Title: Trust! God will provide
Series: Old Testament / Our God Provides
Readings: Exodus 16:1-18 Preacher: Phil Swain
This Sunday we wrap up our Our God Provides series by joining the Israelites out in the desert (Exodus 16:1–18). Even though they had just seen God’s amazing rescue in the Exodus story, it didn’t take long before the doubts set in. Hungry and uncertain, the people began to complain that God might not provide for them. But instead of turning away, God graciously provides — sending manna and quail each day, just enough for everyone. It’s a powerful reminder of the line we pray so often, “Give us today our daily bread.”
As we finish the series, we’ll be asking what this story means for us. How do we learn to trust in God’s provision when everything around us tells us to work harder, save more, and build bigger safety nets? What does it look like to live with the confidence that God’s “enough” is really enough? Together we’ll explore how daily trust in God can free us to live with more gratitude, generosity, and joy.
Sermon Text
Over the past month we’ve been journeying together through our series Our God Provides. Five weeks ago we started by looking at the story of creation through the lens of provision – and that beautiful image that we as humans were created last so that God could say, “look what I have provided for you”. From there we’ve watched Abraham and Sarah discover that God provides even when the promise feels impossible. We’ve wrestled with Jacob and seen that God provides a way, even when we make a mess of things. Last Sunday we’ve remembered how God heard the cries of the Hebrew people in Egypt and responded, setting them free.
And now, here we are in the desert. Six weeks out of slavery. Six weeks after the Red Sea opened before them and they walk through to freedom! Six weeks after a miracle so big you would think it would sustain their faith forever. But no. They’re hungry. They’re thirsty. And they start to wonder: “Is God really going to provide for us now?”
And if we’re honest, that’s not so different to us. We can have moments when we’ve seen God at work in amazing ways — but then life presses in again. The bills come. The diagnosis comes. The world news goes crazy. The stress of the week comes. And we find ourselves grumbling too, asking: “God, are you really with me in this?”
Our bible reading today is just the first part of a two-part story.
Ex 16 tells the story of how the people were hungry and cried out for food. The following chapter Ex 17 tells the story of how the people were thirsty and cried out for water. Very similar stories with the same message running through.
Before we jump into these readings lets just fill in the gap between last Sunday’s reading of Moses and the burning bush and today’s reading because a bit happens.
You probably know the story but … after Moses encountered God in the burning bush, he returned to Egypt to confront Pharaoh and demand freedom for the Israelites, but Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. After a series of escalating plagues, Pharaoh relented, and the Israelites set out in haste, leaving slavery behind.
But Pharaoh soon pursued them with his army, and at the Red Sea the people thought all was lost. Yet God parted the waters, leading Israel safely through while Pharaoh’s chariots were swept away. On the other side they sang songs of deliverance, praising the God who saves. But now the people were in the wilderness and faced the harsh reality of their new life – where do we get water and food. The question shifted from “Can God save us from slavery?” to “Will God save us in the desert?”
Let’s explore the reading from Exodus 16. They are up to six weeks after the Exodus and we read in verse 2-3,
In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”
Does anyone else find this strange? They were enslaved; they were harshly treated but now they want to go back? Why? I think it is about the provision. Yes, Egypt was terrible but at least they knew where the next meal was coming from. Pharaoh’s system was brutal, but it felt predictable.
Here in the desert, they needed to trust God for their next meal … and that uncertainty is hard … so hard that they would prefer the certainty of the food pots, even if that meant that they were enslaved again.
It’s strange, but at the same time – we can sort of relate to that? How many people in this world work terrible jobs because at least you know that there is a paycheck coming. To quit an awful job means stepping into uncertainty about how you are going to eat.
And, back to the Hebrews in the desert … it is weird that they are having trouble trusting God because God seems to have come through for them so far – God rescued them from Egypt (Ex 14) and at Marah, God made the bitter water sweet so they could drink it (Ex 15). God was stepping up and being faithful and yet when they got hungry … they doubted God would provide.
So – how does God respond to these unjustifiable grumblings.
Does God punish them? “How dare you doubt me.” No — God responds with grace and provision. Bread in the morning, quail in the evening. Just enough for each day.
And then in the very next chapter, Exodus 17, it’s water they’re worried about. Again they grumble, again they doubt, and again God provides — water from the rock.
Bread, meat, water: the essentials of life, all given freely, daily, abundantly. Are you seeing a pattern here … not only in these readings but the readings that we have been looking at over the past month. God provides. God has provided and God will provide. We need to trust in God’s faithfulness. God will provide.
And this is where God puts in a twist into this story to help the Hebrew people learn. God doesn’t give them pantries full of food or endless rivers of water. God gives them only what they need for today. The manna could not be hoarded.
We only heard up to verse 18 which said that when they collected the Manna, they always seemed to gather just enough for one day … even if you gathered too much it seemed to be just enough. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.
But if we keep reading in chapter 16 past verse 18 we read that Moses told them that they don’t need to keep any of the manna until the next day because God would send more tomorrow. However some of them were anxious or struggling to trust God’s provision and tried to keep some of the manna overnight, only to find it had gone off and full of bugs. God was just underlining the point – the manna could not be hoarded. God gave them only what they need for today.
In the podcast that I listen to on the Narrative Lectionary they had a great way of putting this. They said that the manna is like a “liturgy of trust.” Every morning the Israelites had to wake up and trust that God would provide again. They couldn’t store it, couldn’t lock it away for security. They just had to trust that it was going to be there the next morning.
Manna wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t a feast. In fact, the Israelites looked at it and said, “What is it?” (that’s literally what manna means!). But it was enough. Daily bread. Daily meat (from the quails in the evening) and in chapter 18 … Daily water. Isn’t that what we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer? “Give us this day our daily bread.” God will provide but God also encourages us to trust in that provision … daily.
And I think for the Hebrew people, that in this experience of provision God is doing something bigger. God re-shaping the people – transforming their thinking – changing their perspective on things from what they learnt from Pharoah to what it now means to live as children of God.
You see, Pharaoh’s economy was about stockpiling and building storage cities. More, more, more. Always make sure you have enough for the future. God’s economy seems different – it is about being content in the moment and trusting that God will provide.
I am not suggesting that we don’t need superfunds or we don’t need to budget or save … but I do wonder whether we are striving so hard and prioritising work over everything else because we are worried that we won’t have enough. How do we find that balance between responsible financial management and trusting in God’s provision that we have – and will have – enough.
Let me just zoom in on verse 17 and 18.
The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.
Or in a slightly easier to read version of the Bible (CEB):
… the ones who had collected more had nothing left over, and the ones who had collected less had no shortage. Everyone collected just as much as they could eat.
What do you think that is happening in these verses?
There are two different ways of interpreting these verses. The passage sort of implies that it didn’t really matter how much you collected because the energiser bunny that raced around and grabbed heaps found that when it was measured it was just one omer; and the dawdler who thought they had not got much found that when it was measured it was also one omer. Hence, everyone had enough.
But here is another way of viewing it. As they all walked back from the manna fields, the energiser bunny realised that they had way too much manna – especially as it only last a day. And when EB sees the dawdler with just a little manna, what are they going to do? Share. Of course you would share. It makes sense to share. So as they walk back the community makes sure they all have enough … so when they get to the weighing station, everyone has a similar amount of one omer. Hence, everyone had enough.
The podcast I was listening to expanded on this idea. They said that in God’s economy it isn’t about meritocracy. It’s not “you get what you earn.” Rather it’s about neighbourliness. It’s everyone being fed, regardless of whether they gathered a lot or a little.
This is not just an idea for the Hebrews in the desert. Many modern-day theologians push this idea too. Dorothy Day, a Catholic social justice advocate said … Our “enough” is tied to our neighbour’s “enough”; that the call of Christians to live simply so that others might simply live. One of her most famous quotes is, “The spare coat that hangs in your closet belongs to the poor.”
Shane Claiborne, other great Christian thinker, wrote that God’s kingdom is about shared daily bread, not private stockpiles.
How do we make sure that everyone has enough?
This way of thinking is a little confronting for us, because our culture looks a lot more like Pharaoh’s than God’s. We’re trained to overwork, to build bigger super funds, to protect ourselves by having not just enough but more than enough — even when others go without. But in God’s kingdom, enough is enough, and enough is shared.
Sallie McFague, an ecofeminist theologian from the states, links this story with God’s command from Genesis 1 to be good stewards of creation. She wrote that just in the same way that Moses commanded not to over collect or hoard the manna – she wants to suggest that greedy consumerism and the drive to have more and more is not the way of God and is a sin. She wrote, Overconsumption is not only an ecological sin; it is a spiritual one, for it represents the refusal to recognize our proper place as God’s creatures within the web of life.
I would want to add that overconsumption or the hoarding of resources is also a refusal to trust in God’s provision and trust that we have enough. Remember, the Lord’s prayer is NOT, “Give us enough bread so that we won’t have to worry about not having enough bread ever again” … no, it says
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
Remember, God wants to provide. God will provide. But God is challenging us to change our perspective as well.
So what does this mean for us? We’re not in the Sinai desert, but we know the wilderness of uncertainty. We know what it’s like to wonder if there will be enough — enough money, enough energy, enough security for the future.
And just like the Hebrews, we’re tempted to go back to Pharaoh’s system. To trust more in our bank balance, our workload, our nest eggs, than in God’s daily provision. But here’s the challenge of this text: will we dare to trust God’s economy? To live with gratitude instead of fear? To choose simplicity instead of hoarding? To share so that everyone has enough?
It’s scary. The wilderness is terrifying because the old system has collapsed and the new one isn’t fully visible yet. But it’s also where God teaches us to trust. Daily bread. Living water. Enough for today.
And here’s where all of this points. God didn’t just provide manna and water in the wilderness. God provided Jesus — the Bread of Life and the Living Water. Jesus says, “Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35). In him, the daily manna finds its fulfilment. In him, the water from the rock flows eternally.
And today, we come to this table — to bread and to cup. Just like the manna, it looks ordinary, even unimpressive. Just bread, just wine. We might even look at it and ask, “What is it?” And yet, here is God’s provision for us. Here is Christ himself, given for us.
At this table, no one has too much and no one is left out. Each receives enough. Daily bread. Living water. Grace for today, and hope for tomorrow.
So now, as we gather at communion, remember: God has provided before, God provides today, and God will provide again tomorrow. Thanks be to God. Amen.