McDonald’s has an online employee handbook called the McResource.

The purpose of the site was to provide employees with helpful life advice so that their lives outside their jobs were less stressful, which of course, for McDonald’s, would make better employees.

McDonald’s shut the website down a little less than 3 years ago.

Not because it wasn’t well meaning. I actually applaud an organization for trying to help their employees in their personal lives.

There were lots of problems with the McResource website. Like the advice it gave about how much you should tip a pool cleaner or a housekeeper...even when the majority of McDonald’s employees make minimum wage. Its doubtful that very many McDonald’s employees have a pool cleaner to tip.

Then, there was the terribly ironic eating advice.
Take a look at this picture from the McResource website.
Do you see the irony? That unhealthy food looks A LOT like McDonald’s own food. That picture was accompanied by this statement.

"Fast foods are quick, reasonably priced, and readily available alternatives to home cooking. While convenient and economical for a busy lifestyle, fast foods are typically high in calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar, and salt and may put people at risk for becoming overweight."

McDonald’s itself is recognizing the epidemic they are feeding. “Our food is fast, cheap, and readily available...but in the long run...its killing you.”

Its even telling its employees, “Don’t eat our food! You need home cooking!
You need something that is not quick and may be terribly inconvenient...if you are going to live a long full life. ”

Yet, McDonalds, seemingly out of touch with their employees real lives (just tells them, “Hey, make healthy choices!”

Which makes as much sense as telling a minimum wage employee what they should tip their nanny, the housekeeper, or the pool guy.

The problem, and not just with the financially poor, with a good bit of our country, is that we’ve been conditioned to see the easiest route as the best route.

We are a Fast Food people.

We want our life solutions to be quick, reasonably priced and readily available. We want to take a pill to solve a problem.

The truth is, when we really don’t want the long difficult solution in any part of our lives.

We want that infomercial magic... “This set of knives will instantly change your life.” We want our happiness to be as fast as a Happy Meal.

...but see, the problem with taking the fast food approach to life is not that you’re gaining weight...but you’re losing it.

...and today, I’m going to show you why that is NOT what you want.

Exodus 15:22-27

Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah. And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” And he cried to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.

There the LORD made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer.”

Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.

Exodus 16:2-5

And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by

the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.”

Exodus 16:13-18

In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat. This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.’” And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat.

Exodus 16:27-35

On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See! The LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.” So the people rested on the seventh day.

Now the house of Israel called its name manna. It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. Moses said, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’” And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the LORD to be kept throughout your generations.” As the LORD commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept. The people of Israel ate the manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan.

Exodus 17:1-7

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, but 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 there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up 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 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.” 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?”

If you’ve been here for the entirety of this series, you remember the Egyptian king Pharaoh. For the first 14 chapters, all we heard about is Pharaoh’s hard heart. He refused to listen to God. Refused to listen to Moses.

And for the first 14 chapters, it was all God & Moses vs. Pharaoh for Israel’s salvation.

But now that Pharaoh is out of the picture, and Israel is out in the wilderness, something strange is happening.

Now, it seems Israel’s heart is just as hard as Pharaoh’s. ...and maybe, Its now God & Moses vs. Israel.

But what I want you to see today, is that Israel’s trek through the wilderness has not shifted the story and made them God’s enemy.

Instead, this part of the story is still showing you that God is saving Israel...by taking them out of Egypt, straight into the wilderness.

1) God leads you into the wilderness to gain weight.

Did you ever wonder why God led Israel out into a desolate wilderness where food and water were impossible to come by?

I mean, why didn’t God just pick them up and magically transfer them into the promised land?

Well, its because the wilderness was another part of the way God was saving Israel.

See, when they are rescued from Egypt...while they certainly are saved from slavery...they aren’t yet saved from the mindset of slavery.

They are institutionalized.

They look back at their slavery and say, “We had all the meat and bread we could eat back in Egypt!”

They aren’t really interested in a long process of migration to a promised land.

They don’t want a home-cooked meal...they want 2 all beef Egyptian patties, bread, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles on a sesame seed bun.

When you have been slaves for hundreds of years, dependent on the Egyptian system to feed you...you don’t exactly change overnight.

This is like a prisoner being released after serving a 30 year sentence.

While he’s not in prison anymore, he doesn’t know what to do with himself for work...or how to use his free time...so often...these prisoners commit crimes just to get back into the institution...because its so familiar.

At least in Egypt they got 3 square meals a day.

See, you can get somebody out of slavery quickly...in a moment, which we saw last week with the Red Sea crossing...but it takes a long process to get the slavery out of the people.

The people still had to work their freedom down into their daily lives. In order to understand that their freedom was something good, they needed a practical way to work it out.

Here’s the deal. In the wilderness, God was working the promised land into them, before he worked them into the promised land.

In Deuteronomy 8, Moses reflects back on Israel’s wilderness journey just before they enter the promised land, and look what he says,

Deuteronomy 8:2-3

And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know

that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

Moses says, “In the wilderness, God was testing you. He was showing you your own heart. The point of the manna was so that you would believe God at his word...that he WAS saving you....but this time, not from the Egyptians...from yourselves.
In the wilderness, He was exposing what was on the inside. If he wouldn’t have taken you through the desert, if he would have just stuck you in the promised land, you never would have gotten the slavery out of your hearts.”

The wilderness isn’t for rapid transportation, its for slow transformation.

Look, a lot of you are pretty new Christians.

And if you don’t know this, yet, you are going to find it to be true.

On one hand, yes, trusting Jesus immediately gets you out of your slavery to sin.

On the other hand, you know, for most people, your life patterns don’t just magically changed when you become a Xian.

A lot of your sinful self-destructive habits, that slavery, is still in you, even though you are already forgiven for it...and that takes a long trek through difficulty to get out of you.

But that still leaves a question?

Why suffering?

Why a barren wasteland?

Why not lead Israel into a place that’s comfortable, but not quite the promised land.

Well, look at how the apostle Paul puts it. In one of my favorite passages in the Bible. No doubt the one I quote to myself more than any other.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Do you know what that passage means?

It means that while you waste away in the suffering and brokenness of this world something different is happening on the inside. On one hand, you’re hungry in the wilderness. On the other hand, God is doing something in you that’s causing you to GAIN WEIGHT.

Paul says “this light momentary...short term affliction”... is actually preparing you for the promised land.

What you CAN see (the wilderness) is passing away.

What you CAN’T yet see (the promised land) is where you have to put your thoughts.

And here’s the kicker.

Here’s the big WHY for suffering.

Do you see that phrase “Weight of glory”?

The suffering you go through in your life as a Xian, is making the promised land...its making eternity...well, its making it heavier. Its making it mean more.

The way I always explain it is like this:

Illustration: Waking up from a nightmare

And listen...don’t you know this about people in general?

People who have been through difficulty, through suffering, when they speak...its weighty.

They hold your attention.

Typically, those who haven’t been through suffering don’t carry the same kind of weight. They tend to be more shallow. Because they haven’t worked what they believe through real life yet.

Its like when someone who has never has kids tells you how to be a parent. Its not weighty, is it? Its really hard to take them seriously.

First, people who haven’t walked through the wilderness aren’t very good in relationships because its very difficult to empathize with people. Its hard to understand how someone feels.

So you tend to give advice to hurting people like “Get over it.”

This was me before my marriage fell apart and before my son died.

I would look at people who were struggling with God because something bad had happened in their life and I’d just think, “Why can’t you just believe the Bible?”

It wasn’t until I knew the weight of holding onto God’s promises in the middle of suffering that I could look at people who were doubting and hurting with compassion and well...sometimes say nothing at all. Just weep with them and give a hug.

Enduring suffering gives someone a kind of weight that cannot be ignored.

Because suffering is the lab of God.

Its where God helps us work into hearts, the truth we claim to know in our heads.

Its where we bring theory into reality.

Its where you are forced to answer the question, “Do I actually live on every word that proceeds from the Mouth of God...

...or Do I just grumble and complain to God that he doesn’t get me my McFood fast enough?”

Without suffering, you’ll never know.

Listen, you can’t microwave your spiritual growth. It's a process. But it doesn’t happen passively. Its an active kind of change. See,

2) You’ll never taste sweetness in the wilderness, if you wait for God to put it in your belly.

One of the most convenient things about fast food, is you don’t have to gather ingredients.

I mean, to make a home cooked meal, like McDonald’s recommends you eat...you have to go to the store and walk the aisles and find the stuff.

Then you have to bring home and put the meal together.

But its so much easier to just swing into through the drive thru and have it all there ready in a brown bag for you.

But did you notice that’s not how God feeds Israel in the desert?

Look, if the point of the bread in the wilderness is to just to keep Israel fed and nourished...why not just put it directly in their bellies?

But that’s not what God does.

He gives them all of these very specific rules for gathering the bread that fell from heaven.

First, they had to go out and gather it. God didn’t just put it in their bellies.

He didn’t just say, “You know what, I don’t want you to be hungry, so I’ll supernaturally just inject nutrients into your system.”

“I’ll just kind of zap it into you.”

No, he made this physical sort of bread, that they had to get up out of their tent and go pick up.

Then, he gave them an exact amount to pick up. An omer. And if you wonder how much an omer is, Moses clears it up It's the tenth part of an ephah.

Now that that’s clear...moving on.

Actually, I tried to convince Dustin to make that one of our fighter verses for next year.

And he tells them that what they gather is to be shared equally in their household.

So they all go out and gather up as much as they can eat...and no matter how much a person gathers...it always equals an omer. And it always fills them up. Its always as much as they can eat.

But some people got nervous. They thought, we better take while the getting is good, so they didn’t eat it all at once like God told them, they tried to save some for breakfast...but it only rotted and stank.

There was one last rule...on the seventh day, they were supposed to rest.

So the day before they could gather twice as much and for the Sabbath Day, God would make the bread last.

One more thing.

The bread, the manna, was sweet. It tasted like honey.

Well, first, do you remember what God told Israel about the promised land? He told them he was taking them to a land flowing with milk and honey.

See, God makes the manna taste sweet because he’s reminding them, as they trek through the wilderness, hungry and thirsty, that he has not forgotten his promise to them.

He is making sure they know he has not left them.

So everytime they taste this bread, in the middle of the wilderness, they are reminded, “Oh yes! This is not the sum total of our existence. We are not just desert wanderers. God is taking us somewhere sweet!”

But why did he make them gather it everyday?

Why not put it in their bellies? Or at least make it appear in their tent so they didn’t have to get out in the early morning chill?

Well, because he showing us that in the wilderness, if you are going to get the sweetness...you have to get up and go get it.

Its not fast food.

Listen, suffering will either turn you bitter and angry, or it will be the way God shows you the sweetness of his presence and promise.

See, the first act of salvation for Israel, through the Red Sea, was passive. God said, “Let me fight for you. Be quiet.”

But as God changes them in the wilderness, he says, “Get up and gather the bread. I’ll provide it, but you have to go gather it.”

Moses says in Deuteronomy, its not about the bread filling your bellies, its about whether you get up everyday and rely on the Word of God. Are you going to listen to his voice?

Here’s what this means for you and me.

For suffering to make you a sweet person instead of a bitter person,

A person who is more sure of God’s character and promises rather than a person who is cynical and angry...

...you have to feed on the Word of God. That’s the Bible.

...and that is not a passive thing.

Despite what you might think, you can’t toss your Bible up in the back window of your car and just smell the melting faux leather as the way you intake the word of God. That won’t do anything.

You have to go out and gather it.

You have to read it.

You have to meditate on it.

You have to think it down into life.

You have to take your suffering...and take the Word of God and think it down into real life.

You have to gather the word, chew on the word, and turn it into food.

Let me give you an example of how this works.

In 2009, many of you know that my marriage fell apart.

Because of a lot of my arrogance and self-righteousness, and many other spiritual factors, my wife wanted to leave me.

During that time, I started reading some Psalms. Which are these incredibly emotive songs about where God is in suffering. I also read Ephesians 5 over and over...about the importance of r marriage.

...and you know what...I had read all those Psalms 100 times before. ...and I knew Ephesians 5 by memory.

...but when I read it in the middle of my broken marriage...those passages came alive.

See, I may have known those passages by memory...but I didn’t know them by HEART.

It wasn’t until I went out and gathered them up, and digested them, meditated on them, prayed them back to God...in the middle of suffering, that those passages became sweet to me.

...and not just emotionally sweet.

I began to share those passages with my wife.

I began to live those passages in my marriage.

Because I gathered the bread of God in suffering, because I tasted the sweetness of his promise in the wilderness, I had the strength to work it through in my daily life.

See, the way you walk through suffering is not just to make up some mantra about “Be strong. Be strong. You can do this.”

Those phrases our empty if they don’t come from God.

Don’t waste your time gathering up bread that isn’t sweet..that won’t nourish.

In suffering, Get off of the Fast Food of Facebook, and Pinterest, and Instagram.

That bread won’t last...go and gather the Word of God that has the power to sustain you...and change you.

BTW, if you want some help doing this, I have a couple of things for you There’s something else important in all these rules.

As they gather up the manna, its never just for the person gathering. Its distributed throughout the community.

Its taken back to the tent and shared.

See, the manna is not just for individuals.

Its to be shared. The manna you gather is shared with others.

Likewise, the word of God is not just supposed to be gathered individually and eaten by yourself.

This is a family meal.

What you gather from the word of God, you are supposed to share with others in community.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Here’s how Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 1.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

He says, “When God comforts you...its not just for you. Its for you to take that comfort you received from his promise...and share it with others.

This is another reason for you to get into community at City Church.

See, if you view church as this place to sneak into and out of on Sunday morning so you can go process on your own time, you are both depriving others of your comfort...and depriving yourself of being comforted by the stories that others will share.

If you section yourself off from the rest of the church, you will miss the sweetness of God’s sustaining bread.

One more thing about these rules.
God is also building up their relational dependence on him.

Jesus was more than likely referencing this event when he taught his disciples to pray.

He says “Give us this day our daily bread.”

See, God has them get up and gather this day by day so they develop a day by day dependence on God.

He doesn’t have them do it weekly. That’s not enough to remember.

Every morning he wants them to wake up and gather...he wants them to see God’s mercy is new every morning.

He keeps putting out the bread. But once a week he has them stop.

He doesn’t give bread.

He doesn’t ask them to gather. He tells them to rest.

Because he wants to remind them that its not their gathering that is saving them...it is not their work that’s saving them, it is God’s gracious act to give them bread, and to call them out to gather it that saves them.

See, he is stopping them once a week, stopping their work, so they realize that its not their effort that keeps them alive...but the love and provision of their God.

He is calling them every week to reflect on their relationship with God...on his provision...and salvation.

That's why he wants them to save a piece of the manna and pass it down for generations, because he wants all the generations to remember that Israel didn’t save themselves, but God did it...all at once at the Red Sea...and bit by bit through the wilderness.

But as much as that manna preserved in a jar in the ark of the Covenant would point backwards to God’s salvation of Israel...it would even more so point forward to God’s salvation of the whole world.

3) Jesus is the Rock that went thirsty so you could have bread & water that lasts forever.

You might be wondering, “Trev, all you talked about today was the bread, why did you read all that stuff about the water too?”

Well, because in this passage about the water coming from the rock, you find the true way God would save his people.

In Exodus 17, the people are grumbling again...this time because their thirsty. Even though they have already had this problem solved before.

We read in Exodus 15 that they were thirsty and God made bitter water turn sweet, and then led them to an oasis.

but look at what God says to them at that point.

He says, “If you will listen to my voice and obey me, you won’t experience the plagues that I put on the Egyptians.”

Now, here’s the question?

Did they listen?
Well, sometimes...but we keep seeing this ugly distrust.

This grumbling and complaining that shows off the hardness of their heart...in fact, it looks a lot like Pharaoh’s heart.

In fact, the Scripture even says that they did not listen at times.

So, is God going to bring the plagues of Egypt on them?

Well, Exodus 17 answers that for us.

Remember this whole thing is supposed to be testing Israel, but the people of Israel are putting God to the test. They are trying him to see if he is faithful.

Moses even asks them, “Why are you testing God?”
So Moses asks God, “Why should I do to these people...they are going to kill me?”

And look what God says, He doesn’t say, “Well, time for you to send those plagues down.”

Neither does he say, “Sorry Moses, you’ll just have to take the abuse.”

Do you know what kind of language this is in v 5-6?

It's the language of a trial.

See, When Moses Passed on before the people, and he gathered up the elders as witnesses...that's what would happen when someone was on trial for a crime.

And then, the staff comes out.

The same staff that struck the nile and turned it to blood.

At this point all the people are thinking...OH NO!

We didn’t listen...we didn’t depend on God...we didn’t believe him and now he’s going to kill us with plagues!

But instead of the people standing before God on Trial...God stands before the people on trial...

And when Moses strikes the Rock...it is God taking the blow, taking Israel’s judgment on himself.

1 Corinthians 10:4b

and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.

Later, Paul tells us that the Rock represented Christ.

The reason why the people could drink water instead of take the judgment of God, is because Jesus went on trial in our place.

ON the cross, he was convicted and condemned to die for us.

On the cross, Jesus said, “I THIRST”, so that we wouldn’t go thirsty.

Matthew 4:1-2

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.

See, Jesus was led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness too. He went without food and water...and he was hungry.
He was also tested...
But in the wilderness, where Israel failed the test in suffering... Jesus passed it.

Matt 4:3-4

And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

The devil told Jesus to make stones into bread, and Jesus quoted Deut 8:3 to him... He said, “Man isn’t made for Fast Food...they are made to gain weight by living off of every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

See, everywhere we failed, Jesus succeeds.

Yet, he died for our failure to keep God’s commands so that we could have his perfect passing of God’s test.

Isaiah 55:1

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

In Jesus, the Rock that was struck, the bread of heaven, the prophet Isaiah’s words come true...You can come to God and find water to drink and food to eat in the middle of the suffering from your sin or someone else’s sin, because Jesus has purchased that right for you.

Deuteronomy 30:19

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,

Just before Israel passed into the promised land at the end of their 40 year journey, Moses stood before them...and gave them a choice...more profound and deep than the McResource gave McDonalds employees, ...it wasn’t just about eating healthy... it was about life and death.

He said, “Choose to follow God, to live by his word, to trust the God who was struck for you to give you water...and you’ll find life.”

“Or, you can eat the fast food that leads to death”

The road that certainly seems quicker, easier, more convenient...but in the long run...will kill you.

In gospel of Jesus Christ, God says to you, “I have set before you today life by believing in my son who took your place, or you can have it your way, and your sins will still be on you...death.”

Choose life...so that you can live.

And there indeed will be a wilderness ahead when you follow Jesus, but remember, that’s just him putting the promised land in you before you get to the promised land.

In the wilderness...he’s still saving you! While you wait....he’s causing you to gain the weight of glory!