Opening ILLUS: A kindergarten teacher gave an assignment. The assignment was to draw a picture of a celebrity or an important person that had impacted your life. The children got busy drawing pictures, coloring and sticking out their tongues like little kids like to do when they're drawing. The teacher walked around the class and saw some of these little people drawing pictures of the president and others such as sports players, their Mom and their Dad. One little boy seemed very intent in drawing this picture. She looked over his shoulder and said, "Tommy, who are you drawing?" Without missing a beat or looking up, Tommy kept drawing and said, "God." She said, "Well Tommy, you know that no one knows what God looks like." Tommy said, "They will when I am done with this picture."
ILLUS: It is said that the great philosopher and orator of Greek descent named Socrates had a young man approach him one day, and this young man said, "Can I be one of your disciples because I want to know wisdom and increase in my knowledge?" Socrates, who by this time was a wise, old sage, took one look at the young man and said, "Follow me." The young man followed him into the waters of a nearby river. Socrates took the young man's head and submerged it under water for about 15 seconds. When the young man came out of the water dripping wet, Socrates said, "What do you want?" The young man said, "Knowledge, wise man. I want knowledge." Socrates took this young man and put his head under a little bit longer this time which was for 30 seconds like some of your baptisms. When the young man came out, he was gasping for air. Socrates again said, "What do you want, young man?" He again said, "Knowledge. I want knowledge." This time, which was a third time, Socrates dunked him down under the water and kept him down to what the audience seemed like forever. His hands began to fling, and people in the audience began to gasp as they thought he was about to drown him.
When the young man came out of the water, Socrates again said, "What do you want?" This time the young man was saying, "Air, I want air. Give me air." To that, Socrates said, "When you want knowledge like you want air, then you will have it."
I believe that our spiritual hunger is that way, as well. When we desire God desperately with passion, intensity and burning fire than we will experience the fullness of God. So I want you to take your Bibles and turn to Exodus Chapter 33. There are two reasons that I have chosen to speak out of Exodus Chapter 33 on holy hunger.
One of the reasons is that our church just recently ended a 21-day season of fasting and prayer and I have been thinking a lot about hunger. Fasting has a way of causing you to realize how much you depend on food. You dream about burgers when you are supposed to be thinking about God. One woman said that she woke up chewing on her pillow.
During the 21 days it was amazing to hear so many testimonies of breakthroughs for what God was doing as we fasted and prayed at the beginning of this year and a new decade. I have been thinking a lot about physical hunger and spiritual hunger, and throughout the entire fast we were challenged to turn our appetite for food into a hunger for God and seek to desire God the way that our bodies were longing for food.
I also chose to speak out of Exodus Chapter 33 because there is something deeply disconcerting about much of the Christianity that we are living in this nation. I have been to Africa, Asia, South America and have seen a different spiritual atmosphere. When I come back, I scratch my head and wonder, "What is it, Lord, that seems to be missing? If I were to put my finger on it, I think that it would have to be hunger, holy hunger.
We are living in days of the greatest harvest that this world has ever known. There have been more people coming to Jesus Christ in this last decade than centuries before us. There is an explosion of evangelism and church planting, but for some reason it seems to have bypassed this country of ours. This country that for centuries was the nation that sent the missionaries and educated the pastors. Our country has a reputation of being a Christian nation yet something seems to be lacking... holy hunger.
The account of Moses in Exodus Chapter 33 is really an incredible story of a man who walked with God and talked with God in a way that few have. He was on the holy mountain in which he received both instruction from God and received the tablets that we so fondly call the Ten Commandments.
It had been only 40 days when he came down and heard the loud sound of Israel gone wild. It was not wild for God and definitely no Pentecostal church meeting. This was an all-out pagan party. They had quickly decided that they needed another god and needed the immediate gratification of something that they could see and feel, so they reverted back to their pagan practices and borrowed from their pagan culture. When he came down from this holy experience, Moses was frustrated. God was angry and the people were carnal.
God takes Moses aside and says, "Moses, I have had it with these people, but because I am a God that honors covenant and keeps his promise, I am going to take you into the promised land. I am going to do what I said I was going to do. I am going to defeat your enemies and take you into the promised land but I will not go with you. In fact, if I go with you, I might end up destroying you."
In verse 12, we hear the heart of a man who hungers after God. Today I want you to look at the effects of holy hunger and what it would or could look like in our lives.
12 Moses said to the LORD, "You have been telling me, 'Lead these people,' but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, 'I know you by name and you have found favor with me.' 13 If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people."
1. HOLY HUNGER SPARKS A DESIRE TO LEARN GOD'S WAYS AND KNOW HIS HEART (EX 33:12-13)
I believe that the first effect of holy hunger is that it sparks a desire for the knowledge of God's ways. What God was saying, in essence, is he was giving Moses a pretty good deal. It is my belief that most of us would have taken the deal that God was offering. After all, here's what God was saying;
"Moses, what I am going to do for you is I will make you successful and am going to give you the land that you asked for. I am going to wipe out your enemies and am going to give you what you dreamed about as well as beat your competition at it. How about it, Moses? Do you want to take the deal?"
Most of us would have jumped at the deal. We would have said, "Success, prosperity and getting ahead? It is a great deal so I will take it." But there was something left out of the deal that God deliberately withheld. He said, "I will give you your dream and give you success, but I am not going to give you my presence." Moses immediately caught on to this. I call these deals "lower shelf" deals. We get the blessing, the answer to prayer and the touch of God, but we miss the very presence of God. Only holy hunger tells you it is missing.
How is holy hunger awakened? I love what John Piper says. He says,
"Do you have hunger for God? If we do not have strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because we have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because we have nibbled so long at the table of the world that our soul is stuffed with small things and there is no room for the great. We are hungry not because we have not tasted but because we have."
I believe that an appetite for God is an acquired appetite. I believe that we hunger and thirst after God when we stir the appetite within our soul for God. There is something interesting that happens during fasting.
What I discovered in my first lengthy fast was that after ten days into the fast your body has not eaten solid food so your digestive system slows down.
Some people, in their first day of a fast, say that they are hungry or having hunger pains. This is not really hunger, but just acid in the stomach activated at meal time reminding you it is time to eat. Some people after the third day say, "I think I am starving." To be honest most of us have got enough extra fat to probably last for quite a while.
After ten days your digestive system starts shutting down and you start losing the edge of hunger. Yes, your body gets tired, you begin to lose weight, you lack energy, but that intense hunger starts to subside within your system because your body is getting accustomed to not having food and your digestive system is shutting down. If you happen to chew a piece of gum it starts up your digestive system and your appetite ignites again. One lady told me, she went to have communion and ate a cracker (she was tempted to go for second and third servings) and started her stomach growling for food again. Your body begins to taste food again, and suddenly you have hunger again because your body's appetite has been awakened.
I believe spiritually this is what happens with our appetite for God. We have very little hunger for God and very little desire for his presence, in part because our spiritual digestive system has shut down. We are so used to junk food that we feel spiritually bloated even though we may be experiencing malnutrition.
ILLUS: I heard a report on television not too long ago about a man that they could not get out of his house because he was so obese. They had to break down the door and bring in a special lift to get him out of the house. What caught my attention was that the doctor, after examining him, said that he was obese but was suffering from malnutrition. I thought to myself, "How can that be? How can someone that weighs 800 pounds be experiencing malnutrition?"
There is a link between malnutrition and obesity. Sometimes your body is not getting what it needs even though you are eating. You can stuff yourself on popcorn, Doritos and all kinds of snacks that have zero nutritional value. You can get big and heavy and look like you are well fed, but in reality, you are seriously malnourished.
I wonder if are experiencing obesity in our Christianity and malnutrition at the same time? Is our country experiencing a gluttony of religious music, books and broadcasts? You can google sermons, turn on a Christian radio station or buy the latest books.
There is more available than ever before, but yet something seems lacking. Some of it is really good food, but there seems to be a malnutrition in the general state of our Christianity.
I look at Moses and wonder what made him so hungry. Why did he say, "God, I do not want just the land and the prosperity. I want your presence." What made him hunger and desire God? I believe what made him hunger and desire God is that Moses had spent some time with God. He had a spiritual appetite that had been cultivated. We read that he had been at the tent of meeting, and you can read about it in the earlier part of chapter 33. It was a place where Moses went just to hang out with God. He was listening to God and meeting with God. It says that the people would rise and watch as Moses would enter into the tent of meeting and a cloud would come. Then it would lift and he would come out. Moses was in the habit of meeting with God. So when God offered a lower shelf deal of "I will bless you but my presence will not go there", Moses' holy hunger kicked in and he said;
"No, I have tasted your goodness God. I have sipped of your glory and tasted your favor. I have experienced your presence. Success and blessing are good and nice, but nothing compares with the presence and the beauty of your majesty. Blessing pales in comparison with who you are God. My heart and my soul hunger for the living God."
I am convinced that this hunger for God was created in all of us. I believe that if you are here today and have no holy hunger, passion, desire that drives you and propels you to want more of him . . . if you force yourself to read the Word and drag yourself to prayer and bribe yourself to go to church and worship, than you are living in a way that is unnatural to how God has designed you. Your physical body parallels your spiritual body. You were created to have physical hunger, and when you do not have that food, you hunger inside.
You were designed to crave after God. It is only when your appetite has been spoiled by cheap substitutes that you lose your innate hunger. I believe that all creation hungers for God. Romans 8:22 says,
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly
Why? Because our appetites have been awakened by the deposit of the Spirit. Creation groans for the manifestation of God. The earth groans for the day of his appearing. Our spirit groans inside with a hunger that cannot be satisfied in relationships, in success, in addictions, in popularity or anything that is out there. You have been created with a divine holy hunger that can only be satisfied in the person of God through your relationship with Jesus Christ.
2. HOLY HUNGER CREATES A DEPENDENCE ON GOD'S PRESENCE AND AN UNWILLINGNESS TO MOVE
FORWARD WITHOUT IT (EX 33:14-17)
Another way that holy hunger affects us is found in the following verses. God replies to Moses in verse 14 where it says,
14 The LORD replied, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."
15 Then Moses said to him, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?"
I know theologically that God is omnipresent. God is immutable, which means that he never changes. God never improves because he's always been perfect. He never gains knowledge because he's always known all things. He doesn't get better with age because he's always been perfect and is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is present if you go to the deepest part of the sea. He's present if you go to the highest mountain. He was there when the first Americans landed on the moon and put that flag in the ground. So why is Moses saying, "Oh, I am not going unless you go with me", if God is present everywhere? Moses is talking about not just the presence of God but about the manifest presence of God. God is omnipresent but chooses to manifest himself at times and places in special ways.
In the temple, he manifested himself with Shekinah Glory, when he came down with so much power and radiance that the priests who were dedicating the temple had to stop the services because the presence of God was overwhelming. Isaiah was praying and the presence of God came in such manifest power and glory that he had to stop and cry out, "Woe is me for I am a sinner and live among sinful people. I need cleansing."
This is the manifest presence of God. He is present all the time, but there are times in which God shows a portion of his glory and manifests a bit of himself. That is exactly what Moses was asking for. "Oh God, I want your tangible and manifest presence to go with us. God, if you do not go, I am not going anywhere."
ILLUS: Early on in my ministry I did not understand this concept and principle. As a young, 21-year-old pastor coming to the city of Chicago with needs all around, issues and problems, gangs and brokenness, I thought that I could solve a lot of problems, and it seemed to be working for a while. People seemed to need me and I felt like, "Here I am, God. I am ready to help people." I remember running around counseling, discipling and leading people to Christ. "Pastor, would you come and pray." "Pastor, would you help with this and with that?" As a 21-year-old, I was thinking, "Yes, oh God. Aren't you glad you have me on your team. Right, God?" It was the cockiness of youth.
It was just six months into that journey of burning the candle at both ends that I fell really sick. I was so sick that I could barely get up and walk. I did not have insurance or a doctor. I had to get up and preach, so I thought, "Oh Lord, help me not to pass out." When I finally saw a doctor, he said, "You are exhausted and need bedrest for a week." I said, "You do not understand. You see, I am a pastor and people need me." He said, "I do not care what you are. You need to rest." So I remember laying on that couch crying out to God and saying, "God, here I am trying to serve you and do your work but you knocked me out on a couch. I mean, you are supposed to give me power and strength. You are supposed to be my source. Instead, you let me get sick so here I am."
Have you ever heard that gentle, quiet voice of the Holy Spirit bringing about conviction? It was the voice of God speaking to my heart and saying, "Listen, you have been doing your work and not mine. You have been doing it in your power and not mine. I did not ask you to do that."
I had been trying to do God's work in my own power but it was not working. I remember weeping with repentance before God, crying in my sick bed and asking God to forgive me. I realized how proud, self-centered and cocky I had been, thinking that I could even make a dent for the kingdom of God in my own power when it was really him and his strength. I realized how little I had invited the presence of God. I realized how little I had prayed. I realized how little importance I had given to the sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. I realized that I had spent few hours on my knees asking him to go before me and way too much time jumping into things in my own strength. So I vowed on that sickbed, "Oh God, if I can get up and if I can serve you, God, I am going to cherish your presence. I am going to invite you in more and walk behind you and not in front of you. I am going to try and keep in step and not get out of step. I am going to try and pause to listen. I am going to try and keep my heart in check because, Lord, I want to love your presence more."
Down through the years, that is what we have sought to do, yet there have been so many times that I have jumped ahead and had to say, "God, I am sorry but forgot."
You see, holy hunger creates a dependence on God's presence and an unwillingness to move forward without it. When is the last time that you said, "God, I will not go forward unless you move ahead." When is the last time that you cried out to the heavens and said, "God, I will stay put."
I have had some wrestling matches with God over this city. I love the city of Chicago. It is one of the greatest cities in the world. But there have been times when I have said, "God, if you are not going to be there and if you are not going to show up and come with power, then I am out of here, Lord. You have to go before me. You have to show up, oh God."
I believe that God looked at Moses and loved the heart Moses had that was crying out for dependence on God's presence. Some of you are seasoned leaders and ministers that have walked with God for a long time. The great thing about experience is that you hopefully grow in discernment and maturity. The downside of your experience or the trap of having years under your belt is that you may end up like a King Asa who learned how to manage leadership. He knew how to manage crisis and circumstances, so he started depending more on his knowledge and more on his experience than he did in looking to God.
3. HOLY HUNGER DRIVES US TO PURSUE ALL THAT WE CAN HANDLE OF GOD (EX 33:18-23)
Thirdly, Holy hunger drives us to pursue God with a sacred boldness and a burning passion. Look at what it says in verse 17.
17 And the LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name."
Moses prayed a prayer and said a statement that only someone half out of their mind would say. Only someone possessed by a passion and a boldness of living and walking and only someone with deep holy hunger would dare to say to God. Moses looks at God as he's speaking.
18 Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory."
Now it is hard to even fathom what Moses was asking of God because when we say glory to God, it seems like an etherial term or a vague statement that we hear in the hymns of old. But when we are asked to define what glory means, it is illusive and hard to explain, but it is what Moses wanted to see. What is the glory of God?
In the New Testament, the word "doxa" is used and means beauty, radiance, brilliance and is the total manifestation of God's attributes and revelation. The manifestation of all that he is. John Piper refers to it as; "The glory of God is the beauty and excellence of his manifold perfections. God's glory is the perfect harmony of all of his attributes into an infinitely beautiful and personal being." Another way of saying it is, the total sum of the attributes of his characteristics. The glory of God is the manifestation of his holiness. It is going public with his holiness. In essence, the glory of God is the core of who he is.
You cannot understand the purposes and plans of God unless you understand and begin to grasp the glory of God. The purposes of God are wrapped around his glory. The plans of God revolve around the orbit of his glory. The salvation of humanity revolves around the essence of the glory of God because all throughout Scripture from the beginning of creation until the end of creation it all swirls around this gravitational pull of the glory of God. The glory of God is the essence of who he is and is the manifest beauty of all his attributes. At the center of what God wants to do is to reveal himself. In salvation, he reveals himself. Through your life, he reveals himself. Through worship, he's revealing himself. It is the revelation of who God is that changes you.
I do not know what surprises me more, Moses' request or God's response. Moses says, "Show me your glory," and God says, "Okay. I will show you my glory."
19 And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." 21 Then the LORD said, "There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen."
I love the way that the commentator Matthew Pool puts it. He says, "Thou shalt see the shadow or obscure delineation of my glory as much as you can bear, though not as much as you desire." God says, "Okay. You want to see my glory, and I want to show you as much of my glory as you can possibly handle." Later on it tells us that the glory of God began to pass by and God proclaimed his name.
"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." His glory passed by., Moses was hidden in the cleft of the rock so that he could not see the glory of God. As soon as the glory of God was passed in his full magnificence, the hand of God lifted off of Moses and all he saw was the train of his glory, the back of his glory.
"I will show you as much of my glory as you can handle for as you have a holy hunger."
A holy hunger; the Bible tells us in Habakkuk 14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
You see, in 2 Corinthians 3:17, it explains what was happening there and says,
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Being what? Transformed, and how are we being transformed? We are being transformed when we begin to see his glory. We are being transformed as we begin to gaze at his glory because we have a hunger to know him. It is a holy hunger that drives us. It tells us that we, with unveiled faces beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image. What image? The image of God and the image of his son Jesus. We are being transformed from glory to glory just as from the Spirit of God. What will change your life more than anything else and what will transform you from the inside out is continual exposure to the manifest glory of God.
Some of you may say, "Why don't I change?" Well, some of us never change because we do not hunger for more of him. There is something that happens in his presence. There is something that happens with holy hunger that causes us to desire more and spend more time with him. It makes his Word sweeter and makes praises more compelling. It causes us to be still and know that he is God. There is something that occurs when we have tasted and eaten and seen that God is good, that makes us hunger and desire more of him. A strange thing then begins to occur. The more you hunger for God, the less you hunger for the things that compete with God. I want to close with a challenge.
There are some of you here that have tasted a bit of God and a bit of his presence. The Holy Spirit has been deposited into your heart, so there is a hunger for more. Yet there are some of you here that say, "I have very little desire for God." Your faith drives you to want more; to pray, "I do not want to be this way. I want to desire God."
Conclusion: You are made to hunger for God. May your holy hunger be unleashed. You have a hunger for God so awaken it. Bring it to life and reignite your appetite.
