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God-sized hole/eternity-sized longing

Opener


  • Where do/did you find comfort/what do you do when you are stressed/when you want to satisfy something/feel empty? 

    • Julia: instagram scrolling, food… I used to fantasize that dating/marriage would bring satisfaction

  • Where do/did you find satisfaction/fulfillment?

    • Julia: good grades, extra curriculars, getting into Google, accomplishing a lot, doing a lot of “Christian” things (serving a lot)


Discussions

Ecclesiastes 1

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”

What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?

Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.

The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.

The wind blows to the south and turns to the north;

round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.

All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full.

To the place the streams come from, there they return again.


  • What do you think? / How does this make you feel? 



Ecclesiastes 3:9-11


What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.


  • Have you ever felt yearning for something “eternal” or “having an impact” or doing something that lasts? Or have you seen this?



Isaiah 55:1-3


“Come, all you who are thirsty,

  come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

  come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

  without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread,

  and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

  and you will delight in the richest of fare.

Give ear and come to me;

  listen, that you may live.


  • Have you spent efforts on something that disappointed you?



John 6:27-35


Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

“Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.


  • What do you make of the claim that “whoever comes to me will never go hungry” and “whoever believes in me will never thirsty”?



John 4:10-15


Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”


  • What would you do/give in exchange for, to experience this quenching of thirst?



John 7:37-39


“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.


  • Any thoughts?



Phil 3:4-10


If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.


  • What are some things that could be modern day relevant to “confidence in the flesh”?


But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.


  • What do you think Paul experienced to say that everything pales in comparison? To call them garbage?



John 17:3


Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 


  • Know -- not in head knowledge, but personally

  • Any thoughts (on this verse or other things that we discussed)?

Read individually if time left


Habakkuk 3:17-19


Though the fig tree does not bud

  and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

  and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

  and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

  I will be joyful in God my Savior.


The Sovereign Lord is my strength;

  he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

  he enables me to tread on the heights.


(This has been the theme of shelter in place for Julia, with not a lot of people interaction (I live by myself), as well as literal fasting.. No food.. And yet, would you believe me that I was less lonely during this time than before, because God used this time to draw me close to him? And that while fasting, God’s Word was so sweet that I didn’t feel much hunger when I was reading the Word?)



Psalm 90


Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.




Ps 4:7-8


You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound.

I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.



Ps 84:1-2, 10-12


How lovely is your dwelling place,

  Lord Almighty!

My soul yearns, even faints,

  for the courts of the Lord;

my heart and my flesh cry out

  for the living God.


Better is one day in your courts

  than a thousand elsewhere;

I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God

  than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

For the Lord God is a sun and shield;

  the Lord bestows favor and honor;

no good thing does he withhold

  from those whose walk is blameless.

Lord Almighty,

  blessed is the one who trusts in you.



Ps 73:23-26


Yet I am always with you;

  you hold me by my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,

  and afterward you will take me into glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

  And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

  but God is the strength of my heart

  and my portion forever.



2 Cor 4


So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Conclusion


Ecclesiastes 13


Remember your Creator

  in the days of your youth,

before the days of trouble come

  and the years approach when you will say,

  “I find no pleasure in them”—


Now all has been heard;

  here is the conclusion of the matter:

Fear God and keep his commandments,

  for this is the duty of all mankind.

For God will bring every deed into judgment,

  including every hidden thing,

  whether it is good or evil.



Julia’s thesis

We all have innate desire, a hole in our hearts, that we try to fill with something.. e.g. for me:

  • Source of comfort - food, getting married, having control over my surroundings

  • Source of fulfillment - career, getting good grades, getting into good college

  • We have longing of getting into good college or a good vacation or having the perfect job or family.. Maybe the next job/vacation will satisfy me...

  • Even if college is great, vacation is great, marriage is great, you love work -- and yet… these things don't fully satisfy and/or they do not last. While these are good, they will never ultimately satisfy/fulfill us.

  • Why? Because God has set eternity in our hearts -- only can be satisfied in God, in relationship with God, KNOWING God personally


Even the satisfaction that comes from work is a gift from God

But don’t let that be your end goal, don’t settle for just this life

BY ALL MEANS keep doing what you’re doing, keep running, keep putting your best into what you’re doing

But if you ask me, "all this for what?" -- I cannot answer that apart from God.

I hope you will take some time to zoom out and consider what is temporary vs. eternal

(“Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in': aim at Earth and you will get neither.”)



Ecclesiastes 3:9-14


What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.



Homework: 

  • See if you can take note of when you feel empty, note:

    • What you turn to

    • How it makes you feel -- good? Bad? How long does it last?

  • Consider praying the same thing the samaritan woman said:

    • “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

    • God, if you are real, if Bible is true, if you are who you say you are -- give me this living water so I will never thirst

  • Memory -- one of the verses we did today


For fun… I re-wrote lyrics to Let it Go when I was graduating college about the nagging sensation in my heart of “there must be more than this” https://belovedofhim.blogspot.com/2020/09/lyrics-written-to-tune-of-let-it-go.html


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