All Who Thirst

“All Who Thirst”

CCCAG, 1-15-23

Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-5

Introduction

How many people wonder why some people do the things they do?

Maybe it’s a horrible financial decision.

Maybe a face or neck tattoo, or a piercing that most of society would consider at least odd.

Maybe it’s watching them make the same bad decision over and over again, but expecting that somehow this time it will turn out ok…but it never does.

Personally, I’m fascinated by human behavior, and why people do the things that they do.

Some of my favorite classes in nursing school were those that dealt with psychology. Psychology is the study of human behavior- why people do what they do obviously from a secular, non-spiritual aspect.

One of the people I studied, Sigmund Freud kind of agreed with Christianity in that people are a three part being, although he didn’t recognize the spiritual side of it.

Instead of saying humanity is body, soul, and spirit, Freud said that the human psyche is made up of three parts- the id, which he would say is the selfish, animalistic or what we would call the sinful nature, the ego- which was the main part of our being that we call the soul, and the superego, which represented our spiritual or good side that was constantly fighting with the id for control of the ego.

Obviously, Freud didn’t have it all right, but he was the father of modern psychology and was an early theorist on human behavior, and we have come a long way in our understanding since he wrote his books and papers.

One of the things he did say though has always intrigued me. He once said that the driving thrust in all of our lives is the avoidance of pain. He said the ego, or as we would call it, the soul will go to great lengths of avoid feeling uncomfortable, even doing things that in the end are very destructive to us in the long run.

An extreme example of this is that recently we have had a run of people overdosing in Western Wisconsin. Apparently, the drugs in our area, particularly the methamphetamine has been tainted with high levels of fentanyl, causing numerous overdoses some of which have led to death.

People use these drugs to try and avoid feeling bad, or to avoid emotional, spiritual, or physical pain.

It’s easy to look down on a person who uses drugs if you never have, so let’s look at another way people try to avoid pain-

The idea of self improvement.

Human self improvement, whether through books, conferences, or seminars is a very profitable business to be in.

In 2021, the self improvement industry made over 48 BILLION dollars.

In fact, I see this making huge leaps into the church.

I listen to a lot of sermons on a weekly basis- in the car, sitting in my office, or just listening to sermon snippets.

You see it in some of the huge mega-church’s- Suddenly a lot of pastors are spending more time boosting up their members self-esteem or self-worth than preaching the Gospel.

The problem is- boosting self-esteem doesn’t fix the problem.

Because-Despite all of this, suicide rates continue to climb.

Anti-depressant usage is at an all-time high.

Mental health conditions continue to plague our country. But many times, if not most times we are diagnosing mental health disorders, it’s roots lie in a spiritual disorder… called sin. Sin is simply separation from God and doing, thinking, or concentrating on things that are not of God or His nature.

What is sin? Sin is a promise of fulfillment that can never be obtained.

Sin tells us, “Just fill yourself up with me, and you will be satisfied”.

Unfortunately, what those who commit sin don’t realize is that while sin is pouring into you, it has also rotted out the bottom of your spiritual container and it’s leaking right back out of you, needing more and more of the sin to make you feel whole.

All of this lead back to this central point I want to talk about this morning-

Humanity was created with a perpetual thirst for something outside of ourselves.

The problem is we try to fulfill or quench that thirst with things that were never intended to bring satisfaction to us.

According to the original design, we were to quench that thirst by being connected to our Father God.

Attempting to quench that thirst apart from Father God is why humanity has been in such a mess throughout history.

Today we are going to look at God’s solution to this problem, and it’s found in the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, chapter 55-

Isa 55:1-5

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!