(YouTube Video of "Quick Change" Artists from America’s Got Talent)
How cool is that? The first time I saw that couple perform was live at a UK basketball game halftime and I was blown away!
I absolutely love that kind of stuff. The kind of thing that you watch, and your mouth drop opens, and your just thinking, “Wow!”
I love to be fascinated by all kinds of things. And not just illusions. Even musical marvels like this 6 year old kindergarten boy from Florida, Ethan, who can play over 200 songs on the piano by memory.
(The Tonight Show - Ethan Piano Playing Video Clip)
Isn’t that amazing. Or how about a draw dropping trick sports play like this?
(Wrong Ball Trick Play Video Clip)
Isn’t this stuff cool? Are you at all like me? Do you like to be fascinated by unique things? Things that make you just stand-up and say, “Wow!”
Well, I bet at some level you are like me. Because we all have within us this common longing to some degree or another. You may not have it as bad as I do. Truth be told, this may be the strongest of the seven longings in my life.
The longing for beauty? Not so much. The longing to be great? Most days I’m pushing pretty hard just to reach good. But the longing to be fascinated. Now that is one that will get me out of bed in the morning, anxious to see what might be in store.
In every human heart there is a craving to marvel. To be filled with endless wonder. You can see it so obviously and clearly in the smallest of children. Have you ever watched a two or three year old sit down on the ground, staring at a finger? And when you get up close enough to them, you realize that they are sitting there, totally mesmerized with a booger? Ever seen that?
Kids can be amazed so easily. We are born with this desire and pull towards wonderment. But to different degrees as we grow older, we either find that longing pulling us in the wrong direction, or we just kill it assuming it is wrong.
But God has designed us with this desire for fascination and offers Himself as the only satisfaction to this desire. Unfortunately, for many of us, and a danger for all of us, is to substitute money, drugs, alcohol, or immorality in our search to fulfill this craving, and we are left with a completely unsatisfied existence.
The Greeks had their theaters, the Romans their coliseums, and now we have our multiplex theaters where we shell out tons of money that we don’t have to enter a two hour chamber in the hopes of having our heart moved with fascination at what we see. Hoping to be stirred, wowed, inspired once again by earthly entertainment.
But a week later, that movie that so pulled at our heartstrings is forgotten. Boredom sets in, and the search begins again.
In fact, what often happens is that the place we sought to have this longing fulfilled actually becomes repulsive to us. Just listen to this story of a longing to be fascinated leading to total dissatisfaction from God’s Word. (Read 2 Samuel 13:1-15)
The very object of Amnon’s desire, the thing he thought he craved so much, became repulsive to him. She was yesterday’s hit song. A means to satisfying his lust that was no longer fulfilling, and so he cast her aside.
You see, that is the great danger that I face, and each one of us who pursue this longing face, getting bored. . .even despising. . .the object that we looked to in order to be “Wow”ed, and having to seek a more extreme high, and a greater rush.
(Examples: Watching sports on the weekend leading to a bad mood & Riding roller coasters)
Please hear me this morning. At some level and impulse, this longing exists in your heart. And if you attempt to satisfy it anywhere else but at the throne of God, you will be left empty. As with all of these longings, the problem is not the longing. The problem is how we look to fulfill the longing.
The bar will always have to be raised. One beer relaxed me the first time, now it takes two or three. Eventually I’ll need the full bar to give me the numbing effect I desire.
A little marijuana used to give the high I was looking for. But my system got to used to that. So now it is crack cocaine. Meth. A combination of more than one is needed to take me where I want to go.
- Sexual Example
And here is something we better not miss today. As we increase our intake of earthly entertainment we not only dull our capacity to be fascinated by the earthly entertainment, but we dull our capacity to be fascinated by God. Let me say that again. As we increase our intake of earthly entertainment we dull our capacity to be fascinated by God.
It is a prime trick of the enemy to leverage this God given desire for fascinate in order to entice us to actions that will end up dulling our perception of the fascinating beauty and majesty of God.
So this is what happens. We go stand at the rim of the Grand Canyon. Or a top Natural Bridge looking over the fall colors. Or underneath the cascades of Haiti marveling at the power and majesty of the water. And we say “Wow!” And we soak it all in. And we never even stop to think. If an earthly formation, a creation of God, can inspire such awe, than how can we even begin to imagine the beauty of the creator Himself?
(Personal example of meeting Michael Jordan vs. watching him play)
So here in lies the challenge. We must constantly be about the business of overcoming spiritual boredom.
It is God’s plan and pleasure to unlock this divine treasure chest and reveal the beauty of His Son in order to fulfill our longing for fascination. But in order to experience that wonderment, we have to overcome spiritual boredom.
1 Corinthians 2:9-12
We have a beautiful God who is desirous that we encounter His beauty, but it takes time and energy to begin plumbing the depths of God. It takes time and energy to pray and fast and study Scripture. If we expend all our energies in our jobs and ministries, and then launch our Friday nights and Saturdays in pursuit of entertainment and recreation, is it any wonder that when we get to church on Sunday. . .if we even get here. . .we find ourselves depleted.
Many good, well-intentioned people, find themselves without the time or energy to fast, pray, read Scripture, or come to church. Not Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. But now, not even able to get here for 2 hours once a week. Because we have thrown ourselves all week long into the pursuit of this, and the other longings of our heart: success, making a difference, intimacy. And when Sunday roles around, and we have the opportunity to encounter God, we are simply wiped out.
Our souls have been oversaturated with activity. We come to church completely exhausted, and the results are a bored spirit.
Listen to how one pastor describes this cycle, “Many churches are made up of people who have been inundated with entertainment and recreation. Pastors feel compelled to complete with the things that grapple for the attention of their flocks. Listening to the Lord becomes secondary to figuring out how they’re going to hold the atrophied attention of people demanding an instant shot of stimulation. A night out at the latest blockbuster movie moves us to tears, but the worship service the next morning does nothing or us, dulled as we are into expecting drive-thru fulfillment, rather than devoting ourselves to eternal fascination. It is tragic how we invest what limited passion we have in things that simply do not satisfy.”
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
We could fill this place next Sunday. We could have a standing room only crowd. All we would have to do is go get Billy Clyde Gillespie, or Andre Woodson, or maybe some famous Kentuckian like Johnny Depp or George Clooney to come and speak, and we would have a crowd at the snap of a finger.
In fact, I bet we would all probably invite a friend, wouldn’t we? We might even tell our co-workers to come check it out. Come be fascinated and in awe of who we have on our stage. You won’t want to miss it.
Our longings to be “Wow”ed, our friends longings, our children’s longings, would all kick into high gear.
But keeping from being spiritually bored, that’s a tougher challenge. If I could assure you beyond any shadow of a doubt that if you will come to the prayer meeting at 6 p.m. tonight, God. . .God Himself will be standing here on the stage, and allowing people to one by one come up and sit with Him, and pray. . .how many of us would be worried about seeing the second half of the NFL doubleheader? If God Himself was going to pick-up a guitar and lead us in worship. . .how many of us would suggest that He might be repeating a song too many times, or be singing a hymn too slowly?
But keeping from being spiritually bored, that’s a tougher challenge. So we are moved by Mel Gibson’s thematic portrayal of the death of Christ, even if it probably has a whole bunch of elements to it that aren’t realistic and never happened. It still moves us more than sitting down in a pew, picking up a Bible, and reading the Gospel record. Because keeping from being spiritually bored, that’s a tougher challenge.
And the more we increase our intake of earthly entertainment, the duller grows our capacity to be fascinated by God.
Paul said, “I count all things. . .all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord (Philippians 3:8).”
He was saying, “I don’t want to get spiritually bored. I will trade everything of this world. All that I have achieved or could ever hope to achieve. I’ll give it all away, to be fascinated by the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.”
I want you to take a Revelation 4 test this week. Here is what you do. You sit down in a chair, and you read Revelation chapter 4. And you picture yourself in that scenario. Here’s what it says. (Read Chapter)
After you have read it you ask yourself, what does that do to me? Does it move me? Can I invision that scene? Do I even want to?
Does it bore me? The thought of sitting around, day and night, worshiping with these other beings. Does it sound boring? Does it sound monotonous? Or does it sound glorious?
Read that chapter and see what it does in your spirit. That reaction. That feeling, might help give us some insight at where we are with this longing. Whether we have overloaded our desire for fascination with the things of this world, and become spiritually dull. Or whether a few versus of the Bible are able to awaken within us a craving, a pulling a “Wow” factor that can only be found in the presence of the Lord.
