Holiday Hunger

There's a beautiful presence of the Lord here this morning. It's evident. Um you can just look across and see it. Maybe you've come in today and you've got some things weighing on you and you're not exactly feeling what everybody else seems to be feeling. But you can look around and you can see the evidence that the Lord is here. So let that be encouraging to you. Your heart's heavy. You've got a lot on your mind. There's a lot going on outside of these walls. But it is evident that the spirit of the Lord is here.

It is evident to me that there is a hunger here to meet with God. Amen. And with that being said, I I just want to get right into it. My text today is coming out of the Psalms. I want to direct your attention to Psalm 27, starting with verse one through verse 4. David's writing. He says, "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and my foes, they stumbled and they fell.

They were unsuccess unsuccessful in what they were trying to do. Though an an enemy, an army may encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. the war may rise against me. In this I will be confident. One thing I have desired, that will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. I want to read that last part one more time for somebody here today.

David's got all this going on, but he says, "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life." You may have a lot going on in your life right now. You may have uh trials going on outside of these walls, but guess what? You made it to the house of the Lord today. And there is evidence all around you that God can, that God will, that he wants to meet you where you are.

So, can we pray today over this message and over the rest of this service? Lord, I thank you for your spirit that is here. I thank you for the hunger that is here, the desire that is represented in this place, for an encounter with you. Lord, we know that your presence is here. We feel it. We see it. And I pray that you would have your will done. pray that you would anoint my mind, that you would anoint my my lips as I speak the words that you have given me.

And I pray that you would anoint the hearts and the ears of everybody that is here that they would be able to receive the word that you have. All this in Jesus name. And everybody said, "Amen." And you may be seated. I want to remind us this morning of a simple yet easily forgotten truth. And that is that we must stay hungry for God. Here in this passage, we're reading uh David writing of his deepest desire of what I believe is his deepest desire. He says, "One thing I desire." Now, obviously, we know that David desired other things as we all do.

He was a young man out there watching his father's sheep. I'm sure he desired to be in the warmth and in the comfort of his house with his family when all his brothers were hanging out or when they went off to war together. I'm sure he really just wanted to be included. It's evident to me and you can pick up on little things in scripture that David did have other desires. But here he writes of another one of his desires. In in Psalm 27, I believe we have to consider all of what he is saying.

He says, "One thing I desire, that will I seek after." We find a desire, but it's coupled with an action. One thing I desire, God, is is to be with you, and I'm going to do everything that I possibly can to make that happen. David had a hunger for God that made him relentless. God, I I know I have to tend to the flock, but first I'm going to seek you. I know I have work to do. I know I have job responsibilities, but first I'm going to seek you, God.

I know Saul wants me dead. I know all of these things are coming after me. I'm in danger every day and these things are weighing on me. But God, I'm still going to stand and I'm going to worship you. God, I know I I'm king. I know I have these heavy responsibilities. I have a nation to lead. There's people who are looking to me, but first I'm going to seek you. My enemies surround me, God, but first I'm going to seek you. It's a trend that if you pay close attention, you can see all throughout David's life.

Yes, of course, like us all, he wanted many other things. But David's hunger drove him to always seek God and to seek God first. This past November, Shay and I got to go on a cruise. It was the first time we've been on a cruise, and we went with her side of the family. It was a larger group. The parents had one request of us is that we could gather together for dinner each night. Easy enough. Problem being, anybody here who's been on a cruise, you know that food is anywhere.

It's everywhere. It's all that's what a cruise is. You're eating non-stop. So, we would get to dinner time and we weren't even hungry. We'd get up in the morning, we'd have our breakfast, we'd go to whatever activity we had scheduled and we'd grab food from this place on the way. That was like the first lunch and then we would have actual lunch and then we would go and do another activity and then it's just uh first dinner and then it's then it's actual dinner, but then we were staying up late.

So, we would have a snack before before we went to bed and it's just like we were constantly eating food. Everywhere you look, anybody ever been on a cruise and you know what I'm talking about. It really is. It's just first world problems. We we just ate so much. It's like uh being at youth camp or during the holidays. We just leaving the the holiday season. We start the holidays off with Thanksgiving and there's a buffet of food. It literally sits there all day. And yes, you sit down for your collective time of of of eating that meal and you eat too much in the first place.

The amount of food that you would eat there is enough that on a normal basis, you probably wouldn't eat until the next day. But is the season to keep eating, so you go back for dessert. And then it just sits there and a little bit later you're like, "Well, well, it's there." So, you go back for seconds. Christmas dinner's the same. You just swap out the turkey for a ham and and you repeat the process. New Year's Eve comes and you do a buffet of appetizers.

And while you don't overeat in the same way, the food is still there. I mean, look, you see it in the picture. It's just there. and you may as well just go get some more. New Year's Day, we went to my sister's house and the invitation was clear. Mariah, let's do 2:00. That way, people can eat lunch and then come over and we can just have snacks and dips instead of a meal. However, the amount of snacks and dips that we had was the equivalent of a meal.

And those of you who know pastor know that he loves to cook for everyone. So, we wound up staying for dinner and we had a meal anyhow. It's during the holidays you never really have to worry about hunger. That food is always there in the background tempting you to come back for more. Seconds, thirds, even fourths. Four meals a day on the cruise. four meals a day during the holidays. And one day I'm on that boat. We're sitting at the splash pad and we're watching my brother and sister-in-law, their kids are playing there and Sherea comes back with some others and bringing ice cream and other things to eat.

We're sitting there and we're just talking and her brother says, "You know, one thing I haven't been on this cruise is hungry." And I don't really think he realized how profound of a statement that was to me. You see, earlier in the year, I started what I call my personal health journey. I had a lot of aches and pains in my body. Things just didn't seem to be working right. Uh it seemed like every time I would see Pastor Brad, he'd say like, "Well, what's hurting today?" And I'd say, "Well, where should I start?" So, I decided that uh I should start listening to my body.

I should do some research. So, I I made some changes. I found out, well, you need to drink water so that your body can function properly. And uh that's that was step one. That's where I began. I watched a documentary that basically said, "You need to be a vegan." To which I said, "No, but I did change what my plates looked like. I I began to uh add intentionality to our household menus between Sheree and I. We started changing what our plates would look like. I had a conversation with Sister Tresa that made me leave thinking, I I think I'm allergic to red dye." So, I started I stopped eating so much candy.

I watched my boss and his brother just stop eating food in general and lose a bunch of weight to which I also said no. But it made me be conscious of how many calories I was taking in on a daily basis. And let me pause for a moment and say I'm not up here telling anybody that you need to change your eating habits, that you need to adopt some sort of dietary customs. I'm not a nutritionist. I'm not a doctor. I'm not trying to tell you how you need to live your life.

But I will leave you with this. Your body belongs to God and he expects each of us to take care of it. Recently, I decided to make another change. My daily routine rarely changes during the week. I wake up around 7. I eat breakfast around 7:30. I get to work at 8. Sister Regina can attest to that. I'm there at 8. Sometimes it's 8:01 or 8:02, but I'm there uh my schedule doesn't usually change. And then we take lunch at 12:00. Usually around 11, I start feeling hunger.

Now, I'm not hungry, but I get that feeling. You You know what I'm talking about? It's that feeling in your stomach. It's like So, what do I do? I reach into my snack cabinet. Yes, I have a snack cabinet. And I start eating something. Now, I'm not the guy or the type of person to save some for later. If I open it, I'm usually finishing it there in that sitting. So, needless to say, and my mom can attest to this, that snacking has ruined more than one meal for me.

So, some random day around 11:00, that random or that familiar feeling returns and I reach for a snack. But this time, I stopped and I wondered to myself, why am I so afraid of feeling hunger? Why am I so afraid of the feeling of hunger? Now, growing up, we didn't have a house full of snacks. We ate breakfast, we ate lunch, we ate dinner, and maybe we had snacks here or there. But just about every time, my mom yelled to us saying that dinner was ready, we were ready to eat.

So, where did this aversion to hunger come from? Too much snacking. I had subconsciously conditioned myself that anytime I had even the slightest feeling of hunger, I would just get a snack. So, my next goal was simple. Cut back on snacks, recondition myself to being okay with that feeling of hunger. Throughout the process, the question keeps popping into my mind, why am I so afraid to feel hungry? I don't think there's ever actually been a time in my life where I've legitimately been hungry. I'm not talking about that feeling that comes at 11:00.

I I'm talking about real hunger. Sure, there's times where you can choose not to eat, but at least we have that option. There are people all over the world who do not have that option. One day, God takes it a step further. I'm contemplating that thought. God interrupts and he says, "Well, when was the last time you were hungry for me?" Looking back on our opening text, I think it's important to note that David wrote this psalm while he was on the run from Saul. We talked earlier about some of David David's different desires.

And if you put most people in his shoes at this particular point in time, I think the desires would look something like, "One thing I desire is to be at home, not running and and living in the wilderness." Or, "One thing I desire is for you to strike Saul dead so I can just go home. One thing I desire is to finally be crowned king." and then everything will be easier. Yet David on the run in the wilderness with Saul and his men in pursuit is able to lift his head to God and say, "The Lord is my light.

The Lord is my salvation. The Lord is my strength. One thing I desire that I will vigorously pursue is to be with you, Lord. In the middle of all of this mess around me, I just want to be with you, Lord. Who is this guy? Where did he get this level of faith, this level of confidence in the Lord, David? What do we know about him? He was the youngest and eighth son of Jesse. Raise your hand if you're the youngest. All right, we can all empath empathize with David.

I am also the youngest of five. I lived constantly being tormented by she who shall not be named. I can empathize with David. I I I can understand a little bit of what he went through. We can read and we get just a glimpse of uh some of what he experienced. If you read the story of David and Goliath, you can see David's sent there. And when his brothers see him, they're like, "What are you doing here? Why are you here? Why aren't you watching the flock?

You just wanted to come here so you didn't have to do your job. You just wanted to get a chance to see the fight. And David's like, I like we see when Samuel shows up and he tells Jesse that he wants to meet all of his sons and David's intentionally left out and Samuel anoints him. Anyhow, then he finds himself back in that field. He spent a lot of time out in that field watching the flock, a lot of time out there alone. And those are the moments that I believe shaped David into the man that we read about.

These are times where he truly understood the importance of relationship with God. He would develop an insatiable hunger that would keep him coming back for the rest of his life. It's the faith the faith that David had. It it wasn't formed in the moment that that rock left the sling and hit Goliath. I don't think it was formed when he fought the bear or when he fought the lion even. I think those are events that further cemented his faith and ultimately increased his hunger. Now, think about it.

If you've ever been in a really s scary situation where there's a potential for harm or a potential for danger, it's situations like that that tend to drive us closer to God. But if David wasn't already walking with him on a consistent and daily basis, he never even makes it to Goliath. No, he he dies in a field trying to fight a lion. I believe it's these kinds of moments that shaped David so he would be able to write in Psalm 63, "Oh God, you are my God.

Earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh faints for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power in your glory because your steadfast love is better than life. My lips will praise you, so I will bless you as long as I live. In your name, I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied with fat and rich food. My mouth will praise you with joyful lips when I remember you upon my bed and I meditate on you in the watches of the night.

For you have been my help. And in the shadow of your wings, I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you. Your right hand upholds me. Here we have David as king. He's committed adultery. He's had a man murdered. And now he's on the run, this time from his own son. Yet we see the hunger as strong as ever. David says, "God, I'm going to seek you first every day, desperately, like someone lost in a desert with no water. Your goodness in your presence is better to me than life itself.

In you alone, I am satisfied and I am made whole. I know that you have always been my help. So even now, I will rejoice. Someone needs to hear that. Even now, even now I will rejoice. David in those moments his faith was formed. So he's able to write while he's on the run again from Saul. He's living in the land of his enemies. In chapter 34, he's able to write, "I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

My soul makes boasts in the Lord. Let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord and he answered me and he delivered me from all of my fears. Those who look to him are radiant. Their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him. Oh, I said it earlier. There's some people here and you you may not be feeling what everybody around you seems to be feeling.

But what did David say? Let us magnify the Lord together. >> There is evidence here. There is evidence here that the that the spirit of God is here and that he wants to move. David goes on to write, "The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and he delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who have fear, for those who fear him have no lack.

The young lions suffer and they want and hunger. But those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. When you have hunger for the Lord, you find all that you need. Those who seek the Lord will not lack anything. We have a promise that we will always have what we need, but for some reason we always seem to satisfy our hunger in other things. We choose to satisfy our hunger in so many other ways. We choose to stay full and so that we can remain comfortable.

And it's it's it's there as I'm standing as full as I've ever been on that massive boat hearing Josiah say, "One thing I haven't been on this cruise is hungry." And in that moment, it all came full circle to me. When was the last time I was truly hungry for God? I mean, the kind of hunger that makes you get up in the middle of the night to talk to God. The kind of hunger that makes you lose sleep like David because walking with him early in the morning is more important.

The kind of hunger that's inconvenient enough to make me go to Monday prayer when I've been working all day. The kind of hunger that says, "I want to seek you first before anyone else, before anything else, no matter what's going on." It's the kind of mercy or the kind of the kind of uh uh hunger, the desire, the level of faith that makes a blind man cry out, "Jesus, >> son of David, have mercy on me." >> Pastor Brad talked about it. He mentioned it earlier.

The blind man's sitting there and he hears that Jesus is coming and he's desperate and he needs a change and he sees the opportunity. He has this hunger inside of him and he says, "Jesus, have mercy on me." And Jesus comes to him and he says, "What do you need? What do you want?" And he says, "I just want to see." And Jesus heals him. One thing I desire, that will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.

There's been so many times in my life where I haven't been hungry for God because I've ruined my appetite, snacking on junk, filling up with empty calories, things that give temporary feeling of fulfillment and false feeling of fullness, but it's not real. We fill up with junk, but soon that feeling comes back. So, we go for more empty calories and the cycle restarts. I can sit there an hour before dinner and I can eat a bag of chips and like I said, I I'm not half-hearted.

I'm going to finish the bag of chips and I ruin my appetite so that when dinner comes, I have no room or appetite for proper nourishment. I've let junk ruin my appetite just when the good stuff was coming. And if I'm honest, it's not really stuff that I even want, but it's just there, like that holiday buffet. So, I go back for seconds, thirds, even fourth, time and time again, going back to the same old junk because I've developed a hunger and cravings for empty and false things.

>> John would write it like this. Do not love the world nor the things it offers you. For when you love the world, you do not have the love of the father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see and pride in our own achievements and possessions. These are not from the father, but they are from the world. And this world is fading away along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.

Hear me today. Let the Lord be the only thing that satisfies your hunger. >> We need to get that David type desperation that says, "Lord, you are the one thing that I truly desire. When that becomes our driving force, God sees it. David was far from perfect. But he became a man after God's own heart. Because no matter what he did or no matter where he found himself, the one thing that he wanted more than anything else was relationship with God. And the beauty is that the more we want God, the more of himself he gives.

James tells us to draw close to God and he will draw close to us. Hebrews 11 tells us that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. And the more of God we get, the more of God we want. The more I get to know him, the more I want to know him. The psalmist would write in chapter 119, "My soul is consumed with longing for you at all times. Oh, how I love your law. I meditate on it all day long. I pent with expectation, longing for you and for your commands.

>> I'm consumed with longing for you at all times. I love you, Lord. I meditate on your law day and night. I pant. I'm desperate for it. I long with expectation for you and for your commands. I know we don't like feeling hungry. And so we don't allow it. We avoid it because it makes us uncomfortable. But how many times can we come into the presence of God with no appetite? Because all week long we've been filling up on junk. We miss out on all the good stuff he has in store for us because we are simply too full.

We consume all this other stuff and yet we still feel empty. Hear me clearly. It's all just junk food and it has lulled you into a false state of security. Meanwhile, your spirit is dying from malnourishment. You've been hungry for all of these other things. But I'm asking you today, when was the last time you were truly hungry for God? I mean, the kind of hunger that makes you get up in the middle of the night to spend time with him. The kind of hunger that makes you lose sleep like David did because walking early with him in the morning is more important.

The kind of hunger that's inconvenient. The kind of hunger that makes you say, "I want to seek you first before anyone else, before everything else, no matter what." When was the last time you were truly hungry for God? I believe there's hunger here today. We felt it. We've seen it. God's been moving and he's got more that he wants to do. He's got a complete work that he wants to do here. Everybody, let's stand. Let's stand. I'm bringing this to a close. I know it's easy to let the busyiness of life interrupt our time with God.

Especially during the holidays with the change of schedule, with the deviation from routine, it's easy to let spiritual disciplines slip. But there's a simple truth and it can make all of the difference. This past year, I taught a couple of Bible studies and the theme across the board was pretty similar. It's pretty consistent in each of them. Whether the individuals were struggling with understanding things in the word of God or they were struggling with changes in their own lives or in their own hearts. My goal was to help them understand that our primary focus should be on relationship with God.

The Bible isn't some crazy list of rules to limit what you can or what you get to do, but rather it's God giving us the blueprint to the best possible life with him. And when you understand that, you don't resent change, but you want to get rid of those things to please God. Maybe you're here this morning and all of this is kind of new to you. You're wondering and you're thinking, "This all sounds nice, but but what do I need to do? The Bible gives us some simple instructions in the book of Acts.

There were some men there and they had a similar question. They they said, "Well, what do we need to do regarding salvation?" Peter stands up and he says, "You need to repent. What's repentance? Your life is heading this direction. These are the choices you're making. This is how you're living." And you don't like it anymore. And you want to change. And repentance is turning away from all of that. and it's walking towards God. So Peter says you need to repent. Second step he gives is is you need to be baptized.

He says be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus for the remission of your sins. Now we baptize and we believe that that's that's being buried in the water. We do full submersion. That's how we do it here because that's how they did it in the Bible. We have several different instances and examples in which they did that and they baptized and they called the name of Jesus over them. And the last part he gives is a promise. He says that God will fill you with his spirit by evidence of speaking in tongues.

And there's examples of that all throughout the book of Acts. And we have people here if you're nervous. And if this is something that you're interested in, there's people here all throughout the room who are are willing to walk through that with you and pray with you at this altar in just a moment. I know it it may seem scary. It may sound intimidating, but when you're hungry for God, you do some drastic things. Hunger can be disruptive. It It can make you desperate. It can be uncomfortable, and it can be inconvenient.

It requires you to change some things about your current situation in order to survive. When you're hungry, when you're truly hungry, a survival mechanism kicks in and it makes you go for that one thing that's going to sustain you, that's going to bring you life and in substance. My prayer today is that we would all be able to start this year off with a hunger for God that will drive us all year long. And I wonder if that's your desire. I want to encourage you to step out from where you're at to leave your seat, to come down to this altar, to find a place of prayer and just begin to talk to God.

Lord, I want to hunger for you. I've let so many things get in the way time and time again. I've chosen the easy way. I've chosen junk. But Lord, renew a hunger in my heart today. Maybe you're tired of snacking on junk and you want a change. You want this year to be better than the last. Maybe it's been a while since you've truly been hungry for God. Lift your hands to him today and say, "One thing I desire that I'm going to seek. It's you, Lord.

I want to be with you. I want to dwell in your house. I want to know what you want to tell me. I want to know the plans you have for my life. One thing I desire more than anything else is to be with you, God. Maybe that desire is stronger than it's ever been for you. Maybe that hunger is strong today. Find someone and pray with them. Bring them down to this altar. Jesus, I pray that you'd give us that desire today. I pray that there would be a hunger in this house for you, stronger than there's ever been before.

God, I pray that you would meet us where we're at today. Yes, Lord. We're here to connect with you, but there's things that are weighing on our hearts. There's things that are weighing on our minds. There's a heaviness that's here today. But hear me. God is here. He sees you. He sees that hunger. He sees that brokenness. He sees your deepest desire. He knows you want to be with him. The more you want him, the more he'll give of himself to you. Pour out your heart today, God.

I give you my heart. I give you my life. If there's anything that's displeasing to you, God, I don't want it anymore. I don't want to be comfortable. I don't want to be content with where I'm at. But give me a hunger for you that will drive me. Give me a hunger for you, a desire to know you more than I've ever known, to learn your word, to study your word, to be able to bring others into your presence. >> >> Give me a heart and a willingness.

I need to go. Draw me close to you.