The wilderness is where we learn. The wilderness is where we grow.

The wilderness is where God sanctifies His people through prolonged victory.

Our youth pastor evaluates this sanctification process in Sunday’s sermon, February 22, 2026, entitled “Little by Little,” based on Exodus 23:20-33.

In this passage, God is telling his people, the Israelites, to smash up the idols in the Promised Land where they will dwell.

The people of Israel, however, doubt God in the wilderness, which leads to tendencies to defy God in the waiting and in the sanctification process.

The sermon presents that when doubting God, we tend to look inward and ask, “How can I move this along?”The Israelites, later on in the story of Exodus, do just that, by making for themselves an idol of worship while they are waiting for Moses to come back down from the mountain during a long exchange with God. In their effort to get out of the wilderness, they ultimately disobey God and look to a false god to bring them deliverance.

Instead of mirroring their behavior, we should look inward in faith and ask God, “What do you need to do in me?” We should ask God to search our hearts and work in us during a period of waiting.

When doubting God, we also tend to look outward and ask, “What is working for others?” God warns the Israelites not to look to Canaanite gods or serve them. Instead, we need to look outward in faith and ask God, “What do you want to do through me?”

When we doubt God and try to help God along with our solutions or look to the culture for answers, these actions ultimately lead us to look downward in despair. But if we ask God to work in us and through us, then this attitude should ultimately lead us to look upward in confidence to God.

In application to our lives now, as we go through sanctification, we need to look upward to Jesus and tell him, “I know you are working.” Then we can know that Jesus has made a way for us to reach glory in heaven. Jesus has gone before us and has defeated death. From the moment of salvation and through the wilderness of sanctification, we are promised glorification in heaven.

And even though the wilderness is hard, if we belong to Him, Jesus will get us to where we will ultimately be–paradise.