By Ven. Greg Allinson
Recently in a sermon I said the following,
‘You know, not even a great marriage will be able to satisfy like Jesus. Not even great kids, great friends or a great job will be able to satisfy you. If you put your hope in worldly things—as good as they are—you will come up thirsty. Jesus is the one who can make us never thirsty. He is the one who can give us living water. He’s is the one who can bring us eternal life.’
Some people have asked me why that is. Surely a great marriage or great kids or great friends or a great job are often things we aspire to and they bring us great joy. They are often things we put great amounts of time into. How can I say they won’t satisfy us?
Part of the answer has to do with our own sin and brokenness. You see, as fallen human beings, we naturally (or unnaturally) make many things into idols. John Calvin said,
‘The human heart is a perpetual idol factory.’
We naturally put earthly things in God’s place. And when we do that we try and make them satisfy us more than they were designed to do. Marriage, children, friends and work are all things given to us by God. They are God’s good gift to His people and in their right place under Him they are very good. But we easily turn them into idols and make them replace God for us, and when we do that they will not satisfy.
So, we make our spouse into an idol. Thus, expecting them to be more like God for us. We expect them to act perfectly, to care for us perfectly, to provide for us perfectly, to love us perfectly, or even to look like they did at 25. And when they don’t live up to that standard, we find a lack of satisfaction. We feel thirsty and empty. That is because we are putting them in God’s place, a place they are never supposed to fill.
We make our kids into idols. We live for them. We expect them to achieve what we didn’t. We try and give them every opportunity to become doctors or lawyers, to play AFL or A league, to perform at the concert hall and to be perfectly fit in body, mind and spirit. However, when we try to find meaning and purpose from our children and their achievements, we put them in God’s place and we make them into an idol. Moreover, when they fail to live up to our expectations, we are disappointed either in them, or in ourselves. So, they fail to satisfy.
We make our friends into idols. We are surprised if they don’t ring us up or invite us for dinner. We get hurt if they don’t invite us to that party. We get annoyed when they are never available to see us, when it is convenient for us. We wonder why they haven’t liked our post on Facebook or Instagram. Only God is available for us 24/7, yet we expect our friends to be that, thus making them into an idol. So, we are never quite satisfied with our friends.
We make our work into an idol. We put the bulk of our waking hours into work and, often, we are never quite satisfied that we’ve achieved what we could or, perhaps, that we are getting the recognition we deserve. For most of us, we are never quite satisfied with our pay packet. We’re forever wanting the higher income to have that next level of lifestyle. On the other hand, if we struggle at our job or we lose our job, we find ourselves feeling depressed and worthless because we have made our work an idol. Instead of getting our self-worth from being made in the image of God, we strive for self-worth from work. So, we never quite find our work fully satisfying.
Don’t hear me wrongly. Marriage, children, friends and work are all good things, given to human beings by God. They can bring us joy and can even bring us some sense of satisfaction. But when we put them in God’s place—which is so easy to do—we will find them wanting, because they are not God. When we put these good gifts in the place of the giver, we will inevitably end up unsatisfied and thirsty.
Only a relationship with God through Jesus Christ can be fully satisfying, because only God is God.
To quote John Piper,
‘God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.’
Or better, to quote Jesus,
‘…those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ (John 4:13-14)