Welcome to our Together on Mission podcast, when we seek to be with and like Jesus, as we begin a conversation with Jesus in the morning with scripture, prayer and meditation, and then continue that conversation with him throughout your day. Your hopes to strive to squine you, the pastor at the Inland Vineyard Church in Corona, California. In this season, the podcast will going to be digging deeper into scripture each and every day, exploring new ways that we can encounter Jesus and build our relationship with him. So grab your pen, Bible and a cup of coffee, and let's welcome Pastor Travis.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Daily Together on Mission Podcasts. This is Travis, and it is great to be with all of you as usual. I am in Psalm 16, one of my favorite Psalms. I think it's one of Jesus's favorite Psalms, and I think it was underneath the life in the ministry of Jesus, just humming along all of the time.
It's an amazing Psalm. I can't wait to read it first, the title of the podcast, more. Can most of us want more? More of something.
And I would say, and this is part of what I want to chat about this morning, those of us that are healthy want more. It could be more money as we seek to provide for the family that God has given us. It could be more square footage as we seek to have space to enjoy the family that God has given us. It could be more depth in relationship.
It could be affecting more people through mission or vocation. It could be having more time to do this or that. It could be more honesty and vulnerability in this or that relationship. Those of us that are healthy want more.
So let's just take a moment, search your heart and answer this question. What do I want more of? And there may be a few things. What do I want more of?
And then there's a follow up question, and this is crucial. What is happening in my life, in my heart, in my mind, in my emotions as a result of wanting more than I currently have? And the reason we need to ask this second question is because the second question helps us understand how we're doing and the level of life that we're experiencing right now when we don't have all that we want. And this is one of the most important tensions as a student of Jesus to find contentment now, but to not kill our water who that God has given us for his glory.
And so Psalm 16, verse 5, Lord, you are my portion. You are my cup. In other words, you're enough. You make my lot secure.
My boundary lines have fallen from me in pleasant places. In other words, what I have right now is enough. The Psalmist continues in verse 9, therefore my heart is glad. My tongue rejoices.
Verse 11, you fill me with joy and with eternal pleasures in your right hand. That's an incredible Psalm. Lord, you are enough right now. What I have is enough.
My boundary lines have fallen in pleasant places. And I have joy and I have pleasure. My heart is glad and it rejoices in you right now. And I truly believe, and we see this from Genesis all the way through Revelation, we see this at the core of God's heart, I truly believe that we have been created to want more than we have right now.
And I want to pause for a moment because I don't know that we often hear that in the church. In fact, if someone says something like that, we may think, ooh, that's dangerous. They want more. That's suspect.
They want more. And of course, if you find yourself wanting something bad or to do something bad to yourself or other people, then we need to get help and we need to get help quickly. But I'll bet that what you want is a good thing. And I'll bet that what you're pursuing is a good thing.
And of course, if you find yourself, and I think this is an important point that's not often talked about, if we find ourselves wanting absolutely nothing, then we're going to find ourselves without a passion to pursue others. If we find ourselves wanting nothing, we're going to find ourselves without a passion to pursue our purpose in life, our mission in life, our location in life. And again, we're created to pursue one another and to live with purpose as we partner with God taking our place in and for creation, just like Jesus did. At the same time, we have to remember that second question.
What is going on in our mind, our heart, our life as a result of not having what we want. Do we find contentment now? Are we finding joy now? Are we finding pleasure now where our boundary lines have fallen in relationship and in vocation?
Or are we finding envy of other people where we're comparing ourselves to them constantly? Are we finding depression? Are we finding ourselves pushing ourselves or pushing other people or cutting corners to get what we want or justifying the means to get to the end or some sort of idolatry? Because if we're finding that, we must discover and the Psalm helps us discover that we're choosing a course that's destructive and we're running down a dark alley.
And at any moment, we're going to run into a wall and the Psalm in verse 4 calls that idolatry. Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more and more. And so when we find ourselves placing what we want, which is a good thing, before God, when we find ourselves trying ultimately to find pleasure in what we want, we will suffer more and more and we will never be content until we have all that we want. And that will probably never happen.
And so we find in this one of the most important tensions in all of life, we were created to want and the church tends to try to kill the wantor and the world tends to make an idol out of what we want. But the invitation of God to be like him and to live life in the kingdom of God is to keep our wantor. Because again, without it relationships will go cold and very little good will be done in the world. But the key according to the Psalm is to find contentment in the presence of God in this moment to find our joy in God, in this moment to find our pleasure in God, in this moment and to trust that what we have right now is enough.
The invitation is contentment now with a pursuit and a passion for more of whatever God has placed in your heart. That is the key to life. And if I could just press the point for a moment, some have said that we are to take pleasure in God and in God alone. I would challenge that.
I would say that first and foremost were to find pleasure in God and in God alone. But God in his humility has created relationship and accomplishment so that we can pursue relationship and have purpose in accomplishment and find joy not only in God, but in relationship and in life as we find ourselves receiving more of what God has placed in our hearts. You see what we want is good. If it's good, pursuing it is good and resting in the fact that what I have right now and who I have right now is plenty for right now.
And that will settle our hearts and that will settle our minds, allow us to enjoy God first, find pleasure in Him first and then as we enter into more in relationship, as we enter into more in vocation, we can find ourselves appropriately finding joy in having more because God has created us to pursue more in relationship and to pursue more in his beautiful world that needs quite a bit more done. And we find life in that as we take pleasure in God first. We will talk soon.