[Read Genesis 2:21-25]
There’s a sadness that comes at the end of a really good meal. I know that might sound a little melodramatic, but it’s true, isn’t it? You’ve enjoyed every bite, every texture, every nuance of flavor, how all of these things work together to bring about something glorious. But then it’s done. The food is gone and has left you wanting more. You didn’t want that moment to end yet. You wanted it to go on longer. But it’s gone. So, there’s a level of sadness.
There are multiple ways to respond in that situation. One the one hand, you can resist the desire/longing within you—pretend like the meal wasn’t really that good and try to ignore it. On the other hand, you can indulge the desire/longing within you—find more food, keep eating and eating and eating until you’re so stuffed that you can’t function any more. OR, you can sit there, remembering the joy of the meal, allowing the desire/longing in you to bring you hope and excitement for the next meal to come.
These responses to desire are at the core of religious experience because we are desiring creatures. It’s at the core of our being. So, when people try to answer the big questions of life—seeking to find happiness—they have to address the issue of desire. So, you have Buddhism addressing desire as the problem. That’s what is wrong with the world and why we aren’t happy—we desire things. The solution is to resist/suppress the desires in you, so that you no longer desire anything. And, since you no longer desire anything—becoming one with the universe—you are no longer disappointed and are happy. On the other hand, you have hedonistic religions. They believe that unfulfilled desires are the problem. That’s why you aren’t happy. You want things but don’t have them. So, the answer to your problem is: Do what makes you happy. Work hard to fulfill every desire you could possibly have. Stuff your face with every longing until you’re so full you can’t move.
Someone has categorized these responses as the Starvation Diet and the Fast Food Diet. One answers the problem by suppressing every desire, starving themselves to death. The other answers the problem by stuffing every desire with anything that will fill the void—it doesn’t even matter if it’s good, just as long as it fills a desire.
Neither of these are Christian—even though we’ve witnessed Christians practicing BOTH of these diets. Christians are not to participate in a Starvation Diet—suppressing all desire, pretending like they don’t exist, living a life only of “duty”. Christians are also not to participate in the Fast Food Diet—always “following their heart” wherever it leads, filling their desires with whatever may fill the void in the moment, doesn’t matter if it contains no nutrition.
Rather, the imagery given for the Christian life is a Banquet—a wedding feast. It’s a glorious meal with the best foods, the best wines, the right atmosphere, celebration, satisfaction, joy, etc. There’s a sense of desires that are being filled to a degree, but they point beyond us to something bigger. It’s not about the meal or the drink, they are only pointing to something bigger. The Bible teaches us that we are not to indulge every desire we have, but it also teaches us that we were created with desires and those desires are good when aligned rightly AND those desires point beyond the thing we desire to something greater.
When we look closely at the creation story, we see that God created human beings with desires. We see this when God created plants and trees. We read, “And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.” (Genesis 2:8–9, ESV). Notice, they aren’t just good for good. They are also pleasant to the sight. They look delicious. Why? God didn’t have to create it that way. He could have created them bland and boring, right? He could have said, “It doesn’t matter what these look like. It’s just there to give you energy. So, don’t look at it, just stuff it in your face and move on.”
But that’s not what he did. He created them beautiful so they would stir desire deep within us. Marketing people know this, right? They know that if they place a beautiful piece of food on a billboard or a screen, it will stir desire within us. All of a sudden we’re hungry and craving pizza or pasta or a burger. That’s all been there from the beginning. God created the trees beautiful—and the apples and pomegranates and grapes and olives—so that we would see them, desire them, and eat them.
We also see this when God creates Eve. In particular, we first see it in Adam’s response to Eve. God created Eve from Adam’s rib, then presents her to him—naked. And how does Adam respond? “I suppose she’ll do.” No way. He responds, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” (Genesis 2:23, ESV). So far, we’ve heard God say, “This is good.” Now, with Eve standing before him, he says, “This is VERY GOOD!” This response is filled with desire. Try reading it like a robot—without emotion or passion—and it doesn’t work. Why? Because Adam is a desiring being and his desire is stirred when Eve is placed in front of him. And, it’s important to point this out, God created Adam and Eve this way. He created them so their desire would be stirred when they saw each other—stirred enough that we read “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24, ESV). And God saw all of this and said, “It’s very good.”
Although we don’t talk about it much—especially in the stoic Midwest—God’s Word is filled with the language of desire. Look at how the Psalms describe our desire for God: “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1, ESV) OR “And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.” (Psalm 73:25, ESV). So, we’ve been created to desire God—to seek Him, to crave Him.
Yet, the Bible also talks quite a bit about our own desires. Here’s a passage that makes many people uncomfortable because of how it’s been misused: “May he grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans!” (Psalm 20:4, ESV). Now, it doesn’t matter if people have misused this passage over the years, it’s still in God’s Word. It’s a prayer that God would give you everything you desire. Yet, people misuse it because they don’t connect it with other passages like “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4, ESV). When we delight ourselves in the Lord, we actually begin to desire the right things, and then God gives us those desires. That’s an important clarification. But don’t miss an important point here. God is granting us things we desire. We’re not told to stop desiring things and we’re not told to fill our every desire. We’re told that God will fill every desire that is good and right.
We’re also commanded in scripture to desire certain things. In 1 Corinthians we read, “But earnestly desire the higher gifts…earnestly desire the spiritual gifts…” (1 Corinthians 12:31; 14:1 ESV). Paul is commanding that we desire some spiritual gift. We also read in Psalm 19, “the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.” (Psalm 19:9–10, ESV). So, we are to desire God’s Word, God’s rules, and God’s gifts.
Yet, we’re also to desire things of this earth. I think some have overemphasized our desire for heavenly things over the things of this earth. The Bible actually has pretty strong language toward those who make this mistake. Look at this from 1 Timothy, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.” (1 Timothy 4:1–3, ESV). Those who are telling God’s people to embrace the “Starvation Diet”—telling them not to desire food or marriage—are described as those who are devoted to deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons, liars whose consciences are seared. Why such strong language? Because God created these things good and beautiful to be received with joy and thanksgiving—to say otherwise is to distort God’s designs and purposes. So, we’re called to desire physical things of this world.
And, to throw one more in here, that will make some of you a little uncomfortable, here’s a command from the book of Proverbs: “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.” (Proverbs 5:18–19, ESV). That’s a command from God’s Word, not something you can take or leave. Not a desire to be suppressed or rejected, but a good desire created in you by God.
But, notice something important in every verse I’ve shared this morning. We’re never told to embrace desire alone. Yes, God will give us the desires of our heart, but only when we delight in Him first. Yes, we are to receive food and drink with thanksgiving and joy, but we’re also to receive them as gifts of God—meaning that we receive the gift in the way God has intended it to be used. We don’t have the freedom to dive into our desires without any restrictions—that’s the Fast Food Diet. That’s why we read this in Proverbs: “Desire without knowledge is not good” (Proverbs 19:2, ESV). That’s a powerful statement AND a powerful correction of our desire.
This has gotten me in trouble over the years. I have a tendency to get really excited about things and then jump in with both feet—sometimes over my head. As a kid I LOVED riding dirt-bike and I LOVED watching motocross racing. As I watched the motocross racing, with the guys taking sharp corners at high speeds and flying through the air over jumps, my heart was stirred with desire to do the same thing. So I would try—even though I didn’t have the knowledge. One time I brought my brother out to help me measure how far I was jumping by dirt-bike. He would stand in the last place I landed, and then I would try to beat it the next time. Eventually, I hit the limits of my equipment and skill, and at a very high speed I landed on my front tire and flipped over the handlebars. My brother described it as a tangled mess of body parts and motorcycle parts tumbling across the side of the hill. Not a good idea. “Desire without knowledge is not good” (Proverbs 19:2, ESV). Our desires need to be aligned with reality and with truth, otherwise they will get us into a world of trouble.
We also need to understand that underneath every action is a desire. This may sound overly simplistic, but why do we do the things we do? Because we want to do them. Because we desire to do them—even things that get us in trouble, or things we don’t want to do (which sounds like a paradox, but isn’t). Look at this passage from James, “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” (James 1:14–15, ESV). Why does the person sin? Because they wanted to. Their desires gave birth to action. This is at the core of every action. Every single action was initially birthed by desire.
That tells us an important truth about ourselves. We must be careful with our desires. They must be shepherded according to God’s truth and God’s purposes. Yet, don’t forget the tension. We must not enter into the Starvation Diet—suppressing all desire. We must also not indulge every desire. Rather, we need to channel, shepherd, direct those desires in the proper direction. If we don’t do this, our lives will be a mess. When your desires are messed up, your life will be a mess.
This leads to another important truth. We can only overcome desires with a greater desire. Let me say that one more time so that nobody misses it. We can only overcome desires with a greater desire. How do you begin to lose weight? You begin to desire a healthier lifestyle over food. A greater desire overcomes the lesser desire. How do you overcome addiction? You desire something greater than the addiction itself. This is the key to overcoming any sin in your life. You must desire something greater than the sin in order to overcome it.
This is where a famous C.S. Lewis quote comes in: “If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
And here’s the good news, through Jesus Christ, our desires are being transformed. Jesus not only died to cleanse our sins and give us eternal life. He also died so that we could be made holy—renewed in God’s image. Part of that means that our desires are renewed. We read statements like, “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (Romans 13:14, ESV). In Christ, we no longer gratify the desires of our sinful nature—desires that lead to destruction and death. Rather, we gratify the desires of our new nature. That’s why we read, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh” (Galatians 5:16–17, ESV). There are desires of the flesh which lead to death and destruction. But there are also desires of the Spirit which lead to life and joy. And through Christ’s redemption, our desires are reordered so that we begin to desire the right things.
And, to tie this in with last week, this is why we find rest in God. Rest in God is nothing other than the satisfaction of all our desires. It’s recognizing that all of our desires are pointing beyond something to God. That’s why we can’t suppress them. That’s why we can’t indulge them—trying to make them take the place of God. Rather, our desires are there to point us to our one, true desire. God created us with desires, and Christ is redeeming our desires, so that we can say, “God, nothing I desire, compares with you.”