IS "CAN'T GET NO SATISFACTION" YOUR THEME SONG?

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.