Formed in the Wilderness

God often leads us through wilderness seasons not as punishment, but as preparation for what lies ahead. In these difficult times, God refines our desires, reveals our dependence on Him, and releases us to our calling. Just as He led the Israelites through the desert rather than directly to the Promised Land, God sometimes takes us on the scenic route to prepare our hearts. Jesus Himself experienced the wilderness before beginning His ministry, emerging with power and clarity of purpose. When facing our own wilderness experiences, we should not rush through them, but stay rooted in Scripture and watch expectantly for God's provision.

Transcript

Okay, I'm going to open up this morning with a question. All right. Have you ever felt like your life was just so chaotic that maybe God dropped you off in the middle of nowhere with a hey, trust me. And no gps? You ever felt like that before?

Things were just crazy and you didn't know where God was in those moments? Yeah, I think we've all experienced something like that. But, hey, the good news is, if you haven't experienced that yet, you will. All right, today, this morning, we're going to be talking about the wilderness. Not the kind with pine trees and fishing boats, the kind that I like to go and visit.

But today we're going to be talking about the kind of wilderness where we feel stuck or stretched or maybe even a little forgotten or left behind. We're going to talk about the spiritual wilderness and what that looks like, the emotional wilderness that sometimes comes to us in our lives. The kind of season in our lives where we're asking God, what in the world are you actually doing right now? So let's start in the book of Exodus. If you have your Bibles today, I'm going to invite you to turn to Exodus, chapter 13.

And if you have your Bibles, keep them out, because we're going to be reading a lot of scripture this morning. So in Exodus, chapter 13, God had just freed the Israelite people from Egypt, and you'd think that he'd roll out the red carpet and send them straight to the promised land, but nope, he takes the long way around with his people, and we're going to read a little more about that today. So in the book of Exodus, we're going to start in chapter 13, verses 17 through 22. If you don't have your Bibles, you can follow along on the screen. Here's the word of the Lord for us today.

Verse 17 says, When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, if they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt. So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt, ready for battle. Moses took the bones of Joseph with him.

Because Joseph had made the Israelites swear an oath. He said, God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones with you up from this place. After leaving Succoth, they camped near Etham on the edge of the desert. By day, the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way by night and the pillar of fire to give them light so that they could travel by day and night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

So we heard this morning. Initially, God did not lead them by the road that led them through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. There is a direct move here. God led the people on a very different route through the desert road. Does that sound fun to you?

Desert road. Now listen, I have seen a ton of movies where there's always somebody driving an old beat up car that runs out of gas on a desert road. Right. And it never works out well. But these people were forced to walk the desert road, Right.

That led them near the Red Sea or toward the Red Sea. Why do you think God did that?

For their own safety. I don't know.

To make them rely on God. That's a good one. Any other thoughts?

Fishing? Fishing. Okay. Near the Red Sea. Right.

Yes. I believe that is 100% accurate. So think about this. After more than 400 years in captivity, acting as slaves to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, what do you think would have happened if the Israelites were challenged into a battle right after they got their freedom? Right.

If they went through the Philistine country. And if you don't know this, the Philistines and the Israelites have a bit of beef. And so they don't like each other very much. And if they would have went through the Philistine towns, they probably would have been challenged to battle. God led them through the desert road because the Israelites weren't ready.

Freedom doesn't mean formation. In that moment, God had to detox Egypt out of their hearts before they could handle the responsibility of what it meant to come into the promised land. Quick show of hands here. How many of you have ever prayed for something and then God seemed to take the scenic route in order to give it to you. Right?

Right. Yes. I think a lot of us in here. Maybe you asked for healing and instead he gave you the gift of patience. Right.

Maybe you asked for a breakthrough in your life and maybe he gave you a breakdown first. Maybe it was a situation where you asked for clarity and instead God just gave you silence. Here's the truth. Just like for these Israelites, the wilderness isn't punishment for us, it's preparation for what's next. Exodus goes on in chapter 14.

If you have your Bible starting in 14:1 through 31, it goes on to say this. Then the Lord said to Moses, tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near PI Hieroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite of BAAL Safon. Pharaoh will think the Israelites are wandering around the land and confusion hemmed in by the desert. And I will harden Pharaoh's heart and he will pursue them.

But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army. And the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord. So the Israelites did this. When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, what have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services.

So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. He took. He took 600 of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them. The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly. The Egyptians, All Pharaoh's horses and chariots, horsemen and troops pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near PI Haroth, opposite BAAL Zephon.

As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up and there were the Egyptians marching after them. They were terrified and they cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us out to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn't we say to you in Egypt, leave us alone.

Let us serve the Egyptians. It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert. Moses answered the people, do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance of the Lord that he will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again.

The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still. Then the Lord said to Moses, why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.

I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all of his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen. Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel's army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel.

Throughout the night, the cloud brought darkness to one side and light to the other side. So neither went near the other all night long. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. And all that night, the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of water to their right and on their left.

The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh's horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. And during the last watch of the night, the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, let us get away from the Israelites. The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.

Then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and their horsemen. Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak, the sea went back into its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen. The entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea, not one of them survived.

But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of water on their right, on their left. That day, the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses, his servant. There's a lot happening here, but it starts out with God telling Moses to take the Israelites to wander for a bit in the wilderness so they can get in just the right position at the right time. God then positions the Israelites between Pharaoh's army and the Red Sea.

Scripture basically tells us that God does this so that God can show off a little bit. So both the Israelites, who already know that God is real, will know that God is real. And now the Egyptians will experience God's reality for the first time. This Old Testament lesson shows us that sometimes God allows us to get backed into a corner to prove to us that God's the only way out. And it's important for us to recognize that sometimes we all end up in the wilderness.

But what matters isn't how we got there. What matters is how God can work in those moments that we feel alone or lost or broken and in that wilderness of our own making. And then God helps to form us into the people that he created us to be.

Because it's not just about where you are, it's about what he's doing in you while you're there. God uses the wilderness to do three things. First, God refines our desires. In the prophetic book of Hosea, God speaks through his prophet Hosea to try to convince the Israelites to come back and be faithful to God. You see, during the time of Hosea, the people of Israel are turning away from God and they're being unfaithful to the life that God had called them to.

In Hosea, chapter two, God tells Hosea to rebuke the Hebrew people so that they would come back to God, or else God was going to expose their sinfulness so they would experience shame. These people were worshiping false gods of riches, power, status, greed, lust, and they were chasing the things that they shouldn't be chasing. They were not worshiping the God of the Hebrews. God tells his people that through the prophet Hosea, they would never catch the idols that they were chasing and that God would punish the people for their actions. And through the prophet, God encourages them to turn back.

And here we are in chapter. In this second chapter of Hosea, God speaks to the Israelite people as if they are his bride. He uses this beautiful language. He talks about their unfaithfulness as if God's people were chasing other lovers. The language is beautiful and heartbreaking all at the same time.

It's in Hosea. We're going to start in chapter 10, or, sorry, chapter two, verse 10. And we're going to go through 13. Here's what it says. He says, so now I will expose their lewdness before the eyes of her lovers.

No one will take her out of my hands. I will stop all her celebrations, her yearly festivals, her new moons, her Sabbath days, all her appointed festivals. I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers. I will make them a thicket and wild animals will devour them. I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the bales.

She decked herself with rings and jewelry and went after her lovers. But she forgot me, declares the Lord.

So after this, God stops and tells the prophet Hosea that he is never going to stop chasing his people, his bride. Right? He uses that language. Here's the language that God uses about his people, even in their unfaithfulness so he picks up again in verse 14 and says this. Therefore, because of all this mess that the Israelite people have done, therefore I am now going to allure her.

I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her there. I will give her back her vineyards, and I will make the valley of Acre a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. In that day, declares the Lord, you will call me my husband. You will no longer call me my master.

I will remove the names of the bales from her lips. No longer will their names be invoked. In that day. I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky, and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle.

I will abolish from the land so that all may lie down in safety. I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord. Even in this kind of hypothetical conversation, this prophetic word from God.

God uses the wilderness to work miracles among his people and to provide restoration. They weren't being punished in the wilderness. Here God said, I'm going to use the wilderness to bring you back to me, to the people that I created you to be in the wilderness. God speaks lovingly but firmly to his people, and in doing so refines their desire for God himself.

God doesn't need to yell at you in the wilderness. All God has to do in the wilderness is just whisper. Because in the loneliness of the wilderness that we experience, God can finally get our attention. The second thing that God does in the wilderness of our lives is that God reveals our dependence on himself. In Deuteronomy, chapter 8, verses 2 through 5, it says this.

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way into the wilderness for those 40 years to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger, and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during those 40 years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. God strips away the excess so you realize that God is enough.

When the Israelite people were traveling for 40 years in the wilderness. They didn't have what they had known in Egypt. As a matter of fact, the Israelites, at every chance they could, griped at Moses about how good life was when they were slaves in Egypt. Could you imagine being a slave and yearning for that?

Moses was leading the people into a type of freedom that they had never experienced in their whole lives. And they were so mad at the situation they found themselves in because they didn't have spices like cumin or garlic.

And they begged to go back. Can we please just go back to Egypt where we had spices for our food?

These people were so angry at being out in the wilderness and the fear and insecurity that they felt, it made them lash out at Moses, their leader, because they feared what they didn't know in the wilderness. God stripped away the excess in their lives. And he does the same for us sometimes so that we can recognize and realize that God is enough.

We can rely on God to bring us through the tough times, just like the manna and quail were enough for the Hebrew people at the time. And we talked about it even this morning in Sunday school when the people of Israel tried to get up early in the morning and go collect more manna than they needed. I'm just going to get it all. I want it all for myself. I'm really hungry today, so I'm going to get more than enough.

And I'm going to feed myself today and tomorrow and maybe even the next day. And God stops that and makes the manna become putrid. God says, take what you need. Don't be greedy.

What they experienced in the wilderness wasn't exactly what they wanted. The man and quail probably was a little boring without a little garlic salt, right? But on the other side of the wilderness was not only freedom, but was also a land that they could call their own that scripture says was flowing with milk and honey. The land was going to be enough for them to their time of enough in the wilderness was eventually going to be changed into a time of plenty. When we rely on God as being enough for us, the tough times reveal God's goodness.

And lastly, in the wilderness, God releases us to our calling. The wilderness was not the end for God's people, right? It became the launchpad for what the Israelite people were going to become. Israel didn't die in the 40 years that they were there in the wilderness. The Israelites figured out who they were and they recognized God at work in their own story.

It was through the tough Times that God's people gained their unique identity as monotheists who believed in the one God of all. It was on the mountain, in the wilderness, that God revealed himself to his people and gave them his own law. While the Israelites would have felt like their time in the wilderness was hard for them, it was in that time that they became for the world a holy nation, a nation of priests pointing to the goodness of our God. So let's try something. I want everybody to take a second and turn to the person next to you and say, you're not stuck, you're being shaped.

Let's say that together.

You're not stuck, you're being shaped. Yeah.

One of the most famous stories about God working in the wilderness comes to us in the Gospel of Matthew, and we can read that together on the screen. It's Matthew 4, 1, 11. We've all heard it before, but it's important for us to connect the dots. It says, then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry.

The tempter came to him and said, if you are the son of God, tell these stones to become bread. Jesus answered, it is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Right. We read that earlier in Exodus. This is literally Jesus quoting the old Testament, verse 5, says, Then the devil took him to the holy city, which is Jerusalem, and he had him stand on the highest point of the temple.

If you are the Son of God, he said, throw yourself down, for it is written he will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. Jesus answered him. It is also written, do not put the Lord your God to the test again. The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. And he said, all this I will give you if you will bow down and worship me.

Jesus said, away from me, Satan, for it is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

Wait, you're telling me that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness? Right, that's what we read. God led Jesus into the wilderness. It wasn't the devil. It wasn't bad luck.

It was the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness so that he could be tempted. And the crazy thing is, this happened before Jesus healed a single person. It happened before he preached A single sermon or turned water into wine. Jesus got baptized by John the Baptist and then immediately goes into the wilderness. We've talked about it in here recently about how I think Jesus went into the wilderness to figure out who he was in relation to God.

He kind of went on this journey of discovery because identity comes before influence. Jesus needed to figure out this balance between his human and divineness before he could truly be impactful in the ministry that he was called to do.

I will tell you, friends, that exact same thing is true for us today. We can't make a difference in the world until we truly know who we are and what it is that we believe.

So let's take a closer look at the scriptures. In the story, verse three says the tempter came to Jesus and says, if you are the son of God, what is Satan questioning here?

His identity. Right. Satan is if you are the son of God. And he uses it again, if you really are the Son of God, just jump off. You'll be fine.

Right? The enemy didn't attack Jesus power. He didn't attack Jesus health or his bank account. He attacked his very identity. And friends, I think Satan still does that to us today.

Let me ask you a serious question. I don't need you to answer this out loud, but I want you to really think about this.

What lie has the enemy been whispering to you lately? That you're not enough? That maybe you're old and you've missed your moment? Or maybe you're too young. Maybe you're too broken or too sinful.

Jesus didn't take that time to argue with the devil. He just quoted Scripture. He replied with it is written. And then he showed the power of God's Word in that moment.

Scripture should be our weapon too. Not our feelings, not our resumes, not the gifts that God has poured out on us. The Scriptures should be our weapon. The Gospel of Luke tells the same story of Jesus going in the wilderness, but it ends a little bit differently. In verse 14 it says this.

In Luke 4:14, Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit. And news about him spread through the whole countryside. He went hungry, he went in lonely and came out in power. That's what can happen in our seasons in the wilderness if we will just trust in God to refine us and strengthen us in the moments that are tough. So how do we walk through the wilderness?

Well, right, so let's get practical for a minute. If you're in a season of wilderness, here's how we walk through it. First of all, you can't rush it, right? And that's like, the first thing we want to do when life gets hard is we want to just be over with it. Let's get done.

My experience reminds me that God's timeline is definitely slower than Amazon Prime.

But the good news is the gift that we receive at the end is worth the wait. For Jesus, it took 40 days in the wilderness. For Moses and the ancient Israelites, it was 40 years. Whatever the timeline looks like for us, if we're patient, God is going to work on us to become the people that he's called us to be. Don't rush through those moments without questioning the meaning behind those moments.

Next, we have to stay rooted in scripture, right? Jesus didn't wing it. Jesus knew the Word and he quoted the Word and so should we. But in order for us to be able to quote Scripture, guess what? You have to know it and you have to understand it.

That's why church, Sunday school, and other small group settings are so important to us. It's in settings like those that we have time to digest God's Word and to better know who God is for ourselves. Jesus sets the example of how we can respond in those hard moments through using God's Word. But we can't respond with God's Word if we don't know it. Okay?

And finally, we have to be expectantly watching for God's provision. We have to be intentional about looking for the actions of God behind the scenes in the moments where our life is hard. Remember, it was in the wilderness that God provided manna. God sent quail when the people were hungry. God gave his people water from rocks.

And at the end of Jesus story, angels came and attended him in wilderness seasons. God is there with us. God shows up in weird ways, so don't miss it because it's not wrapped up in the tidy little wrapping paper and bows that we want God to give to us.

So as we close out this morning, I have another question. What is God forming in you?

The wilderness isn't about where you are or what you're going through in that moment. It's about who we, as God's people, are becoming. Is he teaching you patience? Is he teaching you to trust Him? Is he teaching you what your identity needs to be?

Is God teaching you surrender?

Don't waste the wilderness, don't rush the wilderness, and don't resent the wilderness.

This week and always, as we face situations that can be tough, that will be tough, situations that may cause anxiety for us or pain, may we each claim to the faith that we have in the God of the wilderness, that he is bigger than anything we may face or go through. And that our faith in him, through our faith in him, we will come out the other side stronger and more reliant on a God who loves us. Friends, this week and always, may the wilderness that we face, that we face, shape us. Let's pray.