Thirsty?

Here is the first of the sermons I preached in Peru. Hope you enjoy!


I hope that everyone is having a great week (end) so far. It has been
a blessing, and I am looking forward to seeing what God has in store
for all of us this week. I wanted to talk tonight about a particular
passage of scripture that God has made close to my heart.

Psalm 42:1-2 says “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul
pants for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?” Tonight, I want to break down how
this is applicable for all of us – Christians and non-Christians
alike.

We’ll start with our lives before we met Christ. Our lives seemed
alright. We did not realize the need we had. Our vision was cloudy and
our hearts did the best they could to fill their desire. Jeremiah 2:13
says “My people have committed two sins: they have forsaken me, the
spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken
cisterns that cannot hold water.” This was how the Lord described his
own people – people who had forsaken him and went to desires that
could not fulfill them. Does that describe your life before God?
Trying to fill the void that left your soul parched and aching? Did
you distance yourself, or even reject, the God that could quench your
thirst? That can be a dangerous and frightening concept if we grasp
it. In Jeremiah 6:10 it says “Their ears are closed so they cannot
hear. The word of the LORD is offensive to them. They find no pleasure
in it.” We didn’t want what God was offering to us. We chose to fill
those needs elsewhere, and only ended up more parched than before. We
did not know how bad of shape we were in, and turned away the one
person which could help us. Thankfully, God, as 2 Corinthians 4:6
says, “made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the
knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.” Our sinful
nature would not want us to turn towards God and satisfy the longing
of our souls. But God, in his mercy, chose us. We are dependent on God
to open our eyes to our need, and thankfully he does just that. When
we realize this we can sate our thirst with the water Jesus speaks of
in John 4:14 - The water of eternal life.

So we see how our soul is literally dying of thirst, without our
knowledge, unless God opens our eyes to our need. So what does that
mean for the follower of Christ? Our souls still ache to be filled by
the water. Psalm 84:2 says “My souls yearns, even faints, for the
courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”
So we see here, and in Psalm 42 that we read earlier, that our souls
cries out and aches for God. But why?

We see countless times throughout the Bible that God will help our
souls when they call out to him. In Psalm 23:3, it says that ‘he
refreshes my soul’. In Psalm 55:22, it says ‘Cast your burden upon the
Lord and he will sustain you.’ In Isaiah 41:10, I says “Fear not, for
I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen
you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
In 2 Timothy 4:17, it says “But the Lord stood at my side and gave me
strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and
al the Gentiles might hear it.” Our God loves when we call to him and
rely on Him instead of trying on our own. Is it really that shocking
to us then that our souls call out for more of Him? Strengthens us,
refreshes us, upholds us, calms our fears, sustains us – these are
powerful promises.

And I’ll give you my example. I am not the best public speaker. It’s
shocking, I know. I get nervous in front of crowds. My flesh fails me.
But God uses that opportunity for his glory. He uses the fact that I
have to rely on Him to speak to further his Kingdom and make his glory
known. Because anyone who knows me knows that it’s not me up here
speaking. It is him. My flesh would have me sit back down in fear,
afraid of embarrassing myself, or saying something that is biblically
incorrect. But God gets all the glory when I stand up and his word is
proclaimed – because I cannot do it in my own strength. As Matthew
26:41 says, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

The Gospel is proclaimed when we try and satisfy our souls with Christ
because no matter how much of Him we put in our lives, we will
continue to want more. As we draw closer to him, we want more of him.
And when we get to Heaven, will our souls finally grow satisfied and
our thirst finally be quenched? Pastor John Piper had this to say
about our desire only increasing once we get to Heaven and are able to
spend eternity with our Lord and Savior: “It will take an infinite
number of ages for God to be done glorifying the wealth of his grace
to us - which is to say he will never be done. And our joy will
increase forever and ever. Boredom is absolutely excluded in the
presence of an infinitely glorious God.” So the desire of our souls,
God, will never grow old and never cease to satisfy? AMEN! We can
only hope and pray that this is true. It is my prayer that our souls
never cease thirsting for Jesus Christ!