Desiring God – Part 1 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. David was a hunted man, chased among the rocks of the desert, a man who knew his only hope was in his God. His writings in the Psalms describe a man who learned to thirst for God like he thirsted for water. Today, a look at the ways God uses to draw us to that kind of thirst. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, today you'll take us into Psalm 42 for another lesson from the Psalms, a lesson on being really thirsty and on desiring God.

You know, Dave, perhaps people have heard me give that illustration, 1968. I remember walking to the top of Masada, that high hill in Jerusalem, in the middle of summer. It was so hot. I have never been so thirsty in my life. And every time I read about David's thirst, I always think about that incident. If we only thirsted for God that badly, obviously, we would be a transformed people.

But you know, one of the things that we have to do is to develop that thirst. And one way we can do that is to begin every single day with God. I'm holding in my hands a very beautiful hardback book entitled God's Best for My Life by Lloyd John Ogilvy. It's a daily devotional. Be sure to receive your copy in time for the brand new year. Here's what you do.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. For a gift of any amount, it can be yours. It will help you develop thirst for God. Back in 1968, I and a number of other students climbed to the top of Masada on what Josephus referred to as the Snake Trail. Masada is a fortress near the Dead Sea. It was actually the winter home of Herod the Great, had fortifications up there for many, many years, for many, many centuries.

Today, tourists go to the top of Masada being carried, of course, electronically in cable cars. But in those days, the most important way to get to the top was to walk hundreds and perhaps thousands of feet. And it was about 110 degrees, and we had water with us, but soon that ran out. And it was the only time in my life and the time that I usually refer to when I think of thirst. Sometimes we say that we are thirsty, but have you ever had burning, raging thirst?

In fact, days later, I was drinking fruit juice and water to help my body make sure that it regained its fluid and its equilibrium. David said, as the deer pants after the water brook, so my soul pants after you, O God. And we don't understand that in today's society.

What was this guy's problem? Why was he wanting God that badly? The fact is that we are all born thirsty. Physically, we are born thirsty. We come into this world thirsty, wanting to drink. Spiritually, we are also born thirsty. As one scholar says, we have within us a raging, inextinguishable thirst, and we all have it. And we're all seeking to satisfy it somehow, in some way, all the time. But because we're sinners, we satisfy this thirst in the wrong way. These longings, these God-given desires become perverted. For example, God has given us the desire for a relationship. We are born to want to connect with others.

That's part of our heritage as human beings. And so what do we do? We sometimes connect with the wrong people, and we connect in the wrong ways. The desire for intimacy is strong. And so you find those who fall into various forms of sexuality. What they're really doing is they're seeking relationship. They're seeking a God-given desire, but they're doing it in the wrong way. Not only that, but we all seek for meaning. We want to connect with the infinite. Because there's something within us that says that if you want to have meaning, you have to be plugged into what is eternal. The other day on the news, I saw somebody who builds sand castles.

And not just castles, but all kinds of beautiful sculptures. Every day he begins again and anew in the sand, and then the tide comes and washes it away. And then he begins again the next day. There's a part of me that admired him because he was willing to do that, but there's another part that says surely there's more to life than that. And there are many of us who, instead of seeking for meaning, knowing that that meaning can only come in a relationship for God, we are building sand castles that time is constantly washing away. And at the end of the day, we have nothing to show for it. We all desire emotions. We are born with emotions. With these emotions, we are supposed to love God and others, but we take these emotions and we end up making sure that we love ourselves and we get it all wrong because we begin to seek inward kind of satisfaction instead of looking to God. We have a desire to make good choices and we use the will that God has given us to make wrong choices, selfish choices. Conscience is a gift of God to keep us on the right path, and it is, in effect, standing judgments on all of our actions and saying this is right and this is wrong. But what do we do with conscience? We override our conscience. We learn to manage our sin.

We learn to manage our rebellion. And so we do our own thing, conscience or no conscience. What's characteristic of us as human beings left to ourselves? First of all is that fulfilling all of these needs are, first of all, they are very self-directed.

They are very self-ish. Second, we sometimes resort to the passions of the body and give them primacy rather than the intellectual pursuits and the value and the rationality of the soul. The simple fact is that we make a commitment to our emotions and our desires and then we marshal all of our intellect to justify those desires and to make sure that life comes out the way we want life to be. What we forget is that really what we're seeking for is God.

Pascal, you remember the great mathematician and French philosopher said, there once was in man a true happiness of which now remains to him only the mark and the empty trace, which in vain he tries to fill from his surroundings. But these are all inadequate because the infinite abyss, he's talking about our thirst, the infinite abyss can only be fulfilled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say by God alone. And Augustine said in the confessions, oh God, thou has made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find they're all in thee. That's why Luther said that it is impossible to sin deliberately unless we first of all think wrongly about God because what we are doing is we're saying I want to fulfill my desires, my way in rebellion against God because my way is better than his.

And it's this that made George McDonald say rather boldly. He said when a man knocks on the door of a brothel, he is actually seeking God. He's seeking God in the wrong place.

Now let's look at the text. Psalm 42, David is seeking God as well. David is thirsty and he's going to God. Why does David go to God? What is it that drove him to the Lord his God? Why was it that he finally came to his senses and said only God can meet my needs? He says as the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, oh God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When can I go and meet with God? Thirsty for God. What drove David?

Well, I think the answer is first of all, he was pursued by his enemies. He says in verse three, my tears have been my food day and night while men say to me all day long, where is your God? And then he goes on to say in verse 10, my bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me saying to me all day long, where is your God? I want you to know today that our enemies drive us to God. If you've been pursued by enemies, if you have been wrongfully sued, if you have been involved in contests in which people want to seek your harm, whether physically or at work, and you discover that you've got all these enemies around here whose day would really be made if you were to fail, it drives you to God.

Remember this, that your friends can only take you so far, your friends can only take you to your potential, someone has said, only your enemies can take you beyond your potential. So thank God for your enemies. If enemies were not good for us, God would not allow us to have to put up with them. So thank God for your enemies, because what happens is the supports that we have suddenly no longer are there and we must flee to God and we say God I desire you because there's this sense of loneliness, there's this sense of alienation, there's this sense of helplessness, God help me, and then we pursue the almighty God.

So that was part of the reason. Another part is because of the withdrawal of God's presence. Listen to what he says, verse 5, why are you downcast, O my soul, and why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. David was going through a time of emotional bankruptcy. It was a time when it appeared as if God had withdrawn from him and God does sometimes withdraw his presence from us, that is his felt presence. And he does that so that we might learn to depend solely and totally upon him when the emotions no longer can be relied upon, where we must walk simply by bare faith.

Because when the Bible says we walk not by sight but by faith, it doesn't mean just physical sight, it even means emotional sight. So there are times when we are despondent, there are times when we cry out to God in despair and God does not seem to be there, and those times are set up by God that we might pursue him more passionately and more intimately. David's having this little talk with himself, it's the kind of dissidence that you and I experience. We know in our minds that God is with us, but our souls, our emotions are not catching up with our theology. Yeah, yeah, God is with us, we know all the promises, we've sung all the songs, but why am I so downcast, O my soul? So he talks with himself, just a little bit of healthy schizophrenia going on here in the text. We all talk to ourselves, I used to talk to myself a lot more, a little less since I've been married I'm sure.

I have a friend who says he always talks to himself because he says he has just as a rule, he always wants to talk to the most intelligent person around. He's saying, why do I feel so bad when I've got all the promises of God? So I'm speaking to my soul, why are you so downcast when God is here?

Hope in God. That's another thing that made him pursue God. Of course, if we were to look at David's life, we'd discover also that the pleasures of this world began to turn sour on him, and that makes you pursue God. And guilt makes you pursue God. You see, guilt drives many people away from God. They think that God is so mad at them, why should they come into God's presence? And they do not understand that guilt is God trying to put his arms around them and bringing them back into fellowship. And that's why God rejoices when the prodigal son comes home. And we think, no, no, God will be happier if I just stay in the pig pan. No, God isn't happier. And so God pursues us in all these different ways. And if we're believers, he will not let us alone. He keeps pursuing us and say, I want you to trust me. I want you to love me.

I want you to get to know me. About a week ago, my wife and I were at dinner with some friends who were involved in the construction industry for many, many, many years. And their construction company went bankrupt because of a number of different reasons. And this man whom I've known for years sitting beside me at the table says, I just want you to know that for years I went to church, for years I did the right thing, for years I heard that I should know God. But he said, it never really penetrated me at all. And he says, now suddenly when our house was up for sale, and they almost did lose their house, and all of our savings were gone. He said, it drove me to God. He said, in the last two years, he said, I've read 37 books. And he says, I sit there reading books on theology and books on God. And my wife even said to me, why in the world? You don't even watch sports anymore, she said. She said, you just sit there and now you've become so boring reading all of these books. One of the reasons she said that is because he said that he reads these books to her.

So that could necessitate some negotiation. But I'm sitting watching this guy whom I knew 25 years ago, 30 years ago actually I met him. He was absolutely absorbed with the Chicago Cubs. If he couldn't go to a game, he watched the game. If he couldn't watch the game, he listened to the game. He kept up with the Chicago Cubs. Isn't it amazing how God undercuts things like Cub fans and the many different ways he does it?

He doesn't watch them anymore. David says, my soul longs for God. Now, what about God's desire for us? God's desire for us. The fact that we should know God and that we should desire him is very obvious, but does God actually desire us?

You know John Piper in his good book entitled Desiring God, a book that all of you should read. He says that the Westminster Confession of Faith, you remember, which says that the end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. It does not say the ends of man.

In other words, there are not two goals, there's only one. And the way in which that should be interpreted is that the chief and singular of man is to know God by enjoying him forever. You see, it is not just that we desire God, but wonder of wonders, God actually desires us. And that's why the Apostle Paul says that the time is coming when Jesus Christ is going to return to earth and be glorified, Jesus is going to be glorified in the saints.

And this past week I was reading the book of First Peter where it talked about those who are going to be glorified, whom God is going to glorify. God is so interested in us, we are number one on his agenda of things to take care of in the universe. And God can give us delight and he can give us joy because he himself is a happy God. You know, could you imagine trying to plug into a God who was unhappy, a God who was, and you've heard me say this before, but it's got to come one more time. Could you imagine trying to get to know a God who was moody, for example? A God who sometimes his emotions could not be depended upon. No, we can delight in God, in fact the Bible commands us to delight in God because God is a delightful God and desires our own individual delight. You say, well isn't God upset because of the evil that is in the world?

Well Jonathan Edwards answered that question this way and I believe it is biblical by saying that if you look at it narrowly, through a narrow lens, yes God is angry and God is upset, but if you look at it from the totality of where history is going and where it has come from and the ultimate glory of God, God is a happy God and God invites us to rejoice in him. And the more we get to know him, the more we can rejoice. And the more we get to know him, the more we can rejoice and we can face the future with confidence. The January 4th entry in a book I have in my hands entitled God's Best for My Life by Lloyd John Ogilvie, it's a daily devotional, January 4th he tells the interesting story told by Alexander McLaren who was a preacher of another generation who as a boy conquered fear because he had to walk through a very dark valley. But as he feared going through the valley, he heard a familiar voice.

It was the voice of his father who had come to get him. Isn't that a wonderful illustration of what God does for us? I believe so deeply it's necessary for us to trust God early every morning. That's why we're offering you this resource, a devotional entitled God's Best for My Life as I've mentioned by Lloyd John Ogilvie for a gift of any amount it can be yours. Every day of the year you'll be encouraged, you'll be reminded to set your mind on God. Here's what you do, go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. As you've heard me emphasize as we begin a new year, let's begin it with God.

For a gift of any amount as I've mentioned we're making this resource available to you and let me give you that contact info again, rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone right now and call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now remember the devotional God's Best for My Life by Lloyd John Ogilvie. It's time again for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question you may have about the Bible or the Christian life.

Today's question comes to us from Texas from Christina. She writes, I feel I am very ineffective at prayer and just a few days ago a passage of scripture struck me in a way that gave me pause. I was reading in Matthew chapter 21 and this verse jumped out at me, truly I say to you if you have faith and do not doubt you will say to this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea and it will happen and whatever you ask in prayer you will receive if you have faith. I know God can do anything but I doubt because I also know that he does only what he wants, that is what his divine will is. I'm not so bold as to presume that my prayer will change his mind. I've been praying for someone who is seriously ill but because I don't know God's will my prayer is vague. If it's not God's will for this person to be healed then he won't be healed no matter how much I pray. It seems to me like a self-defeating circle.

Well Christina I've been sitting here listening as Dave McAllister has been reading your question to me and wondering exactly how to answer because I could give you a very long answer to many excellent questions that you've embedded in your letter but just a couple of comments. First of all when Jesus said if you have faith you can move this mountain from here to there obviously he is using hyperbole. He just means to say that faith can do mighty things and why is it that he goes on to say that if we ask in faith without doubting we'll receive it. Well in cases like that it appears to me that God shares with us what he intends to do and therefore when we begin to pray we are in effect praying his will back to him. There are instances like this in scripture and of course at a time like that you can really pray in faith because God is granting you the faith and the ability to know that this is his will. Now the other question regarding your friend who's sick and the whole matter of the will of God. There are times when we don't know God's will and we can't pray with great faith that God is going to heal someone but we should pray for that person and we should commit them to God in something like Jesus in Gethsemane.

Father if it is your will let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as you will. That's the bottom line for every growing Christian. Let God's will be done but we do bring our petitions to him like the Apostle Paul says very clearly. He says you know that we come before God we bring our cares before him and the peace of God which passes all understanding keeps our hearts and minds in Jesus Christ and therefore we should come with all of our petitions.

But there's finally I do need to add this. You say that you would not presume that you could change God's mind. Well that might be true because we don't know what God's mind is but remember this Christina prayer changes things. It may not change God's mind in the sense that you and I think of it but prayer changes things. Your prayer might under the divine will of God make a huge and lasting difference. Keep praying keep praying keep seeking and you'll grow in faith and who knows but you may even see some miracles. Thank you Dr. Lutzer. If you'd like to hear your question answered you can go to our website at RTWOffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer or you can call us at 1-888-2180.