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I Can’t Get No Satisfaction
A sermon by Dr. James
Flamming
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Second in a series on “The Mirror Stories of Jesus”
Sunday, October 8, 2006
Each year at the Super Bowl they have an extravaganza at
half time. This last year’s Super Bowl, they featured the Rolling Stones. They
looked so old. They are old. And during their gig, they resurrected a hit back
in the 70’s. If you were part of that generation or if you had the radio on,
you heard it. It went like this – “I can’t get no satisfaction.”
It was a reflection not only of the lifestyle of the
Rolling Stones and Mick Jagger who sang it but I think of that generation, many
of them at least. Maybe every generation. Certainly, Jesus said that about his
generation. As a matter of fact, one of his parables might be titled, “I Can’t
Get No Satisfaction.”
Look at Luke, the 7th chapter, 31st
verse.
"To what, then, can I compare the people of this
generation? What are they like? They are like children sitting in the
marketplace and calling out to one another:
'We played the flute for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
you did not cry.'
For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor
drinking wine, and you say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and
drinking, and you say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax
collectors and "sinners." ' But wisdom is proved right by all of her children."
My feeling is that Jesus is
remembering his boyhood in Nazareth. You see, small villages and Nazareth was a
small village. They built their homes close together but they were exceedingly
small. It was all they could afford. And there was no privacy, no space to
move around, the idea that the children would have a space of their own was just
not there. So the children spent a good deal of their time in the only place in
the town that had space, the marketplace. And in that marketplace, they played
their games.
In Jesus’ story, there are two
classes of children that you can observe any time, anywhere, if they’re
inventing their own games. The first class we might call the idea people, the
idea kids – they’re the ones who have the idea. The second group, the
responders. They respond to what the idea is. Other categories or other people
have called these two classes of kids proposers and reactors. Choose whatever
title you want, there are two groups.
And, in Jesus’ story the first
group came, the idea kids, came up with the idea, “Hey, guys, let’s play
wedding. Let’s dress up in our parents’ clothing and let’s pretend we are
getting married and then, after the wedding, we can have a feast and dance like
our parents dance at the wedding.” In that poverty stricken part of the world,
often penniless, survival was the key. And maybe the great break in all of that
was a wedding. It was that wonderful break where for a whole day they could
forget surviving and celebrate. Well, that’s what the idea kids were saying,
let’s pretend that. So they took it to them and the responders said, “Naaa,
we’re not going to do that. We’re not feeling very happy today. We’re not in
the mood for happy songs. Think of something else.” So the idea kids got
together and they said, “Well, now, boy they’re a gloomy bunch. I know what
let’s do. They don’t want happy, let’s give ‘em sad. Let’s play funeral. We
know how the big people act at funerals. They cry, they weep, they mourn, they
wail. Let’s play funeral.” But the responders didn’t like that either. And
so, I can picture the idea kids going to the responders and saying, “What is it
with you guys? We piped and you would not dance. We wailed and you would not
weep. You guys can’t be satisfied. You can’t get no satisfaction.”
Eric Burns, popular writer of
another era, wrote a book once called “Games People Play.” It was about how
people relate to one another, how they do their transactions with one another.
And one of the games he wrote about was a game called yes-but. For every idea
proposed, the answer comes back, “Well, yes, but …” In the very first church I
pastored, we started with eighteen in a house, it was a little mission church,
but it grew and we received people in and once of them had this down to a tee.
This was the game of life for him. Didn’t matter what anybody proposed, and you
can imagine, a new church, trying to invent new ways of doing thing, in that
house, who was going to meet where and all of that. Regardless of what anybody
suggested his response was, “Yes, but you know I really have a problem with
that.” Yes-but.
I have a feeling that Jesus was
at this stage of his ministry where he was meeting the people and they were
playing the game with him, yes. “Yes, Jesus we like you. We love your
miracles. We love to eat the bread you spread on the mountainside and fed us
all. Jesus, we really do like to listen to you.” But then Jesus started
saying, “You gotta change and you gotta believe. And you have to let the Lord
God and his kingdom be first in your heart.” Yes, but, oh, well, Lord, uh, I
think we’ll, we’ll think about that a little longer.
Maybe that’s where the parable
of the soils got its roots. You remember the farmer went out and sowed the
seed. Seventy-five percent of the seed fell in three places – the rocky ground,
among the thorns, and in the shallow soil so it never took root. Only
twenty-five percent really responded and grew anything. Maybe that’s the way it
was with Jesus’ generation. They could hear and they were wonderful
spectators. They’d gather 5,000 at a time. When it came down to the cross,
only a few women were left.
Dear friend, I have to ask you
this morning – Are you the kind of person that just never can be satisfied?
Doesn’t really matter what the suggestion is, what the idea is, what the
enactment is, but in the end you’re just as unhappy as you were at the
beginning. How can you solve that problem? How can you at least begin taking
some steps to making some progress? Well, suppose you look in the mirror
because we’re in a series entitled “The Mirror Parables of Jesus.” Suppose you
look in the mirror and say to yourself, “You know, that’s what I am. Nothing
makes me happy.”
Where would you begin putting
things together, turning things around?
First, I think you have to take
responsibility for yourself. You know, when we talk to little children, and
older children, we say, “You know, you have to do this for yourself. You’ve got
to come to be a Christian with your decision. Your momma can’t do for you, your
daddy can’t do it for you, your preacher can’t do it for you, you Sunday School
teacher can’t do it – no friend, no brother, no sister, it’s your decision. You
have to decide.”
One of the reasons we Baptists
don’t christen but dedicate little babies is because we deeply believe that a
child has to grow old enough to say yes or no to the Lord personally. Parents
can’t do it for them. Well, that’s true of all of God’s wish for us. You have
to do some things by yourself. You have to make some decisions that are crucial
to you and you cannot simply be a spectator. A spectator in the grandstand of
life and of faith are never going to be satisfied.
Second thing: Quit trying to be
satisfied. You say, “Did I hear the preacher right? Quit trying to be
satisfied?” You heard me. Here’s what Jesus said – “If you want to save your
life, you’re going to lose it.” Let me translate it this way: “If your main
goal in life is to be satisfied, you won’t be. But if you will lose yourself
for my sake and the gospels, you’re gonna find it.” You see, satisfaction is a
by-product.
Now, many of you gardeners are
going to be putting mulch around your favorite plants and your shrubs and your
trees because winter’s coming and you don’t want the freeze to get them. You
know where mulch comes from? Most of it comes from lumber mills where they
fashion 2x4’s and 1x12’s and the like. And they take the leftovers, the
by-products, and they shred the pieces left and they make mulch out of it. But
it’s only a by-product. It’s right in its place but don’t try to build a house
with it. I know it’s wood.
Our world is always trying to
tell us to build our lives around by-products. And if you buy into that, I
guarantee you that most of your life you’ll be able to sing, “I Can’t Get No
Satisfaction.” You can’t get satisfaction out of life living it around a
by-product. Well, what is the main product? The main product is, now I’m
moving into it, you’ve got to see that “satisfaction” is a by-product of that
which is spiritual.
John Sanford asked in one of his
books, “Do you really believe that there is a spiritual universe out there that
is at least as wonderful as the one we live in? It may be hundreds of times
even more beautiful and do you believe that this is the universe that God made
and where God lives? And, do you believe that spiritual universe can come to
live within you? And that out of that spiritual universe everything falls into
place.” Here’s the way Jesus said it. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness and then all of these things will fall into place.” I’m gonna ask
you again, calling forth for a belief. Do you really believe there’s a
spiritual universe out there and that that’s God universe and it is an
incredible universe. Here’s what Paul said: “Eye has not seen, ear has not
heard, what God has prepared for those who love him.” If you believe that, can
you believe that that universe lives in your heart in the presence of Jesus the
Lord?
Here’s another part of this.
Look inward, not outward. You see when Jesus said, “Wisdom is known by her
children,” what he was saying was, “Look at the result.” The wisdom of the
world is always going to wind up saying, “I can’t get no satisfaction,” and
Jesus says, “if you want to know the wisdom of God, look what it does for
people. Look what it does through them.” And the Lord Jesus came in order that
we might have life and have it more abundantly, but you can’t start with the
life, you have to start with the Lord.
Sam Keen was raised in a little
town in east Tennessee where his father taught in a small Presbyterian college.
He claims that from his earliest memory he was engulfed by what he calls a
feeling of “nobody-ness.” He was a nobody. Everybody else around him was
somebody but he wasn’t. And he decided that he was going to make a name for
himself and academics was his thing. He was very bright, graduated from high
school with highest honors and was awarded admission to Harvard University where
again he graduated with honors. Now out of that you would expect that he would
be deeply satisfied. He had achieved; his goal had been reached. Not so.
Empty. Empty, empty, empty. Nobody-ness was still there. Went to Princeton,
got a PhD. After he wound up getting that hood, they call it, still the
emptiness. “Well,” he decided, “I’m older and I’m more mature and I know what I
need to do. I need to have a job teaching and I need to write a book and he did
both and it was the same thing. You see, the self was the same, no change.
I think the crisis came, as he
writes it, when he was invited to bring a paper to a very scholarly society that
he admired very much and he had never thought he’d ever be invited but he was.
He gave it. Went home to his hotel room that night and he was just as empty as
he could possibly be. The nobody-ness hadn’t left at all. He had achieved
everything he ever wanted. He fell down on his knees by the side of the bed and
he prayed, “Oh, Lord God, what must I do to be saved? What more can I do to
have some kind of sense of worth?” As he tells it, there was against the back
wall, writing that appeared. This is a PhD from Princeton and the writing said,
in answer to his question, “what more can I do,” the writing said, “Nothing.”
And he realized he was living out that old ancient story about the one who was
riding an ox looking for an ox. Looking for an ox when he had one right under
him. And he realized that the answer was not going to be achieving or buying or
borrowing from the outside. It was going to be within.
If you ain’t got no
satisfaction, maybe you’re starting in the wrong place. The Lord Jesus said,
“You gotta start within.” Here’s what he said. “The kingdom of God is within
you.” Here’s what he said, “You must be born again. You got to have a birth of
spirit within you.”
John the Baptist was a
consummate outsider. Did everything different and condemned everything that was
going on. And Jesus lived among the people. He worked like they worked, walked
where they walked, talked like they talked, ate what they ate, drank what they
drank. And for Jesus, unlike John the Baptist, he didn’t withdraw, he entered.
He did not shut out, he said come in. At one point he drew the line and he
said, “Now there are two things I can’t do for you. I can’t change for you.
You gotta change for yourself. But the second thing is, you’ve got to be born
again. You’ve got to have a birth of the spirit within you and that’s got to
come from within and you and God.
I wonder if this morning it’s
time for you to once again grasp hold of the fact that what is really happening
that matters in your life is happening in here, not out there. And some of you,
maybe this is the time. As the poet has said and I have quoted so often, “The
thousandth time may prove the charm” and maybe this morning it clicks that it’s
got to be you and God hooking up. And may it happen right now.
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