Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Yeah, it's a joy to be with you. I'm excited to talk through this text with you. Yeah, I'm excited to look forward to see what the Lord has for us.
[00:00:18] So, yeah, you guys have been in this, in the Book of Acts, preaching through the Book of Acts the last few weeks this year, and we're going to take a break in that. I'm going to Preach through Isaiah 55 this morning. And like Matt said a couple minutes ago, we're about to launch into the season of Lent that starts next week. And so I wanted to kind of talk through what it means that the last theme of the song that we were just singing, being Satisfied in Christ.
[00:00:44] I think we have a lot of really cool things for us this morning and the season of Lent, that 40 days leading up to Easter is talking about preparation. It's talking about preparing to be. To remember the cross, to focus on the resurrection and. And the hope that we have in Christ. And so I think I want to build on that theme and see what it means to be satisfied in Christ. And what I hope you hear this morning is an invitation to be satisfied in Christ. I hope that's what you hear. That's my goal. We'll see how well I do. So. All right, let me.
[00:01:15] Let me start by saying it this way.
[00:01:17] My favorite person in the Bible is Solomon. I mean, besides Jesus, of course. Right? Yeah. He's got a default answer. My favorite person in the Bible is Solomon.
[00:01:27] I love how he thinks that he writes, and I resonate with how he sees the world, especially in Ecclesiastes. That's my favorite book. Without question. It's. It's far, by far my favorite book.
[00:01:37] But I'm. I'm inspired how. How Solomon asks for wisdom and how God gives it to him. And I'm impressed by how he built the temple and had so much power and wealth and he accomplished so much in his life.
[00:01:50] But there's.
[00:01:51] There's this one aspect of Solomon's story that just haunts me.
[00:01:58] It's haunted me for a couple of decades at this point.
[00:02:03] And the question is this. How can a man whom God blesses so richly with wisdom and wealth and power turn his back on the Lord?
[00:02:14] How can the man who wrote the Song of Solomon go on to marry 700 wives and have 300 concubines?
[00:02:22] What is he searching for?
[00:02:25] What doesn't he have?
[00:02:28] Why isn't he satisfied with one wife or 699?
[00:02:35] So we have this glimpse into his world in Ecclesiastes, chapter 2. He's built palaces and orchards and forests, and he's got tons of livestock and literal tons of gold and silver.
[00:02:45] But In Ecclesiastes chapter 2, it says, Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil that I had expended in doing it. And behold, all was vanity and striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
[00:02:59] And then if you fast forward a few chapters In Ecclesiastes 7, he's searching for wisdom, and he's trying to understand the world. And he says this, it says, behold this which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not one man among a thousand I have found but a woman among all these I have not found.
[00:03:22] Solomon is unsatisfied.
[00:03:26] He has more wealth than we can possibly imagine.
[00:03:30] He has everything in excess, but he can't quiet his soul.
[00:03:36] And as I thought about it some more, I realized that that thing, that dissatisfaction goes on all the way back to Eden.
[00:03:44] Adam and Eve, they're created by God, and they're living in the garden he planted, and they're doing the work that he designed for them.
[00:03:50] They're naked and unashamed. They're living in a world without sin. They're walking with God every day.
[00:03:57] Then they get deceived by Satan and his slick marketing tactics.
[00:04:03] They doubt the goodness of God. They have a literal paradise. They're living in actual paradise, the place that we all long to get back to. And yet they're tempted to want something more.
[00:04:17] They listen to lies and they become dissatisfied and they take of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then that sin echoes throughout eternity.
[00:04:27] This same thing happens again and again and again throughout the Bible. And that's where I think we have this thing. We have this gnawing feeling of wanting more.
[00:04:40] We've encountered the same spiritual warfare, the same lies. Satan has tempted us to doubt God's goodness and entice us to always want more. It's not unique to us in the United States, but I think we have it in spades here.
[00:04:52] If you remember the great John Rockefeller, the oil company billionaire in the early 20th century, one of the richest men on the planet, one of the richest men that's ever been.
[00:05:01] He captured this sentiment really well. This reporter asked him one time, how much money is enough?
[00:05:06] And you know what his response was?
[00:05:08] Just a little bit more.
[00:05:10] This man's a billionaire in their early 20s.
[00:05:14] He's got unbelievable amounts of wealth.
[00:05:17] And that really funny little answer is, just a little bit more. I think that betrays Something about who we are as humans, something about our condition. We see this in so many ways. It's so easy to see this in negative advertising. Like, man, your life is terrible. Just try this product.
[00:05:34] Or let me put somebody in front of you that's perfect and airbrushed and like, they're perfectly curated to make you want what they have.
[00:05:43] There's a positive motivational aspect of it. You're not in shape, so get in shape. Go do this thing.
[00:05:49] Or there's also more subtle versions, like with entitlement. Hey, you deserve something more than what you have.
[00:05:57] You deserve a seat at the table, but someone's denying you. You deserve to be treated like a king or queen, but nobody recognizes your value.
[00:06:06] Comparison's a killer to a year ago. Like on my timeline just recently, I just. The memories pop up. Like your Facebook memories.
[00:06:16] For those of you who still use Facebook, I'm old school, still do it.
[00:06:20] But my niece, a year ago had just gotten back from a trip to Belize where she was, like, swimming with dolphins and doing all the tropical cool stuff. And then my other niece was. Was also in France, like, eating croissants and looking at French stuff. And like, he was on this whole. I was just like, man, I, I.
[00:06:35] Both of those vacations sound incredible.
[00:06:39] I definitely had some vacation envy.
[00:06:43] Or maybe this one will hit home. What about house envy? I know y' all are scrolling on Zillow because we do it, too. We do it, too. My wife has fallen victim to that many times.
[00:06:55] I could keep going, but have you ever wondered why we're so dissatisfied with life?
[00:07:02] We spend so much money and time trying to solve that thing. And this. This world is so full of dissatisfaction, but it doesn't satisfy. It can't satisfy us because we were meant to be satisfied in our God alone.
[00:07:18] Augustine, the great theologian from the early church, said, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in him.
[00:07:26] We have an enemy that's convincing us that God is holding out on us and that it's up to us to find satisfaction in anything other than Jesus.
[00:07:34] So this morning, God has something to say to Israel through the prophet Isaiah. But he's also talking to Solomon, and he's talking to us here today. He's gonna say three things, and the first thing that he's going to say is an invitation to satisfaction, which is what we see in verse one. It says, come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come and buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without bread. Price. God is speaking to us through the prophet Isaiah. And at this point in Israel's history, they've gotten their. They've had their golden age under David. King David has come up, he's been a military commander, he's led Israel into prosperity.
[00:08:08] But eventually, at this particular time when Isaiah is writing that Israel has turned their backs on God and they followed their own way, they no longer trust God and they're following the ways of the world.
[00:08:19] They've trusted and they put their trust in military alliances rather than in the Lord. And then they were betrayed by those military alliances. They trusted in wealth for security, but it was taken for them. They trusted in idols, but they ended up spiritually dry.
[00:08:32] So as a result, God sends them into exile, away from his favor and blessing.
[00:08:37] So Israel at this point is weary and longing for restoration. They're far from home because of their disobedience.
[00:08:44] They've tried to be self sufficient, but it just hasn't worked out. And so God has this to say to them, his invitation.
[00:08:52] He invites them to a free, abundant life in him, true satisfaction through his covenant.
[00:08:57] And if you notice here, there's some urgency. Four times we see an invitation. Four times we are invited. And this isn't some, hey, we should hang out sometime, you know, just let me know whenever you're ready. This is a beckoning. This is an urgent call. Come buy wine from me. Come do these things. Come be with me. Everyone who thirsts, that's everyone.
[00:09:19] There's no bar on that invitation. Everybody who thirsts, come and be with me to he who has no money. This is open to everyone. It's not limited just to Israel. And we'll come back to that in a minute. But to come to the waters, come buy and eat and drink. It's not just water, it's also wine and milk. There's gladness there, that's what the wine means. There's nourishment there, that's what the milk means.
[00:09:42] He's asking them to come to them, to come buy money, but buy without money and without price.
[00:09:49] And that kind of weirded me out because who sells things for free?
[00:09:57] What store would just give you everything away for free?
[00:10:02] Well, the one who has an abundance or the one who has no fear of running out, but also the one who's already paid the price.
[00:10:14] In Isaiah, Israel puts its trust in political alliances.
[00:10:18] They didn't need the Lord to protect them. They had friends with big armies like Egypt and Assyria. And rather than trusting the Lord to provide and protect them, they Negotiated. They trusted people and horses and chariots to secure them.
[00:10:31] They weren't satisfied with the Lord's promises. They sought out other means of security. They put their trust in other things.
[00:10:37] They put their hope in human effort rather than the Lord.
[00:10:43] See, friends, the world teaches that satisfaction comes through your own hands.
[00:10:48] Instead of inviting us to satisfaction in the Lord, we're told by the world that it's up to us.
[00:10:53] We're instructed to earn all that we can and sell ourselves to get every ounce of joy that we can out of this world. We are Israel in this sense. Today's culture tells us to trust not in horses and chariots, but in networking and in net worth.
[00:11:07] We are the source of our own joy and fulfillment. That's what the world tells us.
[00:11:12] So we put our hope in things and in reputation. And rather than being without price, it's actually very costly. It's costly emotionally. It's costly financially and relationally and spiritually.
[00:11:24] This, this self sufficiency mindset that we have is devastating us.
[00:11:32] We are lonely, isolated, anxious wannabe Solomons.
[00:11:39] I can keep hammering on the world and materialism and all that. I can do it. I can go for a long time on that.
[00:11:45] Your, Your house, your car, your looks, your money, all of those things are temporary. And that's true.
[00:11:52] If you don't want to take my word for it, just ask Solomon in Ecclesiastes.
[00:11:57] But the thing is, the thing that also kind of like, this is where I kind of like go back and forth a bit. Some of the experiences in this world are really cool. There's some really cool stuff out there. Like, I was born in Texas. That's a blessing enough as it is, right?
[00:12:12] I've honeymooned in Maui. I've held my children in my arms. Like I've been to McDonald's when the ice cream machine's actually working. Like, there's some really cool things that actually. I'm glad you guys got that joke. I'm glad. Yeah.
[00:12:26] So don't hear me saying that the world has nothing to offer.
[00:12:30] It does. There's some really sweet things and I. I know you're enjoying them as well.
[00:12:37] And like a lot of you, I'm. I'm still working on my first million. You know, I've got about 1.3 million to go, but, you know, still working on it.
[00:12:47] But there's a reason that we're so easily distracted and led astray, because we're not being only tempted with bad things.
[00:12:56] So what I'm saying is that the world shouldn't displace your love and your need for the Lord.
[00:13:03] Don't let your ultimate satisfaction come from food and entertainment. Don't let your security come from your money. Don't let your wisdom come from the world. Don't let your love for the Lord grow cold because you like stuff.
[00:13:15] Cling so tightly to the things of this world that it chokes out your faith. So my first big question for you this morning is, what gives you satisfaction?
[00:13:25] Are you placing your trust in things that ultimately leave you empty?
[00:13:32] What does chasing the world cost you? There's a high cost that you're paying. Do you see that?
[00:13:38] Are you thirsty? Are you broke? Are you spiritually bankrupt?
[00:13:44] If so, there's good news and bad news.
[00:13:46] The bad news is that your dissatisfaction is not a problem that you or the world can solve.
[00:13:52] But the good news is that it's an opportunity to seek the Lord and be satisfied in Him. It's an invitation. Like we see in Isaiah 55. God is inviting us. Do you know that? He wants to redeem these things. He wants to redeem this in us.
[00:14:08] He wants to return for his people. He wants to bring Israel back from exile. He wants to be our satisfaction. So he's inviting us to draw near and he's inviting us in. This world will put its hooks in you and keep you, but the Lord invites you in to freedom.
[00:14:25] The world offers things with a catch and at a cost. The Lord offers an abundance freely. There's no catch. There's no fine print.
[00:14:36] Maybe you're thinking there actually is a fine print. You actually have to become a Christian. You have to give up your life. Yes, okay, that's true. You do have to give up your life to follow Christ, to gain satisfaction in Him. But you give up your life in order to gain it. That's the paradox of the kingdom of God. You give up your shackles for freedom. You give up your futility for a future.
[00:14:58] And not only does God invite us, he also calls us to follow Him. That's what we see. The call. The second part. The second thing we see is the call. In verses two and three, there's a call to listen and follow. So verse two says, why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
[00:15:16] Listen diligently to me and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me here that your soul may live.
[00:15:25] Israel ignored God's prophets and listened to a world that promised prosperity without repentance.
[00:15:31] But now he's calling them back to listen and to follow Him. We see six verbs, six imperatives here in verses two and three. Listen diligently to God. Eat what is good and be nourished by what is good. Delight and find your joy and be captivated by what rich food, food that satisfies. And how do we do this? We incline your ear, come to him and hear. Follow him faithfully. That our souls.
[00:15:58] There's this idea that of restoration and return from exile, that life is found in the presence of our God, not away from Him. Life is found by following him, not by going our own way.
[00:16:10] So this is a call to listen and follow and live. It's a call to satisfaction in Christ alone.
[00:16:17] It's a call to put down the cotton candy and pick up the ribeye steak. Amen. All God's people said Amen.
[00:16:26] I will keep going the world promotes self made truth and this constant distraction. We spend so much time and money on things that don't satisfy us, that don't sustain us. We spend so much time and effort on things that just can't satisfy us.
[00:16:49] Just like Israel ignored prophets in favor of false hope, we too are distracted by social media and entertainment and competing worldviews to hear God's voice.
[00:16:59] We're more lonely and anxious and troubled and suffering and desperate. This world has not helped us a bit because it can't.
[00:17:10] So my second question for you is, are you making time to hear God's voice, or are you too distracted by the world's noise?
[00:17:18] Does your soul feel free?
[00:17:22] Do you want it to?
[00:17:26] If so, then do these things. Let's read back through those verbs again.
[00:17:30] Listen to the Lord.
[00:17:33] Eat what is good, drink deeply from Scripture, Feast on the goodness of God in community, delight yourself, enrich food, study your Bible and see the wealth of wisdom and peace and joy overflow into your life.
[00:17:49] Incline your ear. Abide in prayer not just once, but daily, not just for a couple of minutes. But dwell with the Lord in prayer and come to Him. Be in community with his people.
[00:18:03] Turn from your sin, turn from the world, come to him and live. And then the last one is hear him, listen for his voice in Scripture, listen for his voice in prayer, and listen for his voice in Biblical wisdom.
[00:18:17] Let's break it down just a little bit more.
[00:18:20] Three of those things involve listening to Him. Listen. Incline your ear and hear those three things. They involve listening to Him. Two of them involve Scripture, eat and delight.
[00:18:29] And one of them involves repentance and community.
[00:18:32] So does your life look like that?
[00:18:37] Who are you listening to?
[00:18:39] Who has your ear?
[00:18:42] Podcasts, news, friends, coworkers. Who is it that has your ear?
[00:18:48] And then what are you reading? What are you eating?
[00:18:51] What are you consuming? What does your diet look like? There's a really great book on this called the Wisdom pyramid by Brett McCracken. Fantastic book about how we should focus our time and efforts on scripture first and social media and news and things like that last. Kind of like the reverse food pyramid. That's an old school thing. Whatever. I'm off my notes. Okay. Does your life look like this? What are you reading and eating? And who are you turning to? Who is your resource?
[00:19:22] Our God is inviting us to life. He's inviting us to listen to him and to follow Him. And here in a few minutes, we're going to have some time to respond. But think now. Ask now. What does God want you to to do?
[00:19:35] Where is he leading you? Where do you need to follow Him?
[00:19:42] God's call to us to come to him so that our souls may live is based on the promise of Christ, which is what we see in verses three through five.
[00:19:52] Second half of verse three says, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast sure love for David. Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know. You shall run to you because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
[00:20:13] God reminds Israel of his everlasting covenant with David about 300 years before this writing in Isaiah. It's from 2 Samuel, chapter 7. That's assuring them of his faithful covenant love. This hesed this beautiful concept of God's faithful covenantal love for his people.
[00:20:29] His promise is this faithful, unchanging covenant fulfilled in Christ like we see in Luke chapter one. I'll read it for you real quick. It says, he will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of His Father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there will be no end. God is promising a faithful king to secure God's covenant, a leader for his people.
[00:20:54] This is that beautiful reminder of God's faithfulness in the midst of exile, that Israel has hope that the Lord has not forgotten them, that. That he hasn't forsaken them.
[00:21:05] And we see in verse 4 in Isaiah that God made David a witness to the world. One who led his people.
[00:21:12] David was a king during the golden age of Israel. The brightest times, one of the best times in all of Israel's history. The height of its military power.
[00:21:20] But now the focus turns onto the Messiah. The promised Son of David is here in verse five. And he's gonna call all others to worship him. The nations will run to him. This is Jesus. He is the Messiah. He is the one who we. We, you and I, the nations. We are part of the nations. He is who we run to.
[00:21:38] He's our place of security. He's the one who's glorified. He's the one in whom we have hope and who fulfills God's promises to his people.
[00:21:48] The world makes empty promises and calls us to this selfish pragmatism that we live with every day.
[00:21:55] It tells you to look within yourself, to find your truth, to be your own North Star and self determination, self sufficiency, self care, self medication. To trust yourself that you are the master of the faith and you're the captain of your soul. To quote that famous poem Invictus, that you sit on the throne of your life, but you see how backwards this is.
[00:22:18] See how upside down that is.
[00:22:22] Because our righteousness comes not from within us, but it's gifted to us.
[00:22:27] We don't lead ourselves. Jesus leads us and we followed him. The nations don't sit at our feet. They sit at the foot of the cross.
[00:22:37] Jesus sits on the throne and he doesn't share his glory with anyone.
[00:22:49] So after we've talked about the invitation and the call and the promise, now let's talk about being satisfied in Christ. Earlier, I quoted Augustine.
[00:22:58] He said, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God.
[00:23:02] Brothers and sisters, we will continue to be restless until we find our rest in our God.
[00:23:11] We will continue to be dissatisfied in this world until we find our rest in Christ and Christ alone.
[00:23:18] And this is why. Solomon, sitting in his palace, looking out over the massive buildings and the massive cities that he's built, getting ready for his rehearsal dinner for wife number 700, looking around at everything that he has, and he says it's vanity and meaningless, chasing the wind.
[00:23:45] But the apostle Paul, in jail after being beaten, stoned and shipwrecked, after facing death threats and going hungry and homeless, writes in Philippians 4, 11, 12, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.
[00:24:00] I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.
[00:24:10] He counts it all loss so that we might know the surpassing. So that he might know the surpassing glory of Christ and the power of his resurrection.
[00:24:20] Brothers and sisters, if we are not satisfied in Christ, nothing in this world can fill that void and we will keep chasing the wind. But if we are satisfied in Christ, nothing will compare. We will be unstoppable.
[00:24:34] Like Paul this morning, God is inviting us to be satisfied in Jesus. He is the way, the truth and the Life. From John 14. He is the well of living water who satisfies our deepest thirst and never runs dry. From John 4. He's the branch that we, the vine, abide in. He's the bread of life who satisfies our deepest hunger. He promises that if you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you will be satisfied.
[00:25:01] And he calls us to taste and see that the Lord is good. From Psalm 34.
[00:25:07] Everything that we're seeking from the world has already been freely given to us in Christ.
[00:25:15] Peace, comfort, safety, love, joy, purpose, hope, all of these are given to us by our Jesus.
[00:25:26] And the significance and the security and the joy, everything that you're longing for has already been paid for by Christ on the cross. So don't be satisfied with anything less.
[00:25:37] There's this famous quote from C.S. lewis. It says, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.
[00:25:50] We are half hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he can't imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.
[00:26:09] So God is calling us to follow Jesus.
[00:26:13] Jesus is the source of true wisdom. And wisdom comes from fearing the Lord, like we see in Proverbs, not following the world.
[00:26:20] So we listen to the word which reveals Jesus. Not that the, not, not the world that counterfeits him.
[00:26:25] We cultivate a relationship with him. We hear his voice and we follow him.
[00:26:31] One of the, this, this really interesting idea about being a shepherd.
[00:26:38] He'll tie in in a second. Hopefully it'll make sense.
[00:26:40] Before David became king, he was a shepherd doing like normal shepherd stuff, right? He was a shepherd boy out like kind of minding the sheep and all those kind of things. He had. He had a lyre or like an acoustic guitar and he would sing over his sheep out in the field, which. That sounds a little weird. Like that's a That's an odd, that's an odd thing to do.
[00:26:57] Until you think about, like during the day when he would take them to the watering hole along with the other shepherds and their, in their herds.
[00:27:04] And then what happens is you have all these shepherds coming to the watering hole at the same time and all their herds kind of intermix and the shepherds are out there talking like water coolers, talking shop among, you know, talking shepherd shop or whatever it is, like whatever they're hanging out.
[00:27:17] There's no collars on these sheep. There's no markings, no branding. Like there's no way to distinguish the sheep herds from each other.
[00:27:24] There's lots of confusion there.
[00:27:26] But as David starts to leave and go on to the next pasture, go on to the next thing, he starts singing and his sheep begin to follow him because they know his voice. He has sung to them in the night, he's sung to them in all the different times out in the pastures. He's made his voice known to them. So then when it's time to call them out from the rest of the confusion of the world, all the other herds that are gathered, he leaves, begins to sing and his sheep begin to follow Him.
[00:27:55] And Jesus is our good shepherd who leads us to good food and to water and to rest. And we know his voice and we follow him wherever he leads.
[00:28:04] As long as we know his voice.
[00:28:06] That's the crux of it.
[00:28:08] So do you know God's voice this morning? Do you hear him calling to you? Do you know what he sounds like? Do you know what he feels like in conversation and in prayer?
[00:28:19] Have you spent time with him in the quiet, listening to him so that when you mix with the world that you can hear his voice above the crowd?
[00:28:29] So maybe you just need to get away and take some time and listen and pray and turn off the world. Maybe you need to spend time reading your Bible instead of scrolling on the news or social media.
[00:28:39] That's what Lent is all about. There's this kind of self denial aspect of Lent. We're going to die to ourselves in some way. We're going to fast from something that's distracting us. We're going to take that time and focus it on the Lord and anticipate and prepare for Easter.
[00:28:54] Maybe you're already fasting from social media or from sugar or from something else, but maybe you need to just sit in the Lord's presence and spend time with him and listen to Him.
[00:29:06] So can you hear his voice? Above the empty promises of the world?
[00:29:11] Are you willing to walk away from the world and follow Christ no matter what it costs you?
[00:29:18] And do you trust that you're going to be more satisfied in Christ than you will with anything of the world than if you try to gain it on your own?
[00:29:31] Brothers and sisters, all of God's promises are fulfilled in Jesus. In Jesus, God redeems us to Himself and He sends us to share his glory.
[00:29:40] He lived a perfect life. He died a horrific death to pay the penalty for our sin. And so he redeemed us. He bought us. He freed us from our sin and freed us from a life of futility. And then he rose from the dead. He showed us that he has defeated sin and death.
[00:29:56] Not only is he the living water and the bread of life, he's the resurrection and the life.
[00:30:02] Jesus is the guarantee that our souls will live. He leads us in the resurrection to come. That's what we have hope in.
[00:30:09] He sent the Holy Spirit to give us spiritual gifts and to give us a community of believers to bear burdens and to minister together. And following him is infinitely more satisfying than what we can make happen on our own.
[00:30:22] And that's why the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:20, all the promises of God find their yes in Him.
[00:30:30] Do you feel satisfied this morning?
[00:30:36] All of God's promises are fulfilled in Jesus. And what, we just stand there unaffected?
[00:30:43] We sit there and just say, nah, sure, sounds great.
[00:30:48] The Spirit of God is at work in us. And we do what? We just go back to. Scrolling.
[00:30:56] Wake up, sleeper.
[00:30:58] Rise from the dead.
[00:31:00] Your Christ has secured freedom and joy in all of God's promises for you.
[00:31:07] Christ has bought you with a price. Don't pick up your yoke of slavery again.
[00:31:12] He's freed you from it.
[00:31:14] Don't listen to the lies. Empty promises. Be satisfied in our Christ.
[00:31:20] God has made us witnesses to the world as well. Not only does he give us grace, he also promises that we'll share in it. He calls us to be humble witnesses to the world where we share our hope with others. And who do we share our hope with?
[00:31:32] Everyone.
[00:31:33] Everyone who is thirsty.
[00:31:38] Just like God's invitation to everyone to come to him, we also share his grace and hope and joy with all who hear.
[00:31:45] And I know the painful reality that not everybody is going to respond.
[00:31:52] But we proclaim him to everyone who will listen. And this ultimately ends in what we see in heaven and revelation, where we see all tribes and tongues and nations worshiping Jesus.
[00:32:03] But we can't be faithful witnesses if we are unsatisfied in Christ.
[00:32:08] We can't do what God has commanded and called us and given us the joy of doing if we don't find our joy in Him.
[00:32:18] We can't proclaim our satisfaction in Jesus if we're just low rent Solomons just working our way through our first hundred wives.
[00:32:27] But if we can rejoice in our suffering and if we can have a hope that anchors us to the Rock of Ages, then we can say with confidence and with conviction that Jesus saves and he satisfies our souls.
[00:32:39] God is inviting us to follow Jesus and be satisfied in Him. Rather than listening to the same lies which Satan whispered in the Garden of Eden, saying, take the fruit and eat it and become like God, we follow Jesus, who God became, who became man and triumphed over that lie with the truth of the Gospel by saying, take and eat, this is my body, drink, this is my blood poured out for you.
[00:33:02] Brothers and sisters, Jesus has laid down his life as a sacrifice. He's paid our price for our sin and brought us into his kingdom. And only in him can we be truly satisfied. Because only in him can we have peace with God.
[00:33:16] And only in him do our lives have true meaning and significance.
[00:33:23] So what would it look like for you to be satisfied in Christ as we fast and prepare for Lent during this next 40 days or so, as we look forward to the Cross and the Resurrection, as we look forward in hope to an eternity with him here today, here this morning, hear your God calling you to be satisfied in him. Hear him calling you to a greater joy than you could ever imagine and a greater joy than you can make on your own.
[00:33:54] Hear the Lord inviting you. He's speaking kindly to you. He's calling you to follow and be satisfied in Christ.
[00:34:01] What will you do with it?
[00:34:03] Let me pray for you, Father. God, thank you for your word.
[00:34:09] Thank you for our Christ in whom we are satisfied.
[00:34:14] Thank you for the promises that we have in Christ and thank you for inviting us into your grace to share in your peace, to share in who you are and to share in your mission. I pray that you would give us a faithfulness and a wisdom and a winsomeness and a joy as we go about the things that you've called us to do.
[00:34:35] So, Lord, we entrust this time to you. I pray that your word goes out and does its work among your people. And I pray that we would respond faithfully in worship, taking communion, and do all these things for the glory of your name. It's in Christ's name we pray.
