The Wonderful Wilderness
December 10, 2023 • Ps Tammy Hopkins • Exodus 12:40–42, Deuteronomy 32:10, Mark 1:12, Matthew 4:3–11, 1 Kings 19:5–8
Join Pastor Tammy as she takes us through a thought provoking sermon on the Wonderful Wilderness.
The Bible describes the wilderness as:
- Eremos: A place which is uninhabited (no people). A place which is uncultivated (no crops).
As Christians', we are used to our comforts. Even as followers of Jesus, we try to avoid “the desert”. We don’t like when life gets hard, or barren, or lonely. The wilderness makes us feel isolated, so we do what we can to escape it.
But what if instead of running, we asked God about His timing – when is the right time to move on? Is He trying to tell us something, what is the purpose of this wilderness season?
Sometimes we try to run away from it but we should not rush this season - we should go through it with God at the center.
1. THE WILDERNESS IS A PLACE OF SEPARATION
When we are in a desert we feel alone, separated. However, that’s when we are separated from the world and should focus on God.
God separated the Israelites from Egypt, from what they previously knew, from their slavery, their captors and sent them into the wilderness, and not straight into the Promised Land, why? In the wilderness the Israelites received: a new way to live based on worship, an intimacy with God which they had never known, and a new identity. This verse from the Song of Moses tells us of God’s loving care of the Israelites in the wilderness:
“In a desert land He found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye.” Deuteronomy 32:10.
2. THE WILDERNESS IS A PLACE OF RESTORATION
In the book of 1 Kings 19:5 - 8, we see Elijah disheartened, burnt out, tired, however we also see God’s miracles. We see God providing for him.
From this verse we also see restoration. Restoration involves a miraculous provision for the present, for the next season. However, Elijah did not register the miracle when it happened and that's how we get when we are in the wilderness - we don't see God’s provision. The wilderness may feel altogether normal, but there are miracles taking place around you, which are restoring you, which you may not be able to see, but you have to keep trusting and walking.
3. THE WILDERNESS IS A PLACE OF PREPARATION
Moses was well-educated, however, he ended up in the wilderness tending to his father-in-law's sheep. Was he wasting his life away? For 40 years he did all that. Like many others in the bible, didn’t God know Joseph's best years were wasting away in Egypt, that the Israelites needed to be freed and were suffering?
So what is the purpose of the wilderness? Is it Punishment or Preparation?
We need to remember that the wilderness was very significant in Moses’s walk with God. This was the place where Moses had an encounter with God. What if he had walked away from the preparation? Moses spent 40 years walking the desert with sheep where he would walk a further 40 years with millions of people. So as believers we must not despise the wilderness of preparation, we must not abdicate from it, but we must adjust to it.
4. THE WILDERNESS IS A PLACE OF REVELATION
When we reflect on Jesus’s baptism, we see the acknowledgment of the love of the Father and the presence of the Holy Spirit, however, in the next after that we learn that in Mark 1V12 the Holy Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. That is where the devil tempted Him. he attacked Him on 3 things: His security, His self-worth and His significance. Matthew 4:1-11
- Security: Matthew 4:3
- Self-worth: Matthew 4:5
- Significance: Matthew 4:9
Those three things are what the devil attacks and tries to distort in us. However, God uses the wilderness to train us, to prepare us. The purpose of being led in the desert is to humble us and to test us in order to know what was in our heart. - Do we find our self-worth, security and significance in God or do we get them from the world?
5. THE WILDERNESS IS A PLACE OF INVITATION
God does not have a secret society of intimate friends. We are as intimate with God as we choose to be. It is our desire, our abiding, our purity that will determine the depth of our intimacy with Him. Intimacy is understanding that I may feel "hinged" or "unhinged." It is knowing that I must sit at the feet of Jesus, so that I can walk with integrity as His friend. It is experiencing the closeness of the Lord and at other times wondering if He is near. Essentially, intimacy is abandonment of ourselves to the Lord—abandonment born out of trust and an intense longing to know the living God.
WHY THE WILDERNESS?
Like many prophets in the Old Testament, John the Baptist not only preached his God-given message but his whole life as a parable, a symbolic picture of repentance and faith. It was an outward picture of the inner reality to which John called his people, a living parable of repentance and faith. So, our wilderness should be a picture of faith and trust. And just as John pointed not to himself but to Jesus who would come after him, the object of our faith ought to be in Christ alone.
The WILDERNESS
- is a Place of Separation
- is a Place of Restoration
- is a Place of Preparation
- is a Place of Revelation
- is a Place of Invitation
Although the Wilderness seems UNINHABITED and UNCULTIVATED, from these stories we see that miracles happen in the wilderness.
So, maybe it's time to see our Wilderness’ differently.
UNINHABITED: Instead of being alone, we can see it as a solitary place which is quiet and free from disturbance. Although solitary, we should see it as a place where God richly grants His presence and provision for those seeking Him.
UNCULTIVATED: Although dry, the wilderness is not completely barren. Instead of a place of unproductivity to the eye, we can see it as a place where here and there, in clefts and on hillsides, we can find a patch of corn, a clump of olives, a single palm. In the wilderness there is life and sustenance, even if it’s just hard to see.
Finally, the Hebrew word for the desert is MIDBAR. Because there are no vowels in Hebrew, the letters that spell it out are M-D-B-R. Coincidentally, this is also how you spell another Hebrew word, MEDABER – to speak. So let your wilderness be a place where God speaks.
MIDBAR = M-D-B-R = DESERT
MEDABER = M-D-B-R = TO SPEAK
