A Hunger for God
Introduction: Last week we heard the preaching about the fig-tree and when we abide under the fig-tree God will know our name. Today I want to speak about having a hunger for God.
Hunger defined – The Discomfort, weakness, or pain caused by a lack of food; to have a strong desire or craving. Think about when you have been fasting for some days and then you pass by the Uyghur when they stand and barbeque lamb. Your stomach start to ache and you want to buy 20 of them and throw them into your mouth because you are so hungry.
Our text today is Phil 3:7-10 (Read it).
1. Paul
We read about Paul and he was looking back on his life, telling the church in Philippi that if someone had accomplished something in this life it was he; he was a Jew, raised to be a Pharisee. In his life as a Pharisee he was fulfilling the Law and he was opposed to the sect of Christianity. But, something happened in his life that changed everything. HE MET JESUS! From that day on, everything that had value for him lost its worth. He is telling us that he considers everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord.
When he is writing these words, he is in prison in Rome. He is probably not so comfortable and probably not so well fed. But he is not complaining to the church in Philippi. His mind is occupied with Christ. In some chapters before, he was telling the church that, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21). In the first chapter of the letter to the Philippians he is mentioning Christ 18 times. When Paul met Christ on the Road to Damascus everything changed. He fell in love with Christ and everything that was a profit to him he started to count as rubbish.
10 “(For my determined purpose is) that I may know Him (that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His person more strongly and more clearly) , and that I may in the same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection (which it exerts over believers), and that I may so share his sufferings as to be continually transformed (in spirit into His likeness even) to His death, (in the hope).”
Paul wasn’t satisfied but wanted more. He wasn’t looking for a big ministry, an easy life or high salary. He was content with life. He could be hungry and thirsty; he could be in prison and cold. But there was one thing he wasn’t satisfied with. He always wanted more of Jesus. He wanted to know Him more, more than He ever had known Him.
I have to ask myself: Do I love Him? Am I satisfied or do I hunger for Him more? Many times, I think, I am not content with what I have when it comes about life; money, clothes, gadgets and so on, but satisfied with what I’ve already known about Jesus. This can’t be so. We can never be satisfied: It says in Ephesians 5:18 “...be filled with the Spirit.” KEEP on being filled with the Spirit. We can always know Him more, He wants to meet with us every day; speak to us, fill us, listen to us. Let us look on Paul and follow his example.
2. David:
Ps 63:1-5 “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld you’re your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.”
The background of this Psalm is that David’s son Absalom has turned himself on him. It is a hard time for David. Because of the threat from Absalom, David had to flee the city of Jerusalem in a hurry. Once again, as years before, David is thrown out into the wilderness.
In the face of this crisis there is only 1 person that David wants and that is God. Are you able to identify with David in verse 1? Have you ever cried out: “I need You God!!!!!”
Have you ever prayed as David did? “My soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”
If you haven’t prayed in this way, you probably haven’t met God in a saving way yet. Then, today you need to cry out to Him. He will come and save you.
Maybe you feel like you are in a desert today. There is a long time since you really met with Him, when you felt His touch on your life. Maybe it feels like God is far, far away and you don’t know how to reach Him again.
A. There is a sanctuary in the wilderness
David did start out in the wilderness, but he did not end in the wilderness. First, he shepherd his father’s sheep. There, he learnt to fight and protect the sheep, but he also learned to worship God, in the wilderness he got to know Him more than ever before.
We gather this fact all throughout the Scriptures: Any man who is great for God will have to spend some “time in the wilderness” at some point in his life.
Great men are noted for the fact that they spent some very significant years of their lives “waiting in the wilderness.”
Abraham – A wilderness that held a city whose builder and maker is God
Moses – 40 years in the wilderness he needed until he was ready to fulfill God’s call for his life, to be a leader for the nation of Israel.
David – A wilderness where he would learn to worship and to fight
John the Baptist – He needed the wilderness to be able to become God’s servant to prepare for Jesus
Jesus – A wilderness would give Him power over the flesh, this world and the devil.
David did not choose the wilderness, he was chased there. Don’t curse the things in life that drive you into a need of prayer. You can count on one thing: God will test you before He will promote you.
“The wilderness holds answers to questions man’s not yet learned to ask.” – Nancy Newhall
When David was running from his home in Jerusalem, running along the Jericho road, his journey would take him to some of the wildest, most barren, and discouraging scenery in the world. His journey didn’t bring him away from God, but instead it took him closer to Him.
“Don’t let your wilderness become your grave but instead the birthplace of a new deeper life with God.” – Patrick Oelund
David is looking for a sanctuary in the wilderness. He came to realize that the real sanctuary (temple, where God dwells) is wherever God chooses to show up. We put God in a box when we don’t let Him out of these four walls (meaning the church).
Paul says in 2 Corinthians that “...we are the temple of the living God” (6:16). The sanctuary is within. There is a sanctuary in your wilderness. Wherever you are, there is God.
B. There is a Paradox of the Wilderness
But just as beneficial as the wilderness may be, there is also something that is very terrifying about the wilderness.
The wild is very beautiful but it is also very unpredictable. A snow storm can turn a beautiful spring day in the mountain to a dangerous place.
Ex: My father and I used to go every spring to the mountains fishing. We had our snow mobiles and in the morning when we went out to some lake, it was beautiful weather. The sun was shining and the snow was white and also shining. But, often during the day a storm could suddenly break out and we had to follow the lead of the snow mobile road, or else we should be lost.
The wilderness can find a hundred different ways to injure and kill those who dare to trespass their borders.
The wilderness is a confrontation, it is a test. This test when it challenges us will cause us to become stronger or weaker. We either grow or regress.
The wilderness gives God the opportunity to strip things out of our lives. The further we get into the wilderness the more we discover about ourselves. It gives God the opportunity to prune us, to cleanse us.
Job 23:10b “When he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.”
So, we can either grow or regress – We can die in the wilderness or we can come out of the wilderness into the Promised Land.
C. Worship in a Hiding Place
Ps 63:7 “Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.”
Early on in the wilderness, Zadok and Abiathar (the priests), had brought the Ark of the Covenant from Jerusalem into the wilderness. It was the most sacred object connected to the Tabernacle.
They had put staves between the rings of the Ark and had brought it in all its majesty to the place of David’s exile. David thanked them for their efforts but encouraged them to return the Ark back to Jerusalem. What David needed was God and not the Ark (2Sam 15).
We need to remember that on the top of the Ark was the Mercy Seat. It was made of the purest gold and on it were two angels that faced each other. Their wings stretched up over the top and overshadowed the Mercy Seat on the Ark. The Mercy Seat was where God dwelled.
David now looks to his God and says, it is here, in the wilderness that I will rest under the wings of my God. His wings stretch over this terrible place and cover me with mercy. He covers the whole wilderness with His power and His mercy.
Do you remember the preaching last Sunday about the fig-tree and resting under the wings of the Almighty? To find our hiding place at the Fig-tree and there we will get to know Him and He will know us by our name when we dwell at this place. Our Wilderness can be a place where we meet with our God. It can be a place where we are renewed, refilled, filled with more strength and a place where we devote ourselves again to God.
Conclusion: For Paul, the prison was probably a type of a wilderness, but he wasn’t letting the four walls destroy his faith in God. He didn’t count the earthly pleasures to have any meaning but he threw it all on the garbage. He had one thing in life that he wanted and that was Christ. He wanted to know Him more.
David’s wilderness didn’t pull him longer from God but instead drew him closer to Him. In the wilderness he came closer to God.
Jesus was given a message to the 7 churches in the Book of Revelation and the message He gives to the church in Laodicea is very serious.
Rev 3:14-19 Let us not say as they said, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” We need Jesus more than ever today.
