Submitted by admin on Tue, 02/21/2012 - 3:27pm
MP3 File:
2-19-2012 message by Pastor Rich Doebler
In the Gospel of John we read, “37 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. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified” (John 7:37-39).
Last weekend we tried something different—a panel discussion with four pastors answering questions—as we wrapped up a series of messages on the Holy Spirit.
One of the categories of questions we discussed was the “Desiring More of God” type of questions: Why don’t we experience more of God? Why don’t we see more of his supernatural work? What can we do to welcome or even promote spiritual gifts?
The panel made several observations:
1. Hunger and thirst for God is good. We should have a desire for God to work more in our church and deeper in our lives! We want to see more evidence of his power, his gifts, and his fruit.
2. It’s not uncommon to see an ebb and flow in the things of God. This is the history of God’s people all through the Bible. Sometimes we’re on the mountain top; other times we’re in the valley. Sometimes we’re flooded the Spirit; other times we’re dry and thirsty.
3. God works in many ways—and he longs to do a new thing. As we mature as believers and as a church, we should expect God to use us in new ways to expand his work.
4. We can recognize what God is doing more than worry about what he is not doing. The gifts of the Spirit, for instance, are already working in various ways beyond these four walls.
5. But still, we must desire more of God—long for more of the Spirit, because when the gifts of the Spirit help us serve one another, lost souls are saved, ruined lives are changed, and broken marriages and homes are restored.
I especially liked how one person asked the question in a very personal way: How can I renew a right and happy holy spirit within me? How can I pass it on to my adult sons?
Here was a heart-felt desire to draw closer to God and leave a solid spiritual legacy for the next generation.
But it was the next comment this person made that really caught my attention: The prospect for failure always exists, and it is painful and often embarrassing when we do fall. But it’s better to fall while striving for something adventurous and uncertain than to say, ”I won’t try, because I may not succeed.”
I love that: the determination to try for something noble and worthy—even at the risk of failure; striving for something adventurous rather than playing it safe just so you know you won’t fall.
Are you a risk-taker?
Plenty of people take risks just for the thrill and the excitement. They push themselves to the limits; they flirt with danger just for the adrenalin rush. They climb mountains so high with air so thin they need to carry oxygen canisters along just to breathe. They swim with sharks or hang-glide off cliffs or ride tiny sleds down icy tracks at 90 mph. They take risks for the thrill and the rush.
Remember crocodile hunter, Steve Irwin? He died about 5 years ago when he swam too close to a stingray. The stingray became nervous and whipped its barbed tail up to defend itself. The serrated barb pierced Irwin’s heart. Moments later he was unconscious and dying. Irwin was constantly taking risks, constantly pushing the limits. Maybe it was just a matter of time, but he died doing what he loved to do. [Image: http://www.femail.com.au/steve-irwin-crocodile-hunter.htm]
People take huge risks for the sake of adventure, for sports, for love, for business, for investing. But here in this question submitted to the panel is someone willing to risk a pain and embarrassment in order to know God better—willing to risk failure just to try to experience him more.
It leads me to ask myself: What am I willing to risk for God? How far would I go to know God better? What would I give to experience him more?
What would you give? What would you risk?
Moses risked everything.
● God told Moses, Leave this place and go to the land I promised you. I’ll send an angel ahead of you to drive out your enemies. You can have it all for yourself and your descendants—a land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people (Exod 33:1-3).
● Think of it! God promised to give them their own land, to give them success in all their endeavors, to give them complete victory, and to give them abundant resources. They would have everything they needed for comfort and ease—but they wouldn’t have him because he had determined that he wasn’t going to go with them.
● How did Moses react? “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here... [unless you go with us] What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” (Exod 33:15-16).
● In other words Moses was saying, We want you more than your blessings! So if you’re not going with us, then we don’t want to leave. We don’t care if we’re guaranteed success and safety. If you’re not with us, we’ll be no different from all the other successful people in the world.
● Moses risked all the promises, all the success and blessings, because he wanted God’s presence most of all. He risked losing a land flowing with milk and honey because he wanted God.
Could you do that? Could you say what Moses said? Do you desire God above everything else? Everything? Even more than you desire God’s blessings and promises?
Are you willing to give up the blessings and the comforts in order to know God better?
Paul risked his reputation. He set aside his religious achievements and personal reputation in order to seek hard after God.
● “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ...” (Phil 3:7-8).
● Here was a man who followed all the religious rules. He was well-known for his zeal and commitment to the cause. He had a well-deserved reputation—a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee, faultless in regard to the law.
● But he gave all that up because one day as he was traveling to Damascus, he had an encounter with the risen Christ. After that all his former ambitions and goals were replaced with an overwhelming, consuming passion: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings...” (Phil 3:10).
Are you willing to set aside your own religious reputation—your religious tradition, your righteous deeds, your religious accomplishments and success in order to know God better?
Do you desire God above everything else? Even above your own religious reputation? Some of us want credit for desiring God (“Look how thirsty I am for God”), but we have to let that go as well and seek him in humility.
A.W. Tozer (a pastor and author from the mid-20th century) wrote: “...before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man. Before a sinful man can think a right thought of God, there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him” (The Pursuit of God).
That’s true! Without God’s initial spark within our soul, we cannot seek him. However, we cannot use this as an excuse for why we do not seek him more! Why? Because God desires each one. He draws each one; he puts his spark within, so it is up to us to respond to his invitation. He extends grace; but our response to grace determines how much we will seek him.
Tozer continues: “The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him.”
David risked his life in the desert. But that was where he felt a deep stirring within—a spiritual thirst more powerful than his physical thirst. His physical discomfort taught him something about his soul, which was thirsty and starved for God.
● “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... My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you” (Ps 63:1,5).
Isaiah, the prophet, talked about spiritual thirst. He saw how everyone has a thirsty, hungry soul—it’s a common condition of humanity. Everyone is parched and dry in spirit, longing to quench the thirst.
● 1 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. 2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. 3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live...” (Isa 55:1-3).
● Isaiah recognized that we often try to quench our spiritual thirst and satisfy our spiritual hunger through inadequate means: Why buy fake bread? Why work for something that cannot satisfy your hunger or your thirst?
● Are you hungering and thirsting for more of God? If you’re not thirsty for God, what do you thirst for? Our problem is that there are so many choices competing for our attention. Our lives are full of all sorts of activities and interests—TV, entertainment, social media, virtual friends, music, iPods, iPads, sports, recreation...you name it.
● How many of you parents have told your kids at one time or another, “No, you can’t eat that candy (or cookie, or cake, or whatever), because it will ruin your appetite”? We know we should reserve our appetites for things that are healthy and nutritious.
● A couple days ago Sharon and I were shopping together for groceries. We were on a mission, focused. For a while, we even had two carts, each of us going down separate aisles of the store with our own cart, each loading our carts with the things we needed.
Then we came to the bakery section of the store. “Let’s look at the birthday cakes,” Sharon said. Out of the blue! I don’t know why she said that. We don’t have any birthdays in our family for a couple of months. But there we were, gazing longingly at the cakes.
And then we found ourselves wandering through other aisles in the bakery. We inspected a package of pumpkin rolls. We looked at chocolate chip cookies, at cinnamon-sugar donut holes, at frosted raspberry Bismarks, at pies and other things—each one calling to me. My mouth began to water. I was peering through clear, plastic cellophane—and drooling.
Finally, (this really happened) I said, “We need to get out of here. I can’t resist the temptation much longer.” What I didn’t say—what Sharon didn’t hear because I was only thinking it in my head was, “Maybe I can come back tomorrow morning and buy a couple of donuts when she’s not around.” (I really thought that.)
● Here’s my point: We live in a world full of attractive, mouth-watering, delicious and delectable treats. If we fill our souls with all these things, then we will ruin our appetite for God!
- Jesus said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness… (Matt 5:6)
- He told the rich young ruler, You’re very religious but you lack one thing… (Luke 18:22)
- To Martha: You’re worried about so much but Mary discovered the most important (Luke 10:41)
- He said, Don’t worry about stuff…seek first God’s kingdom… (Matt 6:33)
● Psalm 42 says, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God...” (v 1-2). Ps 84 says, “My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God” (v 2). Here was a thirsty, hungry soul who longed for God because he had not tried to fill it with something else!
In the Gospel of John we read, “37 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. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified” (John 7:37-39).
Our highest priority, our deepest longing, the strongest motivation of our hearts, should be to know God more—to draw closer to him, to place him at the center of our lives.
Do you want more of God? Do you desire to see him work strongly in your life or family or marriage? Are you thirsty for more of God? Would you like streams of living water flowing within? Do you long for the fullness of the Spirit? Jesus says simply, “Come to me and drink.”