God, I've Had Enough

Thank you. My name is Mark, one of the pastors. I'm so glad that you joined us here as part of church today, and if you're joining us over in venue or online, Public Access TV, welcome. We're so glad that you're with us here as well. I invite you to take out your message notes as we continue in our summer series, Authentic, and while you're doing that, I want to thank Mike Romberger for bringing such a powerful message last weekend. Let's thank him to a nice church. It's such a joy to have him here and also, you know, Elizabeth has been on our staff all of about three weeks. Isn't she awesome? Are you glad? We are so blessed to have so many talented musicians and just so charming. Not only that, but by my last count, there are now officially seven redheads on the staff of Twin Lakes Church. We are taking over this place, so that's pretty awesome. I know that's one of the things that draws you to this place.

We were up in Lake Tahoe last week, which is one of our favorite places on all the planet. As you've heard me mention before, for about the last two years, it's been our goal as a family to climb to the top of Mount Tlaak. If you know the Tahoe area, it's that iconic mountain you see on screen; it looms over the south shore. I've been up there twice before but never with my children. Last year, we were up there with the express goal of climbing Mount Tlaak, but on the day before, we were just going to spend a relaxing day at the beach to acclimate to the elevation. As we're driving to the beach, my boys Jack and Luke are goofing off in the backseat of the car until suddenly I hear this loud crack, which was the sound of Jack's elbow connecting with his little brother's nose, and the nose lost.

Now, I'm not a doctor; I don't play one on TV, but it was clearly broken. It actually turned out to be broken quite badly, and I'm thinking the backseat of the car really—somehow boys find a way, just the way it is. So, long story short, we had to punt on our plans to climb Tlaak last year. This summer, it was number one on our list of things to do, and we were staying in a cabin we'd never been in before—a beautiful cabin. In the great room of it, it had these huge triangular trusses made out of these big beams, really impressive. We've been there probably all of about 20 minutes when my son Jack decides to jump up and hang from one of the cross beams. Then he starts going hand over hand like this, like he's going to be, you know, America's next ninja warrior, until his thumb connects with a rough patch of wood and he gets the biggest splinter I've ever seen in my entire life.

I've got pictures of it, but I'm not going to show them to you because it will gross you out. I mean, calling it a splinter really doesn't do it justice; it's more like a spear. It's like this, I don't know, four and a half, five-inch shard of wood that was going through the bottom of his thumb and coming out the top. Yeah, good times. Here we are again, like, are you serious? Luckily for Jack, I grew up watching a lot of Westerns, and you know what I'm talking about. If people get shot by arrows, what do they do? They break off one end and pull it out through the other, right? Totally works. The thing came out nice and clean. Jack sounded like he was having a baby—closest he'll ever come to that. I can see some of you are looking at me with a bit of horror because you're like, Mark, you really should have sought proper medical attention. Well, we did, and then all's well that ends well. Sometimes you have to do what you got to do in the moment.

By the next morning, his thumb was already healing up quite nicely. Then, about two days after that, under a beautiful blue sky and the beauty of the blue lake below us, me, Jack, Luke, and Anna all reached the top of Mount Tlaak together. It was so fun; it was awesome—the best views of Tahoe you'll ever see up there. Now, you might be wondering, well, why do I share all this? Well, we're family, and to be honest, next time we go on vacation, I beg you to pray for us because obviously we need it—vacation disasters. But more to the point for this morning, it's because just like our past week, the journey of faith is ever and always a journey—a journey with peaks and valleys and everything else in between, including the occasional sharp stick. It's all part of the journey.

One of the things that we saw on our hike were several people who never made it to the summit. Maybe they weren't totally prepared; it turned out to be harder than they thought. At some point along the way, they turned around and marched back down to where they had started. Now, to do that on a hike, that's one thing. I mean, that could be called wisdom—knowing your limitations. But it's another thing in our journey of faith when God has called you down a particular path in life. Maybe he's called you towards a particular ministry, an area of service, a change that you know you need to make. It's an issue of obedience or whatever it is. You plunge down that path, and at some point, you realize this is actually harder than I thought.

You may even come to a point where you are so miserable that your only option seems to turn around, and you want to get back to that place you were before you ever embarked on that journey, before you ever stepped out with high hopes and expectations. Now, if you have ever felt that way, or if you feel that way even this morning, some area of your life is like a stick a fork in me; I am done. If that's you, you may be surprised this morning to discover that this very same thing happened to one of the most famous people in the entire Bible. In fact, he is Israel's most celebrated and legendary leader—a guy named Moses. Moses, the one who parts the Red Sea, leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. Moses, the one who receives the Ten Commandments and literally talks with God. It is that same Moses who, on a particular day, came to a point in his life and he said, that's it, God, I've had enough.

Now, if that can happen to Moses, that can happen to you; that can happen to me. So, let's see what God's Word has to say to us this morning when we feel like we've had enough. Open your Bibles to the book of Numbers, and if you don't have a Bible, you can use one of those Bibles in the pew rack, or if you're over in venue, I think there's some in the back of the room. You can look it up on your favorite Bible app or follow on the notes or on screen. Numbers chapter 11. Just to orient you in our passage today, our story takes place after the Israelites have left Egypt and gone through the Red Sea and received the Ten Commandments. They've established their tabernacle, and they have begun their long march to the promised land—something that is much harder than any of them expected. Crankiness and complaining are a recurring issue for them, so that's our context.

Now, let's begin starting at verse 4. The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, "If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost, also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. But now we have lost our appetites; we never see anything but this manna." Now, I want you to hit the pause button for just a moment there. My friend Craig Barnes, some of you know him and are friends of his as well, has an excellent message on this passage, and so I'm indebted to Craig for some of my thoughts here this morning. But Craig says this about what we just read, and this is really good. Listen to what he says: he says any prayer that begins with the words "if only" is very dangerous. The greatest danger is that you may receive what you are craving. Then how would you explain your unhappiness?

"If only"—never find yourself thinking that. You might not say it, but you think, "Oh, if only," you can fill in the blank. Then I'd be happy; then I'd be satisfied; then I would be truly fulfilled and content. Yeah, this is why all those lottery winners end up so happy, right? If only. Well, this "if only" episode begins among the Israelites with a group called the rabble. Now, the rabble were not Israelites; they were people who basically jumped in on the parade out of Egypt. They really didn't buy into the journey; they did not buy into Israel's God. But when they start craving other food and expressing their discontent, just like always, bad morale is contagious, and now the Israelites are wailing. They're not just complaining; they are wailing, "Oh, if only we had all those sumptuous meals we used to have back in Egypt!" You know, just back in the good old days—all those wonderful fish and cucumbers and leeks and on and on it goes. And we got it all for free—like really free. It was free to you because you were slaves; they fed you like they fed their cattle. You earned it by the sweat of your brow and back-breaking labor—free! But why all this selective memory? I mean, they make it sound like they were on a cruise in Egypt, you know? It was one amazing buffet after the other.

But look at verse 6: "We have lost our appetite," and you can just as faithfully translate that "our soul" or "our spirit has withered." I mean, it's because of all this manna we have had enough. Now, why are they doing this? Why would they say this after 400 years of slavery? What is going on to them? Why are they looking at it through these rose-colored lenses, pining for Egypt of all places? I'll tell you why. It's the same reason that you and I run back to some of the same sins over and over again. It's why we travel in some of the very same ruts in our lives. The reason is this: write this down—it's because we prefer the slavery we know to the freedom we don't. Slavery is familiar; it's comfortable. It can even become home to you, and God calls you out into freedom, and all of a sudden, you don't know what's going to happen next.

Here's the thing: change is hard. Change will disrupt your life. So you and I, we can be convinced there is a change I need to make in my life; something has to go, a circumstance has to change. Whatever it is, that change will come at some cost. That change will possibly disrupt a relationship; it will disrupt your routine; it may even disrupt your finances or disrupt what other people think of you. Whether it's become a full-blown addiction or you just want to chalk it up to your hard-headedness, the truth of the matter is we prefer the slavery we know to the freedom we don't. This is, by the way, why the first step of recovery begins with an admission of my powerlessness, because we can become powerless to break the hold that Egypt has on us.

So just two very quick takeaways from this passage so far—this is something you can just write in the margins. Number one: be careful what you crave. Be careful what you crave because you may end up getting a lot more than you bargained for. And number two: be careful who you listen to. There are no shortage of people in your life who are happy to play the role of the rabble and stir up your discontent. You know what I'm talking about? The thing is this: the rabble is not just people out there; the rabble is actually in here too—in our own hearts. This is why we need Jesus to come and dwell in our hearts so that our hearts can be changed and healed and set free. I'll be honest; it doesn't happen overnight. You don't get to the promised land of a mature faith in a day or a week or a year. It comes step by step as you learn to follow him day by day by day.

This brings us to the issue of the manna—this mysterious food that God provides for the Israelites. Look what it says in verses 7 through 9: "The manna was like coriander seed and looked like resin. The people went around gathering it and then ground it in a hand mill or crushed it in a mortar. They cooked it in a pot or made it into loaves, and it tasted something like it tasted like something made with olive oil." I love that line there because it's so nondescript, right? "I don't taste it like something made with olive oil." And then watch this: "When the dew settled on the camp at night, the manna also came down." Two quick things about manna. First of all, manna literally in Hebrew means "what is it?" Isn't that great? What is it? I don't know; it tastes like something made with olive oil—that's as close as they can come.

Number two: manna was God's daily provision. Daily provision. Notice verse 9: it says that when the dew would settle on the camp at night, then the manna also came down. So there it is at the beginning of every single day. If you tried to store up more than one day's worth, it would spoil; it would become infested with maggots—except one day a week. The day before the Sabbath, you could collect two days of manna, and it would keep into the second day. Isn't that cool? It's awesome. I mean, it's like how does the manna know what day it is? It just does. God has designed that. Here's the point about manna: manna is really an object lesson in God's grace—grace that doesn't come to us on our terms but grace that comes to us according to our need, and it comes to us in daily doses.

You can't store up a month of God's grace in your life. He meets us on a daily basis. In fact, "what is it?" is a much better prayer than "if only," because "if only" just keeps you from enjoying today, which is the only day you have. Because listen, "if only" defines your life by what's missing, so you're never satisfied. How much better to greet each day with a prayer: "What is it? What is it, God, that you're doing in my life today? What is it that you will provide? Help me to see the manna that you've placed all around me and to be satisfied." That is such a better prayer, and it really leads to my second point because, like I said, God's grace does not come to us on our terms. But, of course, we want it all spelled out. We want to see the journey from beginning to end and everything in the middle, so there's this tension. In other words, we cling to certainty but are called to mystery, and that's really the issue that's simmering underneath this revolt about the manna.

Because the Israelites don't have enough answers. In fact, they have far more questions than answers. They're uncertain; they're worried. They want to see the future that they cannot see, and when any of us get in that place, it is a setup to latch on to something tangible, something concrete—even if it's something as basic as meat. Like, "Oh, if we just had meat, that would just solve everything. Life would just be perfect." It sounds kind of funny; it sounds kind of simple. We do the same thing, right? "Man, if only I had a new phone. You know, I've got a 5C, and my wife has, you know, an iPhone 6. It's bigger; it's newer. Mine's a disaster. If only I had that. If only I had a better car. You know, mine's kind of a clunker. I would—man, life would be—if only I had a better job. If only I had a better spouse. Only—if only, if only, if only." You know what you can do? You can "if only" your way all through your entire life, and when you get to the end, you know what you will say? "If only I had lived my life differently."

Picking up at verse 6: Moses heard the people of every family wailing—there it is again—at the entrance of their tents. The Lord became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled. Now, that little phrase "Moses was troubled"—that has got to be the biggest understatement in the entire Bible because this is where Moses is a little more than just troubled. Moses is going to become totally unhinged here. We're going to see that in a second. But just to be fair, you'll find later in this chapter, if you read it, that it says there are six hundred thousand men on foot as part of this Israelite group here—six hundred thousand able-bodied men. That means there's also women and children and elderly. So you add it all up, just conservatively, we're talking about a couple million people all wailing. There's no place Moses can go where he can't hear it. There is no place to hide. It's "give us meat! Give us meat! Give us meat!" I mean, can you imagine a crowd that size? It kind of reminds me—it might be a little stretch, but it kind of reminds me of being at the Super Bowl this past year. Did you hear that? I'd been to the Super Bowl this last year. In fact, I was actually on the field. Yeah, now if you know about that, it's actually not for me. I've never mentioned it here. You know about it because René has talked about it on a number of occasions, part of his lament, you might even say wailing, that he was not able to go. Dave and I were, but now René's moved on to much better things, like a grandson.

But my point is this: while I'm there, I'm impressed with so many things, especially just the logistics of it all because the security was just over the top. You couldn't imagine more hyper security going on there—the entertainment, the fireworks, the flyover, let alone the game itself. So I'm kind of trying to take all this in, and then it dawns on me: this stadium with all these people, it's also a giant restaurant where 55,000 people are ordering food, and they want it now. It's mind-boggling, but it's nothing compared to the dinner crowd that's assembled around Moses. This is where Moses snaps. This is one of my favorite parts of the whole Bible right here. And this is, by the way, proof to me that this is true because if you're just trying to kind of come up with some, you know, propaganda, you would never write what you're about to read right here. Just follow along starting at verse 11.

Moses says he asked the Lord, "Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? And hold on because he is just getting warmed up here. Watch this: "Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms as a nurse carries an infant to the land you promised on oath to their ancestors? Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, 'Give us meat to eat!' I cannot carry these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me. I found favor in your eyes, and do not let me face my own ruin." No! Wow! Is that one of the most awesome and honest prayers you've ever heard? This is like the money section for some of you right here. This is why God wanted you to be in church because you just needed to see that Moses has freaked out more than you did last week over something in your life. You're like, okay, I'm not alone.

But if you can relate to Moses here on some level—and maybe you relate to it on a very painful level—I can't presume to know what's behind all that, but I can tell you what's going on with Moses here, and perhaps there's a correlation in your own life. Here's Moses's mistake: Moses forgot what his role was. He forgets his role. I mean, did you notice all of the personal pronouns in his prayer? "How can I handle this? Where am I going to get the meat?" I mean, "my, I." Now, wait a minute. Moses, whose job is it to provide for all the people? It's God's, all right? Whose job is it to deliver them into the promised land? It's God's. But Moses—listen to me—Moses has gotten sucked into thinking that his job is to solve everyone else's problems and to make everyone else happy. And the same thing can happen to you and to me. In fact, there are people who will convince you or try to convince you that's exactly your job—to solve their problems. And if you buy into it, it will drive you crazy.

Maybe if you're feeling perpetually overwhelmed today, maybe you might need to clarify what your role is in the lives of people you care about. In fact, this is why this third key is so key for all of us because my job is to bring God my burdens, not to carry God's burdens. And Moses has taken on a burden that belongs to God. Now, let me ask you: is it possible that you might be doing the same thing with someone in your life—with your kids, especially your adult ones—that maybe you're making choices that you're not really happy about? Or maybe with your spouse, and somehow you've become convinced that 100% of their happiness is riding on your back? It's an impossible job description. Or maybe it's in your work or with something someone you really care about. In fact, now I'm just going to let me just give you a little trade secret: people in ministry do this all the time. God calls them to a particular role; he gives them responsibilities, and suddenly it's like the whole thing is riding on their back. Man, if I don't come through, nobody will. No wonder so many people in ministry burn out. That's Moses right here.

Now listen: God has you, and wherever he has you to make a contribution, he wants you to help; he wants you to pray; he wants you to help shoulder the burden for other people. But you have to be clear: there is only one person who can carry the entire load, and it's not you. Moses, though he is so spun out of control here, he can't hear what God is saying to him. God pulls him aside, and in the following verses, he says, "You know, we're going to do a little reorg here, Moses. I'm going to get you some help; we're going to appoint some elders." And he's like, "Yeah, whatever." And then he really gets a rise when God says to him, "And by the way, I'm going to give the people what they're craving. I'm actually going to feed them meat." And Moses goes, "Yeah, right! As if there—you could take every fish out of the ocean, it wouldn't be enough for these people." And that's where God answers in verse 23: "The Lord answered and said, 'Is the Lord's arm too short?'" Not a great line. I mean, Moses, is this really too big of a problem for me? I can't get my arms around it? You know, you're right; I'm stumped.

Here's the temptation: when we can't see a solution, we begin to believe that there is no solution, that it just doesn't exist, that it's even beyond God. I'm not suggesting that God is going to solve every problem the way that you or I might want, but I am saying that God can provide wherever we are in life, in whatever circumstance. God will provide even though we're not able to see it. And so God says, "Moses, I got this; don't worry about it." In the verses that follow, God essentially rains down flocks and flocks and flocks and flocks of quail—so many quail that he says, "You know, Moses, they're not going to eat for just a couple days or a couple weeks; they're going to stuff themselves on meat for a whole month until it comes out their nostrils." And they'll loathe it because they have rebelled not against you, Moses; they've rebelled against me. They have called my goodness into question. And so again, be careful what you crave. Moses has to learn this lesson too; he learns it, I think, in a very hard way because at various points in this journey, including this one, Moses essentially says, "God, free me of this burden leading the people to the promised land." And you know what? He got his wish because on the day the Israelites stepped into the promised land, Moses was not with them.

So let me ask you: what are you craving today? If it's one of those "if only" things, I encourage you to think carefully about that. But maybe you're craving something deeper than that. Maybe you're craving a lighter load because you are weighed down. You are weighed down by grief; you are weighed down by loneliness; you are weighed down by a sense of abiding despair in your life. You are weighed down by choices that you have made in the past and the guilt and the shame and the regret—it is weighing you down. And if that's you today, Jesus Christ offers an invitation to you: Matthew 11:28—he says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Doesn't that sound good? To be able to hand your burdens over to Jesus, to hand your very life over to him because that's the essence of faith—every day saying, "Jesus, here I am; I'm yours. I commit myself to your capable, more powerful, more wise hands. Help me to receive whatever you have for me today, whatever that may be." Again, that's the point of the manna. It is a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, and centuries later, when Jesus is discussing the manna that these people ate with their descendants, Jesus says something bold and shocking. He says in John 6:51, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. I'm the true manna," and he says, "My bread, the bread I give you, is my body, which I will give for the life of the world. I will give for your sins; I will give so that you can be completely restored and reconciled to God." He is our daily provision; he is our sustenance; he is our life. And if he will give his very body, his flesh for us, do you think he will neglect anything else that we truly need?

Do you, church? That means this: it means that we don't have to live in fear or anxiety or constant craving for that next thing because the bottom line is this: when Jesus is my daily bread, I will have all I need. You don't just have to take my word for it. The face that you see on screen, it's a guy named George Mueller. Some of you older saints might know his story. He was a rascal and a thief and a cynic as a young man, as a teenager. He was a cynic of Christianity until one of his friends, when he's starting college, invites him to a Bible study. George goes just because he wants to make fun of the Christians, but to his surprise, a week later, he's on his knees giving his life to Jesus Christ. This is in the 1800s in Germany. About two years into his college career, George decides that he's going to change his career path, and he tells his father he wants to become a missionary. His father is so disappointed with that choice that he says, "You can do what you want, but I will not give you a single cent more to pay for school." So now George goes back to his college dorm, having no idea how he's going to fund his education, but he does something in his dorm room which would become the trademark of his life. He gets down on his knees and he asks God to provide.

An hour later, there's a knock on his door. There's a professor at that college offering him a paid tuition job—just enough to get him through school. After school, he gets invited to go to England to pastor a church, but when he gets there, he finds out the church wants to pay him a pretty good salary from the rent they charge the wealthy members to sit in the front of the church. The cheap seats, the poor people sat in back. Now, clearly, we've changed our minds about what seats are the most valuable, but he says, "If you want me to be your pastor, you can't do that anymore." They said, "Well, if we don't do that anymore, we can't pay you very much." He says, "That's all right; I don't want you to pay me anything." Takes no salary, and yet despite that, his family never missed a meal, and they were always able to pay the rent. But every day, George would walk from his house to the church. He'd walk along the streets, and he would notice these kids who were homeless. They were orphans, and some of them lived in government orphanages where they were treated badly. Many of them just lived on the streets, and he had this growing burden. He felt called to establish an orphanage, and so true to form, he gets down on his knees and he says, "Lord, I need a building; I need people to run it; I need furniture; I need money for food, clothing," so on and so forth. And guess what? God answered his prayer. Many times, food, supplies, money would show up at the last minute, but God always provided.

God didn't just give him a shack; look at that building. And then one morning, the house mother of the orphanage comes to him in a panic and she says, "All of the children—all 300 of them—are dressed and ready for school, but we have nothing to feed them." And so George says, "We'll go have them go into the dining room and sit down." George comes in, prays a prayer of Thanksgiving over the meal they don't have, sits down. What? You confused faces looking at him? A couple minutes later, there's a knock on the front door. It's the local baker who says, "Mr. Mueller, last night I couldn't sleep. Somehow I knew that you would need some bread, and so I baked all these loaves." And guess what? It turned out to be just enough to feed 300 children. A few minutes later, there's another knock on the door. It's the milkman. His milk cart has a broken wheel just coincidentally right in front of the orphanage, and he says, "By the time I fix this wheel, the milk will spoil. Could you use it here at the orphanage?" George Mueller is smiling as the milkman carries in bottle after bottle of milk, and you guessed it—just enough for 300 thirsty children. Over the years, there were 10,000 orphans that would live in the orphanage that George had established that the Lord had given to him. And if those orphans learned anything from their time there at that orphanage, they learned this: they learned that when Jesus Christ is your daily bread, you may not always have everything you want, but you will always have enough. Amen.

Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, thank you for your goodness and your grace. Thank you for how you come to us every day, like the manna; your mercies are new every morning. Lord, I pray that you would help us to see—open our eyes to see and experience what you have for us this day and every day. I pray that, Lord, knowing that there are folks here in this room, next door and venue, listening online or in their homes on TV, wherever you are, however you're hearing my voice. Look, we know there is hurt, and there is sadness, and there is grief, and there is worry, and there is frustration, and there are problems. We see those very clearly. What we struggle to see sometimes is your provision. So, Lord, I pray that you would meet us in our area of need today. I pray that you would further us on this journey of faith. I pray that, God, you would fill us with such a sense of your presence and your provision and your love in our lives that not out of anger but out of a spirit of praise, we would be able to say, "God, I have enough because I have you." It's in the matchless name of Jesus Christ that I pray these things, and all God's people said, Amen.