Desiring God

2 Weeks ago I shared about God preparing His Bride for Jesus’s Return.

Getting Ready

God prepares us even as we prepare ourselves.

Ephesians 5:25–27 NASB95

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.

Revelation 19:7–8 NASB95

“Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

We have been in that season of preparation, but sometimes we lose focus, that’s why the Bible is chock full of challenges to keep the flame burning.

How many of the churches in Revelation are challenged to wake up!

And, yet we still struggle to stay focused.

Time rolls on, and nothing seems “to change”.

But the challenge of Jesus is still the same today: Always Be Ready!

But even as we prepare for His return, we still have to feed our families and live life.

The challenge is how do we have the right focus and attitude when life needs to be lived?

What Is Your Desire?

Last week, we identified some underlying desires that the people have as they were waiting for Messiah’s first coming, which translate over to the desires that we have while we wait for Jesus’s Second Coming.

Protection (vs 8)

Guidance (vs 11)

Satisfaction (vs 11)

Strength (vs 11)

Provision (vs 14)

We discussed that they had legitimate desires, but at best they had misplaced how they satisfied those desires, and even that didn’t look very good.

They thought that mere dutiful following of God’s feasts, fasts, sabbaths, and laws would bring God’s blessing.

It’s like the mindset, “This is the best we can do, under the circumstances...”

But, then, they realized God was not hearing their prayers and cries.

And at worst, they put the desires themselves over the one who satisfies all desires, that is, God.

They were giving lip service to their worship of God and pursued finding those desires in things other than God.

In pursuing the desires first, they ended up pursuing whatever would meet the need of the moment.

And the inevitable outcome of that, oh, so subtle shift in mindset is a self-centered view of life.

That’s why they were oppressing their own countrymen and taking advantage of their workers.

They were exploiting people for profit and were ignoring the poor and needy in their midst.

Unfortunately, they had allowed their sinful, selfish, self-preserving nature to run their lives.

And I challenged all of us as the calendar flipped to 2026 to see if any of our hearts or focus had shifted away from God first.

In Isaiah 58, God was challenging Israel to refocus and reorient their hearts towards Him.

The words delight, desire, satisfy and pleasure were mentioned over 10 times.

Then, we touched on a key verse:

Isaiah 58:11 NASB95

“And the Lord will continually guide you, And satisfy your desire in scorched places, And give strength to your bones; And you will be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.

The word for desire here is the word for soul, that is, that longing of the soul is deeper than what can be obtained physically.

And that’s the desire that God wants to satisfy.

And He says when we have our desires in the right order, He will come and fill up to overflowing our deepest desires, and He will even do so when in scorched places.

But it all starts with our overarching verse:

Psalm 37:4 NASB95

Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.

When we get our lives and priorities in order, all the desires and needs of our life will be met.

Duty Over Desire

But, that can lead to another problem: Like those in Isaiah 58, we have a tendency to put duty over our desire for God.

Their argument might be: “Doesn’t the duty I do show the desire I have for God?”

I would argue, not necessarily.

I do think that our love for God will result in good works, but what we do should flow out of our love for God and not just because we’re supposed to do it.

That being said, I do think there are times when I may not “feel” like doing what I should do for God, but I do it anyway.

But even that starts with a desire of showing my love to the God of love.

It’s a difference of attitude and motivation.

And that’s what we’re going to look at today.

Let’s Read Isaiah 58:13-14

Two Examples: When Duty Comes Before Desire

The Rich Young Ruler - Luke 18:18-24

What do I need to Do to inherit eternal life.

Duty Can Lead To Dependence On Self

Self-Preservation/self-made religion/self-salvation

Independence from God.

Jesus said, “ Sell your possessions...and follow Me.

Follow Me

Surrender to me first.

Stop doing it your way, and do it MY way.

Follow Me

Fellowship

this call of Jesus involved abiding fellowship with Him.

It wasn’t just get to know me as a rabbi and do what I say.

It meant, “Know me and together I will show you the way.”

It was a call to get to know Jesus personally.

It was a call to do life together closely, intimately.

It was a call to let Him teach and lead.

He went away sad because he had great wealth.

Jesus isn’t asking all of us to sell our possessions and follow Him.

He’s pointing out the condition of the ruler’s heart.

His internal desire was just exposed.

He desired His wealth more than He desired God.

Martha - Luke 10:38-42

Duty Can Lead To Distraction

Martha was distracted with the preparations

Worried - anxious and troubled.

Bothered - Uproar. stirred up; ie. mind and emotions

Matthew 6:31–33 NASB95

“Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Again, the sense from Isaiah 58 is that Israel was doing the same thing.

And their worry caused them to get distracted.

Desiring God - Mary

The Good Part

Comes from the thought of dividing things up into parts.

Interesting the word for part is the root word for the word for anxiety or worry.

The thought being that all the different parts to choose to do is causing one stress and worry because you aren’t discerning what is the most important or essential.

Which part should be the priority when they all look equally important.

The word good means that which is most beneficial.

There are many things that need to be done to serve Jesus, but Mary chose the most important one, the one that would reap the most benefit.

Sit at the feet and Jesus and learn.

We can get distracted in the things we feel we need to do for Jesus, that we forget why we’re doing them.

It’s easy to get lost in doing good things for God and forgetting the God for whom you’re doing them.

Is the activity more important than the person for whom the activity is directed?

What are we allowing to distract us from being focused on being with Jesus?

What are we wasting or time on instead of sitting at His feet?

Desire Leads To Delight (vs 14)

When we truly desire God, we want to get to know Him and spend time with Him.

Call the Sabbath a delight

6027 - Used to describe a palace of delight, luxury, and extravagance.

The Sabbath is to be a time of delighting in the Lord and enjoying His presence.

His church is to be like walking into a palace looking forward to spending time with the King where the King would spoil His guests in luxury.

God wants to meet us here and lavish upon us all that He is.

I pray every week that God would show up each Sunday and meet us here.

I pray that we would see the glory of God manifested in our midst.

I pray that God would minister to your hearts in a special way each week.

I pray that God would spoil you with His riches.

Take delight in the Lord.

6026 Verb - being fastidious and pampering. Keeping oneself clean and neat.

Keeping oneself prepared to meet with God.

Ties into the thought of being ready for His Second Coming.

Like when you know a guest is coming and you are preparing for when they arrive.

This is the attitude even in the midst of difficult circumstances.

I am ready to meet with God and can’t wait to worship and learn and just enjoy the presence of the Lord.

But this mindset should be one we carry everyday and is what would tie into our quiet times or devotions with God.

I look forward to meeting with God each and every day.

I want to walk in His presence every moment.

And then Sunday comes and it is the family celebration where we worship and enjoy God together.

This would be step one of balancing being ready and living life.

Like Mary choose the most beneficial part.

Fellowship with Jesus and His Church.

I don’t want to fill up our calendars with just “another” church thing.

That falls right into the mindset that God was warning against in Isaiah 58.

But I am calling us to reconsider and reorient our priorities and possibly carve out time for, not a Bible Study per se, but to carve out another time to meet with Him.

That might be a Bible study, prayer group, or something else, but again, the purpose is to find additional times to delight in the Lord.

Men’s Life Stickney - 3rd Monday Stickney United Methodist, see Allen Teel

Women’s group - 4th Monday - Lighthouse - see Renae

Prayer Hub - Tues, Thurs.

Tues morning - Sue Hellenga

Every Man A Warrior - get group started up again.

Conclusion:

When we delight in Him, then He comes and fills us up. (vs 11)

Then you WILL BE like a watered garden - oriental picture of happiness and contentment.

And springs of water that DO NOT fail.

Will not deceive.

It doesn’t looks like a spring and end up being a trickle.

Rather what looks good will end up being good.

You will experience what I am promising.

It will not disappoint.

A well watered garden and spring that will not fail in the midst of the scorched place.

We will be satisfied in scorched places - desert lands

Not only will you be satisfied, but you will become an oasis for others!!!

We are filled up to overflowing so that we can be an oasis in the desert to others around us.

Living Waters - Holy Spirit.

We see here several ways that we can be an oasis to others.

Rebuild The Ancient Ruins Of The City.

Raise Up The Age Old Foundations

Repairer Of The Breach

Restorer Of Streets

Brings to mind Ezra and Nehemiah and the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple.

Not only did God bring this about literally, the principles, spiritually, are repeated throughout the Bible in different ways.

So, in this we see a glimpse into the heart of God.

While we wait for Him, we delight in Him and fellowship and abide with Him.

In addition to the call to fellowship with Jesus, step 2 of getting ready for His return is to look for ways we can rebuild, raise up, repair, and restore others.

But that is next week’s sermon.

Let’s pray.

Closing Song: House of The Lord