Sole (and Soul) Satisfaction

This program contains portions from the following episodes:

"Living in God's House"

"The Gospel and the Smart Phone"

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Dannah Gresh: King David had one driving passion. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth explains.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Remember what’s happening while he’s saying this? He’s got these enemies all around him, breathing out threats. But what’s he focused on? “God, I want to be with You. I want to be in Your house.”

Dannah: Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend! I’m your host, Dannah Gresh.

In 1965 the Rolling Stones came out with a song that included these lyrics:

I can’t get no satisfaction
'Cause I try, and I try, and I try, and I try.

Do you know how hard it was to say those words and not sing them? Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were expressing a frustration that many could identify with. 

Well, long before they were around, the Preacher wrote this in the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 2:

I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. (vv. 1–3 CSB)

He goes on to describe gardens and houses he built, then in verse 10: 

And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. (vv. 10–11 CSB)

That’s the ancient Hebrew way of singing, “I can’t get no satisfaction . . .”

Now, I’m gonna pull back the curtain a little bit and tell you a secret. Well, it shouldn’t be a secret, but you might not be aware of this: even people in full-time Christian ministry can slip into looking for satisfaction in the wrong places!

I want to share a message I recorded on my phone and sent to my staff at True Girl. My whole team pours out their lives on a daily basis, traveling to put on events that will minister to girls. It can be grueling. They were tired and worn out, and, honestly, back at homebase, I was too! 

It was a couple of months ago. Some of my friend had invited me to go with them to watch a movie, and this was my response.

Dannah: Hello, my precious friends. Shani asked me to make you an encouragement video. I know that you are bone tired. You’ve been struggling with sickness, and you’ve worked two very full weekends of ministry. I’m not making a video because I look scary, like, scary, scary, scary. And the reason is because I’m bone weary from ministry. It’s been a long season of pouring myself out. I could be with the team right now watching Jesus Revolution, but the orders that the Lord gave me this morning seemed to be, “Rest.” 

But there are times when we withdraw to quiet places, because Jesus does say, “My yoke is easy, my burden is light.” But it’s still a yoke, still a burden. Ministry exhaustion and ministry tired is a different kind of tired than the physical tired. Because when you are ministering and when you are discipling young hearts that the enemy wants to devour through the culture’s lies, and you are winning little souls for Jesus and changing the trajectory of their lives to honor and glorify Him rather than themselves, you are fighting a fierce, spiritual battle.

Every moment that you are ministering, whether you are setting up the resource table, or cleaning the bus for bus tours, or encouraging another team member who’s weary or tired, or making a run to Walmart to get cold medicine because half the team is sick, you are in that moment in a spiritual battle.

It’s not always when we’re on stage teaching the Word of God, or when we’re at the altar praying for a girl to receive Christ that the battle is thick. Sometimes those spaces have special protection. But it’s those ordinary moments where you have to be on alert and on guard.

I want to talk to you a moment about what can happen when you’re bone weary from ministry. That is, that you have an opportunity to experience Jesus’ provision in a way that you don’t at other times. At least, that’s what I found to be true in my life. And what caused me to start looking for it was Mark’s account of the feeding of the five thousand.

If you read how it comes across in Mark, you’ll see that just before that happens, Jesus has sent the disciples out two by two to minister. They’re doing miraculous things as they minister. They’re driving out demons; they’re healing people—things they didn’t even know they were capable of doing. So it’s a time of confusion and learning, even though it’s a time of exhilaration and great awe of God’s power.

While they’re out doing that, something devastating happens for the cause of Christ. John the Baptist is murdered by Herod. Can you imagine how that news would have impacted their bone-weary bodies? They’re not just physically tired, they’re probably fearful. They’re probably at the end of themselves.

And Mark tells us that,

The disciples gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. . . . Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat. (vv. 30–31 NIV)

I think you can understand that, right? How many times do we not have the time to stop and eat before we do a True Girl event? You know what that’s like. You know that pace and that hurry. Mark goes on to write,

Jesus said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get rest.” So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. 

By this time it was late in the day so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”

But he answered, “You give them something to eat.”

They said to him, “That would take eight months of a man’s wages. Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”

“How many loaves do you have," Jesus asked. “Go and see.”

When they found out they said, “Five—and two fish.”

Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and cities, taking the five loaves and two fish. And looking up to heaven he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them. They all ate and were satisfied. [Satisfied.]

And the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand. (vv. 31–44 NIV)

Listen, do you know how much more exhilarating that miracle was because of their exhaustion, because of their need, because they were at the end of themselves? And it was when they were in that place that they went to a solitary place with Jesus.

My friend, listen: some of you are trying to get your rest from a spiritual battle in physical ways. You’re trying to take an extra nap in the day, or you’re thinking a day off and having fun in the city or the next exciting place is going to refresh you. Or a podcast, or . . . listen: it takes Jesus to refresh you from spiritual exhaustion. You have to go with Him. And I’m telling you that if you go with Him, He could even ask you to do more today, as He did the disciples that day, and you would be satisfied.

So from one exhausted sister in Jesus to another, (and one brother) go with Jesus. Go with Jesus in your spiritual exhaustion.

Today I am withdrawing to a lonely place with the Lord instead of going to a movie, but I need Jesus. And if He asks me to feed the five thousand,or some other magnificent thing in the middle of my quiet time, He’ll provide the strength, and I will be satisfied, and so will you.

Go with Jesus, my friends. He’s the only place where you’ll find the rest you need.

Dannah: I think maybe you can hear the physical weariness in my voice, in that message I sent to some of my teammates at True Girl. The rest of the story is: I continued to make wise decisions like not going to movies and just finding every moment I could to fill myself up with Jesus. Honestly, I think you can relate, sometimes you can't get away for a weekend retreat or vacation. You just have to find that rest and that time in Jesus is little snippets. And . . . I've been refreshed. I've been renewed. And my True Girl team? The finished their tour for the year. We always include some time of rest and refilling in the Word after that. That's what we do. We pour ourselves out, and then we remind ourselves, "Ah, I've got to come back to the Living Water to be satisfied in Jesus." 

Here in the U.S. we’re celebrating the Memorial Day holiday on Monday. I hope you’re able to take some of this longer weekend to rest and spend time with family or friends and also honor the memory of those who’ve given their lives in defense of our country. But, don't forget to spend some time with Jesus too.

Now, David in the Old Testament understood weariness. He was often being chased by enemies. In Psalm 27 he talked about evildoers assailing him and an army being encamped against him. They were pretty dire circumstances! But he found his strength and refreshment in the presence of the Lord. Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth with more from Psalm 27.

Nancy: David is a king. He’s the CEO of the nation. He’s the commander-in-chief of the military forces of Israel. But they’re all in a desperate place. All around him are these powerful enemies and this opposition.

And in this desperate place, David lifts his eyes up to the Lord. He doesn’t talk to his enemies. He talks to the Lord. And he says, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after . . .” I think the NIV says there, “This only do I seek”—one thing, this only do I seek. David has just one request to ask of the Lord.

And you think about him: He’s a powerful man. He has a lot of contacts. He knows a lot of people. He has a lot of resources at his disposal. So if he has just one request, what do you think he might ask? Victory over his enemies? An effective battle plan? For God to make his problems go away? A way to escape his problems? What would you have asked if you were in the position we saw described in verses 1–3?

David says:

One thing have I asked of the Lord, that only do I seek: [What is it?] that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when you’ve got enemies around you 360, this does not sound like a very practical battle plan or plan for survival. Do you think? I mean, it sounds like he’s a little contemplative here. He’s going to go live this cloistered life. But he’s got his enemies all around him. What good is this going to do?

He says, “This is the number one priority of my life. One thing have I asked of the Lord, that’s what I’m going to seek after.” This is the one thing which he would earnestly seek and pursue, that on which he would focus his efforts and his attention. He’s saying, essentially, “Lord, if You don’t give me anything else, please give me this one thing.”

David’s “one thing” in the midst of this crisis: “That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, [Why? So I can] gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and [so I may] inquire in his temple.”

Now, he’s not talking about physically taking up residence in the temple, which hadn’t even been built yet. And he isn’t talking about dropping all his other earthly responsibilities to live a cloistered life. David has obligations. He had work—as you do. He had family—as you and I do. He had these things that go on day after day, just keeping life going.

Laura is sitting here. She’s the mother of ten children. You’ve got some things to do, Laura. You can’t just go sit in the church house all day long and think about Jesus. This doesn’t sound very practical, does it?

But David is saying, “I want to live my life, wherever I may be, whatever else I may be doing at the time, constantly conscious of the presence of God, thinking about Him, fellowshipping with Him, living with Him.”

Now, we have Christ in us, the hope of glory. We have His Holy Spirit who lives in us. He says, “I just want to be aware that I am in God’s presence, that I’m in God’s house, that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. I want to live with Him. I don’t want to have a church compartment of my life, a spiritual compartment of my life, and then the whole rest of my life. I want it all to be about living in fellowship and relationship with Him.”

Now, remember what’s happening while he’s saying this? He’s got these enemies all around him, breathing out threats. But what’s he focused on? “God, I want to be with You. I want to be in Your house.”

Is that your desire? Not just on Sunday but on Monday through Saturday, whether at home, at work, at church, grocery shopping, traveling, sitting in meetings, cleaning up the kitchen, working out at the gym, eating out with friends? Whatever you do in the course of the week, are you saying, “One thing I want is to live in the house and the presence of the Lord all the days of my life”?

Dannah: Ah! If we could truly “get” what Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is saying there (what King David is saying there), how would our lives be different? Such a great reminder to constantly live in God’s presence. 

We all have longings. We’re all looking for satisfaction. But we constantly need to remind ourselves that our deepest longings won’t be satisfied by a substance, by a physical pleasure, by relief from our difficult circumstances, by any relationship other than our relationship with Jesus.

“Come to me,” he invites us, “all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you . . . rest.”

You know, stress and anxiety in a lot of our lives often center around our electronic devices. In fact, listen to this little exchange Nancy and I had at the beginning of a Revive Our Hearts episode, a few years ago.

Dannah: Okay, Nancy, I think I need to start today’s program with a confession. Ready?

Nancy: Um, sure.

Dannah: Here goes. I sometimes spend way too much time on Instagram.

Nancy: Oh, Dannah! Not seriously! 

Dannah: Uh-huhh. You mean you don’t? You never had that problem?

Nancy: Me?! Ever? (laughs) Oh, why did you have to bring that up?!

Dannah: (chuckle) And Nancy went on to tell us about a saying from her husband, Robert. He says, “The throne before the phone.” In other words, before he checks his phone in the morning, he spends time with the Lord, before the throne of grace. Isn’t that great? The throne before the phone.

Well, that day we were joined in the studio by Jacquelle Crowe Ferris, a sweet young author. She shared with us how the gospel changes everything, even how we use our phones and tablets and computers.

Jaquelle: So the concept is that the way we use technology is not neutral. We have a responsibility to use tech as tools, not toys. 

Dannah: Wait, say that again.

Nancy: Because that went by really fast.

Dannah: Technology is a tool, not a toy.

Jaquelle: Yes.

Nancy: Now does that mean you can’t have fun with it?

Jaquelle: Absolutely not. It means that there is more to technology than just using it for selfish pleasure. So many people expect my generation, especially, to be addicted to technology, to be apathetic toward their use of technology, to just not really care. 

But I think we can call my generation, your generation, all Christians to a higher standard in that we can engage with tech in meaningful, gospel-motivated ways, but that starts by having a social media heart check and changing how we view it.

Nancy: Well, it’s easy to rant when you’re communicating with people that you don’t know—you don’t really know them, you don’t see them, you’re not in their space. If we were in person we would probably talk differently to these people than we feel the freedom to do when it’s in that distant social media land.

Dannah: We would talk with some kindness. Instead, we get very, very argumentative. The lack of kindness is becoming a barrier to the gospel. It’s not allowing social media to be a tool for it.

Jaquelle: Yes. So often screens can disconnect us from engaging with people the way that we would in person when, really, we have an opportunity through screens to interact with and engage with more people than ever before, to be kinder to more people than ever before. And, instead, we hurt people!

Dannah: I’m wondering, doesn’t Matthew 18 still apply when we’re on social media? 

Nancy: “If your brother sins against you,” Matthew 18:17 says, “go . . . [to] him . . .” 

Dannah: “Go to him!”

Nancy: Not, “to the whole world!”

Jaquelle: Not, “to Twitter!”

Dannah: We are just bypassing that. Like maybe when we see something they post and it’s questionable to us and we don’t like it, we should be private messaging them, not like putting out there a three-step plan why, “You’re just a terrible person!” Right? Doesn’t it still apply, Matthew 18?

Jaquelle: I think absolutely. There’s this weird dynamic when it comes to social media and people having platforms and posting things publicly to engage with. But it’s a strange world, in that we are still called in whatever we say, however we interact with people, to treat people as people. We’re to see people the way that Jesus sees people and not try to go in and fix them. We’re to love them and care for them as fellow image-bearers of God.

Nancy: I think there’s another area where we need a heart check when it comes to social media—and we’d include in there texting and different ways of messaging. But how much of what we’re doing on this is just meaningless? I wonder how many of us are going to look back on things we wrote or pictures we posted.

Dannah: How many pictures of my breakfast do you need to see? 

Nancy: . . . or of me?

Dannah: Right, right.

Jaquelle: So, actually, this habit that we’ve developed . . . We pick our phones up and we don’t have anything to do on them. We have no purpose whatsoever . . . and the time just goes!

Nancy: It makes you wonder what the Lord might want us to be doing with that time. How fragmented and fractured are we becoming in our ability to carry on meaningful conversations with people or with the Lord?

Dannah: Yes, or even just being available when someone does need us later in the day. I want the Lord to look at my day and find that I was faithful with how I used it.

Jaquelle: Right, because it’s so easy to waste time on social media. And that’s where the difficulty comes in.

Nancy: We’re making a statement and an impact for the gospel in how we communicate with each other, how we express our opinions, whether what we’re posting or texting or communicating. Is it about me? Is it about you? Is it about Christ? What is it about? Why am I doing it?

How in a world that operates this way, this is our language of today, without throwing out the language of our culture in our day (and whatever new ones are going to come out by the time this program airs) can we be above reproach? How can we be gospel-centered? How can we be Christ-centered, careful, wise stewards of the technology?

Jaquelle: Oh, so many ways! I think one of the biggest things is what you have both just said so well—intentionally. Especially my generation, technology is all we know, the way that we use our smartphones. It’s very easy to be unintentional, because it’s just part of life, it’s another appendage.

We need to change our thinking to say, “Hey, we actually want to use social media in a way that honors God. Hey, we actually don’t want to waste all of our time.” This is a huge place that this starts. And a way that this has happened most in my life is through accountability. So, accountability from my parents (I have godly parents), accountability from my church, accountability from mentors—older women who are willing to ask me hard questions about specific things that I post or how much time I’m spending on social media. Accountability, and it’s scary. Accountability has kind of been undermined and maligned in our culture.

My generation is very afraid of accountability, because we think it’s people being judgmental of us and hypocrisy, trying to point out all the flaws in our lives without recognizing any of those in their own. But accountability is really an act of love. It’s a response built out of a desire to not see us fall off the cliff, to see us not make the same mistakes that they’ve made or that they’ve seen. Accountability is absolutely something born of love.

Nancy: But I have to invite that into my life. I have to want that. I have to see the value of it. I have to feel like I need it. It’s one thing for me to say, “Jaquelle, your generation needs accountability on your social media use!” I can’t make your generation want that, but I can model the value and the benefit and the beauty of it by welcoming it into my own life.

Dannah: That’s a portion of a longer conversation Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and I had with Jacquelle Crowe Ferris. You can hear more of it at ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend. We have links there to that series and also the one on David’s “One Thing” that Nancy was talking about earlier. We’ll also link to a season of The Deep Well podcast, where Erin Davis talks about this topic of finding our satisfaction in Jesus alone.

While you’re at our website, would you pray about how the Lord might want you to be involved in helping us reach our May fundraising goal? We’re asking him to provide a substantial amount here at our fiscal year end through the giving of friends just like you. You’ll find all the details at ReviveOurHearts.com, including how you can get a copy of a book from us as a thank you for your donation. Again, it’s ReviveOurHearts.com, and click where you see the word “Donate.”

So where is your true satisfaction found? Only in Jesus. Ultimately, it’s not in a great holiday weekend, not in having time off, not in your phone. It’s in Christ. Remember that, my friend.

Thanks for listening today. Monday on Revive Our Hearts Nancy continues her series on the woman at the well. It’s called “Satisfying Our Thirst.” And then next weekend on this program we’re offering hope to parents of prodigals. Join us! I’m Dannah Gresh, inviting you back next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

Revive Our Hearts Weekend is calling you to truly rest in your freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.