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Hungers of the Heart - Something To Believe In [3rd in 7 part series]
By Bob Chance | March 19, 2006
Dr. D. Robert Chance, Senior Minister
Hungers of the heart — growing closer in our daily walk with God. Today I speak of one of the most basic and fundamental hungers that we all feel — the need to believe in something beyond ourselves.
We all hunger for a closer walk with God.
We all hunger for a greater purpose for our life than day to day existence.
We all hunger for something to believe in beyond ourselves or the superficial things in life.
We all hunger for deeper connections — both with man and with people.
We all hunger healing for the hurts and aches of the heart.
We all hunger for peace and security.
We all hunger for certainty.
During the rest of the Sundays of Lent I invite you to turn toward the hungers of the heart that we all share in common. I believe that the heart hungers for, yearns for these fundamental needs that we all
feel. I know I certainly have each of these fundamental hungers of the heart. I know that as I have spent a life time being close to people, both inside the church and beyond the walls of the church that everyone I have ever known feels these hungers — to one degree or another.
God knows the hungers of our heart. God became one of us that he might know first hand those very hungers that we feel. Jesus hungered as we hunger. He hurt as we hurt. He felt as we felt. But, because he was God’s son, because he was the incarnation of God he rose above those hungers and he gives to all who walk with him, to all who know him, to all who love him and follow him the healing touch to our heart’s hungers. The more we get to know him, the more we learn to love him, the closer we walk with him on the daily roads of our life, the more our heart’s hungers are answered. To walk with Jesus is to have our hungers fed.
On the first Sunday of Lent I spoke of the hunger of the heart to be closer to God. I spoke of the importance of getting out of the daily traffic jams of life and spending some quiet time with our maker and renewing and refreshing our relationship with him. Last Sunday I spoke of the hunger of the heart to have a deeper meaning and purpose in our life than the daily struggle to survive. The more we align our purpose in life with God’s purposes the more our heart feels satisfied.
Today, we turn toward a third of the seven hungers of the heart — the hunger to have something to believe in beyond ourselves and much deeper than the day to day “little” things that we believe in but are not enough to sustain us.
Hungers of the Heart — Something greater and deeper to believe in.
BON JOVI LYRICS
“Something To Believe In”
I lost all faith in my God, in his religion too
I told the angels they could sing their songs to someone new
I lost all trust in my friends
I watched my heart turn to stone
I thought that I was left to walk this wicked world alone
Tonight I’ll dust myself off
Tonight I’ll suck my gut in
I’ll face the night and I’ll pretend
I got something to believe in
And I had lost touch with reason
I watched life criticize the truth
Been waiting for a miracle
I know you have too
Though I know I won’t win
I’ll take this one on the chin
We’ll raise a toast and I’ll pretend
I got something to believe in
If I don’t believe in Jesus, how can I believe the Pope
If I don’t believe in heroin, how can I believe in dope
If there’s nothing but survival, how can I believe in sin
In a world that gives you nothing
We need something to believe in
If I don’t believe in Jesus, how can I believe the Pope
If I don’t believe in heroin, how can I believe in dope
If there’s nothing but survival, how can I believe in sin
In a world that gives you nothing
We need something to believe in
Charles Spurgeon, the great English evangelist once said “Never preach your doubts — men have enough of their own”. So it is.
We all hunger for something beyond doubts,
Beyond superficiality,
Beyond ourselves,
Beyond the lesser things that while we believe in them we somehow know deep down in our hearts are not enough to sustain over the long haul of living.
I. We all believe in something — it’s just that if the something is less than God it will be never be enough.
What can we believe in today?
Our government?
Yeah, right. Patriotic soul that I am I cannot believe in government or even nation as the the ultimate belief upon which I lay my very soul.Creed?
No, we discovered a long time ago that no creed is worthy of my ultimate belief. Creeds are man’s poor attempt at reflecting the clarity of truth in the murkiness of man’s thoughts and even murkier words with which our thoughts are communicated. No, creed is a poor receipent of our ultimate belief.Religion?
I don’t think so. It is religion that has ultimately brought more death, more pain, more savagery upon the face of the earth than even nation or survival. Crusades, counter crusades, slaughter of the innocents, blood letting without end have been carried in the name of religion. No, religion is necessary but it is not the final end of our belief.People? Family? Friends?
When the day comes that your ultimate belief in life is family or friends or people you will inevitably discover at day’s end that you will come up short. I love my family, I love my friends, heck, for the most part I love people — but sooner or later, we move, or we die, or we part company. No, people can’t be the ultimate basis of our belief in life.
II. Yet, we all need something to believe in for our heart to feel satisfied.
We all need :
We all need need something to believe in beyond ourself.We all need something to believe in more lasting than the bricks and mortar of institutions.
We all need something to believe truly worthy of heart and soul.
We all need something to believe in to sustain us through the hard and painful times of life.
We all need something to believe in to which we can commit our very self.
We all need something to believe in that will provide a beacon of light for us to follow when the long night of the darkness of the soul sets in upon us — as it surely will throughout our life.
There is a real and growing crisis of unbelief in our society today.
There has been too much betrayal for us not
to notice.There is much unbelief.
There is much disbelief.
There is a widening stream of shallowness in and under and over and throughout society.
There is a lack of something and someone for people to believe in with all their heart and soul today that leaves many hungering for someone and something to truly place their faith in.
Without believing in something and someone beyond ourselves we :
Fail to live up to our calling in life.Become shallow and silly people.
Become cynical and disbelieving people.
Bitter and saddened people.
III. As we come closer to God in our life we gain something and indeed someone in whom we can believe. Belief in a loving and forgiving and caring God is ultimately what defines and sustains us.
Jesus said, “you believe in God, believe also in me”.
It was their belief in Jesus that redirected Peter and James and John’s lives.
It was her belief in Jesus that reshaped the life of the Samaritan women at the well.
It was his belief on the cross that gave eternal life to the thief on the cross.
It was his belief in Jesus that gave new life to Paul and he ended up taking that belief to the very ends of the world — that others might believe in Him as well.
It is our belief in Jesus that shapes us, guides us, defines our very being. Jenny Lewis, the young songwriter whose album inspired this series of sermons sings that “we become what we love”. I would say that in a very real sense we also become “what we believe in”. Believe in nothing we become nothing. Believe in evil and become evil. Believe in God and in man’s goodness and become people of goodness.
It is our belief in Jesus that sets the thermostats for our life.
Believing in Jesus sets the tone for our life.
Believing in Jesus gives warmth to life on the bitter cold nights of life’s winters.
Believing in Jesus sets the temperature of our soul.
It is our belief in Jesus that sustains us through the hurts, the pains, the losses of life.
When we believe in God we ultimately gain the strength to live our life with a sense of faith and victory. It’s not that we don’t doubt. We do. But it’s that our belief in God gives us strength when we are weak and there is no strength in ourselves or in those we love.It’s not that we don’t hurt like those who don’t believe — we do — but our belief in God helps to open us up to His healing touch.
When we believe in Jesus we believe in a God who :
Teaches us love, above hate.
Teaches us to give, rather than to just take.
Shows us how to be servants, rather than kings or queens.
Demands that we learn how to forgive others as we have been forgiven by him.
Somehow our very belief in God and Christ becomes the force that nurtures us, guides us, sustains us and gives meaning to life itself for us.
Our church has certain fundamental beliefs. Just as you hunger for something beyond yourself to believe in and what you believe in begins to shape and define you we are shaped and defined in by we believe in.
We believe in each person’s right to believe for themselves — and so we have no creed but Christ.
We believe in all churches valuing and respecting that there are many approaches to faith and so Christian unity as our polar star.
We believe in the priesthood of all believers and so each member is expected to care for, pray for and be a priest to other members.
We believe in the primacy of the Bible as our guide and so we do our very best to teach and follow biblical principles.
We believe in each congregation managing it’s own life and so we are congregational.
Just as your beliefs shape you our beliefs shape us.
The beliefs that have filled the hungers of my own heart have shaped and guided me throughout my life.
I believe in a God who loves and calls me to grow in my ability to love.
I believe in a God who forgives and calls me to forgive as I have been forgiven.
I believe in a God who leads me in my daily life.
I believe in a God who blesses me and wants me to be a blessing to others.
I believe in a God who is best understood in the person of Jesus of Nazareth and who wants me to do as he did and be as he called me to be.I believe in the church.
I know the church to be flawed — as I am flawed but it is the best we can do and be.
I believe in the church being the hub of the wheel in my life.
I believe in being commmited to the church with my time, my gifts, my money and most of all my heart.
I believe in worship as the place to celebrate God’s presence in my life and be challenged to become a better person.
I believe in giving and serving through the church.
I believe in being a part of the church as community.We all have a fundamental hunger in our heart to believe in something beyond ourselves.
What do you believe in?
Closing,
I did a “Google” on the words “something to believe in”. In 6.6 seconds I got back 278,000,000.00 hits. Do you think we might be on to something here? Duh?
So what do you believe in?
Yourself — your God is too small.
Other people — you will be ultimately disappointed — or one day left alone.
Systems — all systems ultimately are destined to fail.
Nation - we should all love our country and be grateful to be Americans but we cannot worship nation.Anything you name or I name other than God will not and cannot
Sustain us when we are empty :
Guide us when we are lost :
Shape us beyond ourselves:
Love us into becoming more loving :
Save us from empty and hollow living.
We all share a fundamental hunger of the heart to believe in something beyond ourself, something greater than idea man ever conceived, someone to love us and care for us, and something and someone to define who we are — and the ultimate satisfaction to that hunger is found in God.
May you have a deep and abiding faith in God and in Jesus in order to sustain you through all the days of your life.
May you help others find a deep and abiding faith in God and Jesus to sustain them through all the days of their life.
And may God bless you as you find satisfaction for the great hungers of your heart.
Amen
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