I’ve never
been a big fan of the Rolling Stones, although they were certainly a band of
renown in my generation, and they still are well known. I hadn’t thought about them in years, but our
pastor mentioned them in yesterday’s sermon.
Maybe you remember their song, “Can’t
Get No Satisfaction”.
I wonder, could that be YOUR theme song?
Maybe you
find yourself getting up early and going to bed late so you can provide for
your family and keep up with all the things that family’s need done – like cooking,
cleaning, helping with homework, taking time for husband or wife, dishes,
laundry, car service for busy kids. . . . . and on and on. You go to sleep exhausted and get up the same
way. And you do this 50 weeks a year, if
you’re lucky enough to get a vacation. Yet,
despite all the activity and stress, you find you still have more month at the
end of your money, as well as a deep sense of “Is this all there is?”.
Or maybe you
are one of the few who have been blessed with abundance. You work too, but you have plenty of money
left at the end of your month for things like fancy vacations, private
schooling for your kids, a cleaning service for your house, and a host of other
perks – and yet you still find yourself singing along with Mick Jagger, “Can’t Get No Satisfaction”.
When we
sense a lack of satisfaction in life as it is, we begin looking around for
it. We think, “Maybe a new job (a new marriage, a new house) will help.” So we change jobs, divorce our spouse, move
to another city – and find satisfaction hasn’t followed us there.
So we go
back to school for another degree, have a baby, change hair color, buy a new wardrobe,
smoke pot. But still it remains, the
emptiness inside that signals a lack of satisfaction deep within the soul. “Can’t
Get No Satisfaction” – no where, no how.
Sound familiar?
If that’s
you, you are not alone, and your problem isn’t new either. The Old Testament
prophet Isaiah, who lived hundreds of years before Christ, was talking to those
in his day who also found themselves singing Mick Jagger’s tune.
In chapter
55 of Isaiah’s book he says:
Why spend money on what is not bread
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Good
question.
I’ve heard
the following quote attributed to a variety of different people, including
Voltaire. Seems appropriate here:
The definition of insanity:
doing the same thing in the same
way and expecting different results.
Why do we spend
our money, and labor, day after day, year after year, on things that do not
satisfy? It’s insanity.
What if
someone told you that deep satisfaction, the kind that fills your soul and
makes it FAT, just might not be all that elusive? Would you want to hear more? Isaiah has it! He says:
“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. Listen, listen to me and
eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your
soul may live.”
Could it be
that your unquenchable thirst for “something” more, for the satisfaction that
eludes you, is a thirst only God can quench?
I believe it
was St. Augustine who said:
“In the heart of every
man (and woman), there is a God shaped vacuum
only He can fill.”
Did you know
that God made you for relationship with Himself? Could it be that He is the missing link to
your satisfaction? St. Augustine thought
so.
This
relationship with the One who made you, the One who CAN satisfy, costs you
NOTHING. It is, as Isaiah says, “without cost”. You can’t earn it, you don’t deserve it, but
God offers it anyway – a FREE gift of His grace. Who doesn’t want a FREE gift?
The gift
that comes to YOU for free cost to God His very best – the cost was the life of
His Son Jesus.
Could it be
that THIS is the source of satisfaction that has eluded you all your life? Could it be that a relationship with Jesus is
the one place you have not looked for satisfaction? If so, then you don’t know what you’re
missing!
Isaiah says:
listen to me – take this message to heart.
Eat what is
good – take this truth into yourself as you would with the richest of food –
and your soul will delight.
Give ear,
and COME to Jesus. It is in hearing Him
and believing in Him that your soul will live and find it’s truest satisfaction. Nothing else – no degree, no relationship, no
bank account, no material blessing, no position, no power – nothing else will
satisfy your soul the way Jesus will.
Are you
listening? Will you come?
You know, it’s
the only way to get that Mick Jagger tune out of your head!
Yes, there
IS satisfaction, deep in the soul satisfaction, and it lies in Jesus alone.
