I’m going to start today with a quote that I’ve shared with you before…it’s one of my favorite quotes because it literally explains the essence of our lives, how to live as God desires, and also why we humans struggle internally, and I think it’s a great way to start our new summer conversation. 

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” St Augustine

Life can be so much easier than we make it.  Christianity can seem so complex, and, just like life, we can make it much more complicated than it needs to be.  And I’m going to help you with that today.  So much of the pain, the stress, the restlessness, the fears, and just how hard life can be will come down to what we love most and where we place our love.  Life is hard, but it isn’t because God doesn’t love us, or that He isn’t with us; He does, and He is.  It is all about our ability to rest in Him, to let go, trust Him, and love Him most…or not.  But that is a lot easier said than done in our world today, because our world gives us plenty of other things to love and rest in that seem right and even make us feel a little better for a little while.  Life is hard, but wow, we can make a hard life harder.  In fact, it can feel like the one thing about life that seems easy is messing it up…but we make life so much harder when we live outside of God’s design and desires for our lives, and everything about our faith, really, comes down to this.  God wants us to love Him most.  The enemy doesn’t want that and simply gives you countless things to love more than God, and your entire life experience will be shaped by what you choose to rest in and love most. It’s this idea that leads us right into a theme you will see as we study the Children of Israel and their wilderness journey this Summer.  It will be right under the surface of all the epic stories we jump into.  Life is all about what we love most.  When we love anything more than God, our lives will be harder.  When you love God most, your life will be more peaceful.  All of life, the spiritual war, our spiritual maturity, theology, formation, discipleships, and Bible Studies can be summed up in this thought.  It is all about what we love most, and life becomes a mess because the things we love get out of order, and things slide into where God should be on our love list.

The reality of life is that it's about one thing, and it isn’t me, and it isn’t you; it’s all about God, and our entire life experience will come down to what we love most.  Life only changes when we love God more than ourselves, more than money, popularity, our stuff, more than how people feel about us, more than worldly success, even more than our churches, families, futures…or feeling good in a temporary moment.  Life won’t get better until we love God most, and most of us need to go through a lot of pain and carry a lot of weight for a very long time before we can finally let go of the other things so we can love Him most.  When that happens, a hard life (while still full of challenges) gets easier; until then, we just keep making it harder.   So, I want to start this summer series with a question.  How you answer this question is literally shaping your entire life.  Here’s the question.  What do you love most?  Now we are in church, and we know the good, Christian answer is God. But if that is your answer, the follow-up question is this: Does your life reflect that, or would the way you live say you love something more than God?  This is so important.  What you love most is everything.

Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to do things you love compared to things you hate or feel like you have to do?  It’s a lot harder to get up at 4 am for work than it is to get up at 4 am to go on a vacation, isn’t it?  It’s hard to give four hours of our time to something, but it’s easy to give those 4 hours to watch our favorite sports team play, isn’t it?  It’s a lot harder to work outside on a cold and rainy day; it’s miserable, and we want to go home, but during hunting season, people will stay out in that same weather all day long…for free. LOL, what is that?  Well, when we love it, we want to do it, and it’s just easier. Doing things we don’t love is always harder; they take more energy…do you see it?  What we love most matters and shapes our lives. 

Lately, I’ve been thinking about life and why we are so restless and unhappy.  We have more than any generation before us, more comfort, more technology, more stuff, more wealth…so, why are we so unhappy? It’s wild to think that with all this wealth, stuff, comfort, and connectivity, we are in a mental health crisis, with anxiety being called the fastest-growing disease in the Western world.  It's heartbreaking to think about, but more people are dying from suicide than from car crashes in America today.  Depression, hopelessness, anxiety, addiction, loneliness, and despair…all skyrocketing in a time when we should be thriving?  So, what is going on?  Well, it all comes down to what we love most. Our world offers us plenty to love, and the problem is not simply that we love the wrong things. The problem is that our love lists just get completely out of order.  Listen to this quote.

“We become what we love, and who we love shapes what we become. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing.” St. Clare of Assisi

Let me ask you, what is the goal of following Jesus?  I like to point out to Christians who say they follow Jesus that a critical part of following Him is actually to follow Him, but the goal is to become like Him.  How?  Yes, we spend time with Him; we study, pray, grow, and join a spiritual family… but a lot of people do that.  They know a lot about God, hang out in churches on Sunday mornings, and still aren’t becoming like Jesus…so how does it happen?  Well, we become what we love most. Your enemy knows that and gives you plenty to love and follow.  It’s a simple concept, but a challenge in life.  It’s easy to love temporary things more than eternal things, and we may not say this out loud in church, but it’s easy to love ourselves more than God. And when love becomes disordered, life is harder, because we are outside of God’s design.  That lines up with what God tells us repeatedly in Scripture.  We can start with some of Moses’ instructions from God before the people we are studying this summer will enter the promised land.

Deuteronomy 6:5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. NIV

He says, "Memorize this, and teach it to your family."  Then He warns them that when life gets comfortable, and they have more than enough in the promised land, they need to be careful not to lose sight of this, because it’s one thing to love God most when you really need him and He is all you have, but it’s another when you are comfortable, and you have plenty, isn’t it? 

Deuteronomy 6:10-15  When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.  Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. NIV

And we wonder in a time with more than ever before, why we are struggling more than ever before.  It all comes down to what we love most, and in our world today, there is a lot to love more than God.  This is everything; whatever you love ultimately leads your life. That’s why Jesus said the greatest commandment is not just about behavior but about love.

“Matthew 22:37-38 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. NLT

Everything starts and flows from there because life is about what you love most, and your life, and how you live each day, tells you what that is.  So, why did I spend so much time there?  Well, because this summer we are studying Israel’s wilderness journey, it becomes a picture of what happens when people want God’s blessings but struggle to love and trust Him.  This journey should have taken only two weeks, but it takes decades; an entire generation dies in the wilderness as they struggle to learn the ultimate lesson in life: that it’s all about God and loving Him most. 

Let’s get into this summer series, called “Who Would Do That?”  Have you ever been watching TV or scrolling on your phone and seen a news article about a superstar thrown in jail for something silly?  You know what I mean, the star football player who has the world at his fingertips, millions of dollars are his if he just stays in shape, learns his playbook, and stays out of trouble…and he can’t do it.  There he was at a bar at 2 AM and lost it all.  We’ve all seen these stories, haven’t we?  Men and women who seem to have it all, who do something dumb, and lose it all, and we think, “How could they possibly do that? They should know better.  Because if they had given you or me fame and $50 million when we were 20 years old, you know, we would have been very wise and responsible with it. LOL.  We see these stars crash and burn and think.  “Why would she keep doing that?  Why would he turn back to the thing that he struggles with time and time again?” Well, that is how you will feel as we study the Exodus journey. I mean, the story of the children of Israel is almost unbelievable. God rescues them from slavery. He parts seas and destroys armies for them.  He feeds them by dropping food from heaven. Leads them visibly, I mean, they are looking right at a cloud pillar by day and fire by night. He protects them repeatedly and promises them a beautiful future…and they fight Him every step of the way.  And what could have been a two-week journey to the promised land becomes a long, painful journey that takes decades.  We can read it and think, “Come on. Who would do that?” Just like we do with the superstars who crash and burn today.  But if we slow down and get honest, the answer is: We would. We do. Their story is our story.

So, their story famously begins with hundreds of years of oppression and slavery.  Remember all the way back to Joseph’s story, and how he brought his family to Egypt, well, that family just kept growing, and the leaders who loved Joseph came and went, and the new Pharaoh started to get very worried about how powerful these people could become as they began to grow larger than his own people, so he enslaved them to keep them under his thumb, and this is a long and painful time for God’s children. Generation after generation lives under oppression. They cry out in pain. And God hears them, and eventually calls up Moses through a Burning Bush, with this message.

Exodus 3:7-8 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” NIV

And He does. God dismantles Egypt with plagues. He parts the Red Sea and destroys the pursuing Egyptian Army. He leads Israel with those pillars I told you about. He gives them water from rocks and drops food from heaven. His presence is clear; it’s seen, felt, and heard, and He gives them a promise of a great new home. Now, here is what is incredible. The trip from Egypt to the Promised Land was around 200 miles. A journey that should have taken roughly two weeks…and it took 40 years. An entire generation died in the wilderness on a journey that should have taken days. Why?  Because they could not trust God, and they fought against His will.  They struggled to love Him most.  Who would do that after watching God move the way they are?  Well, before we judge them too quickly…we should probably ask ourselves how often our own lives have become harder because we won’t let God lead?  Who would do that?  We would.  Their story is our story.

Let’s look practically at our lives today.  We make life so much harder than it has to be, and since we are in church, let’s just talk about our Faith lives.  Sounds safer than talking about finances, marriages, choices, or something like that. LOL.  How many people want a life-giving walk with God?  How do we get that?  We know, right?  It’s not a secret; we know the answer to this question.  We spend time with God in prayer, scripture, and worship; we prioritize Him in our lives.  We know that, but it’s rare to see someone do it, isn’t it?  We just have no time for Him, no interest in following His lead, or in trusting Him, but we all want the life God says we can have.  Ken and I often talk about how simple building and living as a spiritual family can be, but how hard we make it.  It will simply come down to what we love most.  Think about how hard it has become to attend church in a world that offers us plenty to love besides God.  There was a time when it was unheard of to have youth sports on Sundays, and now it’s nothing to squeeze in another tourney on Easter.  Sundays used to be a day to go and worship God, now it may be the only day to rest from all the other things in life, so why would you do the church thing? Hey, now we can tell people we watch online, if they ask where we have been, because Sunday morning seems to be the only moment you have for yourself.  My sons just told me the other day that the NFL is now playing 10 or 11 weeks of games in Europe this upcoming season, which means a full day of NFL games at 9 am…I just kept thinking, there is another thing to do besides being part of a spiritual family on a Sunday morning.   None of these things are evil or bad, but do you see how easily we can have so much else to love that God just gets pushed out?  We love God, but he just doesn’t fit into our lives…and remember, our entire life experience is determined by what we love most.   Think of how hard it is to open the Bible app and spend a few minutes of our day in God’s Word, yet how easy it is to give hours to mindless scrolling and funny memes on the internet. Impossible to forward a Scripture or MRC post to a friend, but pretty easy to share 50 funny GIFs with family and friends.  We think to ourselves, why would the children of Israel do what they did? They make life so much harder than it has to be, but we do it too.  It’s just wild how simple it is to do things we love, and how hard it is to do things we don’t… and Scripture says that is actually how we can test whether we love God or not…

1 John 5:3-4 The reality test on whether or not we love God’s children is this: Do we love God? Do we keep his commands? The proof that we love God comes when we keep his commandments and they are not at all troublesome. MSG

Do you see it? Your life journey is shaped by what you love. The things you love, you will do with ease; the things you don’t, you won’t.  If you love God, all those laws and rules are life-giving; your faith journey is not hard or troublesome; it is a joy…that is how you know what you love most.

You know, I think it’s important as we kick off this study to realize something bigger is going on as the children of Israel move to the Promised Land.  This journey wasn’t just about getting to a new home; God was using it to teach and shape them spiritually.  The whole journey was taking a group of oppressed, broken, enslaved people, and transforming them into free people, living the abundant new life, in our new identity that God calls us all into, but to do it, we must learn the ultimate lesson of what we love most.  This journey can be a two-week stroll or a 40-year beatdown; that is up to us.

You will see these lessons throughout their journey, like in the food God provided.  He was teaching them daily dependence. Every morning, manna appeared, and they were told, it was enough for that day, don’t store up leftovers for tomorrow. Why? Because God was teaching them to trust Him with each day, and not worry about tomorrow, because they can trust Him with that, too.  They struggled with that, and honestly, so do we. 

As Christians, we say a lot of good things.  We can say we want closeness with God until we realize that to experience that closeness, we must trust God and live for Him. We say we want faith until faith means we don’t know what will happen next. We say we want freedom until freedom requires surrender and living for God.  Their story is our story. God wants their worship and their love and doesn’t want them to forget Him… even as they watch God do incredible things in their lives, they struggle with that, and so do we.  This is how I want you to think as we study the Exodus journey.  Their journey is our journey…their story is our story.  And underneath it all is this reality.  It’s all about loving Him most.  Because what you love most is controlling your life.  If comfort is what you love most, you won’t take risks, you will play it safe, and you will avoid obeying God when things get hard. If approval is what you love most, people will control your decisions and your life. If safety is what you love most, fear will dominate your thinking and life.  If your finances or your material possessions are what you love most, you will work and work and work, while never quite having enough.  But if God becomes what you love most, it changes everything. Not because life suddenly becomes easy. But because you have finally figured out the ultimate lesson of life…it’s all about God, and our whole job is to love Him most. 

So, welcome to our Summer Bible Study on the epic wilderness journey of the Children of Israel. It’s awesome, riddled with excitement, epic moments, and danger.  But the real danger was never hunger, or getting lost, or death by wild animal. It was forgetting who God was, and you will see it; the further they got away from their salvation from Egyptian slavery, the more this happened.  First, in the wilderness, life wasn’t getting any easier, and the harder the circumstances, the more you see them struggle to love God most. But they also lose sight of God when they finally enter the promised land, life gets easier, and they get comfortable. Who would do that after being saved by God’s great love?  Well, we would, and we do.  Their story is our story. 

Listen, the ultimate lesson in life is that it’s all about what you love.  This world is going to give you plenty to love other than God. This is the essence of the spiritual war you. Satan simply fills our lives with things to love and care about, and slowly, over time, it fills our lives and pushes God out. Your enemy knows that it’s about what we love most, so he just gives us a lot to love…and we tend to take care of the rest for Him.  And when God is not what we love most, a hard life just gets harder.  Marriage gets harder. Parenting gets harder. Life with people gets harder.  Our faith life and church life get harder.  Pain, Stress, Defeat, Fear, and people of this world get louder.  But when God becomes what we love most, everything changes. 

This exodus journey is wild, but it is not about how bad Israel was. It is about how faithful and loving God is. Even when they complained, questioned, failed, and rebelled, He was still with them, loving them.  They couldn’t push Him away; they tried, but His love was beyond that.  Who would do that?  We would.  Their story is our story, and thankfully, God’s love is as true for us as it was for them.  As we start this study, I want you to see the big picture, and I will just leave you with this idea.  Don’t turn a two-week journey toward everything you want in life into a 40-year beatdown. Trust God. Surrender and follow Him.  Stop fighting God as He guides you toward your best life. You can’t see the destination, but He absolutely can.  You don’t know why you had to turn and go the way you are going, but He absolutely does, and through it all, He is teaching you something very important.  It is about what we love most.  The sooner you understand this, and let go of your desires and place God first, well, the easier that journey is from through the wilderness to the promised land…human nature proves we will probably make this way harder than it needs to be, I see this in my own life, and I’m sure if you are honest you can see it in yours…but when God is what you love most, that is when things change, that is when following Him and living like Jesus goes from being hard-labor and troublesome to a lot of fun…because what you love most is creating your life experience. 

I wanted one question in your heart and mind as we start our summer Bible study.  What do you love most?  Be honest about this.  Take a good, long look in the mirror of your life.  What would your life say that you love most?  Because in the end, what you love most is shaping your life. Life is just not about you.  It is all about God, and the sooner we learn to let go of ourselves and love Him most, the better, because we don’t want a 2-week stroll to turn into a 40-year beatdown…how we experience our journey is completely up to us, and what we choose to love most.