In 1965 the Rolling Stones released
the single “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” In 2004 Rolling Stone Magazine placed
the song in the number two spot of the 500 Greatest Songs of all time. Since that time covers of the song have been
done by eight different artists, the most recent being a cover by Brittany
Spears in 2000.[1] This notion of being unable to find
satisfaction in life has existed from the beginning of time when Adam and Eve
were not satisfied with being unable to eat the forbidden fruit. There can always be something better. A quick search of the phrase “not satisfied
with my life” yielded 4,320,000 results.
Do any of these sound familiar?
I feel like I am
always relying on someone or something to make me happy and I am constantly
disappointed. I thought having a six pack would bring me happiness and body
peace, while it did not. I know people say clothes and material items don’t
bring happiness, but it strangely has for me, I guess by just making me feel
more confident and able to express my individuality. I keep hoping the guy I
speak to is the same guy I loved years ago, just to find out that he is not. I
feel so lonely; my friends all turned against me because they decided to party
and drink while I chose to abstain. I feel like I will never be happy. I feel
like I can’t take a hold of my life and control my happiness. I have no one to
spend time with. My life seems to revolve around a hope for a better, happier
future. I feel like I am living with my future happiness and not now. I want to
feel happiness, but I don’t know how.[2]
It doesn't matter what I do, where I go, or where life takes
me ... I am never happy. What else is there to say? Nothing is ever quite right
or good enough for me, including myself. There's always something wrong with my
job, my house, my friends, my religion, my finances, my yard, my health, etc.
The grass is ALWAYS greener on the other side, and I spend ALL of my time
trying to get to the other side.[3]
We
live in a world where advertisements are always luring us to the next best
greatest thing to improve our lives and give us satisfaction. Yet songs like I can’t get no satisfaction
are number one hits because the products, the stuff, the things and the people
in our lives fail to deliver on their promises.
We fill our lives and our calendars and our homes full of stuff, yet we
are still not satisfied. The disciples
in our story today were no different.
They too were seeking for satisfaction in all the wrong places and Jesus
is there to give them the gift of where the true source of our satisfaction
comes from. In fact both our Old Testament
and our New Testament passages of scripture this morning point us to the source
of satisfaction. It gives us the answer
to the age old complaint that we can’t get no satisfaction.
The Exodus story is set in the
wilderness, after the Israelites have been delivered from Egypt and are
traveling through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land of Canaan. There was enough time between
their time in Egypt and the present for them to forget the misery they had
fled. They were hungry and remembering,
not the back breaking labor, the slavery, and the maltreatment they had endured
and fled from, but the pots of meat they sat around and ate from. They grumbled to Moses. They accused him of bringing them into the
desert to die. Surely this is not what
salvation is like.
God heard their complaints and gave
Moses a message that God would satisfy their hunger. He promised to provide daily bread for them,
“rained down from heaven.” There was a
catch though. This is our first clue about being truly satisfied. God told Moses that they were to only gather
enough food for that day. They were not
to store up the bread that he provided.
The only time they were to gather more than that days’ worth of bread
was on the 6th day when they were instructed to gather two days’
worth so they would not have to gather on the Sabbath. What happened if they gathered more? It spoiled, it would be no good to them the
next day. Satisfaction was not
equivalent to storing up stuff.
Satisfaction came from God and came by living in the present moment and
depending on God to provide for the needs of the day.
Fast forwarding to our focal passage
in the book of John we must understand the back story leading up to the
scripture we have heard this morning.
Jesus had just performed the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. Again, who was the source of the satisfaction
of the hunger of the crowd that day? It
was Jesus. Who is Jesus? God.
Who is the source of our satisfaction, God.
Moving on, John then records the
miracle of Jesus walking on water. The
disciples in the boat were amazed. When
the boat came to shore the crowd was looking for Jesus and when they found him
there was an exchange between Jesus and the crowd. Jesus tells them they aren’t looking for him
because of the miraculous signs but because he had fed them. He tells them that they should not work for
food that spoils but for food that endures and he identifies that as the food
that leads to eternal life. Where does
he say this comes from? It comes from
“the Son of Man.” Who is the son of Man?
The message translates that phrase as the human one. God made flesh in Jesus Christ. He tells them “the work of God is this: to believe in the one God has sent, to
believe in Jesus. To believe is to
trust. We are to trust God for our
satisfaction.
Here is where you are going to hear
something very familiar. The crowd has
already witnessed miraculous signs but that is not enough for them. They asked Jesus: “What miraculous sign then will you give that
we may see and believe you!” They then
reference the provision of the Manna in the time of Moses. What they had
already seen and experienced was not enough.
They make a comparison to another place and another time and they want that miracle. Moses gave us manna, what are you going to
give us. Jesus reminds that that Moses is not the one that gave them the bread
from heaven but it was God. Who provides
the satisfaction? God. It is not what but who! The people respond: “this is the bread we want, give us that
bread.” Then comes the “I Am” statement
for the day. Jesus says “I am the bread
of life. He who comes to me will never
go hungry, he who believes in me will never go thirsty. Who gives us satisfaction? Who is the source? It is Jesus.
The crowd didn’t need more miraculous signs. They had already seen and experienced the
signs and that did not lead to their belief.
What would the result be of Jesus giving them what they asked for?
There is a scene in the movie BruceAlmighty that illustrates this well.[4] In this movie the main character, played by
Jim Carey, had been complaining much about God.
As a result he is given divine powers to show him just how hard it is to
control the world. There is a scene in
the movie in which Bruce is trying to figure out how to handle prayer
requests. Going through several ideas
from filing cabinets to post it notes, he settles on using an email program to
handle the influx of prayer requests.
This did not prove to be any easier.
The requests just kept pouring in.
Finally, he makes the decision to answer all requests at once with the
word yes as he says, “there that should make everybody happy.” However, the next day, while some people got
very rich and wealthy and were happy, there was also an influx of catastrophes
around the world resulting from that yes.
Sometimes a yes is not what is best for us. It does not truly bring us satisfaction. It is like the Garth Brooks song says
“sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.
There are times when what we ask for, what we beg for, is not what is in
our best interest. Our satisfaction
doesn’t come from a God who says yes to everything. Our satisfaction comes from trusting and
believing in a God who is ever present with us and knows what is best for
us.
It is interesting to me that in both
the Old Testament story and the New Testament story hunger is the center of the
story. What does this tell us about the
power of hunger? What is it that you
hunger for? What is the fullness you are
chasing after? Do any of these phrases
sound familiar? “If only my spouse would
come home from work on time every day, then I would be happy.” If only I had 100.00 dollars a month more,
then I would feel secure.” “If only I
could have a house with one more bedroom than I currently have, I would be
content.” If only I could have the next
model of car up…..and the list could go on.
What is your “if only” statement?
Here is the thing. When we live
life chasing the “if only” we miss out on the gifts of the present moment. Instead of living life, we spend our life
chasing things.
This notion of being satisfied with
the present is something I have personally been under conviction about in the
last several months. I find myself
thinking more about what I want than what I have in the area of relationships,
in the area of finances and in the area of health. My personal devotional life has led me to
understand that today is a gift and it is a gift that holds many gifts. I have discovered that Yes, the source of
satisfaction comes from my relationship with Jesus and from recognizing the
presence of God in every moment of my life.
While I believe this to be true, it takes intentional practice to live
into this belief.
How do we get to that place where we
discover Jesus as the source of satisfaction?
In the book that provides the foundation for this series, The God We Can Know, Rob Fuquay offers
three practices that can help us to get to this place.[5] As
we continue into this Lenten season of preparation I would encourage you to
consider taking up one or more of these practices.
The first practice is fasting. Fasting can be abstaining from anything that
has the potential for unhealthy control over us. It can be food, it can be technology, it can
be spending money. Rob states that the
most effective way to determine what it is you would fast from is to ask
yourself what the hardest thing for you to go without is. Fasting can be a continuous thing or it can
be for specific times of the week or the day.
I have one pastor colleague who only eats one meal on Thursdays. He fasts from the time he wakes up until
dinner time and then he eats a very simple meal for dinner on that day. Rob lists several reasons fasting can be a
beneficial spiritual practice. First,
“the discomfort of going without something we enjoy is meant to be a routine
way of recalling the suffering of Christ on our behalf.” Rob reminds us that John Wesley fasted
“because of the way it opened him to the power of God.” Also, when we fast we open up room for other
things. Rob states that “in skipping a
meal we make time to pray or serve. In
shutting off technology we are more available to family and friends.” One lady I know practices disconnecting on
Sundays. Saturday night, before she goes
to sleep, she literally deletes all social media apps from her phone so that
she is not even tempted to get sucked into social media on that day. She reserves “Sondays” to be unplugged from the world and be exclusively plugged
into her face to face relationships. If
we fast from certain spending habits we make room to have more to give
away. Finally, we fast as a way of
self-denial. We deny ourselves so that
our appetites don’t consume us.
Another practice Rob encourages is
the practice of “moving from expecting to accepting.” This is the practice that I have been
focusing on for the last several weeks.
This is the practice of “learning to accept what God puts in front of us
each day.” This practice leads us to a
different way of praying. There was a
song that was popular on the Christian charts back in the late 80s called thenever ending shopping list by songwriter Larry Bryant. In the song he starts out thanking God for
his blessings in a short “thank you God for my blessings” sentence. He then goes on to list all the things he
wants. The chorus of the song says “GIVE
ME THIS, I WANT THAT BLESS ME LORD I PRAY, GRANT ME WHAT I THINK I NEED TO MAKE
IT THROUGH THE DAY. MAKE ME WEALTHY, KEEP ME HEALTHY, FILL IN WHAT I MISSED. ON
MY NEVER-ENDING SHOPPING LIST.”[6] Throughout the song he
lists all the things he wants like white teeth, a different smile, and a brand
new car. It is an exaggeration of what
our prayers might be like but I suspect that many of us have had moments where
our prayers turn into a Santa clause type wish list for God. When we are concentrating on accepting what
God puts in front of us each day, on living in the gift of the present our
prayers change. “Real satisfaction comes
when we pray “Lord thank you for what is being set before me today. Help me to recognize and enjoy the special
blessings you will offer me. I am going
to choose to be thankful.” Perhaps you,
like me, need to find the satisfaction of the present and the presence of God
that we can find within the present moment.
A final practice of satisfaction Rob
suggests is “focusing on making others full instead of making yourself
full.” He closes the chapter with this
paragraph: “We discover the value of the
journey when we make Christ our sustenance.
When Jesus is my bread of life, I can let go of that need to get all I
can for myself and have life my way. I
am free to give and share and enjoy. I
can say to God. Lord, you’ve already given me what I need for satisfaction, so
I’m just going to enjoy it and look for ways to share it.”
“I am the Bread of Life.” That is the “I Am” statement for this
week. Can you see Jesus as the source of
satisfaction? Can you commit today to
live in the present and enjoy the moments that God has gifted us with. Can you place your trust in God to provide
for your daily needs? Can you find
satisfaction in your relationship with Jesus Christ? Can we turn the statement I can’t get no
satisfaction, into the declaration that I believe in the power and presence of
Jesus Christ to sustain me and bring peace into my life? In the name of the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit-the source of our satisfaction.
Amen.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%28I_Can't_Get_No%29_Satisfaction
[4] The
Idea for this illustration came from http://robfuquay.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Sermon-Guidelines-Week-1-7.pdf,
last accessed 2/23/2016.
[5]
Fuquay, Rob, The God We Can Know, Exploring
the “I Am” Sayings of Jesus, (Nashville, Upper Room Books, 2014) pp.
32-36 (The remainder of this sermon is
either a paraphrase or direct quotes from this book. This entire sermon is based on the reading of
Chapter 2 of this book: “I Am The
Bread of Life”-Knowing God’s Satisfaction-pp 25-37
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