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Welcome to Mariners Church Weekend Message Podcast. Inspiring people to follow Jesus and fearlessly change the world. Discover your purpose and get connected by visiting MarinersChurch.org or click the link in the show notes.
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All right, that's where we were last week, if we haven't met. My name is Eric. I'm the senior pastor here. I'm really glad that you are are with us today. I'm really proud of you Mariners Church for wanting to study books of the Bible. We started walking through the book of numbers last weekend. We're going to continue that. But before I jump into the message, I want to share some exciting news with you. When you came in today, you were handed this brochure about Mariners hosted here. You likely know that Mariners Church is 12 congregations throughout Southern California. So right now this message is seen that from all of our congregations, but we also have 20 plus Mariners hosted here. So what? What's Mariners hosted here? It's when we take our church to communities of people that we love so much at senior living facilities, homeless shelters, youth military academies, sober living facilities. And we actually have a bit more now than 20 locations that we take Mariners hosted here. And recently we've been invited by Camp Pendleton if we would start hosting Mariners services at Camp Pendleton. And it was really exciting to be invited to do that, to serve the Marines and their families at Camp Pendleton. And so when our Mariners hosted here team, team came to me in the early in the winter and said, hey, we're starting conversations with Camp Pendleton. I said, hey, how about we test it? Let's test it at Easter. And so at Easter, we had our first Mariners hosted here worship services at Camp Pendleton. We had hundreds of Marines and their families come for Easter services, which was really awesome. And then now they've asked us to launch weekly in the fall. And I told our team, our Mariner associate team guys, we don't, it's, we don't have it in the budget. And so I need to know real quick, poll in this moment, do you want a senior pastor who A says it's not in the budget, we can't do it, or who B says, tell them we're doing it and I'll find the money. Don't vote yet. Hold on a second. How many of you, because some of you, you could be just really fiscally conservative. How many of you are A, you want A, you would. You want me to say no? How many of you would say, a, anybody. Did I see a hand? Anybody? Anybody? And then how many B, you want me to say let's just do this thing. That's what I thought you would say, so I said yes. But now I gotta find the money, which is why I'm talking to you right now. You want me to do this? You just told me you want me to do this. So June is year end giving now. I'm not talking to you if you are a guest. If Mariners is your church, then June is an important month. We budget to take in a significant portion of your generosity in the month of June. But this June is even more important because we are going to invest in the startup cost to launch Mariners at Camp Pendleton in the fall. And so I invite you to give to your church during the month of June. There's an offering envelope in the brochure, but you could also give online. All right, let's jump in. Lord Jesus, I pray that you would use your word to encourage your sons and daughters today. It's in your name I pray. Amen. Amen. I don't want to offend you, but no offense, but don't take this personally, but you always know when a. When a sentence begins like that, that whatever follows the but is going to be really confrontational. And it's especially painful if the person ends it with bless your heart. Where I grew up in the south, bless your heart's like a curse word. It's essentially, you're an idiot. Don't take personally the complaint. You're an idiot. Complaining is on the rise, and the ridiculousness of the complaints are on the rise, at least according to Andrew Sheridan. He is a famous chef. He's known as the best chef that's ever come out of North Wales. He has multiple acclaimed restaurants. He's loved being a chef, at least until recently. He says recently the complaints have just gotten out of hand. And the number of people complaining, it's just. It's starting to wear on him as a chef. He gave several examples. One, this woman comes into the restaurant and she says, the food was amazing, the wine was awesome, the service was so great, but there was a beam that was in my view. And he's like, the beam holds up the roof of the building we lease. Like, there's nothing I can do about the beam. Some others reviewed that. They loved the food, they loved the menu, Everything was great. But on the way to the restaurant, they got a ticket for driving in the bus lane. He's like, I didn't drive in the bus lane. And so the complaints are now of things happening outside the restaurant. They bring into the restaurant. He's like, this is ridiculous. Complaining is just on the rise. And he's not the only one who has noticed this. Arizona State University in 2025 did a rage study. This has been done every year for many years. And they concluded, based on all of the survey respondents, that 50% of the people said in the last year they have raised their voice over a complaint. 55% believe that customer incivility is growing, which is really ironic. That 55% say this is not good. And some of them raise their voice over a complaint. Do you see? Just do the math. 76% said they were frustrated with a product or service in the last year. Now, this is double what it was in 1976, meaning people are complaining doubly more now than they were in 1976. Now some say, of course, of course there's more complaints. There's more products and services to complain over. Others say, no, there's something going on within our collective soul. There's a sickness beneath the surface that we're just complaining so much more. Now doctors and psychologists agree that complaining is not good for us at all. Stanford recently released some research that was published in Fast Company magazine that if you will complain 30 minutes a day, you'll completely rewrite, rewire your brain to where complaining becomes just more and more easy. Some of you perhaps complain so much you don't even see you're complaining. It just happens so easily for you. Stanford also released in this study that by complaining 30 minutes a day, you actually lower your problem solving ability and your cognitive function. I'm going to be honest, some of us can't afford to be complaining, if you know what I'm saying. And it's not only your complaining, it's the complaining of others that actually will seep into your mind and rewire your brain. Guy Winch released the book the Squeaky Wheel, and he advocates in his book, he's a doctor and researcher, that there is a healthy way to complain. That a healthy way to complain is if someone has offended you or if you have a struggle, that you should go directly to the person, not to anyone else. You should go directly to the person and share with the person. Just between the two of you. Huh?
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Huh?
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Just like Jesus said. I always find it fascinating when sociology catches up to theology, when research catches up to what Jesus said 2,000 years ago, that if you have a struggle, you go directly to the person. But according to his research, 95% of people don't do that. They don't go to the person. They go to other people. And according to his research. When you do so, your frustration and your bitterness and your anger is 10 to 12 times higher than it was before. You voice the complaint. So complaining is hurting people. It's damaging people. Now some people will say, well, it's kind of like it's my personality. I'm just really good at spotting the things that need to be fixed. I had a friend one time during a personality test say, hey, wouldn't it be wise if after we all take our personality test? Because I'm not against personality tests at all. I think that can be helpful. But he said, wouldn't it be wise if we all repented? Because sometimes in a personality test, people will look at the data from their own test and say, well, this just explains how I am, how I am. And he's saying, shouldn't we at some point repent of the negative parts of our personality? So if you struggle with complaining, the passages that we study today, I think they will help you see the damage that you were doing to your own soul. We're in the book of Numbers, and we're gonna see a complaining people in the middle of the wilderness. Now, let me remind you, why are we studying the Book of numbers? It's a book in the Bible that describes life in between in the wilderness. The people were rescued from Egyptian slavery in the book of Exodus, and then they are brought into the promised land in the book of Joshua. In between is the book of Numbers. Forty years in the wilderness. This is also a metaphor for you of exactly where you are. If you're a Christian, you've been rescued from slavery in Egypt, you've been rescued, and one day you're gonna be brought into everlasting life. But right now, you are in the middle. You are not yet where you will be, yet you're not where you once were. You're in the wilderness. And God did not leave his people alone when they were in the wilderness. And God's not leaving you alone. He's with you. Yet there's challenges in the wilderness. And these people you're gonna see are challenged with people around them that are. That are complaining. And so let's jump in. We're in numbers, chapter 10. Today we ended in chapter nine last week, page 42 in the magazine that we passed out to you. Chapter 10 ends really beautifully. Remember that God's people camped around a big tent known as the Tabernacle. And within that tent was the Ark of the covenant. Within the Ark of the Covenant were the ten Commandments, God's self disclosure of who he is. You've heard of the Ten Commandments? They were housed in the Ark of the Covenant in the tent. And every time they moved throughout the wilderness, the tent was picked up. Moses, their leader, the same leader who led them out of Egyptian slavery, says this. Whenever the Ark set out, Moses would say, arise, Lord. Let your enemies be scattered, and those who hate you flee from your presence. When it came to rest, he would say, return, Lord, to the countless thousands of Israel. So this is awesome. They're in the wilderness, and they know God's presence is with them. They are not alone. But then, real quickly, we turn the page to chapter 11, and things go downhill really fast. Chapter 11, verse 1. Now, the people began complaining openly before the Lord about hardship. Now notice, they're complaining, but they're not struggling inside and asking God for help. They are complaining openly before the Lord about their hardships. When the Lord heard, his anger burned and fire from the Lord blazed among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp. Then the people cried out to Moses, and he prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down. So that place was named Tabara because the Lord's fire had blazed among them. This is God's word. I want to stop here for a moment. I confess that this is a shocking passage. I've been a Christian for a long time, and I read this passage, and I'm shocked by two things. I'm shocked at how fast the people forgot they had begged God to be rescued from Egyptian slavery. And now, 18 months in, they are complaining about their hardships. They've forgotten what God has done for them. It's shocking how fast we can forget, how fast I can forget. It's also shocking when you read this text, how serious God takes complaining. I must confess that many times in my life I viewed complaining as a small sin that can. I don't have to deal with it right now. In my own life, I have not viewed complaining as this major offense before God. And I confess that as a leader, both in the marketplace and in ministry, there are other sins that I'm quick to address, that I'm quick to call out on the team that I'm leading. But I have oftentimes shrugged at complaining, thinking it's just going to get better, or the person's attitude's going to perhaps get better. But God takes complaining very serious. Why? Because he knows what the research has already now showed that complaining could ruin people. It can ruin each person. And secondhand complaining is like secondhand smoke. It can corrupt you as well. And he knows that this complaining can corrode the entire covenant community that he's building. And so I must confess it's a bit shocking how angry God gets at the complaining. That he sends fire down from heaven because he's trying to purify the people from their complaining. This, it's. It's shocking. And this starts a pattern that you're gonna see in chapter 11 and chapter 12. You'll see three accounts, real stories. And these accounts are so explicit they're even mentioned in the New Testament. But you'll see a pattern. There's complaining in all three stories. You'll see complaining and then God's anger is expressed in judgment. And then Moses, their leader, goes to God and he's the mediator between God and people. He represents the people to God and God to the people. And he says, God, please show mercy to these people. And then God relents. So they first start complaining about their hardships, about life in the wilderness. Do you ever complain about life in the wilderness? It's where you are right now. You're in between your rescue and everlasting life. Do you complain about life in the wilderness? But they didn't only complain about their trials. They also begin to complain about their provision. Now God had promised to provide for them just like he promises to provide for you. He is more committed to you than you are to Him. You are on the journey and he's going to meet all of your needs according to his riches and glory. These people were rescued from Egyptian slavery. They're in the wilderness, they're going to need to eat. And God promises to provide for them. If you study the scripture, you see that what he provides for them is called manna. That every morning they would wake up, they would walk outside of their tent and there would be bread manna waiting on the ground with the dew of the morning delivered door dashed by God to them every morning. I mean, all they had to do was open up the tent, walk out. Wow. There is food that we didn't pay for delivered by God to us with no service charge and no upcharge. It is free. I don't like doordash. My kids sometimes want to doordash Mendocino Farms a salad. And I said, yeah, but then I get the bill and I'm like, that is crazy. The upcharge, the service charge, no more doordashing in this house. We are not a door dashing family. But God's not that way. He's really gracious. He's let. He's door dashing Free manna to his sons and daughters in the desert every day. But they complained about their hardships, and now they're going to complain about what he provides. Look at verse four. The riffraff among them. I just. I love the translation. The riffraff. The riffraff among them had a strong craving for other food. So they wanted more than what God gave them. Do you ever want something different than what God gives you? I, I, I want a different job right now. I want a different relationship. I want a different season in life. I don't like the season that I'm in. I, I was supposed to be married by now or engaged by now or a different place in my career. I don't like where I am right now. I want something different. I want a different couch for my living room. I want a different car. I want a different this. I want a different that. Sometimes our longing for something different causes us to complain. The riffraff among them had a strong craving for other food. The Israelites wept again and said, who will feed us meat? We remember the free fish we ate in Egypt along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. But now our appetite is gone. There's nothing to look at but this manna. They start to complain about what God gave them, and they complain themselves into being sick. The research that says if you complain or if you're exposed to complaining for 30 minutes a day, that it actually rewires your brain and makes you a sick person. We see that on full display here. They actually lose their appetite because they complain so much. They complain themselves into being sick, and they also complain themselves into being foolish. Remember what Stanford research says? That you actually lower your cognitive function. How do we know they've become foolish? Because of what they say. What they say is so foolish. Notice they say we remembered the free fish we had in Egypt. This is crazy talk. Free fish you had in Egypt. I mean, hopefully one of us, if we were there, would have said, hold on a second, guys, this is going too far. Free fish. We were slaves in Egypt. There was nothing free about the fish we ate. We worked all day long, and so that we would have enough energy to work more the next day, they would give us fish we gave our children in child labor and they worked all day long. And you're now calling what they gave you free? This is ridiculous what complaining is doing to you. It's causing you to not to even understand reality. It wasn't free fish. Scholars point out that the food they say they want from Egypt all is grown on the ground or below the ground. The melons, the leeks, the fish. Below the ground in the Nile River. They're saying to God, we don't want what you give from above. We want what our captors give from the ground. We don't want what you provide. We want what they gave us. This is so offensive to God. They are saying to God, you don't treat us as well as our evil slave captors. They treated us better than you. Moses is blown away by what they're saying. So he goes to God and says, God, I'm going to sum up the rest of chapter 11 right now. Moses goes to God and says, God, I'm so sorry. I can't. I can't represent these people anymore. Kill me. Take me out. I don't want to do this anymore. I didn't father these. These people. I'm not their mom. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not their parent. I don't want to. I'm not responsible for them anymore. God, you can have this job back. I don't want it. God says to Moses, I'm going to raise up 70 others who will help you lead the people and carry the burden with you. And Moses says, okay, but God, they're asking for meat. I don't even know where to get meat from. How do I even get meat? I don't know where to get meat. God says, is my arm too short? Just watch what I'm going to do. And so God causes quail to fly into the encampment, and the quail fall and die. The scripture says, 3ft deep, covering the ground, 3ft deep. There's so much quail. The people get up and they go outside their tent. And those who've been craving meat are like, yes, we have meat. The quail is here. The what they have been longing for, they get. They start to eat the quail. And before they even swallow, as the quail is still in their teeth, God sends a plague, and many of them die. See, the worst thing that happened to them is they got exactly what they wanted. And oftentimes, the worst thing that can happen to you is you get exactly what you wanted. They named the place the Grave of Craving. That what they craved ended up leading to their death. And what you crave at times, what I crave at times is often what's not best for us. And sometimes God gives us judgment, not with fire from heaven, but with allowing us to get the very thing that we longed for that actually destroys us Some of you, perhaps so badly crave to be accepted by a group of friends. Maybe you're a high school student or a college student and you, like, want so badly to be in with this group. And you want to be accepted so much by this group of people. And if you're not careful, you'll crave it so much that you'll be willing to compromise who you are and you'll get accepted, but you'll become the person you never wanted to be. Your craving will end up being the grave of who you really are. Some of you so badly perhaps want a relationship. You thought you'd be engaged by now, or married by now, or in a serious relationship by now. And you, you can be tempted to crave that relationship so much that you would lower your standards of the kind of person that you're going to give yourself to. And if you lower your standards and you enter into a relationship, perhaps you will find that what you craved ended up being your grave. Because this is not the relationship you really wanted. This is the person that you know God has for you. Perhaps some of you long for an escape so badly you crave an escape from the pain that you're in right now because you are in the wilderness in a severe trial, and you long for an escape. And if you aren't careful, you'll so badly crave the escape that you'll throw yourself into something that can destroy you. You're craving to numb your pain, so you can crave the bottle or you can crave drugs. You can crave to lay in your bed at night and spend an hour scrolling social media just to get your mind off of your pain. But it ends up being your grave because it takes you further and further down a spiral of anxiousness and of worry. What you crave can become your grave. And so these people are saying, God, we want more than what you have for us. They're complaining. And they're complaining in the first two accounts of their complain is growing and growing. At this point, you would think, surely they would stop complaining. Would you stop if you were them? If you were there that day in the wilderness, you had camped around the presence of God, you could look up and see a cloud over the tabernacle, and you knew that God's presence was there. And when you heard complaining, you saw God send fire from heaven. Would you stop? If he sent quail and it led to a plague, would you stop? I would think the people are going to stop. But if you turn the page to numbers, chapter 12, there's a third account. They don't stop. They first have complained about their trials. They then complained about God's provision. And now they're going to play complain about their leaders. This is Numbers, chapter 12, verse 1. Miriam and Aaron are the brother and sister of Moses. And the scripture says Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because of the kushite woman he married. For he had married a kushite woman. They said, does the Lord speak only through Moses? Does he not also speak through us? And the Lord heard it. Moses was a very humble man, more so than anyone on the face of the earth. This is God's word. Now I want to explain this text to you. There's some beauty in this passage. Moses married a kushite woman. A cushite woman was a non Israelite. And scholars point out that she was very dark skinned, the region of the world that she is from a cushite woman. And so here's an early indication of God pulling people from every tribe, tongue and nation into his covenant community. This is Moses, an Israelite marrying a cushite woman. But we also see an early indication in the scripture of ethnic discrimination that the brother and sister of Moses are saying, why did you marry her? We don't like that you married this kushite. And they're also complaining that God why, why does Moses think you're the one who speaks to him and he speaks to you? Can't we speak to him to you as well? Why does Moses get to be the leader? They're essentially complaining. And God takes up the offense of Moses and sends another plague, a skin disease, to Moses sister Miriam. And just as the pattern has been displayed in the previous two stories, it repeats here. Moses goes to God and asks God to relent. And God relents and says, miriam's going to stay outside the camp for seven days. But go has sent judgment Once again. The people kept complaining. What about you? You are surrounded by a culture of complaining right now. I think our struggle would maybe even be more intense than their struggle because our culture has been built now for complaining. There wasn't an app where you would leave a review for the mana. There's apps developed to help us complain. We are, we live in a culture now where it's like voice, everything, voice it all voice your. We are in a culture of complaining. These people complained and God took it very seriously. Now I, as I prepared this passage, I really struggled with this text. I'm like, wow, God, I, I see with fresh eyes how serious you take complaining. But I'm wrestling With. There's times in Scripture in the Psalms where you welcome complaints and God. I've been a pastor that have told. I've told people God to bring their complaints to you. There's psalms where David goes to God and says, God, I don't understand. How long are you going to let this go on? God, this is not fair. It seems like evil people prosper and good people who follow you are not prospering. This doesn't make sense. God, I've taught the people I shepherd, I've taught them to bring their complaints to God. And I read this passage and you're taking complaining very serious. I want to be a wise shepherd who shepherds your people. Well, how do I. How do I help? You know how to complain than when to complain. Because there are psalms that say, bring your complaints to God. And now we see numbers where if you, if you complain, fire's coming out from heaven. What's the difference between the two? Here's the difference. I've spent a lot of time thinking and praying and reading on the difference between the two. The Psalms are accounts of people bringing their complaints with life in the wilderness to God, but they're holding on to God being good. I know you're good. I'm wrestling with this hold on your faithful love, but I wrestle. This is right. This is unjust. This isn't fair. This is betrayal. This is painful. Fix this, God. But I trust you. Numbers in the wilderness is the exact opposite. It is not. This world is crooked and broken and evil. It is, I shudder to say it, I'm quoting them. It is them saying to God, you're evil, you're twisted, you're crooked. You are ungracious and unkind and unloving, and look what we have because of who you are. That's why God takes that complaining so seriously. Now, what do we learn today from this? The New Testament references these epic accounts multiple times. The apostle Paul is going to tell you, hey, listen, you should learn from this and don't grumble. This is what he says in First Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 5 and 10. In the new Testament, God was not pleased with most of them since they were struck down in the wilderness. And don't grumble, as some of them did and were killed by the destroyer. So the Apostle Paul in the New Testament says to us Christians, listen, read the Book of Numbers and you should walk away saying, I'm not going to be a grumbler. I'm not going to go out like that. That's not who I'm going to be. I'm not going to let grumbling destroy me. Jesus references the story as well. You perhaps read these words of Jesus, but I think you'll read them with fresh eyes now that you've read the account in numbers. Jesus says this, my Father gives you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Then they said, sir, give us this bread always. I am the bread of life. Jesus told them, no one comes to me. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry. And no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again. So Jesus is speaking to people whose ancestors had the manna in the wilderness. And Jesus says, I'm the true bread. I'm the living bread. If you believe in me, you'll never be hungry again. Now remember, in the wilderness, the people, when they received the physical bread, what did they do? They grumbled. They complained. Jesus arrives and Jesus says, he's the living bread. And it's shocking what the people do notice. Therefore the Jews started grumbling about him. The sin is repeating itself. The Jews started grumbling about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They were saying, isn't this Jesus, son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, I've come down from heaven? The people in the wilderness received physical bread from the Father and they complained about it. The people in Jesus day had an opportunity to receive the living bread, and they grumbled about him and they missed him. Jesus wasn't enough for them in the wilderness. The bread, the manna from heaven, wasn't enough for the people. They wanted something else, something more. In their minds they sought something better, they thought, than the bread that God the Father sent them from heaven. Then God the Father sends Jesus the living bread here. And the people wanted something different than Jesus. They wanted something, something in their mind better than Jesus or more than Jesus. And the question for us, the question for you, is Jesus enough for you? Is he enough for you, the living bread who came down from heaven? Is he enough for you? He entered this world because he loved you. He entered this world to seek you, to go after your heart. And if you believe in him, he satisfies the deepest longing of your soul. Is he enough, the one who entered this world and placed himself on the cross to take away your sin and your shame and place it upon Himself to give you all of his forgiveness? Is that living bread enough for you? He offered his body for you on the cross. Is he enough? So if you want to not be a grumbling person, there's just one way, and I trust that you don't want to be a grumbling person. You're a sophisticated crew. You read the research from Stanford. You're like, I don't want that. I don't want to be ruined and foolish. I don't want my cognitive ability to go down. I don't want to be miserable. I don't even want secondhand complaining entering into my mind. I don't want that. I don't want to be a grumbling person. There's one way to fight the grumbling. Gratitude destroys grumbling, or grumbling destroys gratitude. You can be a grumbling person or you can be a grateful person, but you cannot be both. You can't be both. You can't be grateful and grumble at the same time. You're either going to be a grumbler or you're going to be grateful. I want to be grateful, Eric. But the wilderness journey's tough, and it is. Some of you are in a severe trial right now. You feel alone right now. You are in pain right now. You get the metaphor, that you're not what you used to be. You've been rescued, but you're not yet an everlasting life. You're in between. You're in the wilderness. The wilderness. And there are things in the middle, things to complain about. So how do I fight my complaining? How can I be grateful when things are so hard? Here's where they went wrong and where you can correct. They forgot where they were rescued from. They forgot what they were rescued from. They called it free fish. It was slavery. They forgot what they were rescued from, and they forgot the promise that was in front of them. The way to be grateful in the present is to remember what you were rescued from in the past and what your promises in the future. The way to be grateful right here in the present is to remember what you were rescued from in the past. If you have become his, if you have believed in Him. You were spiritually dead according to the scripture, and Christ in His great love, made you alive. You were lost in Christ in His great love, the bread who came down. He came down to find you. You were lost, and now you've been found. You were blind, and now you see. You have been changed. You are a new creation in Christ. He's taken all of your sin and shame and cast it as far as the east is from the west. If you want to be grateful in the present, you look back and you remember that your Savior, Jesus has rescued you from all of your sin and shame, that he took the anger against your sin and instead of lighting you up, he absorbed it in his flesh. He absorbed the holy wrath of God against sin in his own flesh for you. So there's no anger of God left for you. There's only mercy and grace left for you. You look back and you remember the grace of Jesus in your past, that he has rescued you and forgiven you of everything. You look back and you remember his rescue and you look forward and you remember the promise. You are in the middle right now. There's pain, but one day he's returning. And when he returns and when he brings you into everlasting life, there will be no more divorce, no more betrayal, no more cancer. There'll be no more disappointment, no more heartache, no more internal angst and depression, no more anxiousness. He's going to return. And behold, he says, I will make all things new. He will wipe every tear from every eye of the sons and daughters of God. And he will take the crooked lines in this messed up broken world and make them straight. And everything will be made brand new. So you wrestle with gratitude in the present, in the wilderness, you just look back and remember your rescue and you look forward and remember your promise. And your gratitude will fight your grumbling. So be grateful. The scripture says, be grateful. We're going to look backward together by taking communion and remembering our rescue. Lord Jesus, I pray as we take this cup and we partake in this bread that we will remember your sacrifice for us, your grace for us. In your name I pray. Amen. If you'll peel the first layer, you'll get to the bread and the second layer will take you to the cup. Go ahead and peel both and then you can follow my lead. I will lead us in taking this together. I love that we're taking communion as we're studying the Book of Numbers, because communion is built on the foundation of the Passover. When Jesus gathered with his disciples to take communion, they were gathering to take the Passover. And Jesus changed the meaning of the meal, the Passover God's people had been taking for hundreds of years after they had been rescued from Egyptian slavery. The very first Passover meal was right after their rescue from Egypt. If you want to read about it later, it's in the book of Exodus and Exodus, chapter 12. God had told his people, hey, I'm going to rescue from Egypt. And it's Going to be in an awe inspiring, shocking way. There were a series of plagues. The 10th plague was the most devastating. God sent an angel of death to pass through the entire land of Egypt. And every home that wasn't marked, God would kill the firstborn son in that home. Would cause all the Egyptians the next morning to wake up and weep and mourn and tell God's people, leave, please leave. You're free, Leave. We don't want you anymore. Leave. But before God sent the angel of death to pass throughout Egypt, he told God's people in Exodus chapter 12, hey, buy a lamb on the 10th day of Nissan, the 10th day of the month. And then on the 14th day of the month, slaughter the lamb and take the blood and put it on doorpost. And when the angel of death passes through Egypt, the blood of lambs on doorposts will be the signifying mark that you're mine. So Jesus then comes. So since that day, Jewish people have taken the Passover. Jesus enters and says, from now on, this Passover meal, it's gonna, it's gonna be different because we're not remembering. The blood of lambs on doorpost. Jesus is called in scripture the Lamb of God, whose sacrifice is all sufficient. So we don't go home this afternoon and put blood on our doorpost. The blood of the Lamb of God. Jesus covers our life. And if you've believed in him, the signifying mark that you're his and that no wrath is left for you, is that you've received his sacrifice. His blood covers all of your sin and shame. And so when Jesus went to the cross and died for you, as he died, all of your sin was taken off of you if you've believed in him and it was placed in his flesh. So take a moment and hold the bread and thank Jesus for offering his body for you. The cup represents his blood which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Take a moment and thank him for shedding his blood to forgive you, that he died for you. So thank him for his blood. Jesus took the bread and he said, this is my body which is given for you. Take and eat. Jesus then took the cup and he said, this is the blood of my new covenant which is poured out for you. Take and drink. Jesus, we are so grateful for what you've done for us. You took our sin and our shame away from us. You made us your own through your perfect sacrifice on our behalf. Thank you for absorbing all of the anger against our sin in your flesh. So there's only grace left for us now. We want to sing of your sacrifice with grateful hearts because we're grateful people. In your name I pray. Amen. Grateful people sing. Let's stand and let's sing to our Savior Jesus who's rescued us all. Right, extend your hands, please, and let me pray a prayer of blessing over you as we go. Jesus, I pray you'd bless your sons and daughters this week that you would remind them that you were gentle and approachable and that you love them, cause your face to shine on them. I pray they will experience your mercy and your joy this new week. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Go in peace. Have a great week.
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