Last couple weeks considering our expectations .. begin with
Children’s letters to God
A couple weeks ago… began our time together in the new year asking…”What are YOU expecting..? This morning..
> “What do you WANT from God?
> I believe every one of us in this room… indeed every human soul who ever existed… has been shaped to long for God. The Bible tells us that we have fallen from the natural relationship we were created with…. as humanity sought freedom / autonomy from God. As a result, we may avoid God out of the fear born of our shame and sin… ignorance… or pride…but if we understand well what we really want, we will discover a longing to be connected to God above all else.
Most of us have a sense of what it means to hunger for God. The Vineyard was birthed in a spirit of healthy hunger … a hunger to really know God above all else. This is what underlies our value of worship as means to enjoy His presence. Perhaps the most critical values we state as the Vineyard – Westside community is that we would seek to be…
“A church where our worship of God remains dynamic and defining of all we are.
…..where our lives are becoming increasingly centered and satisfied in God’s love”
But most of us also sense how easily such passion can wane. As Jesus said…
“… the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it (the seeds God plants) unfruitful.” Mark 4:19
> Therefore, the challenge we face in staying connected to God involves staying connected to our most fundamental longings. We are so over stimulated by our outer senses that we can hardly hear our inner soul.
· “The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less.” – Vaclav Havel, Letters to Olga
Of course we do see a spiritual hunger at work today, but far too easily it settles for a SENSE of transcendence, without pursuing the very SUBSTANCE which God provides.
· “Man has always lost his way. He has been a tramp ever since Eden; but he always knew, or thought he knew, what he was looking for…. For the first time in history he begins to really doubt the object of his wanderings on earth. He has always lost his way; but now he has lost his address.” – G.K. Chesterton
· > When we lose a connection to our deepest longings… we lose our address… for it is such longings that will lead us home.
Christ comes to offer good news….
‘On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." John 7:37-38 (NIV)
“If anyone is thirsty….” …. And of course Jesus would speak of hunger in a similar way… and then proclaim to offer the very bread of life.
If anyone is thirsty… hungry… if such senses are stirred… then come to Him and discover satisfaction.
> It all begins with thirst…hunger… like our bodies realization that it needs something it isn’t getting. If we want to stay connected to God… we must stay hungry for the longings of our soul… the ultimate longings. To hunger for God involves staying connected to the hunger in our soul.
Here may feel a dilemma. If we feel a loss which we long for God to satisfy… we may fear allowing ourselves to feel such needs… fearing that such a focus will only lead to despair. “I don’t want to get any more in touch with the emptiness in my life… dark and depressing.” “If I want to be happy I should avoid what makes me feel sad.”
> Jesus has no intention of leaving us in despair… he is simply stating the nature of hunger… that hunger is by nature a pain that leads to pleasure. Hunger is the sensation that allows us to connect with food. We should value our spiritual hunger as we do our physical hunger… not as something bad… and to be ignored… but as something good… as necessary for life. What happens when we ignore our physical hunger? We grow weak… disoriented… then, most dangerously of all, we lose our appetite altogether.
What are we to understand then… is our hunger for God born of duty or desire?
Jesus declares a transforming truth in answer to that question… Matthew 13:44(NIV)
"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”
Jesus is declaring the reality of God’s reign breaking into this world… how we enter into the reign of God’s love and leadership. What does He declare? That we are forced to get rid of all that satisfies… and then out of guilt accept what God offers? … that in our regret?..No !
> IN OUR JOY ! He says discovering God’s reign… God’s sphere of influence… comes from discovering something that is of so much worth… so valuable… that one will want to do whatever it takes to get it.
What does this tell us about cultivating our hunger for God?
> That hunger for God is not simply born of duty… but desire. God seeks in the heart and soul of every one of His created a deep longing for Him,...a recognition of need which only He can satisfy. God wants our enjoyment...our delight. Our souls are to be stirred not merely by a sense of obligation but desperation,...not merely by a sense of duty but desire.
Psalms 16:11
“You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with JOY in your presence, with eternal PLEASURES at your right hand.”
As C.S. Lewis says, God in the Psalms is the "all satisfying object." “….it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.” (The Weight Of Glory. pp 1-2)
We have got to overcome our merely dutiful approach to God. You cannot cultivate a hunger for God born of duty apart from desire.
JOHN PIPER
"Behind the repentance that turns away from sin and behind the faith that embraces Christ is the birth of a new taste, a new longing, a new passion for the pleasure of God’s presence. This is the root of conversion."
“….disinterested benevolence toward God is evil. If you come to God dutifully offering him the reward of your fellowship instead of thirsting after the reward of his fellowship, then you exalt yourself above God as his benefactor and belittle Him as a need beneficiary-and that is evil.
The only way to glorify the all-sufficiency of God in worship is to come to him because "in his presence is fullness of joy and at his right hand are pleasures for evermore" (Psalm 16:11). -John Piper, "Desiring God"+
> Indeed our enemy is not desire but indifference.
So how can we cultivate our hunger for God… our connection with God?
1. Sense the desire God placed in your heart.
“God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart…” Eccles. 3:11 (NLT)
God has placed desires in our hearts… desires which can help us stay connected to God.
2. See the signs God has given of Himself.
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Romans 1:20 (NIV)
3. Seek the deeper heart of God now present through Christ.
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to “me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11-13 (NIV)
Ponder this type of process with me for a moment in relationship to four common desires….
Four common desires to keep us connected to God…
(1) For meaning and purpose to life
Sense our desire… our ambition to accomplish… because such was given to us as human beings in creation. As we seek to know God we discover that indeed the Creator of the universe speaks as one sovereign over all history. He is the beginning and end… who “is working all things together for the good of those who love Him.” Every day of my life is seen… and woven into God’s great drama. We discover that this planet … and life from every corner… through every generation… shares a place in His story…. Nothing is lost … everyone is counted. The very desire placed in my soul for meaning and purpose… which is stirred by opening my eyes to the signs around me… is what I can find if I seek God with my whole heart.
(2) For love… especially a fathers heart and hand upon us
We all long to be loved… wanted and valued. Such a love is woven into the very fabric of life through parental love. Includes the unique love of a father… to have his heart and hands upon us.
Such a love may have been missing or limited. We long for it… and feel it’s loss when it’s lost.
If we look at the signs God has given us of Himself… we can see the heart and hand of a father in creation. In nature we see provision… benevolence amidst hardship… we see the creative hand at work… we sense the work of discipline in the consequences which life can bring as it seeks to teach us.
From such sign, as we seek to know God more deeply… we discover the love behind all love… the parent behind all parents… the father of fathers.
What we discover is more amazing than we could ever imagine. Jesusdeclares that the Creator of the Universe… of our existence… can be called “Abba”… “Daddy.” Paul confirms such a reality, and says the Spirit of God comes to us to put the cry of “daddy” in us so that we will know and live as children of God.
At an evangelistic tent meeting in Blansko in the Czech Republic… a city once a notorious stronghold of communism, a woman said, "The Communists told me there is no God. Now the Communists are gone and God is here.”
(3) For justice and peace
My journey… even in my early teens… sensed something was wrong.
I discovered what Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." In the ache I felt, I found God.
And in the years ahead… I felt the weight of our human tendency to exploit… deceive… and abuse others. At times I could feel self-righteous… but ultimately… able to recognize my own tendency to forget the poor and oppressed. I felt the cry … “Will there be justice… peace?”
Such a cry demands a belief in order… moral order based on some meaning other than chance. It points to God.
DARWIN RECOGNIZED UNIQUE POWER OF GOSPEL
MAKING BAD PEOPLE GOOD The only way to make bad people good is to expose them to the gospel. Even Charles Darwin, the man who contributed so much to evolutionistic thinking, admitted this. He wrote to a minister: "Your services have done more for our village in a few months than all our efforts for many years. We have never been able to reclaim a single drunkard, but through your services I do not know that there is a drunkard left in the village!" Later Darwin visited the island of Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America. What he found among the people was horrifying-savagery and bestiality almost beyond description. But when he returned after a missionary had worked among the people, he was amazed at the change in them. He acknowledged that the gospel does transform lives. In fact, he was so moved by what he saw that he contributed money to the mission until his death.
-Taken from SERMON ILLUSTRATIONS Computer Software, published by Nav Press., Parables, etc. Sept. 1990+
(4) For eternity
“Ever since God expelled Adam and Eve from the garden, we have lived in an unnatural environment, a world in which we were not designed to live. We were built to enjoy a garden without weeds, relationships without friction, fellowship without distance. But something is wrong, and we know it, both within our world and within ourselves. Deep inside we sense we’re out of the nest, always ending the day in a motel room, never at home.”
-Larry Cribb, Inside Out+
J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote a little story called “Lord of the Rings”… you may have heard of it… often faced the charge that fantasy is an "escapist" way of shifting attention away from the pressures of the "real world." His reply was simple: Everything depends on that from which one is escaping. We view the flight of a deserter and the escape of a prisoner very differently. "Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home?"+
(The following additional quote not given in sermon)
MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE DESCRIBES THE STRANGE SENSE OF SATISFACTION OF NOT BEING HOME THAT WE MUST KEEP ALIVE
For me there has always been--and I count it the greatest of all blessings--a window never finally blacked out, a light never finally extinguished. I had a sense, sometimes enormously vivid, that I was a stranger in a strange land; a visitor, not a native, a displaced person. The feeling, I was surprised to find, gave me a great sense of satisfaction, almost of ecstasy. Days or weeks or months might pass. Would it ever return--the lostness? I strain my ears to hear it, like a distant music; my eyes see it as a very bright light very far away. Has it gone forever? And then--ah! the relief. Like slipping away from a sleeping embrace, silently shutting the door behind one, tiptoeing off in the gray light of dawn--a stranger again. The only ultimate disaster that can befall all of us, I have come to realize, is to feel ourselves at home here on earth. As long as we are aliens, we cannot forget our true homeland.
-Malcolm Muggeridge, From Houston, "Happiness," p.266+
God longs for us to long for Him. He tells us to sense our desires… and see the signs… then trust His good plans.. call upon me… seek me with all your heart… and you’ll be satisfied.
When God says we must seek Him with our whole heart…He isn’t referring to some sort of game… in which He’s hidden and avoiding us… in fact He’s stating that any one of us will enjoy Him if we really desire Him. It’s like many desires I may have… a desire to locate a certain book… travel to a certain place… get together with a certain friend… all are possible but many will never happen because I simply don’t feel led or choose to pursue them with my whole heart.
“Continue seeking Him with seriousness. Unless he wanted you, you would not be wanting Him.”
-C.S. Lewis, Letters of C.S. Lewis, 13 June 1951, p. 233+
But isn’t God beyond us now… isn’t our hunger for God beyond our satisfaction?
Absolutely…as it’s been said, ‘Worship doesn’t satisfy our hunger for God; it whets our appetite’ …but there is satisfaction apart from finality… a satisfaction that comes with being relationally secure and settled even if physically limited.
Like getting engaged… betrothed…joy just in having the relationship even if the completeness is still to come.
And in this life God does give us the very substance of Himself in Christ…
For Christ came into this world to reveal the very substance of God to us…
Isaiah 9:6-7
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
…. And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God… who imparts the meaning of life
Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.
[7] Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever. (… the one who prepares eternity).
> Our deepest desires are given substance in Christ.
John 6:35, 51 (NLT)
Jesus replied, "I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry again. Those who believe in me will never thirst.
…I am the living bread that came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; this bread is my flesh, offered so the world may live."
MOTHER TERESA …
"That is why Jesus made himself bread, to satisfy our hunger for God. In each of our lives Jesus comes as the Bread of Life—to be eaten, to be consumed by us.
COMMUNION / CLOSING
SINGING HIM
There was an elderly woman who was a true saint of God in her long life of devotion. She knew much of the Bible by heart and would repeat long passages from memory. But as the years went by, the strength went and with it the memory gradually went too. Finally, there came the time when she was able only to quote one passage: "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able, to keep that which I have committed, unto him against that day." But by and by that also seemed to slip. So there came a time when all she could say was "...that which I have committed to him..." But toward the last, as she hovered between this world and the next, her memory failed even more. Her loved ones would see her lips moving and, thinking that she might need something, they would bend down and listen for her request. Time and again they found her repeating only one word from this song over and over and over. It was the same word: "HIM! HIM! HIM!" She had lost the whole song -- she had lost the entire Bible -- with the single exception of this one word. And what a word it is! She had capsulated the entire Bible in this one word! The Bible is "HIM." This "HIM" is Jesus.
-Submitted by J.D. Brown+
