Managing Our Longings or Messing Up God’s Plans

I bet there's a time whenever somebody thought you were pretty crazy because of how you pursued a desire. In the early service, somebody told me they took their kids to the beach. And when they were at the beach, one of their kids got the bright idea that they were going to hold french fries in the air so the seagulls would come and take the french fries out of their hands. Well, for the oldest son, that wasn't enough, so he put a french fry in his mouth. And he stood here like this as the seagull came and took the french fry out of his mouth. And he's just lucky that seagull didn't do something whenever he swooped down to take that french fry. And all of us have things that we just have desires inside. We just do crazy things sometimes. But here's what the Bible teaches, that many desires that we have are not God-given. As a matter of fact, the Bible teaches us that if we're not careful, we're going to pursue evil desires that make us feel maybe better for a season, but we're going to be enslaved because we pursued the wrong desires. And that's why Paul wrote this He said, since then you've been raised with Christ. Set your hearts on things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. In other words, Paul said, listen, in this sin-cursed world where you see people getting fascinated by sin, then getting assassinated by sin, I want to give you some good advice. Look up to heaven, remember that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, and remember that's a sign that His people We're to live under His authority if we want to live in His blessing. And then Paul continued and he said, set your mind on things above, not earthly things, for you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. And Paul's addressing the fact that if you're not careful, you're going to find your satisfaction through just earthly things. And you're going to miss out on the satisfaction that you'd experience if you lived if you let God bless your life, if you let God bring things to pass, only God could bring to pass in your life. And so Paul's advice is really, really simple, and that is you can pursue natural desires. The earth has a lot of good natural desires, or you can pursue evil desires, and those evil desires are going to enslave you. Or we're going to learn today how to pursue some desires that cause God to bless our life in incredible ways. Paul continued in Colossians 3 and he said, you have to put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed. And he said, those things are idolatry. I heard of a person who had an affair and they said, well, you know, God, if you want me to quit this affair, take this desire away from me. And notice, God doesn't take desires away from you, but as a Christian you have to put it to death because you realize that that desire doesn't come from God. And God said if you find your privilege and you find your pleasure in things that don't come from me, then know this, that's really idolatry. That's allowing something to bring you pleasure that was never designed to bring you pleasure. God was the one who was designed to give us pleasure. And so we see Jesus do what Paul talked about, right, in Matthew chapter 4, three different times the enemy comes and he tries to tempt Jesus. And Jesus says three different times, no, it's written in God's Word. And Satan, I'm not going to be satisfied by sin. I'm going to find my gratification from God the Father. And if you study the temptations, all three times the enemy came and he tempted Jesus' heart was something Jesus was hungry for. He said, Command these stones to be turned to bread. He said, Listen, go to the top of the temple. You're supposed to be this great spiritual person. And Jesus said, No, that's not how this rolls. He said, I serve God the Father, and He meets the desires that He's placed in my heart. And this morning, David's going to teach us how to manage our longing so we enjoy God's best in our life. And here's the first thing he said. is don't doubt God's goodness, especially in the hard times. He starts in verse 1 by saying, You, God, are my God, and earnestly I seek You. I thirst for You. My whole being longs for You in a dry and parched land where there isn't any water. Now scholars say that David wrote this Psalm one of two different times. Either he wrote it whenever he was in the wilderness and his father-in-law, King Saul, was jealous of him because David had become a military hero and the people thought the nation would be better if David was their king and not just a military hero. And so David was in the wilderness and his father-in-law was bringing troops and he was trying to kill him. And you can imagine in that particular state that David had looked for water. He was on the move and water can be really scarce in the wilderness. And David was saying, you know what, God, I'm seeking your presence in this difficult time, just like I'm seeking for water in the wilderness. If it wasn't that time, then scholars say it would have been when Absalom, his own son, drove him from the throne and tried to take over his kingdom. But here's what David saying is don't doubt the goodness of God just because you're going through a difficult time. And sometimes that's not easy to do, but here's what we can learn from this psalm today. Great theology doesn't necessarily lead to great worship in our life. We can see that in Adam and Eve. They had an education. They had great theology when the devil came to tempt them. They could say, yeah, God told us that we're not to eat of the tree. of the knowledge of good and evil, but then something kicked in and they were willing to be satisfied by sin instead of trusting God to gratify them and God to bless them. And the Bible says, When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eye, desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and she ate it and she gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it too. Now I want you to listen closely phrase, it says, then the eyes of both of them were opened. as a believer, you can have your eyes opened one of two ways. You can either have your eyes opened because you let sin satisfy your life. And the problem with sin, when it satisfies your life, is it'll throw you, then it'll kill something more valuable. It'll fascinate you, but then it will assassinate something that's really more valuable in your life. I can't tell you how many times I've talked to young couples who were in a difficult place and I knew they were being tempted to find their satisfaction in the wrong things. And I'd look at them and I'd say, You look at me right now, down the road, there are going to be these things called grandchildren. And if you play your cards right, you're going to enjoy your life. You're going to learn to live married. Don't think that the grass is greener on the other side, the grass is greener. where you water the grass and God blesses the home. That is where the grass is the greenest. Amen? And David's saying in difficult times, you're going to be tempted to look for your satisfaction in the wrong places. And he said, Don't do it. He said, Because your eyes will be opened. And here's what I've learned is you can either have your eyes open because of how sin curses you and because of how sin should be avoided, or you can your eyes open to how good God makes life for people who obey Him. That's why Paul wrote in Romans 16 verse 19, he said, I want you to be wise about what's good. and I want you to be innocent of evil. In other words, Paul said, I don't want you to get gratified by evil because when you're gratified by evil, you're going to constantly be tempted by that evil you're gratified by. Can I tell you, I have no struggle overcoming meth because I've never done meth a day in my life. But if you put a plate of fajitas in front of me and I'm not supposed to eat those fajitas, I might have a battle that's on my hands. And even neurologists will tell you that whenever you sin, what you do is you create impulses and you create wiring in your brain that makes it harder for you to overcome that temptation. It's why as parents, one of the greatest things we do as parents is teach our kids to crave the benefits of godliness. The Bible says this in Proverbs 22, 6, it says, start off your child in the way they should go, and when they're old, they're not gonna turn from it. That word start off means to narrow the way through initiating discipline in the life of your child. And the real role of parenting is to teach your kids the right things to do because as you do these right things, it's going to cause your life to be more rewarded down the road than other things that you do. And every kid starts out the same way. You know when your kids want to come see you when they're little, they want to come see you at breakfast, they want to come see you at lunch, they want to come see you at dinner, and they want to come see you when they want a bedtime snack, right? But the rest of the day, they just want to go have fun and do their own thing. And then when they become teenagers, they want to come see you when they need dinero. How many of you know what I'm talking about? And they want some money to go do something. But let me tell you, if you know you succeeded as a parent, and that is if they come to you wanting wisdom because they know that godliness is going to be what makes their life great, and you have to teach kids discipline. It's not natural. It's why 5 says this, My son, don't make light of the Lord's discipline and don't lose heart when He rebukes you because the Lord disciplines the one He loves and He chastens everyone that He accepts as His son. So whatever is worth having in life is difficult. I read this off Facebook and I thought it was good that marriage is hard, but divorce is hard, so choose your heart. Being fit is hard and being out of shape is hard. So choose your heart. Being financially disciplined is hard and being in debt is hard. So just go ahead and choose your heart. See, sometimes people try to act like, well, if I'm being satisfied right now by sin, that makes me happier. But you know what the Bible says about that? It says the way of the transgressor is hard. You might get your kicks today, but the kickbacks are coming down the road. But How many of you know the Bible also says this, that the Lord gives us wealth and there's no sorrow with it? Can you say amen? So the first thing David says, if you don't want to mismanage your longings so that you hurt your life, he said, remember, never doubt God's goodness even when life's difficult. Don't go to the wrong sources of stress relief and satisfaction. Here's the second thing David says is next he says, and desire God's presence over your own plans, over your own preferences. In verse 2 he says, I've seen you in the sanctuary, and I beheld your power and your glory. You know, there's something about being in the sanctuary on a regular basis. My wife, I say this often, she had a drug problem when she was a kid. Her parents drug her to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. But you know what was happening in her heart during that time? What David talked about, the Greek word for seen means I've been advised. and I approve of God's will. Listen, it's not going to change your family's legacy if you just bring your kids to church every once in a while. But you can tell that they haven't been advised by God to the point that they approve of God's will in their life. And David said, I came to the point that I wanted to do God's will. Nobody had to make me do God's will. I wanted to do the will of God. And then the word behold means he contemplated with pleasure. He started seeing his life different, and he realized he didn't have to serve God. He got to serve God. Now, I want to talk to you this morning about the sanctuary because I've had the privilege of preaching the gospel in lots of places, so when I preached at a church called Charisma Life in France and taught in their Bible school. I saw the beautiful Cathedral of Notre Dame. And when I preached in London, I got to see Big Ben and I've seen some of the most beautiful architectural churches in the world. But you know what blows me away is when you go in there, people are talking about the stained glass and people are talking about the beautiful gold maybe that's on the altar. But you know what? You can have all of that, but if you don't have beautiful things going on the inside of people's hearts, how many of the church isn't fulfilling this purpose, right? It's whenever something beautiful happens on the inside of someone's heart. And listen, when God gave Moses the tabernacle that David was talking about, it was very, very simple. It was not something that you would have looked at and thought, wow, what amazing architecture. But David understood the purpose of why we have church. And he said, I've looked at the purpose of worship and it's captured my heart. So I want to take you through the tabernacle this morning. And I want to talk a little bit about why that's true, that our worship starts here at the brazen altar. And that's a place where an animal was sacrificed. The Bible says these animals were a foreshadowing of the sacrifice of Jesus. And listen, whenever Jesus was sacrificed, you know why he was sacrificed? Not so as a little kid, I would have my little cross over my door, though I love that little cross over my door. I still have that cross. It's in my study right now. And of course, I was raised Catholic, so Jesus is on the cross, right? That's the kind of cross that they tend to have. Listen, when I was a kid, my mom not only put a cross in my bedroom, she put holy water on my wall. And she kept it filled every single week. How many of you know she was determined her little boy was going to understand something, right? And listen, when we look at this, let me just talk for a minute. Do you have an education about forgiveness or are you experiencing forgiveness? If shame is telling you can never get free, if condemnation is telling you that you're not a much loved son or daughter of God, If guilt is telling you it's not worth trying because you've fallen down too many times, I want you to realize this is for you. Jesus Christ died on that cross to set you free. Amen? But then after the burn altar, we come to the brazen laver, and that's the place where they would get washed from what they needed to get washed of. And maybe you're a Christian who is forgiven, but you're not getting washed of greed. You're not getting washed of sexual immorality. Listen, if you're not washed of those things, then worship will never mean to you what worship should mean. And there's a reason that there's a curtain right here. This first curtain is called the holy place. And listen to Psalm 24 based on how God designed the tabernacle. David wrote, Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord, and who may stand in His holy place? In other words, who has this part of God's tabernacle working in their life? David said, It's only the one who has clean hands and a pure heart, the one who doesn't in idols. He said they're going to receive blessing from the Lord and they're going to receive vindication from God our Savior. So what happens if I don't get set free of guilt and condemnation and shame? What happens if I don't wash myself of fear and immorality and the things that keep God from being God to me in my life? I miss out on the blessing God could bring. I miss out on the way God would vindicate my life and overcome the things that Satan has used to hurt my life. You see, Pastor Larry was abused when he was a kid. It was terrible abuse. was so angry he just wanted to fight everybody. But one day he got so tired of doing that he came to Jesus and he said, Jesus, I've been drinking, I've been fighting, I've been doing stuff I shouldn't do. And one day he put up his hands and he said, God, I surrender. I receive forgiveness in you. Amen. And then The pastor told his mother, we don't know if we want him in our church. He's not a good kid. And somebody kept picking him up for church. And Pastor Larry said, I don't like church people. And the guy said, I get that. He said, but listen, I want you to know the God who forgives you, who cleanses you, who's going to get the anger off you, get the fear off you, get the things away from you that are keeping you from being blessed. Then we come in here and there's the show bread. You know what that is? The bread represents the Word of God. Listen, I don't know what area Satan has hurt your life. I don't know where he's messed up your life, but I'll tell you this, if God will mature you and you make good choices, God is going to bless you in the area the enemy brought pain into your life. Can you say amen? Listen, this sanctuary, real worship. Then we come to the menorah. That's the word of the Holy Spirit. I'll never forget when my brother passed away. I was 34, he was 39. It was a tragic death. And they asked me, Jim, can you give the eulogy at his funeral? And I said no, because when I looked at his dead body, I felt like somebody took my heart, ripped it in a thousand pieces, and put it back on the inside. And I said to them, I don't think I could stand up and talk at this funeral. I laid on my bed and I said, Holy Spirit, you're the God of all comfort. Father, you're the Father of mercy. I need you to comfort me right now. And in a moment's time, the Holy Spirit ministered to my heart I felt like somebody took the thousand pieces and put them back together. A sermon dropped into my heart to speak to all the people. I'm just telling you this morning, the Holy Spirit can turn around what's hurt you. I'm telling you, true worship is life changing. Can you say amen? And David said, listen, you want to know what I've learned to do? I manage my longings. I don't just do anything. When things are difficult, I remind myself of the goodness of God. He said, whenever things are tough and I don't know what I'm gonna do, I just say, God, I approve of your leadership in my life. And then here's the third thing that David did, and that is not only did he say, God, I want you to be good to me and approve of his plan, but the next thing it says is that David said he allowed God's grace to deepen his love for the worship of Christ. I love this in verse three. He said, because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. In other words, he said, listen, there's only one thing that's gonna cause my life to be its very best. And he said, God, your love is better than any other thing that I could pursue in my life. And then he went on and he said, I'm gonna praise you as long as I live. And in your name, I will lift my hands. Would you lift your hands up to God today? I don't know what you're going through. Maybe you're hurting. Maybe you wish your childhood was different. Maybe you wish you didn't have to be in that battle you're in right now. But listen, if you ever did something wrong and the cops came to get you, how many of you know when you put up your hands, that's a sign of surrender. And God says, listen, I don't just want you to know the scripture. I want you to surrender to me. Maybe you're discouraged, surrender and say, I'm going to receive the joy of the Lord. Maybe you're in grief, surrender. God said, I'll give you a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness. David said, I'm not just going to have an education. He said, I'm going to experience God. And then he said this and I love it. He said, I'll praise you as long as I live. I'll lift up my hands. and I'll be fully satisfied as with the richest foods. In other words, think of the greatest plate of enchiladas you've ever eaten. Come on, somebody. God can make life taste even better than that. Can you say amen? Think of your favorite lasagna. Whatever your meal is, God says, you know what? Whatever your favorite meal is, what I love doing, is I love making life taste even better than that. And if you guys will bring that sanctuary back up, that's the reason for the final piece, that you start here and you're forgiven. You come here and you're washed of fear, guilt, all those things that keep you in your old life. You come in here and the Word of God matures you. It makes you a better you. come here and the Holy Spirit ministers to you. and he blesses you in ways you could never be blessed without his help. And then you come here and that's the altar of praise. And David says, everybody who does this, who comes to God this way, he said, they're going to have a lot of stuff to praise God for. And he said, I'll be fully satisfied with the riches of food and with singing lips, my mouth will praise you. In other words, the secret To a fully satisfied soul is a fully surrendered heart to God. And can I tell you this, praise and worship is really just a natural response to a soul that's experiencing God's goodness really, really well. Such a privilege to pastor this church because so many of you are doing that. The other day I looked on Facebook and there was one of our couples and I think they were taking a kid back to college or something in San Antonio. They were visiting a great church while they were in San Antonio and it was praise and worship time and the husband was down on his knees like this. His hands were extended in the air like this. And the wife wrote on her Facebook, she said, whenever we were both addicted, whenever we were both living in sin, whenever things were so dark, people told us we could never live where we're living today. And his hands were up in the air just praising God. I know that couple well. I remember when they came into the church. I see their kids serving God now. I see God creating legacy that they longed for so much in their heart. Listen, I don't know where you are today, but I'll tell you this, God hasn't changed. And because God hasn't changed, we can be blessed, we can be healed, we can be whole. And David says, man, if you want to know how I went from the poorest family in Israel to the king of Israel, if you want to know how I got through trouble, nobody said I could get through. If you want to know how to see your tests turn into a mighty testimony for God, I'll tell you how. Manage your longings. And how many of you are grateful when we manage our longings, God meets our needs. Amen. Amen. Come on, let's give the Lord a good hand clap this morning.