Ten Lies That Shatter Lives (10): Getting Quenches Craving




A Sermon On:

Exodus 20: 17

Philippians 4: 10-13




PREPARED BY

KEN GEHRELS

PASTOR

CALVIN CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH

NEPEAN, ONTARIO


Eddie stood in the front yard and watched the big boys walking to school.
"When I get to be six I'll go to school, and it will be very nice," he said to himself.
But when Eddie got to be six and did go to school, it wasn't all that nice.

"When I go to high school it'll be great," Eddie said, dreaming of being a football star, driving his own car, and of having big muscles under his sweater.
But when Ed did go to high school, things didn't work out as planned.

"When I get out of this dumb place," he said with disgust, "I'm going to University, where they treat you like an adult. It won't be boring, and the girls are to mature to care whether or not you're a football star."
The University didn't quite work out the way Ed planned, either.

"Well," he said, "life is really going to begin when I graduate, get a good job, and have my own apartment."
But life didn't seem to get started too well, even when Ed found a pretty good job and had a much too expensive apartment all to himself.

"I'm so lonely," he said. "That's what's wrong. Just about everything that's wrong with my life now would be solved if I had a good wife."
Marriage did solve a lot of Ed's problems, but it created a few more - like money problems, for instance.

Several promotions later, with a bigger income swallowed by bigger bills, and bigger psychological pressures waking him up at night, Edward thought, "Life will be really wonderful when I retire. I'll still be relatively young and I can fish, hunt - be free of responsibilities."

Edward retired. He was out in his new boat one day, sliding across the water to a secluded fishing hole, when he thought, "All my life I've been looking for happiness and contentment. When I get used to this retirement way of life, I think it's finally going to be great."
Of course, by now he didn't really believe that. Which is why he added (to reassure himself) "Now, for the first time, I feel that life - real living - is just around the corner!"

Within minutes a searing pain ripped through his chest, and Edward turned that corner, his last. Where he dropped the whole matter.
[G.W.Jones The Innovator and Other Modern Parables 1962 Abingdon Press]

What a contrast to Paul's words in our Bible reading:
"I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." [Phil 4.11-13]

C.S.Lewis, the great Christian writer, had met a lot of Edwards in his life. He had experienced some of the same tugs and pulls, regrets and desires in his own life, as most of us have, if we're honest about it all.
We've all had those periods and stages where we said, "It'll get better. Just got to hang in a little longer. Just one more year at school, one more promotion, a slightly newer car, a little bigger home. It's coming. I'm almost there."........
......whatever "there" is.

Lewis pointed out that we can, say, see a beautiful sunset and feel a moment of glory. But still, somewhere inside, we feel a twinge, a tug, that says, "ah, but there is yet more."
We can smell a fragrant flower and feel a fleeting moment of joy rise up inside. But then, strangely, it quickly settles down again.
It happens with flowers, with sunsets, in fact with all the glorious experiences of life. They never quite push us over the top. Lewis realized that this yearning was a longing, a thirsting, a craving for something so deep, so fundamental that none of the experiences of life could satisfy. He said,
"They are not the thing itself for which we yearn; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited."
[C.S.Lewis Weight Of Glory p.5]

That which is beyond us - beyond, at least, the physical senses.
That's what we're talking about.
Something inside of us that wants to be touched by that whatever it is.
To be filled up with it.
And until that space inside us is filled, that craving is satisfied - until then - we'll end up running around like Eddie. Running till we drop, empty-handed.

Lewis wasn't the only one to point this out.
Many theologians, Christian counsellors and self-help groups write about it.
We can call it the "hole in the soul."
The hole in the soul - You can run around trying to stuff that hole with all kinds of things, like Edward did. But if it's not the one thing -
- the one thing that is meant to fill that hole;
to fit in that spot like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle
whatever we stuff there will fall out and the hole will be there, as raw as ever.

We can try to camouflage the hole. Cover it. Ignore it. Medicate it.
But it'll keep coming back. Bigger, more demanding than ever before.

John Calvin describes it as a space carved into the heart of every woman and man, girl and boy -- a space that only God can fill.
There is an empty part of their inner person, their consciousness - whatever you want to call it - that wants to be filled up with God, to be with God in a close intimate way much as a child is meant to be with her parents.
There is a yearning to be with God in eternal perfection.
Until that yearning is quenched we will remain fundamentally dissatisfied with life.

We can deny it. Scoff at it. Run from it. Harden ourselves off against it.
But the fact remains true.
We can try to drown out the drive, the need, to be filled with God by over saturating ourselves with other things and senses and experiences...
.......but the need for this "something more" remains.
Just like you can, for a while, distract a child that is separated from her parent. But eventually the need for mommy or daddy overwhelms and they begin to cry.

The lie of our consumer driven world says, "keep going, you're almost there. Buy a little more. Work a little harder. Move a little higher. It's waiting for you." And while it keeps the markets humming and GDP figures moving, there is still no peace. To see that you just have to look around. We are rich, oh so rich in North America. Man - we have so much stuff we keep tripping over it. Don't know where to put it anymore.
BUT -
Now you tell me..... are we a peace-full society? I'm not talking about a happy, "ha ha, tell a good joke" type of feel good for the moment thing. I'm talking about being comfortable in our own skin; going to bed and sleeping soundly without a nagging somewhere inside; at rest with each other -
the sort of things that Jews call "Shalom";
what we celebrate as we sing the old hymn "It is well with my soul."

Is it well with our Canadian soul?
Don't even need to answer that, do we.
Stuff doesn't do it.

It's like, as one person said to me recently, trying to quench your thirst with salt water. The more you drink, the thirstier you get.
We look at our neighbour's whatever and figure that this is the ticket to feel-good. Only to get it, turn around and see another neighbour with the next trinket that shines. There is, as my grandmother used to say, always someone one rung up the ladder. There's always something just a little bit better, shinier.

Please hear me right -
I'm not wanting to come down on a desire to have the basics of life met. To desire to live in a safe neighbourhood, with a roof over our heads that doesn't leak, clothes that look decent and keep the cold out, and a varied healthy menu to fill our bellies -- That's OK stuff!

And I don't want to come down on appreciating the fine things of life that God may have put in our path - Ecclesiastes 5 says, "Whenever God gives someone riches and property with the ability to enjoy them and to find contentment in work, this is a gift from God."

But don't get caught up in them!
Don't expect them to allow you to lay your head on the pillow and sleep more soundly at the end of the day!
Don't go mortgaging the present because of some new day you're hoping will make things OK!
None of that will give you peace inside.

Leaving all that behind, this morning we're going to go to the place where the writer of Philippians 4 found himself:
Content - whatever the circumstances.
Content - he could put his head on that proverbial pillow and head off to sleep without a problem. Didn't matter if he ate peanut butter or steak, drove a New Yorker or only had a rusty bicycle, shopped at Value Village or The Gap, lived in a subsidized bachelor flat or a rural executive estate, lived as a single or married man, enjoyed sex or was celibate.
Didn't matter.
'Cause the hole in his soul was plugged. The big spot right at the centre of his existence was filled to overflowing with the only One who fit there -
Jesus Christ.

Oh, he appreciated the help that his friends sent him. No question. A little added comfort was welcome.
But more important was the riches that he shared with his friends in Jesus Christ. That he could go straight to the Control Room of heaven, so to speak - whenever he wanted, through prayer and KNOW he'd get a hearing.......
for Jesus' sake.

Knowing that the mighty, caring Hand of God would go with him wherever he went, provide for him, protect him, and one day draw him home to an eternity of peace and rest in heaven........
all for Jesus' sake.

Knowing that he - little Paul - mattered to Great Big God. That the Father in Heaven saw little him as a son. Cared for him as a son. And, as a son, had a reason for his existence on earth, guiding him to it..........
for Jesus' sake.

As long as he had that, no matter what Eddie could all accumulate in life, it would never compare.

In a couple of minutes you and I are going to be presented with some very basic stuff - bread and a cup. Total monetary value of everything on this table, dishes included, is next to nothing.
But what it represents is of infinite value.
Bread - the body of Jesus that hung on a cross to make possible our becoming children of God.
The red fruit of the vine in a little cup - the blood of Christ that poured out to take away our sin, to pay for your guilt and mine.

This is the stuff of life, my friends.
Welcoming the Lord right into the deepest, secret places of your heart and mind. Accepting His great love for you.

Bread - the cup - see that He loves you!
Taste it.
Remember it.

As we pass the trays and take from them, I'd invite you to use this time as a quiet moment between you and Jesus. His Spirit is in this room right now. The Spirit who wants to fill up every crack and crevice, to carry every hurt, and guide you through every uncertainty - to be with you, in you, around you.

If you listened to the story of Eddie and said, "Hey, that's me he's talking about!"; if you're sitting here feeling sort of restless or unhappy with where you're at in life, but you're not really sure why
then this morning is for you;
this is your moment;
Jesus, through His Spirit wants to meet you.

Reach your hand out, take some bread, lay hold of a cup, and in quiet prayer make this a moment of welcome.

It may have been 1 year, 10 years or 50 years since you publicly gave your heart to Christ through adult baptism or public profession of faith. But maybe something has happened and somehow you got caught up in the whole rat race that consumes our society, and have allowed the desire for whatever to nudge in on the space that Jesus is supposed to occupy - centre space.
And now your realize it.

Then this holy moment of communion becomes your moment to do business with him. To set first things first. To welcome him back home into your heart.
And I guarantee you that the end result will be for you a deeper peace, a solid hope, and a security that you'll get nowhere else.

The psalmist said:
Psalm 27.4: "One thing I ask of the Lord, only that do I seek - to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord."

Is that the longing, the thirsting, of your soul?
Then come. Eat. Drink. Be satisfied.