The Rock and the Banner

Good morning. I took a quiz online this week and the quiz was, which Muppets are you like? John Henson's Muppets. And I was discouraged and yet also not surprised by the results. I was really hoping I would be like Fozzie Bear. You know, waka, waka, waka. You know, I find him endearing. I was nothing like Fozzie Bear. They said I was tied for two people. One was Kermit. And that's like my least favorite puppet. And so I don't really think of the fact that I'm like my least favorite puppet. But that was the discouraging part. The not surprising part is I was like the two grumpy men in the booth. That's why I took the quiz. I was going to see if what I thought was true was actually true. Now, I have a case of the grumbles. I am a complainer. I like to complain. I like to grumble. For some reason, I always think it would make me feel better. There's something wrong, and if I just express it, it would make me feel better, but as I talked about last week, it only makes me feel worse. It's something I constantly repent of because, one, nobody wants to be around someone who complains. I like people, so I want people to want to be around me. That's why I have realized people don't like to be around others that complain. More importantly, I believe in Jesus Christ. I'm an ambassador and representative of Jesus Christ, and everything about grumbling is against what Jesus Christ is. He is about love. He's joy. He's hope. Grumbling is contrary to hope and to love. So I was actually quite excited about a three part series of sermons on grumbling. Because I was hoping that it would actually get the grumble out. But I realize it's one of these things in my heart that will be a constant battle. This morning, we're going to be in Exodus chapter 17. And let me give some background, because we have a lot of folks who haven't been with us. We've been preaching through Exodus and let's go all the way back. God took Israel and he put them in Egypt. A famine was coming, and so God took his people and placed them in another nation, and that nation gave them the best land. And that nation, Egypt, was supposed to function like an incubator for Israel. So Israel is in Egypt, and God's purpose is to grow them and to multiply them. And then when the Egyptians, after a while, they realized, well, they're growing strong. So they started to oppress them. They started killing their children. They started enslaving them. And the people of Israel, they cried out to God. And God called a man named Moses. God said, I'm going to deliver my people. And then God sent 10 plagues, 10 acts of God that devastated the greatest nation the world knew, completely revealing, demonstrating that he alone is God and worthy of worship and able to do all that he wants. And he wants to free Israel and to care for them. So he delivers them. They're actually thrown out of Egypt because of the plagues, finally. And then as they're wandering in the wilderness, they get to the Red Sea. And then God does also. He's simultaneously hardened Pharaoh's heart and the entire army of Pharaoh is coming to march against them again. And there they are between the sea and the army. And there's rocks on both sides. They can't get out. Now they're trapped and they complain. Were there no graves in Israel? Would it have been better to kill us while we were slaves rather than to drag us out into the wilderness? They grumble and complain against God. And then God, he sends his glory as a shield to protect them. Then he divides the waters and he lets them walk through on dry land. And then when they're all through and the army of Pharaoh starts going into the waters, he crushes them. God demonstrates that he is the one glorious, powerful God, that he is with Israel. He is for Israel. That is one of the great events of the Old Testament, the Red Sea Deliverance. It is the most important act of deliverance and redemption in the Old Testament, the most important until Christ dies on the cross. So there's the one important event. And then you have Mount Sinai. That's the other great important event. And we can easily kind of read over this section we're in, the wilderness. But it's important. God has designed there to be three different testings. The first one was they show up and there's water, but it's too bitter. And so they complain again. After God has done such a mighty work, they complain again and he makes the water sweet. A month passes. They say, well, you know, we used to have bread and meat to the full when we were under Pharaoh's reign. They told God essentially it was better for us to be under Pharaoh and be his slaves than it is for us to be your people. And instead of smiting them and exerting his wrath against them for blaspheming, God provides meat, God provides bread. Again, he was testing them. They grumbled and he was gracious. Well, this week we see the third in our series. They again complain and grumble against God. We'll be reading in Exodus chapter 17. We'll just be looking at the first half of this passage, just seven verses. If you didn't have a Bible or if you need a Bible, there are Bibles at the end of each pew. Just nudge the person next to you. They'll pass it down and you can take that home with you if you like. Exodus 17, beginning in verse one. All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of sin by stages according to the commandment of the Lord and camped at Rephidim. And there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore, the people quarreled with Moses and said, Give us water to drink. And Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord? But the people thirsted for water and the people grumbled against Moses and said, Why did you bring us out of Egypt? To kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? So Moses cried to the Lord, What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me. And the Lord said to Moses, Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel and taking your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and ye shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, Is the Lord among us or not? There are three basic sections here. Verses 1 through 4, our sin tests God. We see the sin of Israel testing God, we need to recognize our sin tests God. That's verses 1 through 4. The second section, verses 5 and 6, God, by his grace, provides for his people. God, by his grace, provides for his people. And finally, verse 7, God wants us to remember that we are dependent upon him. and we can trust Him. First, our sin tasks God. This is a third of three different parts of Israel's grumbling. They grumbled for three times, and it escalates. It continues to get worse. At Marah, they ask for water. Here at Rephidim, they demand it. They're getting more bold in their sin. And more than that, they grumble. Here, it's a different word. They quarrel. One would be kind of the grumbling we do under our breath. Someone who may complain, trying to do it quietly, but they have to grumble regardless. The other one, it's in your face. They're quarreling. It's obvious Moses thinks they're going to stone him. This is an aggressive, heightened grumbling. And then verse 4, Moses says, they're ready to stone me. The sin is heightening. They have an unrighteous anger towards God. They continue to accuse Him of doing evil when what God is doing is good. They continue to say, are you just trying to kill us? Were there not enough graves in Egypt? Why didn't you just kill us in Egypt? It was so much better for us there. He's done everything for them, but all they do is doubt and accuse Him. Now, one thing we need to see here from these three series, these three parts of grumbling, sin always intensifies. There's never a little innocent sin. Whenever you start sinning, it intensifies because whatever you're trying to satisfy with sin, that desire is never satisfied with sin. Sin will always intensify. It's never satisfied it. It necessarily continues to grow. There's never just a little lie. There's always another lie and another lie and another lie. Every time we sin, it intensifies. And we see here, Israel, they've never repented of their grumbling heart. They've never repented of not trusting God. And their sin has intensified from grumbling to quarreling. To the point where they're ready to kill Moses. Let's ask ourselves, how do we identify with the Israelites here? I think there's three basic ways. The first is we complain. We complain. Now. If we're complainers and we're grumblers, something we like to do, we like to think of other people. This sermon isn't for someone else, the sermon's for all of us. So it may be tempting for you to think, well, that's for that person. No, this sermon is for us. Each one of us. So we're going to be asking ourselves, how do we complain? Well, we can look at Israel's complaining and we can see it is gross. It's offensive to God, but yet he's gracious. But their complaining is gross because they've just seen over a year, 10 plagues, 10 acts of God that destroyed Egypt. They just saw water part and they walked on dry land. They've just seen God act in amazing, miraculous, powerful ways. And yet they do not trust him yet. They haven't gotten it that he is with them and he is for them. We need to realize that we grumble and complain, and it is a gross as well. It's gross because we actually get to see what God did for Israel, but we get to see everything he's done. We see that he's not just part of the Red Sea, but he sent his son to die on the cross for us. Our grumbling is petty. We complain because we think we deserve better than what we have. We complain because we think God hasn't been good to us. He hasn't given to us what we've been entitled. We want better than God in his infinite wisdom and goodness has blessed us with. We complain because we want more from this world. That's the root of our complaining. We want something more from this world and we complain because we think God hasn't given it to us. So we complain, that's the first way we identify with him. Secondly, we refuse to trust God. We have a difficult time depending fully on God, but what Andrew said, the leaning on God. Knowing that if there's anything other than God, then we're hopeless. Completely leaning and trusting upon Him. Knowing that His grace is abundant. That it abounds where our sin abounds. Knowing that He's keeping us from sin. By not allowing us to have things that we think are good for us from this world. We like to think we're wiser than God. We like to think we know what's best for us. Finally, the way we identify with Israel, we refuse to worship them. These three scenes, these three grumbling, these three testings, it's to prepare them so that when God comes down to the Mount Sinai, their hearts are ready. They've realized over and over again, God is good. God is for us. God's going to lead us. God's going to take care of us. And so when that worship event happens, they're ready to worship. As we'll see, they're not ready to worship God. Instead, they're going to continue to go after idols. Last thing I want to talk about before we move into the redemption. It says they tested God. This is a huge twist. This is a major turning point in the story here because the first two, it says God was testing them. Now it's switched. They tested God. And that should draw our attention. God tested them. God tested them. Now twice it repeats it actually. They tested God. What did it mean for God to be testing them? God was trying to train them. God was putting them through a boot camp to get the grumble out. God was trying to train them to trust Him, to worship Him, to love Him, to make them the worshipers that He has called them out to be. He was training them to reveal to them how much they need him and that they can depend upon him. They can trust him. What does it mean that they were testing God? They were demanding that God prove himself. They're demanding that God answer their expectations and prove himself in a way that God did not deem necessary. See, they need reproving, but they were asking God to prove himself. To them, God is seeking to show us what we're lacking, and they were trying to see if God was truly lacking. This is a perverse change of roles. If you're a parent, this is or if you're a child, you know, when a parent tells a child, do not touch the stove. Children like to see how much they can hover around the stove. They can get close to it. Got to get as close to it as possible without actually touching it. They're testing the parent. Is what you say is right? If I do it, will I actually receive discipline? This is what we do to God. He tells us commands and we want to see how close we can get to it without actually breaking that command. Or if we do, what will happen if we do? We test God. God does prove himself. God wants to reveal himself to you. The whole point of Exodus is that he makes his name known. I am with you. I am for you. The one thing I can assert about God proving himself is this. Those who trust him fully will find him wholly true. Those who trust him will find him to be trustworthy. The problem is oftentimes when we're testing God, we expect Him to meet our expectations. And the problem with that is we're not recognizing who He is, who we are, and how we're supposed to be relating to Him. We're confusing that He's the Creator and that we're the creatures. We're under Him. We don't make demands of God. He makes them of us. God actually invites us to ask questions. But it has to be the right disposition, the right posture. The Psalms teach us, go to the Lord and make your request on them. Go to God. How long, O Lord? But it's the right posture with which you ask that, because every time the psalmist ask God, where are you? Have you left me? Look at my enemies. They make their request known to God, but they always end with praise. Because the psalmist have the right posture before God. What is your posture before God? Are you seeking to be under him? Are you seeking to? To listen. Are you seeking to be reproved and corrected or do you stand over God? Saying, God, how can I trust you if you haven't done this for me? Our posture, our disposition, it reveals a lot about us and how we relate to God. Israel's problem is that they're pretending to be God's judge. They're determining if what he's done is right or wrong. Christian, as we think about testing God, we have to remember where we came from. This is Israel's problem. They keep forgetting how bad it was in slavery. They keep forgetting that they were crying out for deliverance. They keep forgetting how great God was in delivering them. They've forgotten That central identification mark that they now have that they are God's people there under his promise. We have to remember we were once dead in our sin. We remember that our central identification mark is that we are in Christ. It is our belief in Christ that connects us to the promises of God and gives us a new identity. It gives us a new king whom we can trust. If you're not a Christian. What is your posture towards God? Do you look at Scripture and try to find out what's wrong with it? Are you looking at Scripture and saying, how can I find God out, or are you asking, how can I find God? Are you seeking to stand over and be the judge of Scripture, or are you seeking the proper posture? And that is, God, would you would you make a right judgment of me? Would you help me to see who I really am and who you have called me to be? See, it's only until we start asking God or start seeing from God that we're sinners that we'll truly be able to grasp and understand who he is as the one gracious God. Let's look to our second section, verses five and six. So here we are three times. Israel has grumbled, they've quarreled, they've complained, they've said we had it so much better in slavery. Three times, if you're reading it, I would expect God to just throw the thunderbolt down and it'd be done with them because they're not getting it. But three times, God is gracious. By his grace, he provides for his people. Look at the commands that he gives to Moses in verse five and six. And the Lord said to Moses, pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb and you shall strike the rock and water shall come out of it and the people will drink. He tells Moses to go ahead of the people. I believe here he's representing to the people of Israel, Moses is your leader. He's going out in front of you. You need to follow him. This is the man that I have appointed for you. This is my means of grace. He sends him ahead with the elders as a representation. You need to be following this man. He tells Moses to strike the rock with his staff and that he will be standing there before him and that he will cause water to gush out. Now it's important to remember this staff represents the power and authority of God. The staff in the ancient Near East, it was a representation of authority and power. And here God has not, it's not a magic staff, but he's made the staff represent the authority and power that he's invested in Moses. So Moses strikes the rock and water bursts forth. Now this isn't Jed clamping, right? This isn't, this isn't all of a sudden he's found the one water source that's found in a rock. God wasn't directing him to where water was and it just needed to be struck. No, he strikes a rock and God causes the water to come forth. Before we move on here to how this is the redemption of the story, I want to make sure you, you should be offended by the sin of Israel. Should be offended by your own sin. You should realize the offense of the sin and see that three times they have complained. Three times God has provided. For us to truly appreciate the redemption of God, we have to see our sin. Without the sin, without the holiness of God being offended by our unrighteousness, we cannot experience the righteousness that is found in Christ. He is amazingly faithful to a people that continue to fail. And that's describing Israel and that's describing us. Let's look at how this rock and the striking of this rock is redemption in the story. First, it points us back to the deliverance from Egypt. He explicitly says, take the staff with which you struck the Nile, take the staff with which you've already delivered the people of Israel, this action is reflecting the deliverance of the Red Sea by striking the rock with a staff and water coming forth. It's it's mimicking, it's echoing the water being parted by the staff already. So it's already reflecting what God has already done. But he strikes the rock particularly, and from this point on in Israel's history, the rock will be a symbol of salvation. Let me read you a few passages. Isaiah mentions God providing through the rock here. He's reflecting back on this passage as a reminder that Yahweh is your Redeemer. He is the Holy One of Israel. Listen as I read Isaiah 48 beginning in verse 17. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, I am the Lord, your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. Oh, that you had paid attention to my commandments. Then your peace would have been like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Your offspring would have been like the sand and your descendants like its drain. Their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me. Go out from Babylon, free from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it. Send it down to the ends of the earth. Say the Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob. They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts. He made water flow from for them from the rock, he split the rock and the water gushed out. As a reminder of how God is going to continue to deliver, though a reminder of God is going to continue to provide, he reflects back on the rock that was split and the water gushing out. Listen to Psalm 105, beginning at verse 39. He spread a cloud for a covering and a fire to give light by night. They asked and he brought quail and gave them bread from heaven in abundance. He opened the rock and water gushed out. It flows in the desert like a river. For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham a servant." Here, this is connected to the promise of Abraham, the promise that he will have a people and that he will keep this people. Even more precisely now, Psalm 89, one of the great Messianic Psalms of Scripture, one of the great Psalms that points us to Christ, the true son of David. He simply says, this one, the Messiah, he shall cry to me, You're my father, my God, the rock of my salvation. He's equating the salvation of God with the rock. The rock is a representation of God's presence with God's people, God's provision for God's people. It's a symbol that God is with Israel, that he is a refuge. They take refuge in the rock. It's a hiding place. The rock is Israel's salvation. That's how it looks back, and then the whole Old Testament, it continues to reflect upon the rock. Well, precisely, let's look at how it points us towards Christ. As Andrew already read to us, let me read just the first four verses in 1 Corinthians 10. For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and the sea. and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them. The rock was Christ. That's what we have to ask here. How is Christ the rock? Does Paul think that Christ in a pre-incarnate state actually became the actual rock? I don't think that's what Paul is thinking or what he's saying here. I believe he's simply saying the rock represents Christ, just like Jesus said, I am the bread of life. You don't think he was the bread, but that he's pointing to that that bread was pointing to him. It represents him. The rock becomes a clear representative of Christ because the rock provided for Israel and now Christ provides for us. First, the way the rock represents Christ. Just as the rock was there in God's presence, so too Christ is God's presence for us. God stood before the rock and caused the rock to break forth as a representation that he is with them and that he is for them. The rock was only special because God stood before it. The rock was only special at this time and at this place because God said, I will cause water to come out of it. Christ is better as a representation or as the perfect presence of God because Christ is God himself who has taken on the form of man. Christ is God himself who took on the form of a man and lived a perfect life. He was with us. That's what we're about to celebrate in Christmas. Emmanuel, God with us. The word who became flesh. The rock was just a passive instrument in this. He was struck, whereas Christ is an active instrument of salvation. The Son descended and took on flesh. The Son actively obeyed the Father in every way. The Son volitionally went to the cross to be the presence of God, to take our punishment. Secondly, Christ is God's presence, but more so God. Christ is God's provision. Every blessing comes down to us from the Father above. And every blessing comes to us through his son, every blessing we have from God is from the father and it's through the son, it is only in Christ that we can be saved. You're not saved by believing God is a father. That doesn't save you by just simply saying God is a good father up there. He gives good gifts. That isn't salvation. You're only saved when you believe that God the Father sent his son to die for you. It's union in him. It's faith in him. It's only through Christ that we receive the provision of salvation, the forgiveness of sins. It's not just belief in God. It's belief that God has sent his son to die for us. Further, just as the rock is declared to be a refuge and a hiding place in the Old Testament, Christ is where we're kept safe. Christ is our refuge. And our enemy isn't another human being. Our enemy, whom Christ is protecting us from, is God himself. Our greatest enemy is God, because we have rebelled against him and his wrath, his righteous wrath, must be against us. It's only as we hide in Christ that we have refuge. Let me explain this more as we think about the fact that the rock was struck. In order for the rock to provide the water, in order for the rock to provide, the rock was struck. That is how Christ becomes our refuge, because he was struck for our transgressions. The staff represents the authority and power of God. When the rock is struck by the power and authority of God, it provides water. When Christ, our rock, is struck, it provides forgiveness. See, that God who took on flesh lived that perfectly righteous life, and He was nailed to the cross as if a sinner. So that when God declares He is a sinner, He hasn't become a sinner. God treats him as a sinner. God pours out his wrath upon that righteous man as if he were a sinner. And that satisfies God's wrath. The wrath that we deserve, Christ takes upon himself. He is struck. He is pierced for our transgressions. He dies the death that we deserve. And what we return, receive and return, is his life. What we receive in return is his righteousness. As God declares him to be as if a sinner, God declares us to be as if innocent, as if righteous. See, baptism this morning, it's representing what we're talking about here. Because it says we're buried in his death and we're risen in his life. When you believe in Christ, you receive the death of Christ and the fact that he has died to sin. He has died for our sin, and therefore we are to die to sin. We believe in Christ. We are part of his resurrection. We have a new life now. For Christians, we must remember this new life. Let the baptism this morning remind you of the new life you have in Christ. If you're not a Christian, watch and listen. Reflect upon the fact that you're a sinner or not. Have you disobeyed God? Have you rebelled against God? Have you ignored God? Have you complained about what God hasn't given you? The worst worse than actually saying vocally, God, you haven't given me this is actually ignoring him altogether for all the good gifts he's given you. We've all sinned. If you're not a Christian, your sin is against you and therefore God's wrath is against you. You must believe in Christ, in him alone, the wrath of God is removed. Finally, our last section, God provides reminders. He names this place Meribah and he names the place Masah, the testing and the grumbling. He wants them to remember every time they see this place on a map, every time they go by it, there are grumbling people who test God. And there's a purpose for their reminder. It's a reminder of how sinful we are. It's a reminder of how gracious God is. As we conclude, let me continue with our application of how to get the grumble out. So after every one of the sermons, we've ended with some application. The first one was be warned by Israel's example. That's actually seen there in first Corinthians 10. These things happened to them for our benefit is what Paul tells us. We should look at Israel and see how they grumbled and see that their example of a warning to us. The second way was to be encouraged by Christ's example. Look to Christ, our model, who bore the pain of death, knowing that that suffering would lead to our righteousness. We are to endure through suffering, to participate in the suffering of Christ. Last week, we said, keep your sin quiet. We have to learn to quiet our sinful hearts, to quiet the grumbling that wants to come out. And then we say, we've got to be thankful. So you stop saying the sinful things and you start declaring the thankfulness to God. Well, this week, I want to combine these two. We need to learn to wait patiently and expectantly. That's when we grumble, whenever things are happening fast enough for us, when we're not getting exactly what we want, when we want it. We have to learn to wait upon God. to remain under trials, to remain hopeful in Him. The waiting expectantly, I think, is really what I want to focus on here. We have to learn to wait, expecting God to do what is best for us in His best timing. As I've wrestled with the waiting expectantly, I found the best comment from Jeremiah Burroughs. And this is what he says the mystery of Christian contentment is. The most content Christian must simultaneously be the most unsatisfied. That's a great paradox there. The most content Christian must simultaneously be the most unsatisfied. So you're most content when you realize that this world has nothing that can satisfy you. You're most content when you actually realize that engaging in sin, Entertaining sin, learning and being committed to sin, it brings no satisfaction. The most content Christian at one level is the most unsatisfied because he sees that nothing in this world can delight him, can bring true enjoyment. A soul that's capable of God cannot be content with this world. We grumble when we think we deserve better. But the true mystery is we realize what we truly deserve and know that nothing in this world can satisfy us. Lastly, this final thought from Burroughs. This is the great mystery. This is the how to be content. We do not grow more content by adding something, but by subtracting. Sometimes we think, I'll be more content if I get this. If I only were in this stage of life, I would be content. If I would just have this, I would be more content. That's how we are trained to think, because the more we have, the better we're supposed to be. Christianity, it's exactly the opposite, because we grow to be content by subtracting, and it's subtracting, it's repenting of sinful desires. If we're removing from ourselves the idea that we actually need something. If we're removing from ourselves a desire that if we had this, I would be happy. We must subtract from our desires. Subtract the idea that we need something in this world to make us happy and recognize that it's only Christ who makes us happy. Friends, as we conclude our grumbling series, Don't worry, there's plenty of grumbling left in Scripture. Israel never stops failing. Israel never stops grumbling. And the best news is God never stops caring for them. God is always with them. God is always for them. This is the beauty of the Christian gospel. Even while we were sinners, God was gracious to us. Even while we were sinners, God loved us. It's not how good we are that makes God appreciate us and take us in. It's how loving and good he is. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father. Forgive us for our complaining. Forgive us for our grumbling. Forgive us for taking your blessings for granted. Forgive us for taking your blessings and using them for sin. Teach us, O Lord, to be thankful, to rejoice, to stop wanting the things of this world and to recognize that our hearts will only truly be satisfied by your righteousness. Teach us to hunger and thirst for that righteousness that's found in Christ. Thank you. Thank you for your patience with us. Test us, O God. Train us to worship you. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.