The Wilderness Experience

Josh Trice

Sunday, January 04, 2026

Sunday Morning

The Wilderness Experience

As we begin a new year, we reflect on the tough times in life and how they present us with new opportunities to deepen our faith, hope and trust in God.

Locations & Times

First Baptist Church Seminole Tx

202 SW Ave B, Seminole, TX 79360, USA

Thursday 5:00 AM

BibleProject | Finding God in the Wilderness

Read Plan

Give Generously

At our church, it is our desire to serve our community and share the life-changing message of hope and truth in Jesus. We see giving as another way we can our worship God by generously and joyfully giving toward the ministry and mission he has called us to together.

https://fbcseminole.org/give

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Financial Peace University

Financial Peace University is a nine lesson course that teaches - How to save for emergencies - How to pay off debt fast - How to spend wisely - How to invest in your future
Join Joey and Daisy Aguilar as they teach Dave Ramsey's program that has been teaching common sense, biblical money principles that work.
Cost is $99

https://fbcseminoletx.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/3337543

GriefShare

GriefShare connects you with others who understand grief. Find hope and healing in this supportive group, which meets both online and in person, hosted by First Baptist Church Seminole TX.
To learn more about GriefShare and to register, go to https://www.griefshare.org/groups/282653

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Study of Revelation

Perhaps no other book of the Bible feels as inaccessible and as intimidating to us as the very last one. The book of Revelation overflows with images and ideas that confound our modern ears. But if all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable, we should assume Revelation is as accessible and helpful as any other book of the Bible. Why don't we see it that way? Two thousand years ago, John's Revelation was circulated and read aloud among seven churches in Asia Minor. Those who heard the letter understood it and drew encouragement from it's message. The same can be true for you today.
Over 9 sessions of verse-by-verse Bible study, Joe Stewart helps you discover how the last book of the Bible-the culmination of God's great story-speaks both a steadying word of assurance and a strong call to endure to the church of every age.

https://fbcseminoletx.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/3323953

I've always wanted to go to Australia, inspired by my childhood hero Steve "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin.

95% of Australia is uninhabited. Meaning there is lots of wilderness!

Matthew 3:13-17 NIV

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Matthew 4:1 NIV

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

Wilderness signifies that something significant is happening in the story. It acts as a metaphor, representing a liminal space (“place between”), a low point in life, or a significant challenge or loss.
Wilderness affects us even today.

3 distinct funcations of Wilderness:
It is (1) where danger lurks. (2) Where opportunity abounds. (3) And where preparation takes place.

1. Wilderness is Dangerous

God intended for us to live with Him in a lush, beautiful world.

Our choices led us out of the garden, into a world that was desolate and dangerous.

Genesis 4:8 NIV

Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Genesis 37:19-24 NIV

“Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other.“Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said.“Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearingand they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.

The wilderness experience is painful and it can leave us with a deep sense of confusion, hurt and lostness.
But it is not without hope.

2. Wilderness is Opportunity

Exodus 2:11-15 NIV

One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.

Exodus 3:1-10 NIV

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.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—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

We all have our wilderness experiences.
Maybe we ended up where we are because of something someone has done to us.
Maybe we ended up where we are because of something we did ourselves.
Either way, what we see in the story of Moses, as well as the story of Joseph before him, is that our wilderness experience is an opportunity.

3. Wilderness is Preparation

Numbers 14:2-33 NIV

All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness!Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?”And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown in front of the whole Israelite assembly gathered there.Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had explored the land, tore their clothesand said to the entire Israelite assembly, “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good.If the LORD is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us.Only do not rebel against the LORD. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the LORD is with us. Do not be afraid of them.”But the whole assembly talked about stoning them. Then the glory of the LORD appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites.The LORD said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them?I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they.”Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them.And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard that you, LORD, are with these people and that you, LORD, have been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.If you put all these people to death, leaving none alive, the nations who have heard this report about you will say‘The LORD was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath, so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’“Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared‘The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.”The LORD replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked.Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the LORD fills the whole earthnot one of those who saw my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness but who disobeyed me and tested me ten timesnot one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it.But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.Since the Amalekites and the Canaanites are living in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea.”The LORD said to Moses and Aaron“How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites.So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very thing I heard you sayIn this wilderness your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me.Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected.But as for you, your bodies will fall in this wilderness.Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness.

The wilderness became the place of preparation for God’s people.
The place where their faith, hope and trust in God was put to the test and cultivated.
Today, the same is true for us.
In our wilderness, we are provided the opportunity of preparation.

Jesus entered the wilderness to prepare for what was to come (Matthew 4).

Jesus survived the wilderness, and on the other side emerged as a man on a mission.
Jesus entered death, and on the other side emerged as the savior of the world.

God is preparing us and our world to leave the wilderness behind.
God has promised us that someday He will return.
He’s coming.
And when he does, our wilderness will be transformed into a paradise.

Revelation 21:1-5 NIV

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Discussion Questions:
1) What is your wilderness experience? Is it in your past? Is it in your present?
2) Is your wilderness experience self-inflicted (like Moses) or caused by others (like Joseph)? How do the experiences of Moses or Joseph speak into your own?
3) In what ways have you seen God make His presence known in the wilderness of life?
4) In what ways have your wilderness experience(s) cultivated a richer faith, hope and/or trust in God?
5) Read Matthew 4:1-11. How does Jesus’ wilderness experience contribute to his ministry? What insights does it give you in facing your own wilderness experience?

Sunday Worship Service | 9A & 10:30A

The Wilderness Experience

The Wilderness Experience

Locations & Times

BibleProject | Finding God in the Wilderness

Give Generously

Financial Peace University

GriefShare

Study of Revelation

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