Summer Camp 2021 Wednesday Night

Introduction

Here’s a fun fact that some of you may not know about me:

After my Junior year of college I was offered a pretty great internship at a company in Chicago. They were paying me well, In fact to this day that internship is the best paying job I’ve ever had, they were giving me paid vacation time, matching retirement, and even paying me full time hours for something called “intern week,” where the other interns and I essentially got a free tour of the city and everything it has to offer.

It was during this intern week that we even were invited to a very formal and delicious dinner where the CEO would come and field the questions of us interns. We were hungry for the opportunity, as this guy had been the CEO and the Chairman of the Board of Directors for over 20 years at this 20 Billion dollar company. We all looked to this guy like he was a giant, a titan of the industry, and hopefully we could get secondhand success just by being around him.

We were all thinking about what questions we could ask him that might give us the direction to success, or maybe even get us noticed by the higher-ups in the company. I wish I could say I had asked a truly awesome question, but the best one that night came from a young woman sitting in the row in front of me: “how did you manage a work life balance on the road to your success?” He could’ve lied to protect his image, but he didn’t. He responded very honestly and very simply, “I didn’t.” He went on to explain how of all the vacations that his wife and kids took, he only made it to a few of them. Even at those vacations, he doesn’t appear in any of the pictures because he was off working remotely somewhere. He didn’t come to his kids’ games. He didn’t experience them growing up or learning. He didn’t really know his family very well at all.

He had spent his entire life trying to be a self-made millionaire, so that was all that mattered to him. He wanted to make it so that he wasn’t dependent on one anyone or anything but himself, and in the process he gave up anything that can rightly be called success. He was living in such a way so that he would never have to utter the words “give me this day my daily bread.”

It is my goal tonight to convince a bunch of students living in the most affluent culture in history that they are utterly dependent creatures. I am going to try to help you all see what I saw after listening to that poor, rich man speak.

What I saw was a man who had given away his entire life to buy something that doesn’t cost anything. What I saw was a man who had turned himself into the richest failure i’ve ever met because he refused to depend on God and be satisfied with his provision.

God is provider over all

He gives all his physical creation their physical needs

I promise that this is a connected thought; but I want you to think about a deer for a second. The deer will never be the CEO of any company. The deer will never have a 401k or a savings account. The deer will never have a retirement package on a beautiful resort island.

The deer will also never worry about its physical needs. It doesn’t gather resources because it doesn’t need to. It doesn’t horde water or berries or grass or anything like that, and yet the deer are thriving. All of God’s creation thrives because of how God takes care of it.

Psalm 104:10–12 ESV

You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills; they give drink to every beast of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; they sing among the branches.

God has created something physical. He has made this earth and everything on it with flesh and bones, stomachs and blood. He has formed the earth and made rivers that carry water to his creatures. He made it so that water evaporates, condenses, and eventually falls back to fill the rivers that he has formed and water the plants that he made that nourish the physical bodies of his creatures.

All of God’s physical creation is taken care of. Though none of them are attempting to create generational wealth, they never go without. They have all that they need.

Illustrate: Which of you, if you asked your dad for eggs, would be given a poisonous cobra instead? As much as your parents may love you, they are sinful and therefore can’t love you perfectly. So if they, who are broken, give you the things that you need, how much more can you rely on your divine Father in heaven to give you everything you could ever need?

Apply: God loves all of his creation, but he has shown that he loves human beings in a special way. Human beings are the only things made in God’s image, the only creation that he has shared his own attributes with. He has made us with the ability to think and to love, to judge rightly and display kindness. Scripture tells us that even the angels are jealous because of the special love with which God loves human beings.

So if God takes care of all of his loved creation, will he not much more take care of the creation that he especially loves? Will he not take care of you, who bears his image?

God does take care of his creation, all of his creation. He didn’t just make them and leave them alone, but he supplies their every need.

All his creation is satisfied with his provision

And more than having all that they need, they are also satisfied with what they have.

Psalm 104:13 ESV

From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.

The creation that God has made does not long for more than what they have been given. The foxes are content with their holes and the birds are content with their nests. The whales are content to eat krill and the sheep are satisfied with grass. The trees haven’t moved beyond their need for water and sunlight. The ecosystems of our world are kept in equilibrium, all of it satisfied with the good provision that God has handed to them.

But of all of God’s creation, there is one that is not satisfied by his provision. There is one that hungers for more and refuses the gift. There is one that spurns the name of God in an attempt to establish himself as sovereign.

And who is that one, but the prize creation of God, the only one that bears his image? Who is that one but the one who has experienced God’s provision most of all. Who is the one that refuses to be satisfied by God’s provision, but us?

We look for satisfaction where it cannot be found

Human beings in general are not satisfied with God’s provision. In fact, the very first sin of man was a direct result of not being satisfied with God’s provision. We are told that back in the garden Adam and Eve were given every good fruit to eat, except for the fruit of the one tree in the middle. They were tempted to believe that God hated them for not allowing them to have it, and they did end up grasping for more than what they were given.

This human tendency has persisted and is rampant in our current American culture. We view contentment as a negative and view those who are “hungry for more” and “refuse to be satisfied” as paradigms of success. We look at someone like Elon Musk who works 100 hour weeks as a role model for success. Business School taught me to look up to that CEO I interned for and emulate him if I want to see success. If I were ever to tell someone in an interview that I am generally content and satisfied with where I’m at in life, they wouldn’t even think of hiring me. We are told that to be satisfied with your portion in life is failure.

Why is it this way? How did we get here, and why do we refuse to be satisfied in God?

Because we want more than what God gives us (we end up with less. More money maybe, but not joy.)

More. As if we could obtain more than what God gives us. Sure, we might be able to obtain more money, or more stuff, or more girlfriends or boyfriends or more fill-in-the-blank; but in our quest for more of that, we actually end up losing all of the truly good things in life.

To give an illustration, I can be full without being satisfied. I watch you guys do this every year at camp. Eating a bunch of junk might make you feel very full, but it won’t make you feel any more satisfied. I see you guys that skip eating at meal time because you’re excited about the stuff at the snack shack. Every year there are students that complain about feeling sick, and every year its because they have replaced the water and nutritious food that is provided to them with airheads and mountain dew that are intended as treats.

We gorge ourselves on pleasure but refuse the good gifts God offers us. God gives some us the beautiful gift of a marriage relationship with one other person, but we lust after many. he has given many of us loving, and maybe also strict, parents who do everything they can to raise us properly, but we want to go behind their backs and disrespect them. He has given us his word so that we can know him and how to live, but we fill our time with youtube, netflix, hobbies, or anything else. One day he will give you a good job that you can live off of, but you’ll be tempted to sacrifice every gift we just mentioned to chase after “something more.” “Something more” always turns out to be a mirage; beautiful from far away but empty up close.

Our hearts are dripping with sinful desire, and a heart in that condition cannot be satisfied with the good provision of God.

And if we aren’t satisfied with what God has given us, we will never be satisfied.

Jesus Enables Us To Be Satisfied In God

Psalm 104:29–30 ESV

When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.

This is a callback to the events that took place in the garden.

In the first creation, God breathed life into Adam and he was alive. God took dust, formed it into a human being and brought it to life.

Shortly afterward, Adam chose to sin and hide from God, and he lost the life that God breathed into him. We are told that he returned to dust, and everyone who comes after him is doomed to the same fate. We are all dust.

This is where it is important that we understand Jesus is more than a savior that preparing a place for us. He is that, but he is more than that. Jesus is the creator, we are told that everything that was made in Genesis was made through him.

Jesus is also the Re-Creator, and the work that he did on Earth had the goal of re-creation in mind. The Psalmist recognizes that when God sends forth his Spirit into the world, the ground itself is renewed and re-created. The work that God is doing is redeeming his fallen creation and bringing it back to what it once was; perfect. And that includes us.

In our re-creation, God breathes his Spirit into us and we are re-born as new creations.

2 Corinthians 5:17–18 ESV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;

If you are in Christ, if you believe in him, you have been made into a new creation. That doesn’t say “he will be made into a new creation,” completely disconnecting it from the physical life you now live, but “he is a new creation.” Part of this recreation means that you stop looking to the world for you portion in life. You stop lusting over the forbidden fruit that promises you more than what God has given you. You resist those lies and you take joy in the good gifts that God gave you.

All this, we are told, is from God.

But to whom are you looking? What do you desire in life? Are you satisfied with where God has placed you and what he has given you, or are you scratching at the door so that you can be anywhere else? Do you love the things that you’ve been given, or are you longing for more?

Maybe you know that you aren’t satisfied in God and that, like Adam, you also crave something else.

Look to God. Come to the Re-Creator and ask that you might be re-created.

Pray to God that you might receive the things that you need for today. Pray to him also that you will be satisfied with those good gifts. Ask that His Spirit might fill you and help you to be satisfied with his provision.

How then should we pray?

Lord, send forth your Spirit. Recreate us. Re-form us to be more true to your image. Help us to be satisfied with the abundantly good provision you give us. Heal our sick hearts that desire and crave what isn’t ours, and help us to be content with what we have been given.