There Will Be Manna In The Morning - Louie Giglio

0:01 Hello, Passion City Church, and happy Sunday or whichever day you're jumping on to this link. But I just wanted to say Merry Christmas again to everyone in our Passion City Church family. We had amazing Eve gatherings just a few days ago. I hope you're having a fantastic weekend with family, friends, wherever you are, enjoying this season, enjoying the people around you. And I hope you're not too stressed. You made it. You made it at least through Christmas Day. I'm sure there's still a gift-giving moment coming and a family gathering or a meal to go. But you made it through, and I know probably 10 days ago you were thinking, how am I going to get all of this done? And I know we've all felt that way at Passion City Church. We've had such a beautiful December, starting with Christmas Grove, which was one of the most amazing things I've ever been to in my life. And I'm not saying that because I'm biased towards Shelly, although I am biased towards Shelly.

0:58 I'm saying it because every year it is truly one of the most impactful gatherings that I'm ever a part of. And it was no different this year, just incredible. But we also somehow mysteriously lost time this year between Thanksgiving and now. And that sort of squished everything like an accordion. And all of a sudden it was like, man, where'd the time go? And somehow in the middle of all that, we had a YA collective, A Christmas in the City. We had the rising with all of our students here. We've had such a full December, but God has brought us all through. And I'm so excited today to talk about his promise to do that every single day of our lives. I've been thinking about manna a lot lately. You're like, well, why have you been thinking about manna? Well, we've had a lot of gatherings, a lot.

1:51 We've had a handful of gatherings this fall talking to people about Passion 2026, which, by the way, is four days from now. Think about that. In four days, a lot of our team already there on the ground getting things prepared. In four days, 45,000 18 to 25-year-olds are coming through the turnstiles into Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, and it is going to be one of the most powerful gatherings, I believe, that passion has ever seen. We are so expectant that fire is going to fall in that place. And we are praying and preparing and ready. But we've also been asking for help. There's always a gap with Passion, and I'm not doing that right now. But there's always a gap between what it costs and what students can pay. And so we go to friends, and we're like, there's a gap. Could you help us with the gap?

2:43 And we've been doing that. And we were in several settings where I just said it this way. I said, we, Passion, are a man of ministry. And people, what does that mean? It means it'll be there tomorrow. It's not going to be there yesterday. Sometimes it's not going to be there today. But trust me, when you get there, when you need it, it will be there. And I always laugh about that because I have friends who lead all kind of different ministries and organizations. And some of them just have, honestly, they just have all the money in the world. I don't know how people just call them up and say, do you need anything? I got X, you know, and they're like, well, thank you. And then someone else sees them in the grocery store and says, hey, just want to let you know, I'm going to send you whatever. And they just have a stash. They have a war chest, if you will. And I just go, wow, that is incredible. We are 30 years into doing passion, and we have never had a war chest. We don't even have like a little jewelry box.

3:40 We are a man of ministry. We take a step, God provides. We take another step, God provides. We're not sure all the time how it's going to work out at the end. God provides. And so I've been telling people, we're a man of ministry. Thank you for coming alongside of us. Thank you for helping us close the gap this year. We're grateful. And once again, here we come, four days till passion. We're a man of ministry. It'll be there when you get there. It'll be there tomorrow. It'll be there when you need it. And every time I've walked out and I've thought, wow, that is true of passion. I've told the story many times here of getting to the end of one of our gatherings many years ago where we just didn't have the money when we got there. And it was like, wait a minute, we're here now and there's a gap. And a guy calls me, says, hey, this is crazy. I'm cleaning off my desk. There's an envelope under some stuff on my desk that's been sitting there for months. This guy, I saw him just a few weeks ago and we laughed about it.

4:40 And he said, yeah, it's from our family's foundation. It was for the gathering. Y'all just did it passion. And it got buried under all this stuff on my desk. And I'm so sorry. I'm going to FedEx it to you tomorrow. It's a check for $75,000, I think is what it was. And once we got to the end of the deal, the gap that we had was $72,000. We're a man of ministry. And I love it. If you want to give us a big chunk of money and fill a war chest, will receive it. But I love that we're a man of ministry. But I walked out of one of these gatherings and the Lord just spoke to me so clearly. And he's like, Louie, you're not a man of ministry. You're a man of man. This is the way I've created it. This is the way I designed it. You walk with God. You walk with Yahweh. Your father is the creator of the universe. And he is your friend. You're a man, a man. When you get there, guess what? God will be there.

5:44 And when you get there with God, God will be enough for you. And I've just been thinking about that, especially these weeks coming in to Christmas Eve and the days counting down to passion where there is so much pressing in from every angle. And I bet you feel that way too. things with your kid's school wrapping up or trip that's coming over the holidays that you've been trying to get all the pieces for or getting all the gifts sorted out or all the food sorted out or the family coming or the family going and stuff at work. And I don't know about you, but it seems like everything that blows up, blows up right about the middle of December until the end of December. And you've got problems that you're solving. You've got issues that are happening. You've got some relationship thing going on with a coworker or a neighbor. And It's just all going right now. And I want to encourage you that in the middle of all of this and in the middle of all of everything and for all of 2026 to come, you're a manna woman.

6:46 You're a manna teenager. You're a manna man. You're a manna boy. You're a manna girl. God is going to be there when you get there and he's going to have everything you need. And why is that important? It's important because it allows us to rest in the present moment that we're in and to actually live our lives. I went and looked up just to remind myself all about where the manna story started. And most of you know this, but Moses is leading several million people through the desert. They've been miraculously delivered from Egypt. They saw a sea park. God breathed and the floor of the sea dried up like a pavement. and they walked through, millions of them and their animals, on dry ground. They got to the other side. Pharaoh had changed his mind.

7:41 The chariots were breathing down on them to bring their death and the waters came back over and they were saved. They worshiped God right there in that moment on the other side of the sea. They gave praise to God. They'd seen miracles. But now they're out in the middle of the desert, the enemy's in their minds. They're grumbling and complaining to each other. And now they're saying, wow, what God is this who parted the sea? Did he bring us out here in the middle of this desert so we could starve to death out here? Wow, if we were back in Egypt, at least we would have our pots of stew. They were remembering the smell of being around the fire. At least we would have something to eat. But here we are out here in the desert with nothing, and they're complaining to Moses and complaining to Aaron. And Moses finally tells them, hey, you're not really complaining to me. You're complaining to God, the God who sent you on your way to the promised land.

8:40 And I wonder if that's me today. If I'm out here, I've seen miracles. Have you seen miracles? And I know I'm on my way to the promised land. And I know God is with me. You know why? because it's fire by night and cloud by day. He is with me every step of the way. And if it's nighttime, he lets me know. See the fire? I'm with you. If it's daytime, he says, see the cloud? I'm with you. And he is with me. He lives in me and he lives in anyone who's put their faith in Jesus Christ. So we've seen miracles. God is with us, and he's leading us to the promised land. But how easy is it for us to lose sight of him and say, wow, man, when we were so-and-so, it was way better than here.

9:34 Or if we could just get to so-and-so, that's going to be way better than here. Or to project some worry into our story, which jettisons us from the present moment we're actually living in into all these possible moments that don't even exist yet. And Jesus is saying to us, he's like, hey, don't worry about that. Don't worry about tomorrow. Don't worry about what's coming around the corner. I'm going to be there when you get around the corner. Today it's got its own issues, and today I'm here. And there's manna on the ground today. The story unfolds. I just want to read a few verses of it for us because God says to the people when they're complaining about what are they going to eat, he says, well, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to give you meat and I'm going to give you bread. This is from Exodus 16 and I'm reading from verse 13. It says,

10:45 But then Moses went on and he told them, but don't keep it overnight. There'll be more tomorrow. Well, what did they do? Some of them kept it overnight. And what happened when they kept it overnight? Well, it got maggots in it, according to Exodus 16, and it stunk. And so they're like, oh, okay, don't keep it overnight. And then he said, and when it gets to the sixth day, collect twice as much because on the Sabbath day, the day of rest, there won't be any manna on the ground that day. So on the sixth day, they gathered up twice as much as normal, but guess what they did on the seventh day? Some of them went out on the seventh day to look for the manna, but there wasn't any on the ground. They just weren't getting it.

11:39 Trust God. Believe God. Just do what God says. Just follow God. Obey God. Put your confidence in God. Follow through with God, and there will be manna in the morning. At one of the gatherings we had recently, we invited several hundred people to Global Life Field. We had a big dinner out in Left Field, and we cast vision. We talked about the gap a little bit. And then we just prayed. We prayed for everybody that was going to be sitting in the stadium. And as we're flying there that day for the dinner, I thought to myself, oh my goodness, I wanted to use the illustration tonight of arrows, that what passion is about is not getting people into stadiums, it's about launching people out of stadiums. It's not about 45,000 people getting into some space, it's about 45,000 people being launched out of a space for the glory of God.

12:41 And all week long, I'd been thinking, I want to get a really cool aero. And I didn't know exactly where to go to get a cool aero. And I hadn't thought about it for a day or two. And now we're on the plane. And I'm like, ah, I forgot about the aero. And I'm thinking, well, some of my team's already there. I could ask them to go out somewhere in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Surely there's a cool aero somewhere. But they were working so hard getting ready for these several hundred people. And I was like, I'm not going to ask them to do that in the middle of all this. Well, I hate that I forgot that. We land. We go to the hotel. We'll be there for a couple hours before we go to this dinner. We get there, and Anna, who works with me, she said, oh, and by the way, Tom, who's on our board at Passion, is here already, and he's already checked in, and he left something for you in your room. And you kind of already know where I'm going with this, don't you? She said, it's a very interesting gift.

13:35 I was like, okay. So we check in, go around to our room, we open the door into our room and on the credenza in our room is this guy. just sitting on the credenza, little stand.

13:56 She said, interesting, isn't it? I said, real interesting. Because I almost texted you about two hours ago and asked if you could go somewhere in Dallas-Fort Worth and get an arrow for tonight, but it needed to be really cool. Do you know how cool this arrow is? Tom, who's a dear friend of mine and has been for decades, was in Montana with a friend just a few days before, was in an art gallery and saw this arrow and said, I want to get this for Louis. This is what passion is all about. And this arrow came from the Flathead Valley in Montana. It's made out of aspen wood, and it has a bison bone arrowhead. And it has feathers from local birds in the Flathead Valley. and he sees it in this art gallery. He buys it.

14:48 He brings it with him to Arlington, Texas and has it in my hotel room when I walk in the door. Manna is going to be there in the morning. And I love the fact that God is with me on the plane. He knows what I'm thinking and what I'm frustrated about. He knows I forgot the arrow. And he's like, you're going to love this one. You are going to love this. it's going to be manna in the morning. And that's what God is wanting to say to you and me today. You don't have to ration your hope. You know, sometimes we lay down at night and we're already thinking about, man, I don't know if I'm going to be able to get all that done on Sunday when it's Tuesday.

15:44 I don't know if I'm going to be able to figure all that stuff out when we get home for the holidays. but you're not even home for the holidays yet. I'm trying to figure out if I'm going to have enough brain power, enough emotional energy, enough faith for over here when there's not even an over here yet. And God is saying, let's just come back to this moment. Let's remember that we've seen miracles. Let's remember that Yahweh is with us. And let's remember that he's leading us to the promised land. that there will be manna in the morning. I just, in this season, I'm telling you, there's a lot going on. And when I've been going to bed at night, I've been thinking about this jar, and maybe it was full of manna all day, and I enjoyed it.

16:41 The manna was great, by the way. It tasted sweet. It said it had coriander seed in it. I don't know about that, if I'm a big fan of coriander seed, but it had honey flavor to it. It was like wafer texture. And interestingly, by the way, of course, they got tired of the manna and started complaining about the manna because they're like, we got manna again today. We got manna again today. We got manna again today. Can we get something else besides manna? And in that text, that's over in Numbers. It's interesting that I hadn't noticed this before. It said that when the dew came and settled in the evening, that's when the manna came. So it didn't actually come in the morning, it was there in the morning. It came in the night while the people were asleep is when the manna arrived. So I've been laying down and I've been thinking about that. It'll be there in the morning, but it's coming in the night. It'll be there in the morning, but it's coming while I'm sleeping.

17:40 And I'm telling you that will help you sleep a little bit better. Now I've been thinking about my jar, my Omar, if you will, and I've been wanting to just think, I need to wash my jar out. I'm not going to try to put a lid on this thing and go, I've got a little bit left and hopefully that will hold me tomorrow. No, I want to wash my jar out in faith. And I'm going to turn it over. And I'm going to go to sleep. because I believe there's going to be manna in the morning.

18:17 His name is Jesus. He'll be working while you sleep, and he'll be enough for you when you wait. Lord, thank you for the promise that even in desert seasons, in wilderness seasons, in times where things are really tough, you still promise that you will be there with us. You are the manna in the morning.

18:54 I want to thank you for having patience with me and all the times that I complain and grumble about so many things. and I want to ask you today to keep making me a man a man who brings you praise by being confident Lord thank you for the ways you've come through for us this year there's been so many times that you have come through when no one else could come through thank you for all of the miles that we've traveled with you this year all the lives that have been changed, all the miracles that we have seen, all the incredible things that you have allowed us to be a part of with you. I pray that that would instruct us today and prepare us for a new year ahead with confidence in you. And that's my hope and prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.

19:53 Thank you so much for being a part of church today. Blessings to you and your family, wherever you are today. I don't know, maybe you want to get one of these and put it on the light stand and just remember the promise. Please pray for us. If you're not on your way to Arlington and you're going to be here in Atlanta, please pray hourly, minute by minute if you can, especially January 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. But pray for our team that's there now and for all the setup that's happening. Pray for all the students that are coming to Passion 2026 and know that we're going to be having church the next Sunday, right after Passion, the very next day, January 4th. We will be at church here in Atlanta, Passion City Church. And Ben Stewart is going to be in Atlanta preaching at Passion City Church on January 4th, kicking off a brand new year of miracles. I can't wait to see you.