural but yet God has a spiritual intention through which he leads us through these natural environments or these natural difficulties it's called the testing of our faith it's the gymnasium of our soul James chapter one James the brother of Jesus speaking to Christians says in verse number two, count it all joy brothers when you meet various trials of various different kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness or patience, endurance let patience, endurance, steadfastness whatever translation you're reading let it have its full effect that you might be perfect and complete lacking nothing do you see God's intentions for you today it's the same intentions that he had for Israel and the wilderness not to destroy you, not to disappoint you not to punish you but we can actually find joy in the midst of testing how? Because we believe that our lives are in the hands of the master craftsman the one who has taken us into the gym of difficulty and adversity he's allowing our faith to be tested so that endurance or patience, steadfastness can be developed in us so that when we arrive at the borders of the promised land and we're ready to go in and face the giants and possess the promises of God when we're about to step into a new realm of calling and responsibility that we will actually as it says be perfect complete lacking nothing that doesn't mean that you're going to be perfect it just means that you are ready and you are trained, you are equipped lacking nothing see the wilderness was them living in quarantine the wilderness was them with just barely enough manna every day just enough for today but as soon as they crossed over the promised land they had more than enough God was teaching them how to steward them more than enough with just enough the lessons of the wilderness prepared them to be victorious in the promised land this is what God is doing in our hearts in Deuteronomy chapter eight it says you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these 40 years so that he might humble you listen testing you to know what was in your heart see when we get listen when we get on the other side of this thing we're also probably at a different phase in our life gonna face a different wilderness a different testing nobody gets off this planet without being tested and we're tested over and over and over as it's been said new levels new devils if you wanna go to a new level you're gonna face new enemies if you wanna go into a new dimension of God's blessing and God's purposes in your life then just know that the highway that connects where you are to where you wanna go is going to be a highway that leads you through the wilderness but when you go through it it's not just about doing the external things right listen God is looking for our hearts that's what's being tested do you know that it's possible you could do everything right on the outside but yet on the inside you're angry with God you're disappointed with God you find yourself in the wilderness and now here you are at a place called Mara bitter waters you're thirsty the sun is scorching you the winds are howling in the wilderness God's just brought you through a miracle and now you're thirsty and you're tired and you wanna go and get a drink and you're just like God why did you why have you brought me to a place where the water's undrinkable don't you care why would God allow that to take place why would God allow the children of Israel to show up at a place called Mara with bitter waters he knew that they would be thirsty he knew that they were gonna need shade but here they are in the scorching heat and they became disappointed with God and they began to complain against God why did God allow that it seems cruel it's because God also intended to take them to a place called Elam where there was shade and there were multiple springs of living water we'll talk about that next weekend but in this moment God was testing them how are you gonna respond when things don't go your way how are you gonna respond to me I just delivered you now how are you gonna respond to me when things aren't always easy why because in that moment what's in our heart gets revealed I wanna just tell you today the wilderness is designed for three things it's created by God to number one refine you to number two define you so that ultimately God can assign you it's God's way of refining us even Jesus went into the wilderness he went and he was tested not for 40 years but for 40 days and the devil came and tempted him he too was thirsty he too was lonely he too was hungry he also was under spiritual attack but after he went through the wilderness it says in Luke 4 verse 14 that Jesus returned in the power of the spirit to Galilee you see the wilderness was there to refine the wilderness is not God's attempt to destroy you or to punish you the wilderness is God's crucible to remove the dross of slavery slavery mentalities out of us this is what God was doing with Israel see think about this for a second they had been slaves in Israel for 400 plus years 10 generations waking up every single day being called hey you slave they didn't get to plan what their day was gonna look like they didn't get to choose their career they didn't have freedom of thinking beyond just waking up eating whatever was available making bricks for somebody else building somebody else's dream building somebody else's life doing somebody else's will do you know a slave never stops in dreams about their future because they don't have a future a slave doesn't think about their inheritance because there isn't anything to inherit a slave only knows that what is awaiting him is death and the crack of the whip and the stripes on their back pain and disappointment and being told what to do and now God has delivered these slaves whose mentality has only been shaped by Egypt may find themselves in the wilderness and God is calling them sons and daughters he calls them an army an army that he's going to be the head of that is gonna go in and possess the promised land they're gonna live in homes that they did not build they're gonna inherit vineyards that they did not plant farms that they didn't purchase they're gonna defeat giants an army that is experienced they'll defeat as an army with no experience but in the wilderness the heat of the trial exposed the dross the mindsets the attitudes the fears the anxieties the old ghosts that haunted them it brought all of that dross up to the surface First Peter chapter one says in this you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ Proverbs 17 verse three says it's the crucible that is for silver and the furnace is for gold and the Lord tests the hearts when we go through difficulties fiery trials as the Bible calls them what comes to the surface is our slave mentalities that we received from Egypt that have been inherited not by faith but by fear what is manifest is dross and God doesn't manifest it to show us how bad we are, how weak we are how insufficient we are, how doomed we are God allows the fire and the heat of our trials to bring these things to the surface so that the dross can be removed, surrendered to him and what will remain is pure gold, silver and what is developed is strength and endurance when we come out I can't promise you when we're coming out of this I can't promise you what everything will look like on the other side listen I can't promise you that your marriage that right now you're praying and contending for I can't promise you that it's gonna be reconciled you've been praying for your spouse who walked out and left you I can't promise you that I know this I know that the fervent effectual prayers of a righteous woman or a man avails much but I know that God has given us free will and we can't always determine those things but here's what I know you can come out the other side stronger I can't promise you what businesses are gonna look like finances are gonna look like I can't promise you what schools gonna look like I can't promise you those things that's not up to me but I know this I know that the God of the wilderness is the God who doesn't just direct us into it he actually goes into the wilderness with us and he leads us through it and he's bringing us out the other side and when we come out the other side of it his intentions and purposes is not that the wilderness will be our grave it's that the wilderness will become our off ramp that leads us right into his promises his inheritance and we will be strong sons and daughters as a result of it he's leading us out of Egypt he's strengthening us I believe he's doing it all over the globe he's raising up a praying church that prays once again he's raising up faith filled believers that believe once again he's not satisfied to allow the dross of Egypt to remain in our hearts he may not have caused this hour but let me promise you God will never waste a good crisis he will never allow us to be ruined in the wasteland he will always use the wilderness as a highway taking us some place God is here God is in our midst and he can be trusted he can be trusted wherever you're at whatever platform you're watching from right now whoever you are I want you to just bow your heads with me wherever you're at it's not about me seeing it it's about you blocking everything else out in this moment and putting your thought and your heart on the goodness and the presence of the Lord he sees you he's with you in this moment right now he is with you you are not alone he's with you there's no need for fear, shame, guilt, condemnation he is with you and he can be trusted I wanna pray right now for every single one of us thousands of us doesn't matter where we're at but God knows each one and I believe that he wants to move in our lives move in our families will we trust him that's the question Heavenly Father we thank you that you're not just the God of the mountaintops you're not just the God of our victory where we sing the horse and the rider are thrown into the sea you don't just show up on victory day Lord you're the God in the wilderness you're our Father through our trials and you never leave us and you never forsake us Lord today would you break off old mindsets slave mentalities attitudes beliefs limitations that keep us from trusting you and obeying you Lord today would you fill our hearts with hope faith and joy even in the midst of our trials count it all joy even in the midst of the wilderness you're the God of all hope and we trust you Lord that even as the temperature is turned up in our lives it's not there to destroy us it's there to reveal us and it's there to reveal you as our good God our Heavenly Father Lord I'm praying for an infusion of faith hope and trust that we will respond in this hour not out of doubt and fear and unbelief and get shipwrecked in the wilderness but Lord faith will rise strength will rise on the inside of us prayer will rise hunger will rise thirst will arise Lord that you will reawaken our hearts fill us with passion once again Lord that you will not be in Christianity will not just be some book on our shelves that we pull off to have a good moral therapeutic idea that somebody's looking out over us but Lord it will be a personal thriving living relationship with Almighty God walks with us and talks with us and leads us Lord I'm praying this today that you would flood our hearts with joy Lord some of us we need to surrender to you Jesus we need to give our lives to you we need to just say Jesus I need you I need a savior I need a leader I need a rescuer Jesus I believe you are the son of God come into my heart save me forgive me some of us have already done that but we've walked away as prodigals gone after the things of the world but today we're coming to our senses and saying I need to get back Lord today rescue us many of us Lord we've been following you but this is a whole new level a new test a new trial that we didn't expect but here we are God today strengthen us make us stronger than we've ever been before we believe you are here we believe that you are strong we believe that you are able and you are working right now in Jesus name