Still Hungry? Being Content in the Lord

Pastor Phillips’ Sermon

Sunday November 30, 2008

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Wow. What a great Thanksgiving! Of course, I’ve never had a bad Thanksgiving. And being a Detroit Lions fan, that doesn’t make sense, does it? Wow. All the family was gathered. We went to my wife’s family down in Fairfield and all the nieces and nephews, the brothers-in-law, the sisters-in law, my mother-in-law and father-in-law and even a few extras were there. It was great. Incredible food like you would expect at Thanksgiving, a real feast. The turkey was done to perfection. Light and dark meat, mashed potatoes and gravy, giant rolls just out of the oven, wonderful food. My sister-in-law made a corn souffle that was wonderful, a special jello combination that we have every Thanksgiving and my favorite, cranberry sauce. Nobody else likes that stuff but I sure do. And then the pies. I can’t even begin to talk about the pies. Wonderful homemade pies. One thing we didn’t have, no tofurkey. I don’t know if you know about that. That’s the fake turkey stuff they’re coming out with, the vegetarian people or something. None of that. It was a genuine feast. All the family there.

But we had something funny happen. There was a discussion that came up. You know how the holidays blend together, Thanksgiving right on into Advent and Christmas and all of that. This year, the family’s grown. All of Kim’s brothers and sisters are married. They all have children and the numbers are just growing and growing and growing. And the tradition with Kim’s family at Christmas time was to buy for everybody. And at a certain point, that’s just not practical anymore. And so one of the sisters brought up the suggestion, “Why don’t we adults draw names?” My family’s been doing that for 30 years but there are 8 of us so it’s makes a little difference.

“Why don’t we draw names?” So the discussion happened right before Thanksgiving dinner about drawing names. And there was a high level of sensitivity, first with my mother-in-law who loves Christmas, loves Christmas. It’s all about every gift that she buys, she pours her whole heart into it and she thinks of the individual it is for and what they like and what really makes them happy and that’s what she buys. Of course, she loves getting gifts, too. In fact, she’s been known to unwrap a few gifts weeks before Christmas and then wrap them back up and put them under the tree. So she was a little sensitive about this conversation. But then there were the children. Do you know any children who want to receive less gifts at Christmas? So when they heard this idea about drawing names, they didn’t like that. That meant a cutback for them. And finally, there were the adults who had to pay for all this stuff. And we’re kind of getting stressed and stretched financially each year. Everyone was sensitive about this discussion. Why so sensitive?

I think it’s because we have a hunger problem. Not that we’re underfed or malnourished but we have a thirst that cannot be quenched. We have a hunger that cannot be satisfied. James writes about it in Chapter 4, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but you don’t get it. You kill and covet but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” No matter how much we drink, no matter how much we eat, we are still hungry. No matter how much we spend or what we obtain or what we experience or what vacation we take, we’re still hungry for more.

We just survived black Friday. My gosh, what a great name. Black Friday. I think it’s a black mark on us as human beings to see what people do. My daughter was at a store and she didn’t even get up early. She just went in mid-morning to the store and she was standing by a clothing rack looking at an item and somebody grabbed it off the rack right in front of her. She said, “I’ll just try another one. There are several there.” My brother told me one time they got up real early to do those sales when the store opens, everybody runs in and gets the sales. He said people were taking things out of their carts as they went through the store. Some people plan annually to meet as a family and do their shopping on that day and they get up in the middle of the night and they make the big journey to the mall. But the ultimate happened on Long Island Friday. You might have heard about this. On Thursday night at 9 p.m., a crowd began to gather outside the Walmart on Long Island. By 5 a.m. when they were going to open, an estimated 2,000 shoppers were waiting outside to come in. And as one of the employees went to unlock the door, the crowd surged forward breaking open the doors and trampling the man to death. Why do we do it?

Why are we so hungry to get a bargain? Or to get the next possession? I don’t think hunger is the problem. I think it’s what we do to satisfy it. Again, Isaiah says, “Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy?” Again, I don’t think the problem is hunger. It’s how we seek to satisfy that hunger. I think we all have a natural desire for feeling content and fulfilled and loved. I think that’s God’s design that He created us with a need for a relationship with Him and He created us with a need for a relationship with loving friends and family. The hunger isn’t the problem. It’s where we look to satisfy those needs.

Imagine this, you’re driving and, all of a sudden, you notice you’re out of gas. The arrow is on E, the little warning light, gas station little light is on telling you that you have about 15 miles to find a gas station. So what do you do? You pull into a gas station, right? Because that’s what your car needs. It’s what your motor needs. What would happen, though, if you instead pulled into Hy-Vee, ran inside and bought a few 2-liter bottles of pop, came out and dumped it in the gas tank? Well, not being a mechanic, I can’t tell you exactly what will happen but I would imagine that, at first, when you turn the car on, it would start up and the gas gauge would probably come up a little. Maybe that warning light would go off, at least that one would go off but very soon, you’d start to hear strange noises from your motor. And other warning lights would come on. Check engine, that fun light. It’s not what your car needs. It needs gas and no matter how much pop you put in it, it’s not going to satisfy the car’s need.

And that’s the same with us. We have a need for God and a relationship with Him. And when we try to fill that hunger with things and experiences and stuff like that, it just isn’t going to work. Listen to what Isaiah says, “Listen. Listen to me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear to me, hear me that your soul may live.” Listen and eat. That’s what he says. That’s a pretty simple plan, isn’t it? What he’s saying is that when you listen to God, it’s like you’re eating spiritually. Your soul is nourished. You find the contentment in life that you seek. You solve that hunger problem that we all share. If you listen to God, you find life.

The Hebrew word for listen is shâma’ and it simply means to hear. But it also means to do. So when you hear God speak, you don’t just hear the words but you act on them. You do what He says as He has directed you, you walk. That’s what it means to listen and eat.

It’s like this. Imagine a basketball coach gathers his team around and teaches them. He teaches them how to play basketball. He teaches them how to dribble. He teaches them how to shoot. He teaches them how to pass, how to rebound, how to play defense, how to play offense. The coach teaches the players and when they do what he has taught them, they will be successful. They may not win every game. That’s a matter of talent but they’ll be successful.
It’s the same with us. If we listen to God, we will find peace and contentment in our lives. Psalm 34 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Psalm 119 says, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.” By the way, Psalm 119 is the longest of the 150 Psalms in the bible, 176 verses and every one of them talks about how precious and wonderful the Word of God is for us, how important it is in our lives if we listen to God.

There is a problem with that, though. God doesn’t speak audibly to most of us. He may have spoken to you at one time or another but not on a daily basis and not consistently. What that means is that we have to open our bibles, to read our bibles, to read God’s Word because that’s how He speaks to us, isn’t it? And by reading, we will hear from Him.

For many, it’s a challenge to read their bible. I don’t know why but this is what I imagine. It’s a challenge because we’re busy in our lives. We’re running here and there, doing our job. We’re taking care of our family. We’re attending events and taking care of responsibilities and run, run, run all day long. And when we finally get done with our day and sit down and put our feet up for a few minutes, we’re tired, physically, mentally, we’re tired. And we just don’t feel like getting into a heavy discussion about God.

That’s where Pastor Meyer and his team have helped us out. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but out in the narthex and the entry area by the Information Center, Pastor Meyer and his team have written an Advent devotion booklet for us to help us hear from God throughout the season of Advent. It’s a great book. I know a lot of you are familiar with devotion booklets but I’m going to just walk you through it anyway. It’s a book that gives you a little bit of God’s Word and a few paragraphs to explain it and apply it to your life. And each day, there’s a new lesson starting with tomorrow. The first day of Advent, December 1, there’s a bible passage, a few paragraphs and then a challenge at the end, questions to challenge you. I tried it out yesterday. It took me two minutes to read one devotion. That’s not a lot of time, is it? It wasn’t real heavy. It wasn’t real hard but it helped me to focus on God and to hear from Him, which is the goal, to hear from God.

I have a few suggestions, though. As you sit down to do your devotion time, begin with a prayer. Pray like this, “God, thank you for this day. Help me to hear from you and to grow closer to you.” When you get done with your devotion, after you read the bible passage and the few paragraphs, pray again asking God to help you with whatever’s on your heart. If it’s a relative who battles illness or family concerns or job-related issues or your retirement benefits or whatever it is, just give it to God each day. And finally, keep a record and watch what God does. Watch how your loving Father blesses you day by day providing all you need.

We heard a prayer answered just a couple of days ago. As a family, we have been praying for a relative who has been angry at God for a long time. And it just seems sometimes like your prayers don’t have much effect. You say the same thing over and over, “Lord, please soften her heart. Bring someone into her life who she will hear and she’ll listen to so she will know how much you love her.” The other day, we got a phone call and she was pleased to announce, “I’m no longer angry at God. I know He loves me.” What a great answer to prayer. What a wonderful blessing to hear that about her. So as you lift up your requests to God, keep a record and note his responses.

The other day, we were having a big breakfast, a big after-Thanksgiving breakfast and my little nephew, 21 months old, is a real stocky guy, 35 pounds of muscle. And that kid can eat. 21 months old, I couldn’t believe it. He’d already eaten breakfast but we sat down as a big group just to have pancakes and sausage and things like that. He sat down again. He ate two pancakes. I’m like, “I can’t believe it.” So I picked up my dishes. I was done. I ate about two pancakes, too, and he’s eating just what I’m eating. I grabbed my dishes. I walked into the kitchen and, as I’m going by his little table where he’s seated, he goes like this [motions with hands]. And I go, “What?” He’s asking for more. That’s sign language. More. He’s already eaten two breakfasts. Now he wants a third one. He wants more. What an appetite.

My prayer for you during this Advent season is that as you draw near to God, whether it’s through these devotions or The Portals of Prayer or just your normal daily bible reading, as you hear from God and how much He loves you and all that Jesus has done for you, that your heart and your spirit will cry out for more. More, more. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2008 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church