The Longing Heart

Good morning! Thank you for being with us today. I’m grateful for Pastor Nick filling in for me last Sunday. I appreciated his sermon about approaching the new year with the right perspective. As he preached about thinking joyfully, thankfully, and in godly ways, it is right in line with what I am about to challenge each one of us to do for the next three weeks. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that this January we will be doing a 21 day emphasis on prayer and fasting to start the year with a season of intentional effort to seek God and hear Him speak to us. I am asking each of you to consider fasting from something starting tomorrow, January 11, and going through January 31. We had this same emphasis at the start of last year, and several of you participated and shared with me the things that God did in your life during that time. This year I am hoping that more and more of us will choose to take part in this challenge, and that God would bring growth, direction and purpose to us individually and as a church as we seek Him.

When you spend time reading the Bible, one thing that becomes clear is God’s love for humanity. Whether you’re reading passages in the Psalms where God takes on a maternal or paternal role, or you look at the prophets where He speaks of Israel as His bride, the love of God for His people is clear. When you read the prophets represent Israel’s rebelliousness against their God in terms of an unfaithful wife who has betrayed her husband with another man, you get a sense of the deep sadness and heartache that God experiences because of our rebellion. As you read the Gospels and look at Jesus’s interaction with his disciples and with those who come to Him, he clearly feels compassion and love for them. When you go through the epistles written by Paul and the other New Testament writers, you continue to see the echoes of God’s love in their teaching.

Near the end of John’s Gospel, Jesus is speaking to His disciples the night that He is arrested. John takes four chapters to write down what Jesus told His disciples that final night He was with them. In his final speech to them, Jesus promises them the Holy Spirit, challenges then to obey His teaching, and remain connected to Him as branches are connected to a vine so they will be fruitful, He warns them that the world will hate and persecute them, and He encourages them knowing that things will get hard for them soon. Then Jesus prays for His disciples, both those who were following him at that time, and for all of us who would become followers of Jesus in the centuries that followed. If you have your Bible, please turn with me to John 17:24-26.

John 17:24–26 NLT

24 Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began! 25 “O righteous Father, the world doesn’t know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. 26 I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.”

Let’s Pray...

In this passage Jesus expresses His desire for His people to be with Him, and also declares that while we are here on earth we not only have the love of Jesus, but of God the Father as well. Our relationship with Jesus has brought us into a relationship with God the Father. At the beginning of his gospel, John tells us that...

John 1:12–13 CSB

12 But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name, 13 who were born, not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.

Later in life, John wrote more about this amazing relationship of love with God in his first epistle:

1 John 3:1–2 CSB

1 See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children—and we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know him. 2 Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is.

The relationship we are supposed to have with God is one that is deep and intimate. That’s the kind of relationship God wants with us. And when we don’t have that deep relationship, God desires for us to seek Him and love Him more.

God longs for His people.

Here is what Isaiah the prophet wrote to Israel as they were far from their God:

Isaiah 30:15–18 NIV

15 This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. 16 You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift! 17 A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.” 18 Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!

Isn’t that amazing that even when we are rebelling against God, He LONGS to be gracious to us and to show us compassion? Jesus’s parables about the lost coin and the lost sheep that are found express the joy that God experiences when we turn back to Him.

But even when we have turned to God and have started a relationship with Him, if we don’t continue to grow in our faith and deepen our relationship with Him, He longs for us to engage with Him in deeper ways.

This is the purpose of season of prayer and fasting, to hear God speak to us.

Recently I’ve been reading a book by Warren Wiersbe on hearing God. In it he talks about the purpose of seeking to hear from God.

We want to learn to hear God not just because we want to know what God wants it to do, but because we want to know WHO God wants us to BE.

In the past I have taught about finding God’s will for your life, or hearing God’s voice, and in most of those cases the context has largely been to be able to figure out what God wants us to DO. But simply learning to hear God give us commands so that we can obey them is NOT the kind of relationship God wants with us. Picture in your mind a relationship between a husband and a wife. Imagine if that relationship was purely based on the husband waiting to hear his wife tell him what she wants from him, and him doing it, and she is doing the same thing. If that was all there was to their relationship, we would all agree that there is something dysfunctional there. A healthy relationship involves getting to know the other person so that you understand their likes and dislikes, their passions, their needs, what makes them happy, and much more. You get to know who they are by learning about their past, their personality, their values, and as that relationship grows and the two people get to know each other more deeply, you don’t always have to wait for a command in order to know what to do. Because you love and know the other person, you begin to do things out of your own initiative that will be appreciated by the other person. Yes, there are still times that we get it wrong, or do the wrong thing at the wrong time, but that’s all part of the growth process.

God doesn’t want us to be mindless robots that wait for God’s input in order for us to take some kind of action.

Being conformed into the image of Jesus doesn’t mean we lose who God made us as individuals with personality and abilities, gifts, etc.

God doesn’t want to destroy our personality or freedom, he wants us to submit it willingly and rightly to Christ. Based on that deepening relationship with God then we become a version of ourselves that reflects Jesus more and more while still being us.

God doesn’t want to always have to explain His will to us. Just like in a marriage relationship one spouse would not like to always have to tell the other what to do, they would rather you knew them and that the relationship motivated you to act in ways that were loving and reinforced the relationship, God wants more from us than us always having to ask Him what He wants next.

An added advantage to a deeper relationship with God is that we understand His character better, we know who He is better. Too many people have ideas of God that are incomplete or just pain wrong, and that’s primarily because they haven’t spent time getting to know God. Jesus shared a parable that illustrates the danger of thinking wrongly about God. In the parable of the talents, or the coins, there is a master who entrusts three servants with different amounts of money, and then goes on a long journey. The first two put the money to work, and in the end they double what they started with. The third one, however, hides his money in the ground out of fear. When the master returns, he calls his servants to give an account of what they did with his money. The first two present their earnings and are rewarded by the master. They get to share in their master’s joy, but here is what happens with the third servant.

Matthew 25:24–30 NLT

24 “Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate. 25 I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’ 26 “But the master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate, 27 why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it.’ 28 “Then he ordered, ‘Take the money from this servant, and give it to the one with the ten bags of silver. 29 To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. 30 Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

In the parable of the talents, one servant saw the master as a “harsh man” who just wanted what belonged to him, so the servant hid the talent and returned to the master what was his. The third servant had a wrong idea of what his master wanted. The master didn’t simply want to get what was his back, He wanted what he gave his servants to become a source of purpose and to generate more of what was given, not so the master could keep it for himself, but so the master could share it with his servants. So this view of his master from the wicked servant was offensive and wrong.

So, if God desires for us to know Him and to have a correct view of Him, and if we are called to engage with God and learn how to hear Him speak to us not just His commands but who He wants us to become, then let’s look at HOW we approach our time of prayer and fasting in order to achieve these goals.

God has revealed Himself to humanity in different ways, as Paul writes in the letter to the Romans, but clearly the best and most complete revelation about God is found in Scriptures, both in the Old and New Testaments.

Personal engagement with Scripture is our primary source for knowing God, his character, His plans, His values, and His desires for His people.

I almost felt silly putting that in the outline because it seems so clear that this is the right answer. But I feel like I need to say it because so many people in churches today rely on the Sunday sermon, an inspiring devotional book, a small group study, a conversation with someone who knows a lot about God, or watching something on TV or reading a book or an article about a topic as the way they get to know God. None of these things is necessary bad on their own, but none of them can take the place of each one of us individually sitting down with a Bible and reading through it in an organized and systematic fashion. As Paul writes to Timothy:

2 Timothy 3:16–17 NIV

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

When Paul was writing to Timothy, Scripture meant the writings that make up what we know as the Old Testament. Does this apply to the New Testament too? Well I believe it does. A few hundred years after Jesus when the leaders of the churches in the world met to discern which letters and books were to be considered as inspired by God and to be put together as our New Testament, I believe that the process of selecting the books to become the New Testament was also guided by God and that those books we now have are also considered Scripture. The writer of Hebrews starts his letter with these statements:

Hebrews 1:1–3 CSB

1 Long ago God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways. 2 In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son. God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

The books included in the New Testament are books about Jesus, the final and full revelation of God, His purposes, and His ways. In fact, since Jesus is the exact representation of God’s nature, then the Old Testament Scriptures must be interpreted alongside the revelation of Jesus through the Gospels and Epistles that make up our Bible.

So we need to rely on the Bible as our primary tool to get to know God and to know who He desires us to become. One of the challenges to this is that some people have a hard time reading the Bible because they don’t feel that it relates to their day-to-day lives or realities. Sometimes this happens because we’re approaching the Bible as a book of “dos and don’ts” rather than as a book about a person: God. Sometimes we let our idea of the Biblical characters like Moses, or King David, or Isaiah create distance between them and us so that what God did in their lives seems like it could never happen in our lives.

If we want to hear God speak to us, we must enter into our study of the Bible with the assumption that the experiences recorded there are basically of the same type as ours would have been if we had been there.

The people in the Bible were not so different from us that we cannot identify with what they experienced. When we think of people in the Bible as somehow more holy or special than us, it creates an obstacle to our understanding what the Bible is trying to teach in that moment, or what God is trying to tell us. But I think that’s part of why the Bible also tells us about the failures and sins of the biblical heroes, so that we can see that they are not that different from us.

James 5:17–18 NIV

17 Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

So, if the Bible goes out of its way to reassure us that we are no different from the great men and women of the Bible, then we should read the Bible with the mindset that what God did in their lives, He could do in ours.

Putting ourselves in the shoes of the people in the Bible who had encounters with God, and understanding that God can communicate with us in the same way helps us accept and recognize God’s voice when He speaks to us.

As we begin our 21 days of prayer and fasting, you can give up a meal a day (one year I gave up breakfast, another year I gave up lunch), or you can give up food from sunup to sundown one day a week for three weeks, or you can give up a specific food (Some people gave up coffee last year, or sugar). Even though the people in the Bible approached fasting as depriving yourself of food, I believe that in some cases when food is not practical for you to give up, you can give up other things like TV, social media, shopping, or some other aspect of your life that will also result in that sense of “hunger” or be something you miss. One of the things I am asking you to do is not to just give up something for that time. I’m asking you to replace that something with a focus on God and an intentionality in seeking Him, wanting to hear from Him, and getting to know Him.

The point of fasting and praying isn’t just to give something up, but to replace it with a hunger and intentional time of seeking God.

When that sense of hunger comes to mind, that’s when you turn that hunger towards God. When your stomach grumbles, turn to God and say, “God, help me hunger for you like my body is hungering for food right now.” When you are missing that sweet treat, tell God, “Lord, help me desire the sweetness of your company like I desire a sweet snack right now.” When you miss the distraction of the TV and how it helps you relax at the end of a hard day, turn to God and tell Him, “Father, help me find rest in you, and help me find restoration for tomorrow in your word.” Then spend some time reading your Bible and praying over what you read or over other things on your heart. Throughout this process, don’t forget to be silent for moments so that God can speak to you, impress something on your heart, or just fill you with a sense of His presence with you. You might not feel anything of get anything out of it the first few days, but don’t give up. Just like Jesus shared the parable of the persistent widow who kept knocking on the door of her neighbor, be persistent in seeking God, and He will reveal Himself to you.

I began today’s sermon talking about how God longs for us to seek Him and grow close to Him. But as we engage in this process of setting aside time and effort to grow close to God, you will find that you too begin to long for God. It doesn’t always come quickly, and sometimes we need to work at developing a hunger for Him. Remember how I said that we should try putting ourselves in the shoes of people in the Bible so that we can identify with what God said to them and taught them? Sometimes we need to put ourselves in the shoes of the Psalmist as he goes to God and expresses His desire for God. This week, read Psalm 42, Psalm 73, Psalm 63, and other Psalms that express a longing for God. Read through one of the Gospels and put yourself in the shoes of the people listening to Jesus, or experiencing His healing or forgiveness. Maybe at first we won’t feel a longing for God like we are supposed to, but as we allow ourselves to imagine and experience a little of what the men and women in the Bible saw and heard, God will increase our longing for Him.

Finally, let me share one of my favorite prayers. It honestly expresses to God that sometimes we are not where we need to be when it comes to loving Him and desiring Him. I read it in a book written by one of my favorite authors, A. W. Tozer called The Pursuit of God:

The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine Chapter 1: Following Hard after God

O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.”Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.

In Jesus’ name.

Amen.

Hebrews 13:20–21 CSB

20 Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus—the great Shepherd of the sheep—through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 equip you with everything good to do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.