Speaking Truth about Desire
Notes
Transcript
You do what you do because you want what you want.
My life was…____________ this week. What is the story you tell yourself about your life?
Big Idea: Christ provides an alternative to the way everyone else lives.
Big Idea: Christ provides an alternative to the way everyone else lives.
Bridge from infinity to the personal - 7
Truth in love
2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light
Desire is infinite and invites shame.
Desire is infinite and invites shame.
Desires for hope, love, peace, being known, secure
Desires are infinite because we live in our own story.
The ocean of desire vs. the ocean of grace
Stories about marriage
C.S. Lewis - “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
Everyone has fruit we are trying to pick - to possess the good, beautiful, and secure - to be enough.
Without God meeting us in his infinity we have no way of satisfying our desires. Instead we feel vulnerable and that invites shame - that feeling of failure or potential failure that eats away at our souls. Feeling like you’re not enough.
Everyone tries to numb their shame.
Everyone tries to numb their shame.
Time management is pain management.
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
The lie - “If I don’t get what I want, I won’t be happy.”
Adulting in your desires
Mastering your desires
Minimizing your desires with other ones
Dogs vs Cats
Sewing fig leaves
Ukraine, parenting
boat illustration
Getting married - “Christians think we don’t deserve this because we were living together.” A fig leaf for I don’t know if I can get something truly beautiful, good, and secure
This leads to being alienated from the life of God and not understanding why.
This leads to being alienated from the life of God and not understanding why.
This leads to vanity. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
Kids accuse parents of vanity. Parents accuse kids of vanity. Cultures accuse other cultures of vanity.
Paul’s point here is not to be angry or disdainful of the way everyone lives. It’s to see that they are more confused and deluded just stubborn in that delusion. That the enemy is not flesh and blood but the demonic powers that encourage that stubbornness. That the desires we all have will not get solved by giving in to them nor by denying them but by satisfying them in God. This is what Christ did.
Speaking the truth in love means we should be willing and eager to enter into the “why” of what people do. Not judgmentally nor flippantly but compassionately.
Christ provides an alternative to this with repentance based on grace.
Christ provides an alternative to this with repentance based on grace.
Christianity is not a list of rules to do that keeps you from being destroyed for wanting the wrong things. Nor is it doing enough of the good things so that you can do what you want later on. It’s a radical relationship where I believe God’s grace can satisfy my deepest, infinite desires when I walk with him and trust Him moment by moment. That I can want God and let him give me my desires and believe that I will be fully satisfied eventually. That this life is not all there is.
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self - Carl Trueman
The Soul of Desire - Curt Thompson
God sees you, knows you, loves you, secure you infinitely. Christ knew that and lived that and provided a way to that through His death on the cross. Will you trust Him and learn Him?
Speak the truth about desire. Ask people what they want. Ask them why want it. But expect a diversionary response. Next week we’ll speak the truth in love by speaking about God and Christ.