A Holy Longing - Part 1

 

Last Sunday, Pastor Kyle at our local church in Anaheim, California USA preached a sermon on “longing” (the mindset of earnestly desiring; having a craving or preternatural appetite) from Romans 1:8-16. He stated that in life, we live in a constant state of longing because there is an incompleteness in just about everything that happens on this side of Heaven. Some longings are good, like longing for God, for becoming a better person, or being a good spouse and parent. Irresponsible longings have been described as an unquenchable hunger, a ravenous itch, insatiable unfullfillment or unappeasable discontentment. In the words of that great philosopher Mick Jaggar, “I can’t get no satisfaction”. Life always feels incomplete when we live for the longing, not the fulfillment.

Romans 1:8-16 “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers, making request if, by some means, now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established—that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. Now I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you (but was hindered until now), that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles. I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise. So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.”

For those who live in a lifestyle of never-ending secular flesh desires and constant psychological longing, lacking the peace of contentment, it is like climbing a mountain to find that there is another mountain over and over again and can lead to fatalism (giving up/unfruitful). In Ecclesiastes 1:14 ,Israel’s wise King Solomon said of this irresponsible lifestyle of longing (which he experienced firsthand), stating: “I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity, a futile grasping and chasing after the wind.” The chase may be the goal, not the object of the chase or the actual getting of the object. There is always more to desire and chase.

And in the parable of the Sower in Matthew 13:20-22, the Lord Jesus describes this “rat race” lifestyle as: “he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.” It is not so much what we long for, as why we long for them that is the problematic issue. The gnawing sense of incompleteness and unfullfillment in continual longings

Fatalism says that there is no point to any longings on this side of eternity because it is not going to lead to a sense of fulfillness anyway. It says that nothing is worth the effort. Do not buy into any of this rhetoric. Christians know what existential secular hedonists don’t. This world is not heaven. So, for the Christian, this life is as close to Hell as they will ever get. Sadly, for those who choose not to know of follow Jesus Christ, the Lord of all and Savior of this fallen world, this is as close to Heaven as they will ever get. From a biblical perspective, every earthly longing will not be completely fulfilling and we hunger again for more.

I fear that we are becoming a generation of Christians that are losing their sense of holy longing. We believe in God and try to obey His Holy Word found in the Bible to the best that we can, but we are floating through life with the same gnawing sense of unfullfillment that everyone else in the world has and abandoning God’s great holy longing for Him, His Word, His Commandments and the desire to seek and save the lost neighbors and friends beside you.  

Let's continue pastor Kyle's message on having a holy longing in the next post. 

In Christ, Brian