Chasing More: Finding Fulfillment Beyond Nostalgia

G'day! Thanks for joining the Heights Church Podcast today. We hope you enjoy our message.

If you're in the Sydney area, be sure to join us at the Heights Church at Goldstone

Road, Cornsville Heights, Sydney, Australia.

So I'm going to be reading from Philippians 3, 7-14, if you want to look behind

me or get your Bibles out.

But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss. for the sake of Christ,

what is more, I consider everything a loss, because of the surpassing worth

of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For whose sake I have lost all things, I consider them garbage,

that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my

own that comes from the law,

but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from

God on the basis of faith.

I want to know Christ, yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation

in his sufferings, become like him in his death,

and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all of this or have already arrived at my goal,

but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

Brothers and sisters, I do not

consider myself yet to have taken things hold of it, but one thing I do,

forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead,

I press on towards the goal to win the prize.

For which God has called me, heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Well, good evening, everybody. We did indeed have a fantastic time at Kik.

Thank you so much, everybody, for your prayer and support for what is a wonderful weekend.

I've got to say our young people just totally impressed me this weekend with

the way that they just threw themselves into everything, whether it was a bushwalk,

whether it was hanging out with each other, whether it was playing spoons,

whether it was worshipping, or whether it was taking notes in the talks and

learning and asking questions and responding.

It was a fantastic time. I know for myself that the room that I sleep in tonight

will smell a lot better than the room that I slept in the last two nights with

seven young men under the age of 22.

It's going to hit a little bit differently tonight. I'll tell you one thing,

you might talk about sacrifices in ministry.

Sleeping on a top bunk when you are over 30 is its own version of sacrifice, let me tell you.

But very little sleep. The boys stayed up all night chatting and I loved every second of it.

And I am very excited tonight to speak to us about something that we,

all of us, experience at one point or another in our life.

For some of us, it's something that we feel every day. It's part of our personality.

For others of us, it's something that we don't feel that often,

but when we do, it is overwhelming, difficult to process.

There's a nagging thought. It's a subtle ache that I want to speak about tonight.

It's for those that are young and just starting out, for those who have been

around the block a few times.

It's something that no matter what, every single one of us experiences at one

point, a longing, a yearning, a nagging thought that whispers to us about our life, is this it?

Is this it? Maybe there has to be more than this.

And that ache, that nagging thought can manifest in so many different ways.

Perhaps it's getting the mark in a test that you wanted and then realizing that

it didn't actually feel as good as you thought it would.

Maybe it was a job that you dreamed of for years that very quickly starts to feel routine.

Maybe it's a relationship that you prayed for that starts to feel ordinary.

Maybe it's a season of life that you finally got to, only to leave you wondering,

wait, what's the next season of life going to be?

For some of us, what we do is we look backwards with nostalgia.

We wear those nostalgia goggles and we think, oh, it was so much better before.

If I could only just get back to what it was like, if I could only experience

what things used to be like, the good old days, then it would be okay.

For some of us, what we struggle with is looking at other people's lives and

thinking, well, how come they've got all of that and I don't?

For others of us, we think, if only I just pull the rug out and start everything

again, then maybe I will find that moment of more in my future.

In Ecclesiastes chapter 2,

Ecclesiastes 2 · chapter mention

we find Solomon who had experienced everything the human heart could want.

Wealth that silenced all earthly limitation, wisdom that surpassed the sages of the East.

He had every experience possible. And this is what it says in Ecclesiastes 2

Ecclesiastes 2:10–11

verses 10 to 11. It says, I denied myself nothing that my eyes desired.

I refused my heart no pleasure.

My heart took delight in all my work and this was the reward for my toil.

Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve.

Everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

The tragedy of the human heart so often is that even when we get what we thought

that we wanted, we realize that it doesn't fill us up, it doesn't satisfy,

so we look elsewhere and we go,

there must be more somewhere.

Else.

A nagging thought, an ache. Is this it?

There must be more than this.

I'm going to pray again quickly. I'm going to go through tonight three areas

that we incorrectly look towards to find that elusive more. So let's pray again.

Dear God, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for the way that

you encourage us. And I want to thank you right now for the way that you fill us up.

That you give us a life of satisfaction, Lord, but not always in the way that

our sinful hearts look for it.

And I pray tonight that you would help us to just realign our vision,

to realign our heart towards what you are maybe wanting to do in our lives right

now, in this day that we live in, in this moment. In Jesus' name, amen.

And so I've hinted at it already, but the first place that we can incorrectly

think that the more exists is that it exists behind us.

It exists in the good old days. It exists in the life that we used to have,

the ministry that we used to be a part of, the job that we used to have,

the relationship that we used to be in.

We can look backwards and think that is when we had it.

It says in Numbers chapter 11, this story after God had brought the Israelites

Numbers 11 · chapter mention

out of Egypt, In Numbers 11,

it speaks about that group and it says that this group that had come out of

slavery in Egypt, it says in Numbers 11 verse 4, they began to crave the food they used to eat.

Numbers 11:4

The Israelites started wailing and complaining, saying, if only we had meat to heat.

We remember the fish that we had in Egypt at no cost.

Also, the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.

But now we have lost our appetite. We never see anything but this manna.

Now, the manna was the bread that God provided for them every single day.

We find here a truth that is true in our lives as well, that often there are

very few things that are as spiritually deceptive as nostalgia.

I wonder if nostalgia has ever got a hold of you. That feeling of, ah, I remember.

I remember when it was good.

Nostalgia is a dangerous thing. I've struggled with nostalgia in my life many

times. It can be a powerful emotion that can surpass all other emotion.

I found in my life that nostalgia will have me not appreciating the moment that

I'm in, but instead thinking, what can I do?

What conditions can I recreate to have the moment that I used to have?

My son does this sometimes when he says a joke to me and he gets the biggest

reward, I think, of his day, that he manages to make his dad laugh.

And what does he do but 24 hours later? He tries the exact same joke.

Yet he finds dad doesn't find it as funny this time.

He can't work it out. It was the same moment. I said it in the same way.

Everything was the same, but I couldn't recapture the moment.

He couldn't recapture the moment because the moment was a different moment.

How often do we ignore the moment that we are in to try and chase the moment that we've had?

What about this tragic story of God's people, the people of God who had witnessed

the most dramatic display of being rescued, the most dramatic display of divine

intervention in perhaps history.

At that point, the Red Sea had parted, the chains of slavery that had bound them had been broken.

God's voice had thundered from the mountain. They were being fed every day for free.

God was leading them And yet, what do we find them saying in Numbers 11?

The fish, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.

How crazy is that? God had rescued them. God had brought them out.

God had given them goodness beyond anything they could have ever dreamed of.

And what are they saying? Oh, but I remember the cucumbers.

The sad thing is that we are not unlike them.

What we do often in our spiritual journey and in our life is the exact same thing.

Some people describe it as a selective memory, the good old days mentality.

What we do is we romanticize the past by just remembering certain elements that

our brain tells us were good and created happiness within us.

And by doing so, we totally ignore and forget the things that God had brought

us out of from that season.

And what does it make us do? It makes us not be grateful for the present.

It makes us not be eyes up to see what God might be wanting to do in our lives right now.

And it can make us, instead of walking alongside God and in his spirit,

it can make us try and recreate the conditions of what used to work.

And so for some of us, what we struggle with is thinking that the more is behind us.

But for others of us, we struggle with feeling like the feeling of more is beside us.

What we think is that we look around at other people's lives and we think,

I know I don't have it, but it seems like everybody else does.

It's the grass is always greener illusion.

In Psalm 72, Asaph, who writes this psalm, he says, As for me,

my feet had almost slipped.

I had nearly lost my foothold, for I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

Asaph had a moment that many of us have, is that we think to ourselves,

the reason that I follow God is because God says to me, if I follow him,

that everything is going to be okay.

And so what we do is we follow God thinking that what that means is that okay

means that nothing's going to go wrong, that life's going to be comfortable,

and that all those other people that don't follow God,

well, their lives are clearly going to fall apart because they're not following God.

And that at a certain point in our lives, not if, but when things start to go

wrong in our lives, when things don't always work out the way that we'd hoped,

when things go against us, it can leave a bitter taste in the God-following

heart that has fallen for the trap of thinking,

this means everything's going to work out for me, to look over and see that

person that never followed God and to see their prosperity, to see their comfort,

to see them having all of the things that we wish that we had.

And it's in moments like that that makes us think, maybe they're the ones who have it right.

Maybe they're the ones who have done the right thing.

And it's a lie, really, that is dressed up as logic, a lie that we believed

maybe all the way back when we first started following Jesus.

If we think that following Jesus means everything in our life is going to be

comfortable and big and good all the time, then that lie might not be hurting

you today, but at some point in your tomorrow, it is going to.

But sometimes even in the church, we can do the same thing. We can be singing

in worship and look and think, how come everyone else is feeling God, but I am not?

We can hear somebody else talk about what God's doing in their life and think,

why is God actively doing things in their life but not in mine?

We can hear about the way that people are applying themselves to reading the Bible and to prayer.

And then we think of our own devotional type time in our life and we think,

I can't even get past a paragraph.

I talked to the ceiling for a few minutes and I've got nothing.

And so what we think is that there is a more, but it belongs to other people,

either those people whom we journey alongside in our faith, or it belongs to

those outside of the faith whom we start to think maybe they're the ones who have it correct.

That was Asaph's struggle, a worship leader, immersed in the things of God,

giving his life to worship God, but his feet were slipping.

Things in his life weren't working out the way that he hoped,

but the wicked were thriving.

And so he thought, if only I had what other people had.

That same ache, that same nagging thought infected the people of God in the time of Samuel.

When they came to Samuel and they said, Samuel, we are looking around at all

of the other nations, and how come they all have a king, but we don't have a king?

Samuel, tell God to give us a king.

I won't go too much into that story of the idea, but just the simple idea of

saying to Samuel, hey, Samuel, tell the king of kings that we don't have a king and we need one.

We do the same thing in our life, is we look at other people's experiences and

we think, Just give me what they have, and then the more will finally come to me.

The truth is, though, you weren't called to be like everybody else.

You weren't created to be like everybody else.

You weren't made to walk the path of everybody else, even if it's your friend,

even if it's your neighbor, even if it's the person who is worshiping God alongside

you, their path is not your path.

But there is indeed grace for the lane for the path that God has put you on.

The third and the final area that we can sometimes think that the more is in,

is in the future, in the someday, in the, if I only do this, I will finally get that.

The enemy can't trap you with the past. If the enemy can't trap you with envying

other people's circumstances,

he'll come to you and he will plant it in your heart that, well,

if you do this, if you make this change, if you start heading in this direction,

and if you start going in this certain way, if you start doing this,

then the more is there, and it's going to be in your future. Keep going.

Keep doing the thing you're doing, and then one day you will find that satisfaction.

The tragedy is that it's an echo of the truth. It's a shadow of the truth.

It's a sort of, yeah, but not quite in the way that you mean it sort of truth.

Because this sort of truth is the one that can trip us up so easily.

It can trick us. It can draw us in because it's the one that says,

if I can just get those marks at school, then I will be happy.

If I can just get into the uni course that I want to get into, then I will be happy.

If I could just get a partner, if I could just be married, if I could just get

this job, if I could just have this level of success, if my bank account could

just reach this number, then finally I will have peace.

The danger of that mindset, or maybe a better way of saying is one of the dangers

of that mindset, is that when we live like this,

we discover that the, if I could only get to there, is always moving.

Because when you get to there, the if only I could get to there is now over there.

And when you get to there, the if only I could just get to there is over there.

And you spend your whole life thinking that there is a more,

but it's just always two steps ahead because when you get there, it's already moved on.

In Matthew chapter six, Jesus tells us to not worry about all these different

things that the world will want us to worry about.

He tells us in Matthew six, Don't worry about tomorrow, but instead seek first the kingdom of God.

He says, tomorrow will have enough troubles of its own.

Is he saying don't plan? No, he's not saying that. Is he saying don't consider

the future at all? No, he's not saying that.

But what he's saying is, be in the moment that Jesus is in with you right now, each day.

Because as we get to the passage that Natalie read for us in Philippians chapter

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

3, we find And some really interesting things that as I finish, I think,

can allow us to just set our alignment, the way that we look at our lives and

the way that we consider them more to be in a way where we will all of a sudden

see what Jesus is trying to do in our day today.

Philippians 3, we find Apostle Paul, seasoned, weathered, but still pressing on.

He's still going. And he writes not as a man who has mastered some sort of spiritual

rival, but one who has been totally entranced, gripped by the person of who Jesus is.

And so he says a few things about our past, looking sideways and looking forward

that I think are really interesting.

First, what does he say about the past? He says, not that I've already obtained

this or I've already arrived at my goal future, but I press on to take hold

of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

And then he says, forgetting what is behind.

Forgetting what is behind. What does he mean by that?

Does that mean he's going to forget when God transformed his life on the road to Damascus?

Does that mean he's going to forget all of the things that God had taught him?

Does that mean he's going to forget all of the encouragements that he's had

in his ministry? No, it doesn't mean that.

But what it does mean is not thinking that the prize that you press on towards

has already passed you by.

Forgetting what is behind, leaving the past in the past, letting it be where

it is, but pressing onto the future for that of which Christ Jesus took hold

of me. He personalizes it.

And I wonder tonight, as you maybe attempted to look at what Christ Jesus has

done and taken a hold of in the people that you walk alongside,

to just instead of looking over there to consider, I wonder,

what is it that Christ Jesus has taken hold of in you,

uniquely to you? Absolutely.

What is it that Jesus has done in your life, in your heart, or maybe wants to

do in your life with your heart?

Paul is not focused on what God is doing in Peter's life.

He's not focused on what he's doing in Luke's life.

No, I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

But we do press on. You see, this is where the if only I could get to thinking

it's just an echo because Paul here is encouraging us to, in one way, look forward.

The language here is not passive and just go with the flow. It's actually like athletic. It's urgent.

It's energized. It's excited. It's moving. It's straining.

It's full of intensity, focused in the right direction. I press forward toward the goal.

But his aim is not self-improvement. His aim is not achievement or glory or applause.

His aim is not a certain amount of dollars, a certain amount of affirmation,

a certain amount of things going the way that he wants.

No, his prize is Jesus.

His goal is not to impress heaven. It's to walk alongside the Jesus who made

it possible for him to get there.

Paul is not motivated by nostalgia. He's not motivated by what God or otherwise

might be happening in other people's lives.

And he's not motivated by some future trophy or medal or award that's going to make him happy.

No, he's running in the now. It's the next step.

Him. He was in chains. He was in uncertainty. Things had definitely been going,

as far as the world would say, wrong in his life.

But he is running. He is pressing on.

And his eyes are on nothing but Jesus.

And because of that, because of that, Jesus was working in his life today.

And so I wonder with the stress, the anxiety, the worry, the looking back,

the looking sideways, ways, the looking forward that you might carry in your

life, I wonder if tonight could be an opportunity to just say to God, God,

don't make me feel better, but what are you trying to just do in my life now?

What are you trying to say to me now? What are you trying to teach me now that

I have been blocking out, that I haven't been seeing because I keep looking

back there, I keep looking over there, and I keep looking up there?

Help me, God, to press on to take that next step with you, not as a finish line,

not as a starting gun and not as a competitor, but as someone who is in the lane with me.

What are you trying to teach me now?

And so as the band comes back up and as we're going to sing,

and I think we're going to do communion as well, I wonder if you might take

the moments that we have to consider what God might be wanting to do in your life tonight.

Open your heart just a little bit to say to God, God, show me a little bit more

of you and a little bit more of what you've got to say to me. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you so much that often it's in the journey that you work in our lives.

We thank you so much that it's in the next step. It's in the next moment.

It's in the day that you have given us.

And this is the day you've given us. This is the night you have given us.

So Lord, help us to be open to you. Help us to be hearing what you're saying.

Help us to be seeing what you're showing us.

And Lord, help us, God, to stop

romanticizing the more being behind us or beside us or in front of us.

But Lord, help us to simply keep our eyes on you.

And we look to Jesus and it's in his name, it's in his power,

and it's in his glory that we pray and sing and remember. Amen.