I�m Not As Full As I Like To Be
EOLS: We control the things that we hunger for, and we can be filled with hunger for God.
It�s funny how God can birth a sermon within our hearts through the simple, daily things in our lives. This one was birthed in my heart around the family table a number of years ago.
From time to time, our whole family will go through periods of dieting, and following all the wonderful treats of Christmas, it was time to get serious about our eating once again! Pull out the vitamins, and throw away the candy and treats! Fire up the treadmill and break out the dumbbells. Forget about the fast food and make a big spinach salad with a side of raw broccoli!
One night well into our diets, we had just finished a wonderful supper of greens veggies, baked chicken and Sweet n Low Tea, when my oldest daughter rose, and took her plate as if she were heading to the sink. She paused for a moment with a concerned look on her face. "What�s the matter honey?" I said. She studied her words for a moment, kept the concerned look on her face and said simply: �I�m not as full as I like to be.�
Well something about that was funny, and we laughed and laughed. It is now a stock phrase at our house. Yet that quote from my precious starving daughter who was having junk food withdrawals rang deep in my soul. I�ve heard it resonating ever since that night around the family table and tonight I say
"Lord, I�m not as full as I like to be."
Is that the cry of your heart ? Do you remember a time in your life when you were completely immersed in God, when He was your sole passion in life? Do you remember when you met Him in the morning upon rising and when the last thing on your mind was to tell Him how you love him before sleep? Do you remember when even your dreams were of following and serving Him? Do you remember what it was like to sit at his table and feast upon His Word and His Promises each and every day of your life? Do you remember what it was like to eat from His table, rather than the junk food houses of this world?
I do�and I�m not as full as I like to be.
I�ll never forget the Spring of 1987 when the Lord began working so powerfully in my own life. It�s when the Lord captured my heart in a way that I had not experienced before. I had this intense hunger that would only get stronger as I pursued Him with everything in me. I remember when for the first time I would rise in the morning seeking his face. I would take opportunities to steal away to be with Him during the day. I would lay down at night speaking His name and asking Him to reveal himself to me. I remember the intense filling, and the insatiable hunger that would grow-the more I ate the hungrier I became. It was in this season that I received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Often I have longed for that special time and place, only to be frustrated with the cares of this world taking precedence over the fullness of God.
DL Moody, the great nineteenth century evangelist who shook America with his powerful crusades tells about a foundational moment in his life when his ministry took on a new element of power and hunger for God. Moody tells of two godly elderly women who attended Moody�s services in Chicago. He was already a well-known preacher, yet something distinct was missing, and Moody knew it.
"When I began to preach, I could tell by the expression of their faces they were praying for me," Moody later recalled. "At the close of the Sabbath evening services they would say to me, �We have been praying for you.� I said, �Why don�t you pray for the people?� They answered. �You need power,� �I need power,� I said to myself. �Why? I thought I had power.
Those incidents left Moody with a great hunger for the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. After the Chicago fire that destroyed Moody�s lecture hall and several institutions he had founded, he traveled to New York to raise funds for rebuilding. God had something else in mind.
"My heart was not in the work of begging," Moody recollected. "I could not appeal. I was crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York (on Wall Street) - oh, what a day! I cannot describe it. I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand."
After that day Moody saw his ministry explode as he was filled with all the fullness of God.
Have you ever seen a time when you actually had to ask God to back away a bit for being overwhelmed by His presence-When His very glory was more than you could take?
If there�s one thing that I hear consistently from Christians all over it is "I�m spiritually dry." I don�t mean to trivialize it; we all go through spiritual deserts in our lives. I�ve been there too many times and it is not fun or pretty. We get so caught up in our daily lives that our deepest hunger becomes perverted, and we long for other things which seem to fill our lives. We crave candy when we need broccoli!
It may be possessions, it may be relationships or prestige that our appetite becomes driven by. It can even be the "busy-ness" of church life and most commonly (and sadly) it may the day-to-day chore of simply existing and surviving in the world that keeps us from being as full as we like to be.
Our desires become diverted, distracted.
Jesus explained this diversion with a parable of a sower and seed:
Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
(Mark 4:18-19)
There�s a loyalty that�s deeper than mere sentiment, and a music higher than the song that I can sing...stuff of earth competes for the allegiance, I owe only to the giver of all good things-
Rich Mullins-If I Stand
We are as close to God as we want to be! The first step is to must turn our eyes upon Jesus! And we can be filled to overflow.
Paul wrote from a prison cell and in chains sometime around AD60, likely from Rome.
For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,] from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-
to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
(Ephesians 3:14-19)
Yes, you CAN be filled with all the fullness of God! It was Paul�s highest desire for his people in Ephesus, and it�s God�s highest desire for you!
Thus we start with the end result- you CAN be as full, as you like to be, and then your hunger will increase even more! God�s call is to an insatiable hunger, a deep longing that will only be satisfied when we see Him as He is when we look into the eyes of our Savior and Lord!
That deep longing and hunger is what drives us, what motivates us to press in to His glory in increasing measure. And the distractions-are often not what they would seem:
Luke 14:15-20
When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, "Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God." (16) Jesus replied: "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. (17) At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, �Come, for everything is now ready.� (18) "But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, �I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.� (19) "Another said, �I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I�m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.� (20) "Still another said, �I just got married, so I can�t come.�
The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie.
It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for
heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not
the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we
drink in every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God
describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is
a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18-20).
The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts.
John Piper: A Hunger For God-Desiring God Through Fasting and Prayer
If I�ve observed and learned one thing in my life, it�s that human beings are driven by a hunger- which is spiritual in nature. We use physical things and resources to try and satisfy it, to curb our cravings-but whatever we choose to fill it with-we only become more hungry for it. It may seem like our appetites are random and haphazard; something we are born with or something that we have little to no control over. But I would declare to you today-that the hunger of our hearts-is ultimately driven by the deepest desire of our hearts.
Today, I ask us to examine our desire. What is our deepest drive-what are we longing for, ultimately? What is the prize that we are striving for?
�He who dies with the most toys wins�, �eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die�� or to be �filled with all the fullness�of God?�
Some 700 years Before Christ, David sensed that same inner longing, that same hunger and passion for being filled with the fullness of God, even while being hunted like an animal by his enemies:
As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
(Psalm 42:1-2)
Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
(Psalm 73:25-26)
We can become very sated, yet not satisfied and very sick on spiritual junk-food.
In a very real sense, we are responsible for directing and disciplining the hunger that we find in our lives.
I remember once reading in a fitness magazine a very practical tool to help with diet in a training regimen. The author said that when you feel ravenously hungry and you are being tempted with junk food-to take a moment and close your eyes.
Think of broiled fish or chicken breast, green vegetables, a banana�think of whole, natural foods and concentrate on how they taste and how it would feel to eat your fill of a very healthy, well-balanced meal. If you find your mouth beginning to water-you probably are hungry. If you can�t focus your thoughts beyond some French fries donuts or candy-then you are feeling a false hunger!
(the movie �Super-Size Me� was a very good illustration of the development of false hunger.)
In a very real sense-we train and shape our own hunger. And our hunger and very natural drive will take us to our destiny, one decision at a time.
The more deeply you walk with Christ, the hungrier you get for Christ . . . the more homesick you get for heaven . . . the more you want "all the fullness of God" . . . the more you want to be done with sin . . . the more you want the Bridegroom to come again . . . the more you want the Church revived and purified
with the beauty of Jesus . . . the more you want a great awakening to God�s reality in the cities . . . the more you want to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ penetrate the darkness of all the unreached peoples of the world . . . the more you want
to see false worldviews yield to the force of Truth . . . the more
you want to see pain relieved and tears wiped away and death destroyed . . . the more you long for every wrong to be made right and the justice and grace of God to fill the earth like the waters cover the sea.- John Piper:
Conclusions:
A spiritual self-exam: Are you as full as you like to be?
Ask yourself today:
First, who is giving me direction? Have you met Christ?
What is it that is driving me to live my life the way that I have chosen?
Are my spiritual habits and disciplines bringing me comfort, peace and joy?
Do I desire to grow in my faith-to walk with God in a closer relationship?
Have I allowed my hunger to become for things of this world?
Do I feel randomly battered and tossed by the cares of this life, with little purpose or sense of destiny?
So, how should we then live? Let�s begin the process. I think we know.
Do I hear �Rocky� music playing?
