Tag: satisfaction

Published February 10, 2020

Cravings

What are some of the strangest foods that you crave? What odd acquired tastes do you have? Are there things that you absolutely love – but everyone else thinks you’re crazy for eating that stuff? What strange foods do you crave?

Isn’t it strange how we can grow love certain foods that other people couldn’t imagine eating – let alone enjoy eating! But yet, somehow, somewhere along the line, for some reason, we grew to love it! Maybe at some point, we tried it for the first time, then we tried it again, then we tried it again, and before too long, we decided that we really like it! And now, we crave that food! We seek it out! It’s like we’ve trained our tastebuds to love that food!

And I was just wondering this week, I wonder if you could do that with any food? Can you train your tastebuds to love any food – even a food that you maybe hate right now? For example, I really don’t care for mustard at all – but I wonder if I had a taste of mustard every week for a year – would I grow to enjoy mustard? Would I even grow to crave mustard? I don’t know – maybe!

But most of you know how adventurous I am with food, so of course, this is not an experiment that I would ever try – but if one of you want to try it, I’d sure be interested in hearing your results.

But I bring all this up because in our passage today, Peter talks a little bit about our cravings. Not our cravings for coffee or mustard or hot peppers or anything like that, but our cravings for something much more significant.

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Published March 19, 2018

The Origin of Death

Last week we began a new Easter sermon series entitled “No Pain – No Gain: Why Easter Matters”. And we started off illustrating the principle of no pain – no gain as we talked about how our muscles grow. We had Jake & Micah up here straining their muscles as we talked about how it takes the pain of tearing those muscle fibers in our bodies order for our bodies to repair the damage and make the muscles stronger than they were before. That’s how muscles grow.

But our purpose wasn’t to talk about body-building. There is a spiritual truth that we wanted to discover. Somehow all this talk of straining our muscles in order to grow strong, somehow that ties in with the meaning of Easter – believe it or not. And though we haven’t fully laid that all out yet, last Sunday we tried to define the gain that we’re talking about in this catch phrase “no pain, no gain”.

Of course, we’re not trying to gain muscles in this instance, but rather the gain that we’re after is something that every person on the planet wants – it’s that sense of deep, inner satisfaction in life that seems so elusive for so many of us.

We talked about how Solomon tried to find satisfaction in all kinds of ways. He looked for satisfaction in wealth, power, hard work, women, pleasure – but he found it all to be meaningless. Nothing gave him true, lasting satisfaction.

The Rolling Stones echoed that sentiment. They couldn’t get no satisfaction either – even though they tried and they tried and they tried and they tried. They just couldn’t get no satisfaction.

And I think most of us, if we’re honest with ourselves – would have to agree that money, fame, pleasure, power and all those things we chase after – while they may be pretty exciting for awhile – none of them give us deep, lasting satisfaction.

And we got a hint of why that is in Ecclesiastes 3:11 – which says..

[God] has planted eternity in the human heart. Ecclesiastes 3:11

In other words, there is this built-in awareness that there is more to life than the here and now. We exist for a much more significant purpose than to just gather wealth, power, and prestige for the 80 years we live on this planet.

God has created within each of us with a deep inner longing to fulfill out our eternal purpose. And until we discover and live out that purpose, every person on earth has this inner feeling that something is missing in their life. And all of us try to find that missing thing just like Solomon did. We chase wealth, power, pleasure, control, or whatever else that we think will fill that need… But something is always lacking. Like the Rolling Stones lament, we can’t get no satisfaction in those things. Because true satisfaction is only found when fulfill our eternal purpose.

And the Bible tells us that we are created and designed to be connected with our Creator – to have a genuine, loving relationship with Him. That’s what we’re created for. That’s our eternal purpose – to be unconditionally loved, to be accepted and embraced by our Creator, and to live in loving community with Him. That’s our purpose. That’s when we find real, lasting satisfaction.

This is the only thing worth gaining. Because everything else is temporary. We compared our life to the game of monopoly – when the game is over, it all goes back in the box. When our life here on earth is over, none of our wealth, the pleasure we’ve enjoyed, or our great achievements – none of that matters. All that matters then, is our relationship with our Creator.

And we closed last Sunday with a good news/bad news. The good news of course, is that God wants us to find satisfaction. He’s not out out trying to make your life miserable or difficult – but He wants you to find ultimate satisfaction in Him. He wants you to have true joy and delight – not just temporary pleasure. It pains God to see us settle for just a few fleeting moments of fun and pleasure here on earth – while missing out on an eternity of joy and delight with Him.

And that leads us into the bad news. And we didn’t have the time to talk about this last week, but talk about it we must.

Even though life with God is what we are created for and we simply cannot find satisfaction in any other way – most people will never know that satisfaction. By default, there is a barrier that keeps us from that satisfaction. It’s not an impassible barrier, (as we’re going to find out next week) – but it is the one thing that keeps us from fully realizing the satisfaction and joy and delight that God created us for.

So to understand this barrier that keeps us from the satisfaction that we were created to enjoy, I want to take us right back to the beginning of time – back before this barrier existed.

The Bible opens with a brief account of Creation. We certainly don’t get all the details, but it includes enough to give us a vivid picture of what life on earth was like for the very first humans – who were of course, Adam & Eve.

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Published March 13, 2018

Finding Satisfaction

I think I’ve mentioned before that when Heather & I were first married, I spent one spring working out at the Meadowbrook greenhouse just west of Penhold here. For the first two weeks of that job, when I came home from work at night, my body was sore. I was just carrying around these fairly light trays of plants, but I was using muscles that I didn’t usually use – straining them beyond their usual capabilities. But after about two weeks, I wasn’t really sore anymore. My body repaired the damage done and built up my muscles so they could handle that strain without issue.

And this is exact where this saying of “no pain – no gain” comes from. Without the pain that comes from straining your muscles, you will have no gain in strength. And so we often do this on purpose – (well, some people do). We call this exercise – or working-out. We purposely bring on this pain in our muscles so that we can grow in strength. A certain amount of pain is required if you want to gain muscle.

Well over the next few weeks, I want to use this catch phrase of ‘no pain, no gain’ as a way to remind us of what Easter is all about. At this time of year, most North Americans start thinking about eggs, bunnies, and chocolate – but of course, there is much more to Easter than that. And so over these next few weeks, I want to talk about what Easter is all about and why Easter matters. And I’ve titled this series “No Pain – No Gain.” Because this principle is true not just when it comes to our building our muscles – but it’s true when it comes to understanding the significance of Easter.

So the two big ideas I want to tackle over the next couple of weeks is the idea of pain and the idea of gain. I imagine most of you didn’t come here today to learn about body-building, so what is the ‘gain’ that we are looking for (if we’re not talking about gaining muscles) – and what is the ‘pain’ that leads to that gain? And of course, how does that all tie into Easter?

Well, let’s start by defining the ‘gain’ – that’ll be our focus for today.

And to do that, I want to start by taking a brief look in Ecclesiastes. Now Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon and for much of the book, he writes about all the things that he tried to do to find meaning in life. Now keep in mind that King Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived.

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Published March 25, 2013

The Substitute

Last week we began a new Easter sermon series entitled “No Pain – No Gain: Why Easter Matters”. And we started off illustrating the principle of no pain – no gain as we talked about how our muscles grow. We had Morgan up here straining his muscles as we talked about how it takes the pain of tearing the muscle fibers in our bodies order for our bodies to repair the damage and make the even muscles stronger than they were before.

In fact I was reading last week that when you are born, you already have all the muscles that you will ever have. The big bulging biceps you have now are a result of that little baby’s muscle being damaged and repaired, damaged and repaired, time and time again. Without the pain of damaging those muscles, you would have no gain in strength. You’d still be as weak as you were when you were a baby. No pain – no gain.

But our purpose wasn’t to talk about body-building. There is a spiritual truth that we wanted to discover. The gain that we are after is not muscles, but rather that inner satisfaction in life that seems so elusive for so many of us.

We talked about how Solomon tried to find satisfaction in all kinds of ways. He looked for satisfaction in wealth, power, hard work, women, pleasure – but it found it all to be meaningless. Nothing gave him true satisfaction.

And we discovered that the reason for this is that God has created each of us with a deep inner longing to be connected with our Creator. Every person on earth has this inner feeling that something is missing in their life. And all of us try to find that missing thing just like Solomon did. But, like the Rolling Stones lament, we can’t get no satisfaction. Because true satisfaction is only found when we are connected with our Creator – when we have a genuine relationship with Him. That’s when we find satisfaction.

Unfortunately, this one thing that is worth gaining is effectively keep from us by sin. We talked about how Adam & Eve – though they were once fully satisfied in their connection with each other and with God – they sinned. And the immediate consequences of their sin was separation. Separation from God and and from each other. Because that’s the nature of sin. It separates. It creates distance between. It severs our relationships.

And because all of us have sin in our life – we are all missing the one thing that we were created for – we’re missing that connection, that relationship, with our Creator. We’re missing the one thing that can bring us true satisfaction.

So what do we do? Is there any way to gain that connection, that relationship, that satisfaction that we so desperately long for? There is, and that’s what we’re going to look at today.

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Published March 22, 2013

Chasing Satisfaction

Most of you have heard the expression, “no pain – no gain”. Well, today we are going to see why that is true. I have a volunteer who is simply going to hold up these two pitchers of water at shoulder’s height.

As our volunteer is holding up these pitchers of water, his arm muscles are being strained. They don’t usually do this sort of exercise. And as time goes on, what’s happening – as those muscles are being pushed beyond their usual limits – the muscle fibers are actually being damaged. There are tiny tears that are forming. The muscles are literally breaking apart. But don’t worry – that’s perfectly fine. Because God has designed muscles to do exactly that.

I’m actually doing our volunteer a favour by having him hold those jugs of water up, because once his muscles have been damaged by the stress of holding up that water – once the tiny tears in your muscle fibers have formed – over the course of the next 3 to 4 days, his body will repair the damage – and in fact, his body will go overboard and make his muscles even better than they were before. They don’t want to get damaged again, so his body will build up the muscles stronger than they were before – strong enough to handle this kind of strain without being damaged. This is how muscles grow.

Now of course, the negative side to all this, is that damaging your muscles is uncomfortable. It’s not pleasant to tear your muscle fibers. There is going to be a measure of pain involved.

I remember when I started working at a greenhouse out by Penhold about 10 years ago. For the first two weeks of that job, when I came home from work at night, my body was sore. I was using muscles that I didn’t usually use – straining them beyond their usual capabilities. There was certainly pain involved – but after about two weeks, I wasn’t really sore anymore. My body repaired the damage done and built up my muscles so they could handle that strain without issue.

And this is exact where this concept of “no pain – no gain” comes from. Without the pain that comes from damaging your muscles, you will have no gain in strength. We call this exercise – or working-out. We purposely injure our muscles so that we can grow in strength. A certain amount of pain is required if you want to gain muscle.

And the reason that I bring this all up, is because the Bible teaches a similar concept. Over these next few weeks leading into Easter, our topic is going to be “no pain – no gain. Why Easter matters.” Because the principle of “no pain – no gain” is true not just in the physical realm – but it’s also true in the spiritual.

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