FYWBTG Week 1 – Awakening to Longing
Series Big Idea: Our universal longing for love, purpose, and meaning in life can only be
fulfilled inside a relationship with God; regardless of where you are on your journey, you can
find your way back to God and awaken to living a life that matters! This series will help us to
see there is a universal pattern that awakens us to finding love, purpose, and meaning in life
when we find our way back to God.
Message Big Idea: We all have a longing to love and be loved in return, to find purpose for
our days, and to make sense out of life when life doesn’t make sense. That longing is from God,
and when you allow that strong desire for more to draw you nearer to him, he will fulfill your
longings. God knows your needs and desires even better than you do, and he has a life of
meaning and passion in mind for you. The “more” you need most can only be found as you
continually bring your life back to your heavenly Father. Let your longings for more—no
matter how intense—draw you closer to him instead of pushing you away.
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Pre-Message: The Luke 15:11-24 Scripture will be read in its entirety in some way prior to
the message (Big Idea Factory will work on this).
Introduction: Kesnel’s Story
For the last 25 years I have watched thousands of people find their way back to God.
Some were finding God for the first time. Others, it was after straying they found their way
back once again. And many of them were you. Over the years I’ve talked to and observed
thousands and probably ten’s of thousands of people take that journey of finding their way
back to God.
One of the most amazing journeys was Kesnel. I met Kesnel about two years ago
when I traveled to Haiti. Kesnel grew up in Cite Soleil, Port-au-Prince. It’s hard to imagine
growing up in a place with less hope than Cite Soleil. Cite Soleil is a ghetto in Haiti, which is
already the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Naked children run on the streets.
The stench of human excrement is so strong it makes you wince. The hopelessness and
suffering is palpable. Cite Soleil has been described as “The most God-forsaken place on the
planet.”
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Kesnel’s dad was not around during his childhood. His mom would leave early in
the morning before he woke up so she wouldn’t have to face the shame of not having food
for her child. Often she would come home after he was asleep again to avoid the
humiliation of having nothing to feed her little boy. Kesnel survived as a thief and
pickpocket. Even as a child he kept thinking, “There’s got to be more.”
Fortunately for him, the sponsorship of a Christian non-profit sent him to school and
paid for his lunch. And when Kesnel became a young adult, some relatives in the U.S. made
it possible for him to get to New York. While there he became very successful in the real
estate business. Unfortunately, his climb up the economic scale, led to his ride on the wild
side. By the age of thirty-two he had married and divorced four times. He couldn’t stop
drinking, and eventually found himself hopelessly sick. Kesnel was in a free fall, spiraling
downward rapidly. He hit bottom. Kesnel says he was so sick and hurting that he was
ready to end it all. He turned to God and said, “God, take my life.” Kesnel thought he was
giving up, but God took it as a wager.
I’m going to push pause on Kesnel’s story and come back to it later because I want to
ask about your story. Have you ever felt like Kesnel? Maybe your story isn’t as dramatic or
extreme as his, but you’ve felt a similar emptiness that he was feeling. You know what it’s
like to have longings that have gone unfulfilled. And maybe even in this moment you are
thinking to yourself, ‘There’s got to be more.”
Awakening To Longing:
That feeling, “there’s got to be more,” points us to the first of five spiritual
awakenings on your way back to God - the awakening to longing. These longings are so
universal that they show up almost everywhere - in the stories we write, in the art we
create and in the songs that we sing.
I’ll prove my point, I’m going to play a few songs that are about are about these
longings; but I’m going to need you to help me out. I’m going to play the first few words of
the song and I want you to finish it, ok? You ready?(Play 10 second audio clips encouraging
everyone to sing along or the TP could start the phrase and have the congregation finish it.)
● (PLAY: “You Can’t Always Get...What You Want…”)
● (PLAY: “I Still Haven’t Found...What I’m Looking For…”)
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● (PLAY: “Looking for Love...In All The Wrong Places…”)
These familiar tunes point to the longings we all have...
Longing For Love:
Like the longing for love. Glynn Wolfe holds the record for the most number of
marriages in the United States— twenty-nine! His longest marriage lasted seven years. His
shortest marriage was nineteen days. And here’s an interesting detail - he was a Baptist
minister.
But what I want to know is why didn’t Glynn Wolfe stop after his fourth or twentyfourth attempt at marriage? Why did he keep trying? And why do most of us keep trying?
After all, relationships are hard. We get dumped. We get hurt. Yet we still long for love. And
why, if one friend stabs you in the back, do you find yourself reaching out and risking
friendship again? We are all looking for love. Inside of all of us is a longing to be loved!
Longing for Purpose:
We also long for purpose. Think back to when you were a kid, maybe five or six
years old. What did you want to be when you grew up? A doctor or a nurse? Maybe a
fireman or an astronaut? I wanted to play pro basketball – still do!
Now ask yourself, why in the world were you dreaming about having any kind of job
or profession at all? You didn’t need a job at that age. You didn’t have any bills to pay. You
were still learning the alphabet and how to spell your name! Why would you even think
about what you wanted to be when you grew up? Because you already had a desire inside
of you for purpose and to accomplish something in this world!
Longing for Meaning:
We long for love. We long for purpose. And we also long for meaning – answers to
the big “Why” questions. I think every one of us has had enough pain in our lives that at
some point we ask “Why?” “Why God if you are so good, do you allow this to happen?”
I have a friend whose daughter tragically died when she was just a teenager. I will
never forget the conversation with the mom. She told me, “Dave, on the one hand I want to
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know why a good God would allow that to happen. On the other hand, God and His heaven are
my only chance to see my little girl again.”
If suffering is causing you question God – think on this. There is a reason why you
feel like your life and the world aren’t the way they are supposed to be. There is a reason
why suffering feels not just painful but also wrong and unfair. God gave you those feelings.
God feels the same way! Your desire to see wrongs righted and see suffering come to an
end is put in you by God. Where would that longing come from if there was no God?
The longing for love, the longing for purpose and the longing for answers to the big
“Why” questions is something we all experience. So, please understand this - the problem
isn’t that we have these longings or desires. The problem is that we seek to fulfill them on
our own. The problem is we try to satisfy these longings, answer these questions without
God.
But when we awaken to the truth of where of these longing can be satisfied, it brings
us to the first awakening in our journey back to God.
Word: Luke 15:11-16
Jesus tells what is considered by many one of the greatest shorts stories in all of
literature. You heard it told earlier (reference to creative piece). It’s a story of a lost son
who has this longing, “There’s got to be more.” He was probably singing…
● (PLAY) “You Can’t Always Get...What You Want…” – Rolling Stones
● (PLAY) “I Still Haven’t Found...What I’m Looking For…” – U2
● (PLAY) “Looking for Love...In All The Wrong Places…” – Johnny Lee
Can’t you hear the son singing, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for?” or “Looking for
love in all the wrong places?” I can!
But in the context of a first-century Middle Eastern culture a son’s asking for his
inheritance early was one of the worst insults a father could receive. A son in Jesus’ day was
not only expected to wait until his father died before he would receive his inheritance, but
he was also expected to take care of his father in his old age. So this son asking for his
inheritance early was like saying, “Look, Dad, I don’t really care if you live or die anymore. I
just know there’s something more, and I want it now.” This was a huge offense!
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Now, before we all cast this son aside as only ungrateful and selfish, is it possible
that he said out loud what most of us feel? Don’t we sometimes feel like life isn’t bringing us
what we hoped for or what we wanted or even feel like we deserve? Absolutely!
What I’m about to say next may surprise you: Thinking and feeling that you want
something more is what you should feel. NOT that everything you desire is good for you –
absolutely not! Yet things like your longing for a love that will truly last and a purpose for
living, and your need to make sense out of the hard things in life, all come from God. But the
son in Jesus’s story was like so many of us—he was convinced that he had to leave his
father to find answers and fulfill his longings. So Jesus said, “he set off for a distant
country.”
The story doesn’t give us many details as to what actually occurred in this distant
country. It simply tells us, The younger son…squandered his wealth in wild living. We’re
left to imagine what “wild living” might have looked like in Jesus’s day. If the story were
told today, the son could have ventured off to Vegas or Amsterdam or some other exotic
place in search of something more. I can imagine a journey that included parties with binge
drinking into all hours of the night and women who were willing to satisfy every desire. If
we look ahead in the story we hear the older brother tattle to his father, “This son of
yours…has squandered your property with prostitutes.”
You see, it didn’t take long for the son in this story to blow his inheritance and very
quickly his adventure turned sour. A famine struck the land, and he had no money or food.
The story continues, “So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who
sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the
pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.”
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His longing for love wasn’t satisfied in other women.
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His longing for purpose wasn’t fulfilled by feeding pigs.
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And his journey left him asking all kinds of “Why?” questions:
o “Why didn’t this turn out like I thought it would?”
o “Why am I so lonely, broke, and empty?”
o “Why did this journey end up with me in a place like this?”
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Sound familiar? Feel familiar? The story of the lost son is each of our stories. The
reason Jesus told the story is to help each of us find our way home – back to God. So this
brings us to life’s most important question. It’s a question you will have to answer over and
over again. Here it is: where will you go to satisfy these God-given longings? Will they draw
you to close to God or away from God?
Series Introduction:
Today, as you’ve probably already seen, we are stepping into this new series called,
“Finding Your Way Back To God”. This is all about that initial time that we find our way
back to God and begin that relationship with Him. But it’s also about our on-going journey.
Yes, we find our way back to God as a life-changing moment, but we also find our way back
to God as a life-growing process. Think about your spiritual journey:
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Time after time we’ve wandered away from our home
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Time after time we’ve forgotten God
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Time after time we’ve completely turned our backs on Him
And throughout these next 5 weeks we will be looking at 5 Awakenings that occur
during almost everyone’s spiritual journey. And these 5 Awakenings are something that we
all need to come alive to again and again. Today we’ve been talking through the awakening
of “Longing”, longing for love, purpose and meaning.
Pascal’s Wager:
The seventeenth-century mathematician Blaise Pascal is considered to have had one
of the greatest intellects in the history of Western civilization. He grew up knowing about
God, but not earnestly following him. Then, in a profound middle-of-the-night experience
with God, he had a change of heart. That experience ignited Pascal’s passion to help people
find their way back to God.
Pascal began to challenge his fellow intellectuals to a wager on God. He would dare
them to step into a belief about God and see if it didn’t change their lives. Pascal explained
his wager this way: “Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us
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estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.”
If you are a person who is trying to find your way back to God, here is your first step:
make Pascal’s wager. With this gamble you have everything to gain and nothing to actually
lose. Consider the upside. If you find God, you may also find the source of unconditional
love for which you have always longed. Finding God might offer you a life-giving purpose
and a genuine cause for your life. God is the one who can take your past and make sense out
of it. That’s a big-time payoff! And the downside of seeking God, doing good and loving
others? Nothing!
So, how about you? Will you place a bet on God? To me, it seems weird to be talking
about making bets in church, but a bet is simply the decision to risk something on a
possible positive outcome. The risk I want you to take is this—pray to God. It may seem
awkward at first, but I want you to try it. Talk to God and be open to the possibility that God
is waiting, listening, and eager to respond. If you will risk praying to God and invite Him
into your life, I promise, you will encounter Him. He will show up and begin to fulfill that
longing that each of us have. Will you place this bet on God this morning?
What if we all decided to place this bet together, right now? What if we all decided to
pray this prayer together every single day for the next 30 days? “God if you are real, make
yourself real to me.” If you want to take this 30-day wager, here is what I want you to do. I
want you to take out your phone, right now, and text the number on the screen. (Is this
possible? Or maybe an email if that works better. We want a way right in service for
people to sign up to receive texts or emails for the next 30 Days that will lead them
through the 30-Day Wager content in the book) And the 30-day wager will come right
to your phone every single day. Every day of the challenge will include something for you to
THINK about, something for you to JOURNAL and then a PRAYER that will look something
like this, “God, if you are real, make yourself real to me. Awaken in me the ability to see
that you are what’s missing from my life.” (CP actually send text/e-mail to sign up
from stage?) I am going to take this 30-day wager and meditate on what it says every
morning because I know that I need God to be real in my life and I want to experience Him
more and more every single day.
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Kesnel’s Story Part II:
I want to go back to Kesnel’s story from earlier. Soon after he asked God to take his
life he thought he heard God respond to his prayer. He believed that God said to him,
“Kesnel, I’ll take your life—but I’m not going to let you die.” And almost immediately he
began to feel better physically. He entertained the surprising notion that his life might not
be over after all. And he began to wonder what it might mean to give his life to God. A year
after Kesnel said that prayer to God, he believed God was telling him to return to Haiti to
begin a good work that God had planned for him.
After seven years in Haiti, Kesnel started a church serving hundreds of people. He
launched a school providing education and hope to more than 200 kids. He built an
orphanage for forty-one kids whom he and his wife have personally adopted. Today, he has
returned to Haiti bringing hope to the hopeless. Kesnel found his way back to God and now
he is helping others find their way back to God.
You see, Kesnel found that even when he wasn’t looking for God, God was still
looking for him. That is the exact truth for our story as well. God is looking for YOU! You
know the end of the story. God is watching the horizon. He’s just waiting to run in your
direction. Will you let your longings for Him point you in His direction?
But maybe you are here today and you know that your life doesn’t look like Kesnel’s
life. You haven’t had a terrible life. You have never hit rock bottom. You’ve never come to
the point where you felt that leaving this earth was a better option than actually staying in
it. Maybe you consider yourself a spiritual person, a good person, someone who genuinely
does your best to help others. But still, for some reason you feel an aching distance from
God and you long for something more.
Conclusion:
Let me ask you again, where will you go to fill these longings that each of us have?
These longings all came from God, so they are either going to draw us to Him or they will
push us away. Imagine though, if God fulfilled our longing for love, purpose and meaning?
Imagine what would it be like to not have to run after love anymore? Imagine what would it
feel like to not have to search for purpose or look for meaning? Can you even begin to
imagine what it might feel like to experience longing fulfilled? God is running after you, my
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prayer is that through this 30-day wager we will all awaken our longing and run towards
Him.
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