I wannabe a wannabe
TCF Sermon
March 26, 2006
Now admit it. Some of you are like me, and the past few weeks, you’ve spent more than a few hours in front of the TV set, or maybe even somewhere in person, watching basketball games, because this is your favorite season of the year.
Basketball fan or not, one of the things that’s so compelling about the NCAA tournament, and what has come to be called March Madness, is the idea that there will be upsets, that the sheer desire, the hunger, the want-to, of these teams, from big schools and smaller schools, will help them to rise above expectations, sometimes play David against Goliath, and achieve something incredibly memorable. Fans want to live this vicariously, but the players, especially, are all wannabes.
You’ve heard that term applied to all kinds of things. When you want to be something, you’re a wannabe. In this case, they’re all wannabe national basketball champions. I’ve thought a lot about this, and I’ve been thankful that God gave me this wonderful sports analogy so I could spiritualize my hours of basketball-watching these past few weeks, and call it sermon preparation.
But as I’ve thought about this, I’ve realized there’s a very real spiritual analogy at work here, and that’s what we’re going to look at this morning.
You see, we should want to be wannabes. We should wannabe wholehearted followers of Jesus.
1 Peter 2:2-3 (NIV) Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Here, Peter is telling us we should crave, or intensely want, the pure spiritual milk of the Word of God. He tells us that by consuming this pure spiritual milk, we grow up in our salvation.
So, wanting, strongly desiring, even craving, is not only appropriate, it’s necessary for our growth in the things of God. These basketball players,
as well as certainly the coaches, and many of the fans, crave the success on the court, they crave wins. They hunger and thirst, and strongly desire the good feeling that comes with winning.
This desire, this craving, is so strong, that it leads to something. It’s a motivator, to do the things it takes to get to that point where you’re in the NCAA tournament, and playing the best teams in the nation, with a hope of winning a championship.
(ORU head coach Scott) Sutton wants his players to remember the experience of playing in the NCAA Tournament. "I think it will motivate them to work harder because once you get a taste of it, you want to get back every year."
What a taste of success brings you is a hunger for more success. What a taste of good food brings you is a hunger for more. It’s part of our human nature. It’s normal, and kept within its proper boundaries, that is, craving the right things, this craving, this hunger, is a good thing, even a desirable thing.
It’s certainly a good thing with babies, isn’t it? If a baby doesn’t want to eat, we know something’s wrong. A baby doesn’t need to be taught to be hungry. He or she is just hungry. So, if we don’t hunger, if we don’t thirst, there’s clearly something wrong.
Medically speaking, if someone has no appetite, no thirst, we don’t think, well, maybe they’re just not interested in growing, they’re just not hungry, or thirsty.
No, if someone has no desire for food or drink, we think, there’s something wrong with them! Because we’re supposed to be hungry or thirsty.
So, if someone has no appetite or thirst, we begin to explore why there’s no hunger, no thirst. Babies instinctively crave mother’s milk. And that’s what Peter recognized in this passage of scripture, as he drew this metaphor between babies and us. Let’s reverse the verses here – verse 3 to 2…
“now that you have tasted that the Lord is good, crave the pure spiritual milk which will help you grow up into salvation.”
We crave because it’s natural, but we should crave all the more, because we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and this should help us want to know Him more.
Crave here means: to dote upon, i.e. intensely crave possession (lawfully or wrongfully) :- (earnestly) desire, (greatly) long (after)…
Peter’s admonishing us to crave the things of God.
The metaphor’s point of comparison (like newborn babies) is not the smallness or innocence of a baby, but its strong and instinctive longing for its mother’s milk. To a newborn baby such longing is wholly natural and inevitable, but the longing for the “pure milk” of which Peter speaks is something that must be commanded, and something on which the readers must fasten their attention and effort… Word Biblical Commentary
This craving, hungering, thirsting after God is a theme we see throughout scripture.
Let’s just take a quick look through a small sampling of verses.
Jeremiah 29:13 (NIV) You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Psalm 42:1-2 (NIV) As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. 2My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
Psalm 63:1 (NIV) 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.
Psalm 143:6 (NIV) I spread out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.
Isaiah 26:8-9 (NIV) Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you;
your name and renown are the desire of our hearts. 9My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you.
Matthew 5:6 (NIV) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
The word here for hunger means famished; figuratively to crave.
Hebrews 11:6 (NIV) And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Earnestly seek here means: to search out, i.e. (figurative) investigate, crave, demand, (seek after (carefully, diligently).
So, this is just a small sampling of verses that use the words like crave, hunger, thirst, earnestly seek, long for, yearn for….
These are all words that describe a strong desire for something. In this case, it’s a strong desire for the Lord in one’s life.
One of our problems is that we see desire, hunger and thirst, earnestly seeking or longing for, as emotional responses. Because we tend to see them primarily as emotions, we have this tendency also to think that we have no control at allover what we really want. We think – I want to want the things of God more in my life, but I just can’t work it up – I can’t help what I really want or don’t want.
While there may be a grain of truth to that, if you’ve fallen into that kind of thinking, let me tell you two things. First, that kind of thinking is mostly just wrong… We do have a choice in the matter, because, though there often is a strong emotional component in this wannabe, it’s clear that emotions do not have the deciding vote. Our will does.
But secondly, and even more importantly, there’s good news. Regardless of the emotional component, as Jim Garrett noted last week, God is the initiator. God is able to shape us into wannabes, and He takes the initiative. God gives us the want-to that’s so important in our walk with Him. Of course, just as with our salvation, we can choose to accept this gift or not, but it’s there for us to receive.
Ezekiel 36:26-27 (NIV) I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
The New Living Translation helps us understand this more, especially in the context of being wannabes:
And I will give you a new heart with new and right desires, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony heart of sin and give you a new, obedient heart. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you so you will obey my laws and do whatever I command.
Just to be clear here, let’s read another version. It’s not the NIV, or the NAS, or the KJV. This is the BSP – have you heard of that? It’s the Bill Sullivan paraphrase:
God says, with the new, soft, responsive heart that I and only I can give you, I’m going to help you want to follow me, want to root sin out of your life, and want to be obedient.
Matthew Henry wrote of this passage:
The people of God might be discouraged in their hopes of a restoration by the sense, not only of their unworthiness of such a favour, but of their unfitness for such a favour, being still corrupt and sinful; and that is answered in these verses, with a promise that God would by his grace prepare and qualify them for the mercy, and then bestow it on them. But it is further intended as a draught of the covenant of grace, and a specimen of those spiritual blessings with which we are blessed in heavenly things by that covenant.
What a wonderful promise this is. God would give His people a new “disposition of mind.” Instead of a heart of stone, instead of a heart that’s insensitive to the things of God, unable to be penetrated, God would give His people a heart that’s softer, and still more sensitive to Him.
What’s more, He’d give His people the want-to. He does that by putting His Holy Spirit in us. His Spirit is a teacher, a guide, a change agent in our lives. Again quoting Matthew Henry on this passage:
God does not force men to walk in his statutes by external violence, but causes them to walk in his statutes by an internal principle. If God will do his part according to the promise, we must do ours according to the precept. The promise of God’s grace to enable us for our duty should engage and quicken our constant care and endeavour to do our duty.
Here’s another way to say that:
God’s promise to equip us should help provide the wannabe for us.
God’s promises must drive us to his precepts as our rule, and then his precepts must send us back to his promises for strength, for without his grace we can do nothing.
So, this understanding leaves us without excuse. We can have the want-to. We can have the desire to follow God with our whole hearts. I don’t know about you, but I wannabe a wannabe. I wannabe a wholehearted follower of Jesus. I wannabe one who strongly wants, who hungers and thirsts for righteousness. I wannabe one who yearns for, who longs for, the things of God.
It’s clear that hard work, self-motivation alone cannot do it. Back to my basketball analogy. You’ve got to have some ability to begin with. The ability to play at the level of the NCAA athletes is a gift. A lot of people are motivated to try… I know I was – when I was in high school I dreamed of playing college basketball.
I had a close friend who was recruited to play college ball, and we’d play one-on-one, and just by competing with him my hoops dreams enlarged. I really hungered and thirsted for this ability, but I just don’t have what it takes – the jump shot, the quickness, the height, the talent level. Yet, having the physical gifts and talents is not enough either.
Some of the most gifted athletes of all time didn’t have the accompanying drive, or desire, or hunger, for excellence, and they stalled somewhere on their quest for greatness, for championships, for MVP awards, maybe even for making it at all at a high level of play.
It takes both. So, God provides the equivalent of the physical gifts, the ability. He even offers us the wannabe attitude. But we have to cooperate with God by doing what it takes to nurture this.
The reality for most of us is that sometimes we’re wannabe’s, and then there are other times we’re wanna-sleeps.
Sometimes we care more about the things of God than other times. Even knowing that our desire, our wannabe, is the fuel that helps us to grow in Christ, we often try to walk through our Christian lives by sheer determination and duty,or we simply go through seasons when, if we’re honest with ourselves, we really don’t have the want-to. Now, I’m not knocking determination and duty – they can be good things. But not as a substitute for God’s grace.
I read a great article in Discipleship Journal in preparation for this sermon, by a pastor named Matthew Woodley. Some of the ideas in this morning’s message are from his article. He noted that the answers to these questions:
1. am I hungry for God?
2. do I yearn to be like Jesus?
are also indications of spiritual maturity. So, if desire, if hunger, if thirsting for God is the fuel of our growth and maturing in Christ, we should have a plan to cooperate with the Holy Spirit, in God’s desire to give us the wannabe.
That plan can start with this:
1. embrace repentance
Repentance does two important things in us. First, it keeps us honest about the true condition of our hearts. Our hearts, left to our own devices, have a rather dull desire for God, and are deeply attached to sin.
Knowing this about our sinful hearts brings us to another important thing repentance does: It creates more of a hunger for God, because we realize how desperately we need Him.
“God uses repentance to hollow us out so He can fill us with a hunger for Him.”
2. stay connected to the church
We’ve talked about this many times before, but it always bears repeating. Left to ourselves, our desire is likely to burn out. Left to ourselves, the desires of this life can choke out the Godly desires God wants to give us.
Mark 4:19 (NIV) but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.
Remember the analogy of the burning coals? One coal, set on fire alone, will quickly burn out. But put a bunch of hot coals with a bunch of unlit coals, and what happens? You’ve quickly got a fire on your hands, as the other coals catch fire.
We’re meant to live in community, with our brothers and sisters in Christ, in the context of a local church like TCF. That’s the context in which God energizes our faith, helps us maintain that godly wannabe.
We live up to the standards of those around us. The opposite is also true. We live down to the standards of those around us. One of the frustrating things about this year’s ORU basketball team is that they often seemed to play down to the level of their competition. Play somebody good, and they often looked very good. Play somebody not very good, and they often looked as bad as the team they were playing.
Living up to the standards of those around me is one of the most significant reasons I came to TCF, and stayed here. My desire for the things of God
is energized by the faith that’s evident in my brothers and sisters here. As iron sharpens iron, so one mans sharpens another.
3. The third thing we can do to help us be wannabes, is to focus on God’s goodness. We’ve already looked at this analogy when we were talking about the NCAA basketball tournament. Tasting that success makes you want more, and makes you want to do what it takes to get back to the NCAA tourney. The same idea also applies to food. We’ve talked about the Lay’s Potato Chip Principle. Bet you can’t eat just one. Eating one makes you want to eat more.
As Peter noted, we’ve tasted the goodness of the Lord. It makes us want more.
ORU has tasted what it’s like to play in the NCAA tournament. Their coach is hoping that this taste is going to make them hunger for more..to get back to the tournament, and maybe to advance beyond the first round.
When we focus on the goodness of God, when we ponder, think about, meditate on,
- the new birth
- the living hope we have in Christ
- the unconditional love of God for us in Christ
it cannot help but increase our wannabe for Him.
In our efforts to increase our hunger for God, most of us focus on the intensity of our desire. Do we have enough? If not, we have to try to get more. We have to pump it up. And when our desire seems to wane, we panic and fret.
But 1 Pet 2:2-3 proposes a different approach. We will crave God’s word, if we have tasted the goodness of God. There is a connection between experiencing God’s goodness and hungering for Him.
This goes beyond feeling “pumped up” about God. Feelings come and go. In fact, according to some of the masters of the Christian faith, God will remove our shallow, feeling-based desire so that He can plant in our hearts a deeper, God-fed stream of desire – a bold unquenchable prompting to keep seeking His face even when he seems absent. This desire doesn’t arise from mere human effort; it is a gift from God. And it comes primarily as we take our eyes off ourselves and focus on God’s goodness and grace.
Finally, how do we get to be wannabes? We can ask. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But it’s a sound scriptural principle. Ask. Ask God for the want-to.
King David did. He even did it for others.
1 Chron. 29:17-18 (NIV) I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity. All these things have I given willingly and with honest intent. And now I have seen with joy how willingly your people who are here have given to you. O LORD, God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Israel, keep this desire in the hearts of your people forever, and keep their hearts loyal to you.
David knew the hearts of the people of Israel needed help from God in following Him. So what did he do? He asked God for this. It was as if he prayed:
“God, it’s blessed me to see your people giving to you and serving you… keep this desire in them, keep them loyal to you…”
We, too, can pray such prayers.
Jeremiah 29:13 (NIV) You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
One key way we seek God is in prayer.
Deut. 4:29 (NIV) But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Do you want to know God? God promised His chosen people that to find Him, they needed to seek Him with all their hearts. God is knowable. He wants to be known. God will reward those who pursue a relationship with him.
C.S. Lewis gave us the following insight:
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. Michael Horton, Editor, The Agony of Deceit, 1990, Moody Press, p. 49.
Let’s not be pleased with anything less than hunger and thirst for Him. Let’s not be satisfied with desiring the things of this world. Let’s have that wannabe spirit. Let’s hunger, thirst, crave, long for, and earnestly seek the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And let’s start this morning by asking for this hunger. Right here, right now.
Pray
