Satisfaction
Sunday Sermon / Getting Ahead Sermon Series
April 22nd, 2007
Intro: What does it take to “get ahead?” What would make you happy? Really satisfied with life?
I tell you, it’s closer than you think, but most never reach it.
In the summer of 1988 Gregory Patton found himself temporarily assigned to Camp Pendelton, California Marine Corps Base. He’d requested to go to search and rescue school and he had gotten his wish.
About midway through the eight-week training his commanding officer told them that all available search and rescue personnel – including students – were being requested to be sent to nearby 29 Palms California Marine Corps Base. It seemed that one of their staff had turned up missing and they wanted them to come and help in the search effort. At first they were all excited. After all, they were barely halfway through the training program and they were already being called upon to put what they were learning to the test. But their excitement soon turned to sadness as they discovered that the person they were looking for had already been missing for nearly three weeks.
The military bureaucracy had fouled up again. A young eighteen-year-old marine was left out in the middle of a training field late on Friday night. Nobody had bothered to have a roll call that night because it was already late, so nobody knew he was missing. When Monday morning rolled around the private was reported as being UA – unauthorized absence. His buddies immediately reported that he had not been seen since the training assignment and that he might still be lost on the base. Three days later the Marine Corps recorded him AWOL – absent without leave. Two weeks later and only after the young private’s parents and friends pleaded with the Marine Corps- the search for the young man began. After a week of trying in vain on their own, they called in search and rescue.
They were all gravely disappointed, because they knew they were no longer looking for a live body. You see, 29 Palms is a Marine Corps Air and Ground Combat Centre located in the heart of the Mojave Desert. The average daytime temp in the summer is 120°. Chances of surviving just a few hours without water were slim. Adding to the difficulty was the fact that 29 Palms is a huge base. Knowing that he had been missing for three weeks only worsened the situation.
For two weeks twenty-five aircraft searched the base in an organized grid pattern. On their second week there their commander told us if they didn’t find the marine by the end of the day the search would be called off. Late in the afternoon a call came over his headphones – the young marine’s body had been found. Their commander wanted all the students to the site to witness how a recovery was performed. As their helicopter flew to the site he noticed they landed just on the other side of a small lake. Near the lake was a small building. Gregory later found out that the lake contained a fresh water spring that fed water to the entire base. The building was a pump station that contained a telephone and, was never locked. From the spot where the helicopter landed, where the young marine lay dead, all of this was hidden.
It was a great tragedy that a young eighteen-year-old man lay dead. But an, even greater tragedy was that this young marine had died from dehydration and heat exhaustion just three hundred yards from life giving water, shelter and a phone and he never knew any of it was there within his reach.
Today, as the first message of series of messages entitled, ‘Getting Ahead’ we will be talking about Satisfaction of the Soul. In the concept of ‘Getting Ahead’ you first have to set a course. You could actually be running full speed in the wrong direction. A few weeks ago, I quoted a military test pilot as saying, “You’ve never been lost until you’ve been lost at mach 3” Boy, don’t we see that today? People lost and running full speed.
People like the young man this week who was so lost but running full out, killing over 30 people and then himself.
Most people aren’t that desperate, most are just depressed, discouraged and wondering when life will get better. Or worse, they have lost hope that life can get better.
This is what was happening to the people when God spoke through the Prophet Isaiah. The sick, lost and without hope and God sends them an invitation.
The invitation comes to the Jews exiled in Babylon, here, 2,500 years ago
- weeping in the dry lands of modern Iraq. A long way from green Canaan
- having tried everything, lost everything…even hope
- The invitation comes FROM God to come TO God- the only one who can satisfy and give hope
- and it’s an invitation to us, today
Isaiah 55:1-3 "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.
I. Decide what you’re hungry for.
Have you ever been hungry for something, but you just couldn’t decide what it is?
Did you know that it is possible to have a mineral deficiency so severe that it causes you crave eating dirt? People actually eat dirt! Their bodies crave minerals at a cellular level.
I am certain that the whole world suffers from this, but rather than cellular – “soul-ular”
"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
a. God’s call is to everyone!
This passage starts off with the most universal possible term. It is addressed to “everyone.”
As I look at this passage, I am struck by the fact that there is indeed a requirement for those who would come. The requirement is that you must be thirsty.
Only two requirements here:
i. You must recognize the hunger and thirst
ii. You must come to Him to be filled
b. Be discontented with Discontentment
2Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
i. The first step to satisfaction is dissatisfaction.
1. Don’t settle for mediocrity
Lily Tomlin: Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.
2. Don’t pacify that deep hunger
ii. To be satisfied, you first have to be unsatisfied. To be filled, you first have to be empty. To have your thirst quenched, you first have to be thirsty.
Proverbs 27:20 “Death and Destruction are never satisfied, and neither are the eyes of man.”
iii. Some people are reluctant to serve God because they perceive that a life lived for God is one of poverty and miserable sacrifice. They desire to party, drink and carouse.
iv. They know that serving God and living that way are inconsistent so they stay away from God. But they don’t realize the heart that Loves God is transformed in it’s desire.
The flesh is hungry, and when you feed it, it’s temporarily satisfied. But the hunger quickly returns and the hunt for another meal or snack soon returns. The flesh is never satisfied. Hell is never satisfied.
v. It’s not that we are simply wasting time with vain pursuits, we actually loose ground.
vi. The core of “godless” pursuits is rebellion.
vii. Thinking: You know more than He and you can get more without Him.
Isaiah 22:12-13 “In that day the Lord GOD of hosts called for weeping and mourning, for baldness and wearing sackcloth; 13and behold, joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."
A hard heart is defined as a heart that when it hears God’s voice (a message that should produce brokenness toward and hunger for God)
• The heart neither recognizes God’s voice,
• Nor does it see the need to repent
• Nor is it touched with any self consciousness.
The Holy Spirit brings conviction to our hearts and calls us to live at a greater level.
1 John 2:15-17 “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
II. You need a new definition of success (God’s!)
Eugene Peterson observes, "Among the apostles, the one absolutely stunning success was Judas, and the one thoroughly groveling failure was Peter. Judas was a success in the ways that most impress us: he was successful both financially and politically. He cleverly arranged to control the money of the apostolic band; he skillfully manipulated the political forces of the day to accomplish his goal.
And Peter was a failure in ways that we most dread: he was impotent in a crisis and socially inept. At the arrest of Jesus he collapsed, a hapless, blustering coward; in the most critical situations of his life with Jesus, the confession on the road to Caesarea Philippi and the vision on the Mount of transfiguration, he said the most embarrassingly inappropriate things. He was not the companion we would want with us in time of danger, and he was not the kind of person we would feel comfortable with at a social occasion.
"Time, of course, has reversed our judgments on the two men. Judas is now a byword for betrayal, and Peter is one of the most honored names in the church and in the world. Judas is a villain; Peter is a saint. Yet the world continues to chase after the successes of Judas, financial wealth and political power, and to defend itself against the failures of Peter, impotence and ineptness."
a. Success is not getting everything your flesh desires.
b. Success is getting everything your Spirit desires.
i. Wisdom teaches us to seek the important first.
ii. If we seek the earthly passions first we will never obtain the eternal ones.
iii. If we seek first the eternal passions first, we will also have the earthly ones too. Much of what the earth has to offer isn’t evil. And I don’t believe that enjoying what the earth has to offer is evil.
C.S. Lewis writes:
"Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
Earthly pursuits sought for the purpose of satisfying the soul never fulfill.
Matthew 6:28-33 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, ’What shall we eat?’ or ’What shall we drink?’ or ’What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
III. Drink deep and be satisfied
a. Spirit and Flesh
i. Recognize the difference between your spirit and your flesh
ii. Over the next several weeks we will be picking this apart more and more.
b. Go to God
i. God is the source!
ii. There is no other that can satisfy the deepest longings in your heart.
c. Eat the Word / Pray / Worship
i. These are the three most important “inputs” in our relationship with God.
ii. You may have variations and different style in worship and different study style than I do, but the basics remain.
d. Keep remembering
Unfortunately we are easily distracted. It’s like how the set up grocery stores. Have you ever been a grocery store that puts the bread, milk and toilet paper near the check-outs? No! They want you to be distracted by all the yummies and shine pretties along the way.
i. Keep the goals insight
ii. God draws you in more than he pushes you along.
3Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.
Conclusion: Is your life satisfying? Are you going to Him?
