This message was posted last summer, and received quite a bit of push back. Let me know your comments
At some point, you will feel it. It is an ache, a stirring, a longing, or a dull, chronic nagging. “What is it? You say.”
What that uncomfortable feeling is, is deeply embedded in your DNA, a desire for your life to matter. For your life to comprise of more than just survival, success, or day-to-day existence. It is part of how we were created in the image of God. That desire to matter takes on two manifestations. One is that we all want to be known and loved by someone. The second is we all, deep down, want to have a life of significance – a life that when it ends, actually meant something to someone else.
Oh yes – we deal with these two desires in so many misdirected ways, that I can’t even begin to list them all. Usually, we scheme ourselves to try and become successful or to be noticed and loved by someone. Sometimes the things we give ourselves to are actually damaging to us or others around us. But we continue on, seeking to solve that ache with SOMETHING. “Please let this relationship be the one that works and doesn’t end up hurting so much…” “Please let this indulgence or usage of a substance be the one that quiets the churning, or eases the pain… ” “Please let this promotion, that I worked so hard for, be the one where I’m finally recognized for who I am and what I can do….” “Please let this cause that I’m giving myself to be the one that satisfies my longing to make a difference…” But yet, in all of those things, deep down, the ache is still there.
You see, we are not made to solve this problem by ourselves. The deep-seated desire of our hearts to be known and loved, and to have a life that leaves a mark on this Earth, actually comes from our image-bearing DNA. Image bearing of God almighty. God knows that, apart from a relationship with Him, we will always feel that ache and have that nagging sense of “un-ness”. You know: unfulfilled, unsatisfied, unloved, unknown, unimportant, unliked, unsuccessful, unable, – “un-ness” disease, that we all suffer from apart from God.
The good news of the Gospel is this though: While we are unable to solve this problem ourselves, God the Father had a plan all along. Through Jesus Christ, your identity – your created, true identity, is waiting to be bestowed upon you. There is intent, from the Father, and your creator, that is waiting to be unlocked. The design of you ALWAYS has included you, in Christ, adopted into the family of the Father, and filled with the Holy Spirit. It always has been your design to be that way. In fact, without it, YOU ARE INCOMPLETE. There is no amount of success, accomplishment, accolades, sex, indulgence, money, love, or any other thing that will complete you apart from accepting the sacrifice of Jesus on your behalf, and believing that He was resurrected in power. First and foremost, you have to start there. “Oh – I did that long ago, Norm…. But I still feel the ache, I still have the longing…. Accepting Jesus was fine, but it didn’t do anything for that ache, except maybe the first few days… where I felt lighter than air….” If you say that, I would reply – “Good, then you are precisely in the right spot for God now to move”
What we all need to understand is this: Our inability to solve the ache/longing/desire problem by ourselves does not go away once we accept Christ as Savior and Lord. It continues. So – even as Christians, we can go right back to trying to address it with our own means. We can even infuse those means now with God flavoring. We can drive right back to solving the ache by trying to be a successful Christian, trying to be loved by God, trying to please Him, and make him satisfied with us. We can build huge ministries, preach a gospel to thousands, create huge organizations, travel all across the World as a missionary, all in search of solving the ache. But you know what – at the end of our life, when we stand before our Maker, it can all amount to nothing. “Why?” You say. Because, instead of recognizing that it is the work of the Holy Spirit through you, and it is the following of His leading in your life that really matters, you can get yourself caught up in thinking that fame, accomplishment, success, notoriety, satisfaction, is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. If you believe this, you will build a life on a foundation that is not going to last. It will amount to nothing. Even if you become the wealthiest person in the world or the most successful pastor in the city, the work that is done in your own effort and old self will amount to nothing. This type of approach to the Christian life is immature, and so in need of addressing.
The apostle Paul knew these truths and wrote to the church in Corinth. He was writing to Christians – in fact, referred to them as “Brothers and Sisters” He wasn’t writing to people who had not yet believed the Gospel. No, he was writing to people just like you and me. People who, once we accept Christ, are still in need of teaching to walk in the fullness of God’s design for us. The church in Corinth was caught up in preference polling about which superstar preacher was the one to follow. They also had forgotten the foundational truth of walking daily in the empowering of the Holy Spirit as the basis for everything they do. Instead, they had begun to build their lives on their own efforts again. It is a common temptation that we all can fall into. Thinking that somehow, different roles in the church are more important than others and that living the life of a Christian is about us performing, strategizing, and executing for God. Spend some time, in prayer, and read 1 Corinthians 3. I would read it in several versions, if you can, in order to really begin to understand the concepts Paul is talking about. They are relevant today, in every way, as we explore solving this “ache” or longing to have significance.
How do we actually walk this out in our own lives? How do we move beyond the basics of Christianity to a more mature, full, and God-Identity experience? How do we solve the ache when we wake? Simply this: Walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. “What does that mean?” you say. See – God never intended to simply save you and leave you. His intent has always been to bring you into His family – to adopt you and give you a place to live in His house, THEN, provide for you the power to live. He adopts you, then gives you a new identity and name, then gives you the power to live as a new creation. It is all His work. AND – as you walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, the things you do, and the work that you accomplish, and the results of your labors, will last. You will stand before the Lord, and your works will be tested by the fire, and they will come through, and not be burned up as unimportant. THE ACHE GOES AWAY, as you live in dependence on the Holy Spirit. As you wake each day, give yourself once again to the work of the Holy Spirit in you. Listen to Him, and commit to following His lead. He will actually lead you AND empower you to do what He leads you to do. You simply need to trust and obey. He created you for this: To follow Him. That is all you need to solve the issue of the longing and the ache.
We can’t learn to follow the Holy Spirit and be complete in growing outside of a community of fellow believers. We need each other, in the Body of Christ, to help one another grow. There are no body parts, or organs, or components of a body that can survive outside by themselves. They have to be connected and interconnected to the other parts to be complete. Each one of us has a unique, only for us part to play. Each one of us needs the rest of us. The rest of us all need you. #YourLifeMatters because God made it that way. It matters to us as a church body, it matters to your neighborhood and to your sphere of people, it matters to the world. Without you, adopted into the family of God, and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, the entire world has an emptiness that you were uniquely designed to fill. Not in your own strength, or your own flesh, but in the Spirit. The rule and reign of the King have a part for you to play. Walk in it. Submit to His leading daily, and then begin to wake up with expectation and faith about what God might do.
Let’s go do this together! Be Christ-bearers wherever we go. Be an interconnected army/body of the Living Christ, taking the Kingdom of God wherever you go. Amen!
