Hunger

You guys know that we've been in this journey leading up to our move, that we've been having teachers from the house share their last word at Elmwood. Man, we went long in worship, but get ready for this message. You want to hear it? So I want to welcome up for the very last time at Elmwood, Mr.

Scott, the band or where? Bless you guys. Last couple of weeks here in some of the other teachers reminisce about how their stories have intertwined with every day's, of course, makes me reminisce. And it's pretty deep, meaningful stuff that's part of my history.

And I just even remember where my spiritual life was literally turned upside down in this beautiful way back in 2008 when I experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit. If you have not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, there is something available for you. It's this gateway into the more of God, into the depth of God. A couple of years later in 2010, the Lord used the gift of the authentic to essentially alter my path.

And I was remarks by that day. For those of you who don't, don't carry the wiring of an enneagram street. What I said is, I am an enneagram street, but I do carry the wiring. Something that I have, one of the gifts of that wiring is the drive that comes with it, the hunger that comes with it.

And when I look at my life and all of the different lanes that I'm running in, as a man, whether it's in business or as a husband, a father, in ministry, and every other hat that I wear and lean that I run in, my wiring, I have the type of wiring that would, I don't know, sit in like a really fast car and just say, how fast can it go? What is the limits of what can be done in any given thing? And so when I dream about all these different parts of my life and what could be accomplished, in 2010, when the Lord used the gift of the prophetic to alter my path, there was just a gentleman who was moving in like a crazy gifting in the area of the prophetic and especially words of knowledge. And I just remember being so marked by the word because it was fairly lengthy in what the Lord spoke through him, but he began with, tell Scott to make his life's greatest accomplishment to know me.

And there was a lot of stuff that was wild that came next. And at the end, he said, tell Scott to make his life's greatest accomplishment to know me. It was from about 2008 and for like the next five years, that point in my journey after getting baptized in the Holy Spirit was Scott Vaynerwerk equivalent in my journey to what you saw saw experience where he got encountered by the Lord. And then there was three years of hiddenness where he actually went into the wilderness and learned the gospel before ministering.

What he experienced in three years, some people experienced a shorter time, longer time, and everybody's journey is totally different. But there was some transaction that happened and I wish it was less mysterious so that I could put language to it, but something awoke in me in a way. And there was a redirection in 10. But there was this group of guys that was gathering once a week, four hours, like hours and hours we'd meet after work and we'd stay up until 2 a.m.

3 a.m. running after him. And it was just in that season, that course of life where I was getting gripped with spirit soul body, the grace of God, identity, and all of the core elements of what we have as a foundation for our community today was beginning to be a foundation in my life and a few people that we were running with. And I just remember when the Crapals came back from a time away when in Colorado when they moved back to Minnesota, we met up at the Starbucks right by the base and the purpose of that particular meeting was for me to say, hey, this is what's burning in me.

And I think I just talked forever, maybe it was just two hours, but it felt like a long time. And I think it was like week one of gospel class content, the gospel from Genesis to Jesus. And shortly after months after the Crapals started gathering some amazing people in their basement that were just running hard after him and Rebecca and I were plugged into a different church community at the time, but this wasn't even a church yet, this was just a meeting. And yeah, a year or so into that I attended my first wolf pet.

It was the wolf pet, but it was the very first house group. That's the official name. And I just remember being marked by the people there. And it was probably many months, almost a year later that they moved into a bigger house and more people just started coming.

And what was a group of maybe a dozen or so became 30 and 40. And when Rebecca and I started attending this meeting on a Monday night, I remember our first meeting there. We again walked away marked by the people. Like we hadn't ever been in a room with such high caliber leaders and high character people that were also enjoyable to be around.

It was an experience. Every single person you talked to, you're like, you could be my best friend. And 40 turned into 50, turned into 60, turned into 70, turned into 80, and that never changed. It was just the people that were coming were cut from different cloth than what we were used to.

Rebecca and I, and I think because of what happened for me personally in 2008 and shortly after to Rebecca with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we had felt in different communities almost alone in the desiring and the hungering for more. And when the group kept growing that was meeting at the house in that house group, I remember driving home from one of those meetings and saying, we finally don't feel alone anymore. We found the hungry ones from our city. There are so many different expressions of what a church community can look like, but there's something so powerful when you gather the hungry ones in the Spirit.

I actually prepared a whole different message tonight. This was one of those weird experiences where I was ready to go on faith, hope, and love. And this weekend, I felt like the Holy Spirit took it in a totally different direction to the point where, like I told the first service, I'm a little uncomfortable, a little less prepared than normal, but I feel like he wants me to actually touch on one of our core cultures as a community, which is the culture of hunger. I think I have a unique perspective that perhaps a good chunk of this room might share, but I was raised Baptist Calvinist, a sessionist, and under the teachers and the pastors and even the professors in the schools that I was in, when I took in that the information, the doctrine, I personally took it into a ditch where I believed that I needed to work in order to have God's favor, his blessing, his protection, that I needed to maintain my forgiven state as if the blood of Jesus could go 2,000 years into the future to cover my past sins, but it was up to me to make sure all the ones from the time I said yes to him until I died were covered by my own efforts.

And again, you start to touch the truth and the goodness of the gospel. You do get delivered from that mentality and that belief system because you begin getting revelation on what he actually accomplished already that I was waiting until the age to come to see manifest. You read in the beatitudes or the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is teaching to a group of people.

And if you don't rightfully divide the word of truth, there are some teachings of Jesus that won't make sense and almost see him contradictory to what Paul teaches after the word is finished because Jesus was born under the law and was ministering to those under the law. And so he is actually stoking interest in hunger for the new and he's enhancing the law and it wasn't enough to not just kill, now you can't even have that anger and hate in your heart because there's an issue coming where it's not about your external works anymore. It's about becoming brand new on the inside. And when he says, blessed are those who hunger for righteousness, for they'll be filled.

If we don't rightfully divide the word of truth, even on this side of the cross after we've said yes to him, we can find ourselves in this position of hungering for something that we've already become. And then he's already given. We've become the righteousness of God in Christ. And that's one example just so many.

If you're thirsty, come to me. I'll give you living water. You'll never thirst again. So I have this, I feel like unique perspective because I'm aware of the ditch that I found myself in and what I grew up in.

But then you can pendulum swing with the goodness of the gospel and find yourself in another ditch that says, well, I've been filled with righteousness, so I guess I'm not hungry anymore. I'm not a beggar or a slave, so I'm not going to kneel anymore. He's given so much already. I'm not going to ask anymore.

And I've drinking of that living water, not thirsty. Thirsty hunger and kneeling is for sinners. It's for the other side of the cross and to a new ditch. The problem is that there's this profound shift from old to new of pivoting from religion and law to love.

All the law and the prophets have summed up in what's to come, which is love. And there's this desire built into every person to have that right standing. There is this God given desire for union with him. So then I think through all the other examples of God, I've already been given everything I need for life and godliness and every spiritual blessing.

First Corinthians 1 says, I don't lack any of the spiritual gifts. I have all the fruit. Ephesians 3 says that I don't lack anything. I now have the fullness of God.

How can someone who's filled be hungry? How can godliness with contentment and great gain exist at the same time as hunger on this side of the cross? And when I look at what religion has brought, compared to love, I just wonder that when we're coming to him for connection, union, and intimacy, how often we're actually coming to him because we need something, that we're coming to use him rather than to know him. I'm just wondering if we even just charted out the spikes and dips on the seasons of hunger when we've been pursuing him.

How many of the spikes are tied to a knee in our circumstances? And we have to answer the question of do I want him or do I want my circumstances to just change? Do I want him or just an easier life? And one of those litmus tests, one of the barometers, or you stick a thermometer in your mouth to just tell where we add on that, is do you come to him just because?

Because it's Tuesday. Or is there something else that you're interested in? And I almost wonder what is it to give yourself an intimacy for the purpose of getting something in return? There is a name for that.

There's this cry on the inside for union and connection with him. But how can we be one with him but still pursue him? How does that make sense? Well, in the same sense as when I married Rebecca and the two became one, I can still pursue her.

You track? That there's this gift of exchange and a healthy relationship. I love the culture that Jesus is trying to set on what this relationship would actually look like. Because I see passages that say, if you draw near to me, all draw near to you, and I'm trying to balance that against he did draw near 2000 years ago, we don't love him first.

He loves us first. He's the initiator, we're the responder, yet in a healthy relationship, both sides initiate once you've become in relationship. There might be an initial initiator, but in a healthy relationship, it's initiation and response. And I think that in our human relationships, whether marriages or friendships, there's risk and initiation.

If you're the one initiating, there's risk of rejection. There's risk of you being more all in than the response. There's risk of hurt, yet he sets culture to say, open the door, draw near to me, I'll respond by drawing near to you. Because he's the rewarder of those who sit on the couch and do nothing.

Or see the rewarder of those who actually seek him. There's this invitation that he's already said yes to you. Will you say yes to him? And then he is saying, as you pursue depth, I'm a wide open book.

We've talked about how it's the glory of God to conceal him, and we've said before how he's not hiding things from us. He's hiding things for us. He's actually engaging us in a loving game of hide and seek. I'll go over there, not to withdraw from you, but will you pursue me?

And he hides the deep things of God behind a veil. He's already torn the veil of intimacy, but the deep things of God need to be searched out to. You have to enter that first veil of intimacy, and then you'll find another one. And the cry of your heart will start bubbling up.

Holy Spirit, would you search the deep things of God and reveal him to me? Would you pull back the veil a little bit more so I can see? One thing I ask, one thing I seek, that I would dwell in your house and gaze on your beauty again. I want that all the days of my life, not just when I'm in need.

Seek and you'll find. It doesn't say seek and we'll see what happens. It doesn't say knock and I'll make a decision in that moment based on my mood, if I'll open or not. It doesn't say draw near to me, and if you've been sinless for three days, then I'll draw near to you.

Do you realize how safe this relationship is that he's created? So how can we hunger when we've been filled with chips and what you're hungering? And I almost wonder if it makes sense to just draw this line in the sand and say that he's already accomplished it. He's already given it or you've already become it.

Maybe those things you don't need to hunger for on this side of the cross, but there's this whole realm in God that has not manifested yet, that we are hungering and thirsting for. We've become one with him, but now we get to reveal the deep things of God, one thing at a time in communion and union with him. Friends, we want the manifestation of what he accomplished, that there's this cry on the inside of you that heaven and earth would become one. It's in you.

You're marked for eternity. It's written on your heart, and you can't stir it up. Sometimes we think we can stir up hunger just by stirring our emotions. And that's a hunger of the soul.

And that's a real thing, but it burns out. Your emotions change on the daily for some of you, and by the minute leave for others. Safe to say the emotions get blown in tossed, friend. And if you're basing hunger on a thing that gets blown in tossed, you might experience a blown in tossed hunger.

And we're like, well, in that place of the soul, though, I feel like I have can muster up this grip of the will in hunger. And your soul includes your will, and it's the same thing. Your best efforts to white knuckle into hunger is the same as you white knuckling into salvation. It doesn't work.

And your best mustard up soul hunger will burn out. There's something in the spirit, though, called spiritual hunger that doesn't originate in the soul, but you better be for darn sure it overflows into the soul. We talked in the fall about hope, and how there is a hope that comes from God, and there's a hope that comes from the soul. The hope that comes from the soul is like a wish, like I hope they like me.

I hope I get the job. But God, hope, which comes from the spirit, is built from something totally other than it's sure, it's stable, and it's an anchor for your soul. And it's tied to something that doesn't shift, which is the character of God, the word of God, and the promises of God. And if you anchor to something like that, you can understand how you can get through any storm because you're not moving.

But when we come to Him in the winds and the waves, I just want to keep poking holes in even that idea, because how many times have we preached, even in this building, that just because your circumstances are thrown into the fire, when the fourth man shows up, it doesn't mean the fire's going out. And we're just praying for no fire. We're just praying that the fire gets put out. We're praying to be free from the fire.

But he wants to show up in the middle and teach you how to be free in the fire. He wants to show you what it's like to go inbound, and then when he shows up what it's like to be unbounded, walking free. We've preached a hundred times on how there's enemies all around us. And instead of God showing up and killing them or removing them or something, he sets up a table and nothing in circumstance changed.

As if David is about to fight Goliath and the enemy is all around, and the Godhead shows up at a table and says, do you remember the lion in the bear? It reminds us of who we are, their history in God, and we exchange ourselves with him over a meal as we feast on what he's accomplished. And we gain a whole different perspective and our enemies are still there. I don't even want us to go to God just when the stuff hits the fan in our life.

But if we do, which I still recommend, shift your prayer, shift your why on why you're going to him. The groan from your inner man to be transformed into his image in manifestation, not just in spirit. That it would transform my soul and my body and my relationships and my finances and my health. That I'm hungering and thirsting to see, yes, the kingdom of heaven manifest, but he put the kingdom of heaven in you, Luke 17.

Don't look up, down, left, or right, for the kingdom of heaven is within you. And you release the heavens into your sphere, but into your own soul and body too. And what would that look like to actually be connecting with him for transformation of you, rather than transformation of your circumstance? That's what's available in him.

We want to see what he sees. We want to think what he thinks. You can hunger and thirst for a brand new perspective that hasn't been accomplished yet. He's given you access to the mind of Christ, you're not begging for that.

You want to see it change you at the soul and body level. You want to see your transformation of life flowing from what he accomplished. You're tracking with all this? Let's go.

I feel like if you want the deeper things of God, there is the gift of hunger to pursue them and take hold of them. And I feel like if you can't live without the deeper things of God, you won't. And I feel like if you can live without the deeper things of God, you will. And there's an invitation.

There's two trees in the garden. Choose you this day whom you'll serve. He engages in hide and seek, but doesn't force you to seek. It's an act of the will to say, I want you for you in regardless of everything I'm seeing.

I'm pursuing you. There's a yes on the inside that says, oh, I'm going to seek you and I'm going to find you. I will take hold of you. And I think that there's something on hunger, friend, when it comes to faith.

Yes, even here in this building, this mysterious thing, the heavy weighty thing of faith, haunting Jesus of when I return will I even find faith on the earth. Everything he bought and paid for handed to you in this package called the kingdom accessed by faith. And there's mystery I wrapped all around it. Go back and listen to the previous messages on faith and even the message on hope to begin getting a grid for these things.

But I wonder what it is because one point I'll bring up from what we've learned as a community is that faith is inseparable from action. James says without action, faith is dead in the same way that a body without a spirit, dead, faith without action, dead. But what kind of action? We've spoken as a community that it's relentless action on what you believe.

I think through that Sarah Phonation woman, she approached Jesus and said, hey, my daughter is possessed by demons and needs freedom. No response. She goes to the disciples and says the same thing pursuing it and the grit to keep pushing. The disciples are like, ah, Jesus, what do you want to do with this lady?

Make her go away. She's now coming to us. He tells them what he says. Listen, I'm here for the Jewish people.

Maybe he's thinking, hey, this is Paul's job. There's one coming after me for the Gentiles. But this wild one from the Gentile world pursues what's available and won't take no for an answer. She gets no answer.

Then she gets a brick wall with the disciples. Then she hears what Jesus says and pursues him, falls at his feet and says, what you just, he says, I have some faith like this. Ever. She's healed.

You think through that woman of the issue of blood that pushed through the crowds to take hold of the hem of his garlic. You think of that persistent widow knocking on the door of the judge in that parable and won't stop until she got what she came for. The Jacob grit that wrestles with God and says, I won't let go until you blessed me with your name. There's something driving all that, Fred.

You do have to get gripped with hope, which is God's perspective on your circumstance. You do have to make the decision and believe it. Yes. But what is fueling the continued pushing past boundaries?

It's hunger. But it's hunger to see the kingdom of God manifest in your life. I believe that there's a gift here for a community. We believe in it so much as one of our core cultures.

But I just want to cast vision that we're actually hungering for. Like if there is a line in the sand, we're picking up where he left off. There's not a pass. There's some things that he finished all the way to completion.

Like he ran that baton all the way to the finish line of your forgiven state. You don't grab the baton and keep running from him with that. But there are things that he passed the baton to you. And he says, whatever said you enter, here's what it's going to look like.

When he is seeing that there's actually it's better that I leave because you'll do even greater things. It looks like you're doing things. Not just hunkering down and waiting for the age to come. And in the context of hungering and thirsting, not for righteousness, but that righteousness would manifest in your sphere in every way that that means we could do a seven part series on righteousness and how it can transform a city.

It isn't just hungering and thirsting which we are for the manifestation of what is done. It's also the hungering and thirsting for him. Drink of me is the invitation. Seek me and you'll find me.

I can't promise your circumstances are going to change. But if you're not, I'll answer. That's the invitation. Is that he wants to be one with us.

But the problem is, is that one of the last most obvious signs of a physical body dying is that it stops hunger. It stops wanting food. You trap. Same in the spirit.

And there is this invitation if you're finding yourself in a hospice spiritually to pick up your bed of hospice and walk out. There is this concept in the natural, like with your physical frame, that hunger comes when you don't eat complete opposite in the spirit. Hunger is cultivated when you eat in the spirit. And we're to eat.

We're to eat a banqueting feasting table in the presence of our enemies. We're to feast on what he's accomplished and it creates, cultivates and stirs hunger. We're to orient our life in this like orbit around him. Even in my adult life, I've learned that just by owning a home and proximity to people can foster connection.

Because there's this impromptu, I wasn't planning on it, but let's meet over there like in 15 minutes sort of impromptu sappas. And it's the same in the spirit friend. If you begin orienting your schedule and begin orienting your proximity around people and things that are running after him, you will stumble into connection compared to if we do the opposite. We can orbit around him.

I'm going to invite the band up. If it's true that the more we eat, the hungrier we are in the spirit. And if it's true that he's at the table, now it's just time to eat. The problem is that there's this cry.

It's a spiritual hunger. So there's this cry from the spirit for the more and the deeper and connection with God. But we're not just the spirit yet. Here's the problem friend.

The spiritual hunger can get numbed and reduced and muted by feeding the flesh. And the more fed we are over here, the less we're even aware of our hunger over here. It never goes away. But you'll notice that when the volume is cranked up over here, you can't hear what's going on in the spirit.

When it's loud over here and you've filled your schedule and you've filled your bank-winning table with that food and with that noise, you can't hear the still small voice, even though it's speaking. So I feel like there's this invitation again feasting. I feel like the first step to even cultivating that hunger is to just tell him, I want to be hungry. And actually yes, sitting at that table with him in the presence of what your life is right now and saying, I want to want you for you.

I don't want to use you. I want to know you. I don't want to just come to you in need. I want to come to you because I want you.

And it starts by telling him that. And the beauty of covenant, the beauty of exchange, that everything that's mine is yours and everything that's yours is mine, is that you're going to exchange your current, hungry estate for his. There's a letting go and a taking hold and friend of you have not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist said, hey, I baptized in water.

There's one coming after me who sandals. I'm not even worthy to untie. He baptizes in the Holy Spirit and fire. Friend, the first time God ever describes himself in Deuteronomy 5, he said, behold, I'm a consuming fire.

My name is jealous, jealous. Is the consuming fire at the center and the throne in the third heavens and he's surrounded by four living creatures called the birding ones. Those who have seen the resurrected Jesus say that he has eyes like flames of fire. Some of you don't know this, but it says that Jesus actually came to set the earth on fire.

And I wish that it would be soaked with a flame already, he says. He comes to baptize us in the Holy Spirit and fire. And some of us, if we've never received the Baptist of the Holy Spirit, today's your day, friend. It's the safety and the relationship he created that says, hey, if you ask for bread, I'm not going to give you a stone.

How much more will I give the baptism of the Holy Spirit to those who ask? When you said yes to him, you've got an indwelling Holy Spirit that became one with you. There's a totally separate event where the Holy Spirit doesn't come in you, but he comes on you and he clothes you with power. That's why he said, go wait in the city until you're in dude with power.

And he wants to instill in you a burning fire in your belly. That there'd be this furnace, this bonfire of passion for him that comes from the place of the Spirit, not your soul or your body. And he says, just ask. I give freely, just ask.

See, can you find knock in the door will be opened. And he wants to give you a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. And some of you've already received it and you're feeling numb. He wants to give you a fresh baptism of fire, a spirit of burning to be allowed to burn again.

You got to talk to it though. You got to seek him though. Not in a striving way. This hunger is not striving.

Hunger is pursued. It's sons and daughters with misty eyes and a smile on their face running after the moor and the deep burn. He wants you. He's done his part to prove it.

And he says, if you want me, come after me. I'll respond every time. Why don't you guys stand? Just how we're taking you up on the invitation to seek.

We're taking you up on the invitation to knock and to ask and be given. Holy Spirit of God, we are asking you for a fresh baptism of fire. We want to burn. We want to be burning ones like the seraphim around your throne.

One thing we ask, one thing that we seek to enter your cords into gaze on your beauty. Thank you for giving us a hunger, a drive and a desire for connection with you. We want to see the king in hunger and fire to let us feel what you feel and see what you see. That we wouldn't just come to you when there's the furnace and the enemies around.

But we come to you now and see transform us into your likeness in manifestation, not just in spirit. We want the deep things of God. Restore the groan from our bellies. Then out from our bellies would flow rivers of living water.