Exodus 16 • Bread from Heaven

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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

 Let me ask that you would look in your Bibles this morning at Exodus chapter 16 as we continue this journey of unlimited grace, celebrating what God has done for 150 years by considering how He led another people long ago on His gracious journey as well. Just to remind you where we are with the people of Israel, they just crossed through the Red Sea.



 Great!



 One little problem.



 There's a wilderness on the far side of the sea, and they gotta eat, and therein is the problem. Let's read about it. I'll ask that you stand as we honor God's Word, Exodus 16. I'll read the first 15 verses that will look a bit broader as we go. Verses 1 to 15 of Exodus 16.



 They set out from Elam, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of sin, which is between Elam and Sinai, on the 15th day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt.



 And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the desert 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 the 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.



 So Moses and Aaron said to all the people, "At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because He's heard you grumbling against the Lord, for what are we that you grumble against us?" And Moses said, "When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling, that you grumble against Him," what are we?



 Your grumbling is not against us, but against the Lord.



 "Then Moses said to Aaron, "Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, "Come



 near before the Lord, for He has heard your grumbling." And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in a cloud. And the Lord said to Moses, "I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, "At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread, then you shall know that I am the Lord your God."



 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."



 Let's pray together.



 Heavenly Father, break with us now the bread of life.



 By Your word and spirit, demonstrating to us a provision that is not of our hands, but points to the Savior, who came that we might be made right with You, not by the work of our hands, but by Your hand and Your heart and Your mercy.



 Show us, Jesus, that we may relish and worship Your glory and be strengthened for the life that You give us. This we ask in Jesus' name, amen.



 Please be seated.



 Last year in Washington, D.C., the Museum of the Bible opened. Amazing because with 40,000 artifacts, those who are seeking to honor one of the world's most ancient books have acquired some of the most up-to-date technology to make the wonders of Scripture known. There are 3D laser demonstrations, full-town recreations. They're explanations that are in Dolby Sound, making the flood and the earthquakes really impressive.



 But there has been one problem and one aspect of God's Word that they wanted to recreate that has been difficult.



 The explanation given by Chef Todd Gray, who runs the Museum of the Bible's restaurant.



 Here's what he said, "We have struggled to find the recipe for manna."



 The Bible describes manna, we just read the account, as a flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground.



 And if you went on to the end of this chapter further, like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.



 So is it more like honeynut Cheerios or Kellogg's honey smacks?



 We don't know.



 Maybe there's an old recipe apparently from a Mount Sinai temple in which we are told that you won't like this, that manna is the resin that comes from the secretion of insects after they consume camel-thorn plants.



 I don't think I want that.



 Even though we are told it comes in semi-transparent clumps that look almost like grape nuts and taste like molasses.



 Actually, I don't think we're likely to discern the recipe anytime soon. As a professor from Old Dominion University, Professor Litton Musselman says, "It's really hard to find and research something that falls from heaven."



 I don't really think the problem is going to be us finding the recipe. That's not my real concern.



 My concern is that God knows the recipe and has not forgotten it. After all, what was the purpose of the manna? We don't have to guess. Verses 6 and 7 say it pretty clearly. "Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, "At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord." What was God's provision of food supposed to do? It was supposed to remind the people of Israel God saves and deserves glory.



 And when you understand that, you understand that the manna was doing a couple of things. It was providing what we need, the message of our salvation, and what God requires, the glory do His name.



 How the manna is doing that is pretty plain to us as we begin. What is God providing? The message of the manna? What we need? What He requires? What do we need?



 We need a witness to the glory of God.



 It's obvious that the people of God, as they are grumbling, have lost sight of God's glory. Now they are going to need God. They are going to need confidence in His glory and His greatness. They are going to go across the wilderness into the Promised Land and face challenge and enemy and deprivation over and over again. They need confidence in the glory of God, but instead they grumble. Verse 2 reminds us, they are saying, "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, ah, the good old days."



 When we were back in Egypt and they killed our children and enslaved our families and denied our worship, the present crisis is eclipsing for them the salvation of God. They are forgetting. It would be like somebody, an African American in this community, "Ah, remember the good old days on the plantation.



 Ah, the fried chicken and the collard greens, and not remember the whipping post and the auction block and the chains."



 Not right, not good. They have forgotten the glory of the Lord, though they have just been released from Israel, just been released from Egypt, just parted the Red Sea, had it parted in front of them so that they would walk across on dry land. They have forgotten. They are grumbling against God. And God's response, so plain in verse 4 is simply this, "Then the Lord said to Moses, "Behold, I'm about to reign." Now what are the next words that you expect?



 "Fire, lightning."



 But He doesn't say that.



 I've heard they're grumbling.



 So "I'm about to reign bread from heaven."



 It's a very different message than we would expect of the Old Testament mean God that sometimes is portrayed. That God is saying, "I have heard that they have forgotten Me, so I am going to reign bread from heaven for them." Where does bread come from? Where does rain come from? Well, rain comes out of a cloud. And the cloud itself is promised in verse 10, do you remember that? As soon as Moses spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in a cloud.



 It's important that we recognize this glory of the Lord that is coming to reign bread from heaven is coming out of the wilderness. As if to say, it's coming out of nowhere.



 It's not coming out of Egypt.



 It's not coming out of your past. It's not coming out of your preparations. What God is providing that you absolutely need, that you cannot provide for yourself,



 is out of His promise and nothing out of your past or your own provision.



 For those with the eyes to see, it is the great expression of grace unfolding, the gospel beginning to be made plain to God's people as He is saying to them, "You have… You have every deservedness of my reigning wrath upon you and instead out of nowhere."



 Comes glory.



 And the glory blesses you and provides what you cannot provide for yourself. And in essence is saying to you, what's been done to you, what you have done, that's past.



 What you provide, that will never be enough.



 And so I, the Lord your God, am going to provide what you need to provide for your own future welfare and ultimately you will see my glory, which is not just their physical welfare, it is their spiritual welfare as well. Over and over again, God is going to make clear how great is His provision, which is not just an expression of His glory, but glory revealed in a profound grace.



 Overall we begin to recognize God is providing for those who cannot provide for themselves. What do they get? They get plentiful food. You saw that, verses 12, beginning and end. "I heard the grumbling of the people say to them, at twilight you shall eat meat and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God." Now in the evening they got meat, what came upon them in the evening? What covered the ground in the evening? Wasn't man or what came in the evening? Quail! And in the morning, the manna, the bread. So you get protein at night, carbs in the morning, well-balanced meal.



 And it's not just balanced, it is so plentiful that in the desert, millions of people are eating every person of every tribe of the entire nation every day for 40 years.



 This is plentiful provision.



 But more amazing still is it is perfect provision. I didn't read to you verses 16 through 18 because they're hard to understand. And yet when you get a grasp of what's being said here, it is a tremendous expression of grace that is glorious. Verse 16, this is what the Lord has commanded, "Gather of it the manna, each one of you as much as he can eat.



 Each you shall each take an omer," that's about two courts, "according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent."



 And the people 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.



 Now did you catch that? Those who went out and hoarded more than they should as though, "God's not going to be faithful tomorrow. We better get all we can today." Those who took in too much, what was left overnight got worms and stank and couldn't be used. And those who were lazy, who actually didn't do all that they should, didn't gather enough,



 God provided enough for them too.



 Whether they gathered too much or too little, it was just right.



 Now you're not supposed to be thinking of Goldilocks right now.



 You're supposed to be thinking of the grace of God.



 What is God saying?



 You fail me by failing to take in as much as you should, or you hoard as though I'm not going to provide you, and nonetheless, I provide what is just right for you. I don't know what to compare it to. It's kind of like saying, you know, you're making the coffee pot and you put in too little water so God fills it up to the right amount, or you put in too much water and so God adds enough grounds to make it perfect. And He's not just doing it for your house.



 He's doing it for every single person in every house, in every tribe, every day, for 40 years. It's amazing power and intimate care in amazing glory. As though God is demonstrating by what He is doing how amazing is His goodness toward us. Now, we're not just to understand, isn't that kind of neat? This understanding that whether there was too much or too little, God was doing precisely what was necessary to have each person perceive the glory of His grace is actually a key,



 first to unlocking the Lord's prayer and then to unlocking our hearts toward God.



 Some of you may remember about the turn of the year there was kind of a worldwide flurry about the fact that Pope Francis supposedly, it was later denied by the Vatican, but supposedly had made his suggestion that we change the wording of the Lord's prayer, particularly that wording that says, "Lead us not into temptation."



 And the fear was, well, why would you pray, "Lead us not into temptation"? If you don't pray that, will God lead you into temptation?



 Surely He will not. The Bible says that, "Let no man say when he is tempted that he is tempted of God." God cannot be tempted and He tempts no man. But we are tempted when we are drawn away by our own lust and desires. So why did Jesus teach us to pray, "Lead us not into temptation"? You may not recognize as He has already made the prayer for daily bread, what He is referencing is this account of manna being provided for the children of Israel, not too little or too much. And the great explanation what Jesus is actually quoting is Proverbs 30, verses 8 and 9. In your grace, Bibles, there at your seat, this is page 551, if you want to look at it, what is Jesus actually teaching us to pray and how is it related to the account of the manna?



 Proverbs 30, verses 8 and 9.



 There, the writer of Proverbs is constructing a prayer for us. "Lord, remove far from me falsehood and lying.



 Give me neither poverty," that is too little, "nor riches," that is too much, "but feed me with the food that is needful for me." Now some of your Bibles do not say food, some of your Bibles actually say bread. It's actually the Hebrew word "lehem," like Bethlehem. Remember when Jesus was born in Bethlehem? What does Bethlehem mean? House of bread.



 Pretty smart of the Lord to make sure that the bread of life was born in the house of bread.



 But He's reminding us here, what are we praying for? "Lord, don't give me too much or too little, but only my bread that is needful for me." Some of your Bibles actually translate, "Give me only my daily bread." Why? Verse 9, "Lest I be full and deny you and say, Who is the Lord?



 Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God."



 If we were to get too much in life, some of us riches that just make us not depend on God anymore, just the work of my hands, what I provide, I'm doing just fine, then the riches can make us forget God. What the Psalmist says is so often riches created in us leanness of soul, not a body, but leanness of soul. And the consequence is there are actually very few people among the church of God who are called riches because the responsibility is so great and the temptation even greater. And so the prayer is, "God, don't provide me with so much that I forget You, nor so little that I steal and profane Your name. After all, You and I bear upon us the name of Christ, Christian."



 So God, don't give me more than I can handle.



 God don't give me less than I can handle.



 Provide only what is needful for me to keep my soul riveted on You, to keep my eyes focused on You, to keep me on my knees saying, "Lord, provide precisely what I need." I'm ultimately, when I pray, "Lead me not into temptation," I'm asking God to deliver me from me.



 Give me what keeps me confident of You, resting on You, devoted to You, not too much, not too little.



 Give me what is necessary to focus on You, to teach me daily of Your glory so that my heart in perceiving how good You are is responding to Your grace day to day in confidence and security and joy because I'm believing as a matter of fact and deep faith that You are providing precisely what is most needful for my soul.



 Not always easy to pray, "God, deliver me from me," but made possible when we do believe that God is providing us our daily bread. He has not forgotten the recipe of man.



 What does that mean, just day to day?



 I thought of it reading a work recently by Zach Hicks, a worship leader who actually conducted our Winter Grace Conference here a couple of years ago, and when Living in Grace was here, he was presenting us material out of his book about worship. But in that book, he did not mention at the time, is the account of how difficult worship became for him after the birth of his first child.



 In the after-baby appointments that baby and mom went to, Abby, his wife, began to have vision problems that the doctors began to look into. And as they went further into the diagnosis, it was discovered that she had a cancerous tumor behind her eye that not only threatened her sight, but her life.



 Isn't God glorious? We sing of His goodness and His grace, and yet here is this family struggling with, here's the provision of a new baby, and we do believe in our salvation, we do believe in Christ, but what now is eclipsing everything else is the present crisis.



 And we can't think or feel anything, but the present hurt.



 And they didn't quite get past that. And Zach writes about the very first worship service in which Abby, having her life saved,



 but not her vision in one eye, came back to the service. Zach was leading the service, and part of giving glory to God was the song, "Be Thou My Vision, O Lord of My Heart, Not Be All Else, Save That Thou Art." And even as he was singing and leading others, feeling this confliction, I'm talking about this great glory of God, but all I can think about is my wife is here, and she doesn't see, and what's our future, and what's our family, and it's all I could think about was the present.



 So the end of the service, when Abby came up and she said, "Zach, so much the Lord ministered to my heart with Be Thou My Vision, because I don't need my vision if God is my vision, if He is seeing what's ahead, if He's providing what is needful for us, if He's not just concerned for the moment for eternity, and as a matter of faith, I believe that God is not providing too much or too little, but precisely what is needful for my soul, for this family, for our future. God is doing that work, and I believe that that work of daily bread is not just some story of the past, it's in the present.



 I felt the same thing myself when a couple of years my son Jordan was here, and he stood right about here, and sang with his guitar with so much passion and vigor what has become almost the theme song of his life now, which is Be Thou My Vision. And he began singing that song when he was in college with so much vigor, because there was my son who in high school was so muscle-bound and lightning-fast, only to be diagnosed with Crohn's disease.



 So that by his first year of college his roommates called him "Holocaust" as a way of identifying what he looked like. Nice.



 Not nice.



 And as Jordan was going through all of that, and we were weeping at his withering of body, we began to rejoice at the bread to his soul.



 As he began to sing to classmates and to churches and to us, "Be thou my vision, be thou my battle shield, sword of my fight, be thou my dignity and thou my delight, thou my soul's shelter, thou my high tower, lead thou me heavenward, power of my power."



 Yes, there is much in this world that will challenge me. Yes, there is much in this world that will sadden me. But I believe I receive my daily bread.



 I receive from God what he knows is most needful to keep my soul attached to him. Not too much, not too little. What is precisely right for my heart, my family, my house, my home, if I receive in faith with an understanding that God has promised he would provide daily bread, I pray for it, and he will do precisely what is best to keep our souls anchored to him. Because what God is doing is not providing just what we need. Ultimately, he is providing what he requires, which is a people who will give him glory. But how we struggle to recognize what verse 6 and 7 are saying. "Moses and Aaron said to all the people, at the evening you shall know it was the Lord



 who brought you out of the land of Egypt." You begin to perceive it was his deliverance, his hand, his grace, and you need to know that. And verse 7, "And then morning you shall see the glory of the Lord." To believe as a matter of fact that grace and glory are operating every day with infinite and intimate precision in our lives. And God who knows us better than we know ourselves, knows the future that is beyond us, knows the witness to family and friends and co-workers, is doing what is necessary, needful for eternity and our soul's sake.



 And in that regard we turn to him and seek him and his daily bread, believing he will provide it.



 Or is it just an ancient story?



 No, the Bible is telling us the ancient story to make sure we know it is still true.



 How do we know that God is still providing the manna? After all, when Jesus came to earth, he was going to teach us that, saying that he was the bread of heaven. And the people questioned.



 Wait, wait, wait, wait. What do you mean God is providing us the bread of heaven through you? In John 6, the crowds asked Jesus, "What sign do you do that we may see and believe you? Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness, bread from heaven."



 Jesus then said, "The bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.



 I am the bread of life.



 Whoever comes to me will not hunger. Whoever believes in me will never thirst."



 If we believe manna is not just an old story, but is the continuing provision of eternity from God for all who will look to his Son in faith, then we recognize what God is doing is not just providing something in the fat. Jesus to pay for the penalty of my sins, but by his Holy Spirit continue to minister day by day with the same sort of precision.



 And when I believe that, when that begins to affect me, then I begin to recognize what the result would be. What did God say? We learn the glory of God in the face of Jesus.



 He is that bread of life. He is the one who is providing for our eternity. He is the one who is providing every day what I most need. And when I believe that, when my heart becomes committed to that, then the challenges still come.



 "But I have daily bread which is dependent upon him.



 I embarrass him in the first hour I will do it again." I think when Scott and Rachel come up here and they sing such joy about the glory of God and those of us who know their lives and recognize there have been profound struggle with child and health, and surely there is this confliction at times between the joy that we sing and the pain that we feel, but there is this deep faith that said God isn't going to give us too much or he isn't going to give us too little, but precisely what is needful to set our souls on him so that as we minister, not just in this place, but in many places, many churches, many places around the world that they are singing of something that isn't just fake and artificial and it's something that comes out of soul. We recognize that in the deprivations of life, God is still providing daily bread.



 And the greatest evidence of all that is the bread that came from heaven.



 And when I know that, when I know the glory is the revelation of grace that's beyond us, what we could not provide, what we could not in any way deserve, that God is giving us wonderful, wonderful blessings and response which is our heart's desire.



 If you really believe that even without your deserving, without your provision, God is doing what is absolutely best. What becomes your heart's response?



 It can be nothing but worship.



 To give him praise, to do the very thing that God said, "You'll know to give me glory."



 Now God is so gracious that he's not just expecting a response of worship. He's providing for it. Did you catch that? Verse 5, "On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily." God's speaking to Moses, "You know, on the sixth day of the week, I'm going to give a double portion." Why? Why double on the sixth day? Verse 29 explains, "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." God can provide more for you in six days than you can provide for you in seven days.



 So take the margin.



 As hard as it is, it's going to be worship God, to see His glory, to focus on that.



 Step away from your work.



 Step away from your recreation and consider the worship of God. And so this is not a burden to you. I'm actually going to provide, says God. I'm going to provide so that you don't even have to go up and gather on that day.



 You don't have to work. You get to rejoice, focus upon my glory and my worship, and I'm going to make it possible.



 It's a call to worship.



 Not just for God's sake, for our sake, so that our hearts would rejoice in the rest that He is providing.



 And yet as clear as is that provision, don't go out on the Sabbath, but instead rest in what God has provided. What do these wonderful people do? Verse 27, "On the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather."



 I'm going to provide for you. You don't have to go out there. What do they do? They go out to work.



 What is God saying?



 Trust me. No, more than that.



 Rest in me.



 Believe that there will be enough challenges in life, in the desert, in the enemy that's to come in establishing my promise in your life. Believe that you will need some margin to focus on worship. Now a number of you are good enough Bible scholars that you're already debating me, and you're saying, "Now wait a second. There is no continuing Sabbath. The Sabbath is part of the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law is past." Let me just remind you two things. First, the law has not been given yet.



 Moses has not given the law yet, and he's still saying to people, "Let God take care of you on this day."



 And second, worship never goes out of style.



 We need hearts that believe that God is providing, that are being regularly reminded of His glory, of His provision, because something deep in us says, "Oh, there's not going to be manna tomorrow. I have to take care of all this myself. I have to do more today. I don't have time for worship. I don't have time to recognize the glory of God." And God is saying, "Not only do you need rest, your children do."



 Verse 32, Moses said, "This is what the Lord has commanded. Let an omer be kept throughout your generations so that they may see the bread which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt."



 So Aaron gathered up an omer, a half gallon of manna, and put it — do you remember where he put it?



 In the Ark of the Covenant, which would go in the Holy of Holies, where the high priest would make atonement for the people year after year. But why is that manna there in the Ark of the Covenant? As God is reminding the people now, and your children, and your children's children, and their children after them, it's God who makes the way.



 It's not your hand. It's not your provision. It's God providing what you could not provide for yourself so that you will delight in worship to understand how great is His grace. And when that happens, you, for your children's sake, as well as your sake, will protect worship. It's hard — now, think what an awful weekend this is to talk about this. It's Labor Day weekend, you know, and we're all getting in our last dash of summer, except for the good people who are here, obviously.



 But it's the message that we need to hear too over and over again. What?



 I'm distracted by my work. I'm distracted by my recreations. But there will come a time in life if I do not perceive the grace and the glory of God that life will crush me. And it will crush my family. And it will crush my children. And in their teenage years, when our children are most likely to make their commitment to Christ, that we as a culture have become most active in sports or work activities that take them out of the church in this crucial time. Now, my goal is not to make you feel guilt. My goal is to make us relish the grace that not only gives us strength for today and hope for tomorrow, but becomes the example to our children as well. In our church in St. Louis, I can remember a sermon on the Sabbath in which our preacher gave this most wonderful, fatherly, grace-filled, sweet, peaceable message on the goodness of the Sabbath and protecting our families and protecting our hearts by putting margin in our lives for worship. And at the end of the sermon, you know, we stood up to sing the final hymn, and I was close enough to the family in front of us that I could hear as the teenage son leaned over to his father and said, "Now don't you feel guilty?"



 The goal is not guilt. Listen, if the reason that we are involved in worship is to relieve guilt and shame, only two responses. One is we will find a way to stay away from guilt and shame. We will separate ourselves from worship.



 Or we'll come to worship out of guilt and shame, in which case we will worship and become more and more sour week by week and year by year.



 All right, I'll do it.



 Not the reason.



 The reason is to say, "Look how great is my God, for people who could not provide for themselves, for people who were undeserving," these grumblers, "rather than keep them as sourpusses," the father is saying, "Come to me, and let me give you some bread.



 Let me give you some meat, because then you'll see my glory."



 And the antidote to grumbling is glory pills.



 You'll see how good and gracious I am. Verse 9 is an absolute surprise to most people. "Moses," said to Aaron, "say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, "Come near before the Lord, for He has heard your grumbling."



 Not, "Get away from me, you grumblers." No. Come, dear. Come close.



 What is happening in the worship of the people of God is that we are saying God wants me to know that He is the one who saves, and He gets glory because His grace is so great. And I will need to remember both at some time in life. I need this regular pattern of work and rest, of seeking Him and knowing His grace, because my heart will need that strength of the worship of my own soul, and so are my children and their children's children.



 And so we encourage one another and build one another up, as God has taught us to do. You know, in that Pixar movie Up, Carl Fredrickson is an elderly widow who's mourning the loss of his wife, Ellie. When she was still alive, some of you remember the movie? He said, "We'll build a house on the cliff overlooking Paradise Falls."



 And in the opening part of that movie, do you remember there are four minutes totally without dialogue, as there's this wonderful montage of their wedding and early years and miscarriage and inability to have children and the building of a career and love that grows despite what they can provide.



 And finally, what it means to live with someone who becomes incapacitated and then is gone despite your great love.



 And when Ellie is gone, Carl just becomes more sour, until one day he does what he can to meet her promised desire so long ago. He ties, remember, thousands of balloons to the house to raise it heavenward, and it gets to Paradise Falls. He's almost sure to fulfill the promise, and then almost so close to fulfilling the promise, he loses everything, only to discover her love was never based on what he could do.



 So is God's love.



 And when we have been filled with an understanding that He provides manna to people in the wilderness and bread from heaven for our souls, then we rest.



 And we face life well rested, strong for the challenge, joyous because of the glory, so great is His grace for us that we face what God calls us to face for ourselves and for others. Not too much, not too little, just right, so that we would know the glory, be filled with the grace, and tell all generations how great is our God. So loved He the world, He gave us His Son, bread from heaven, for you, for me, forever. Father so work your grace into us, I pray, that we who know how great you are might know how good you are, and give you praise that is not just good for you, it's good for our souls.



 We will need it, and our children will.



 Teach us of the greatness of the grace of God. Let our vision so be filled with you that it is not eclipsed by the crisis of the moment. Turn our eyes to you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.