Why You Keep Wanting the Wrong Things | Screwtape Letters Week 4

Good morning, Faith Promise, how we doing? Good? Good. So good to be with you this morning. If we haven't met yet, I'm Chase. I serve as the campus pastor. I wanna welcome you to church today. Excited that you're here, excited to be able to open God's word with you today. And man, as I was preparing for this week, I felt the Lord really lead me to a quiet place, a near place. And I felt on my spirit to really lead you to do the same this morning before we get going. And so if you would, how many of you know life is fast, is furious? A lot of you probably came in this morning on two wheels, maybe even one, come on somebody. But man, to receive all that God has for us, we have to quiet our soul. We gotta listen and we gotta be present. And so maybe this is just a gift to you this morning before we get going. And maybe you haven't done this in a while, but just for a moment, I wanna ask you to take a couple of deep breaths and maybe pray a prayer like, come Holy Spirit, speak to me, Lord. Take a moment, ground yourself here, and then I'll pray for us and then we'll get going.

Amen. God, we love you. And unfortunately, sometimes this feels uncomfortable. To be quiet, to be near, to be attentive. Lord, would you help us not to focus on what is around us? But Lord, would you help us to focus in this moment on you? Lord, your word. Jesus, you have our attention. We give you this time. And we pray that you would just have your way. In Jesus' name that we pray. Everybody said, amen. Come on, can you give Jesus some praise? Yes. Today, we're gonna be talking about drawing near to God in week four of Screwtape. So if you have your notes, you can go ahead and grab those. And I'm gonna give you the thought of today that we're gonna really build around. It's this, the enemy forms your wants, Jesus transforms them. The enemy forms your wants, Jesus transforms them. And today may feel a little bit different, but I just wanna have a conversation. I wanna slow down. And I really wanna talk about that very thing. And to get us going, I wanna kind of bring you into the season of life that I'm in, our family's in.

If you don't know, Lauren and I, my wife, we've been married for 11 years. We have four kids. We have twins that are 10, boy, girl, and then we have an eight-year-old and a four-year-old. And they're in this service today. But we're in this season right now of the wanter is turning up. Come on, somebody. The wanter is turning up. They are seeing things now that they want. Does anybody want stuff? I don't know about you, but I want things even now, you know, like they just get more expensive and all that stuff. The things that they want now are not so bad, but there's this moment where they see something or they've experienced something or, you know, they've passed something, checking out somewhere and they just want it, you know, they just want it. And then that want sometimes becomes a little bit more than a want. They have this look in their eyes. You've probably seen that look if you're a parent, but it's, they move past the preference of wanting and it becomes their identity. And then all of a sudden they need it. I need it. And then oftentimes, like, you know, Lauren and I will ask like, hey, where did this come from?

Like, you know, what gave you this idea that you just couldn't live without it, you know? Sometimes the answer is like a friend has it or they seen it somewhere, maybe a YouTube video or on TV or even here at church. You know what I'm saying? Or they say, everybody has it. You know what I'm saying? Everybody has it. And that's not just for kids, that's for us too. But here's the reality, they did not come to that want on their own. It was handed to them. And now they're carrying it like it's theirs. And we do the same thing, right? We carry that want sometimes like it is ours. And I've sat with this for a while as I've been preparing this message and ultimately Lauren and I, we spend a lot of energy trying to shape our kids wants. Not because we wanna control them, but because we love them. We know what is best for them. We know things that they can't see yet. We know things that will actually bring them joy and we know things that will disappoint them by Tuesday. And we know that if we don't intentionally shape their appetites, the world will do it for us. Without values, without their best interest and without any love for them at all.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that and conversations that I've been having and I've listened to Lauren have with them, I felt the Lord say something to me. And he said, I've been trying to do the same thing for you. And I've been trying to do the same thing for you. Because here's the truth that I don't think we talk about enough. The battle over your life is not primarily a battle over your behavior, it's actually a battle over your wanting. Whoever shapes your wanting, your loves, shapes where your life goes. And there's a very old, very patient enemy who has been working on your appetite if you didn't know. Quietly for years, years and years. And he's counting on you to never notice. And that's where we are this week in week four of Screwtape Letters and C.S. Lewis, a fictional account of a senior demon named Screwtape is writing to his nephew Wormwood, coaching him on how to destroy a human soul. And it's the strategy as we have come to find out over these four weeks, it's not dramatic, it's not this frontal attack, it is just very slow, very quiet. And Screwtape's proudest work is simply this, he shaped what one man found desirable, what he envied, what he reached for until that man spent his whole life

chasing a finish line drawn by hell. Screwtape calls it his wife, his work, his worth, all of it ours. The man never knew, he called those desires his own. And so if you have your Bibles today, I would love for you to flip over with me to 1 John, 1 John 2, not the gospel of John, not in the middle of the Bible, but if you go to the very end in Revelation, so you can flip over to the maps even, and then just turn a few pages back, it's 1 John 2, verses 15 through 17. It'll be in the app, it'll be on the screens, I'll give you just a moment to find that. And this is where we're gonna start today, we're gonna be in all over the Bible, which I'm really excited about, we're gonna be in the very front, we're gonna be in the middle and some places in between. So 1 John 2, verses 15 through 17, if you're ready, say I am. I am. Here we go. God's word says this, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life.

If you highlight Mark in your Bible, Anything, make sure you mark 16 there. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. So John names three categories. Everything the world uses to pull a human heart fits inside one of them. We have the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life, which the pride of life is just parading around your lifestyle for the admiration of others. These three categories, that's it. And your phone, it didn't invent a new one. Actually, all three of them are right in your pocket, okay? But I want you to see is that John says something underneath the list. These desires are not from the Father. They're not random, they're not neutral, but they have a source. And they didn't come from the Father. Something else has picked up the pen in your life and started writing your desires. And I wanna get specific here because I think sometimes we tend to talk about desires and we get too abstract with these, but I wanna name some of them.

Being the first one, many of us are very familiar with, lust, the craving for what you were never meant to have, the wanting that promises intimacy but actually delivers isolation. Another desire is pride, the need to be seen or elevated, admired, the hunger for glory that only belongs to God. Agreed, that the quiet arrangement that more will finally be enough, that the next number, the next level, the next sale, the next promotion will settle something that money was never designed to settle. Envy, the sorrow that someone else has what you want, the desire that turns blessing into bitterness. Jealousy, rage, selfish ambition, dissension. Paul, he actually in the scriptures in Galatians 5, if you wanna flip over there for just a moment, we'll be back and forth there. Galatians 5, he calls them the works of the flesh, not just bad behaviors, but works. Everybody say works. Things that have been built, things that had to be constructed over time, desire by desire, choice by choice. Galatians 5, verses 19 through 21, here's what Paul says. He says, now the works of the flesh are evident, sexual morality, impurities, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissension, division,

envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. And I'm gonna continue to add onto the scripture from the word here. He says, I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. And notice most of these aren't actions you just kind of stumble into, right? The enemy is patient. He's very, very patient. He does not need a dramatic victory. He just needs to keep feeding the wrong appetite until it becomes normal, until you stop fighting it. And it just kind of comes a part of your life, your personality, kind of the way that you do things, the way that things just feel, and oh, it's just the world, and it's just this, or it's just a country music song, or it's just this, or it's, you know what I'm saying? And this is not like a new thing. The enemy's not just all of a sudden patient. This goes back to all the way to Genesis chapter three. So we were almost in the very back of the Bible just a moment ago, but if you flip over to Genesis chapter three, you're gonna see Eve in the garden. Genesis chapter 3, and the serpent doesn't doesn't attack Eve directly. He doesn't debate theology. What he does is he changes how the tree looks to her. I don't know if you ever thought about that, but let's let's read what verse 6

says, chapter 3, says, So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, there it is, and the tree was to be desired to make one wise, there it is again, she took its fruit and ate and she also gave some to her husband who has been who was with her and ate it. Good for food, delight to the eyes, a delight, desire to make one wise. Flesh, eyes, pride of life. Same three hooks right here in the garden. The enemy didn't invent a new strategy for your feed either, okay, for your life either. He's been running the exact same play, the exact same offense since the beginning. Because the hunger inside you is real. It's deep. It's how we were created. God placed that hunger there. The enemy didn't create your desire. What he's done over time in your life and in the lives of others, people you love the most, he has redirected it. He took the appetite God built for himself and he's aimed it just slightly in a different direction. Genesis. If we fast forward a little bit to the Gospels, we see Jesus. Jesus, I'm just gonna pick a gospel here, but Luke chapter 4, Luke chapter 4, we see that Jesus is tempted. And this is not gonna be on the screen for Scripture, but I'm gonna share the story. In Luke chapter 4, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness and for 40 days being tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and when they were, when they ended, he was hungry. And then the devil shows up. Jesus goes into the wilderness. The enemy comes to him and runs the identical three place. Turn these stones to bread. Flesh. Everybody say flesh. I'll give you the kingdoms of the world. Everybody say eyes. Throw yourself off the temple and let the angels catch you. Everybody say pride of life. Same three every time. Here's the difference between Eve and Jesus. Jesus won. Eve didn't. Jesus won not through willpower. He won because he was formed by the voice of the Father. That the voice of the enemy, he had no landing place. He was so formed by the voice of the Father that the enemy had no landing place. Eve lost because desire was reshaped before the choice was made. Jesus won because of the intimacy with the Father. He had already settled in his heart and in his life before the temptation arrived. I want to ask you

this morning, how near are you to God? How much of your time is spent in his presence and not just in the world? Here's what Screwtape confesses almost reluctantly because it exposes the weakness of the whole scheme. The enemy has never created a single pleasure. Not one. God invented pleasure. He filled the world with it. Food, beauty, laughter, music, a hug. Like people we love and cherish. The mountains or the ocean or whatever gives you this pleasure and joy. And man, whenever you when you look at it, it's just like man I'm just so in awe of God. Every good thing you've ever enjoyed. A cup of coffee. Come on somebody. Every good thing that you've ever enjoyed was given by the Father who delights in giving good gifts. And all the enemy can do is take what God made and just twist it, just a little bit, just twist it, redirect it, make the gift of the object of, make the gift the object of worship actually instead of the giver. That's the whole scheme. And when you see it for what it is, it starts to lose its grip. And here's the thing I want you to sit with today. The emptiness that you feel when you get what you wanted and it still doesn't satisfy, I wanna tell you today that that is not evidence that something is wrong with you. It's not evidence that something is wrong with you. That's evidence that something is right. You were made for more. You were made for more. The ache is actually holy. It's a homing signal.

It's drawing you back in to actually how you were made to live. Augustine understood this. He was an incredible man of God, fourth century guy. And he says this, he says, you have made us for yourself, oh Lord. And our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Some of you in the room today are very, very restless because you just come here on Sunday and you never spend time in the presence of God on your own. You were not designed for a service. You were designed for relationship with a living God, to walk with Jesus, to know God's voice and to make him known in the world, not to listen to me preach, not to listen to Pastor Jess sing or Pastor Austin or Pastor Zach preach. You were made to have a living, active relationship with Jesus. And so I believe what the Lord wants to say to this room today is he's not asking you to manage your desires better. He's not handing you a program. He is inviting you back to himself because he is the source of every good desire. And every desire that's been misdirected finds its way home when it finds its way back to him. Go back to Galatians chapter five. And then I wanna share again what Paul is saying here

because I believe it's so, so helpful. Galatians chapter five, verse 16, he says this. He says, but I say, walk by the spirit. Everybody say walk. Walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Walk by the spirit. Everybody say walk. Not fight the flesh harder, not suppress the appetite through willpower. Walk by the spirit. How many of you know running is different than walking? Walk by the spirit. And as you do, the desires begin, your desires begin to change. Not because you forced it, but because you are drawing from a different source. And then look what scripture says that the spirit produces. Cause Paul just doesn't leave it in the negative right here. Right after the works of the flesh, he gives this in verse 22 through 23. He says, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And I'm gonna keep reading here, against such things, there is no law. Notice the contrast, the works of the flesh, they have to be built. They have to be constructed over time, fed over time.

But the fruit of the spirit, it grows. You don't manufacture fruit. You don't manufacture fruit. You stay connected to the vine and the fruit happens. The question is never how hard you're trying. The question is always, what are you connected to? And some of you just. You just need to audit, like do an audit on your life today, and you just need to be like, hey, what am I connected to? All over the place. In your car, on your phone, on the TV, like what are you connected to? In your friend group, in your workplace, what are you connected to? Because what you're connected to will produce itself at some point. I wanna introduce you to a guy, some of you may know him. Does anybody know a monk named Brother Lawrence? Raise your hand. Oh, the 8 a.m. service, I saw like, there was like 25 hands up, okay? I'm gonna introduce you to, everybody can raise their hand after this, okay? A monk named Brother Lawrence understood this in a way that has really stayed with me. There's a book called Practicing the Presence, and it's literally about that thin and about that big, but it'll change your life.

He was a lay brother in a monastery in Paris in the 1600s, and his job was to wash dishes and cook in the kitchen. Not exactly a glamorous assignment, right? Some of y'all think I was going somewhere, he's gonna be real special. He washed dishes, but he developed something that people still talk about 300 years later, and he called the practice of the presence of God. And he said this, he said, this is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God. Not just morning devos, not just Sunday, continual, moment by moment, day by day, week by week, year by year for the rest of your life. I can only say this because this was me for a long time, but after I accepted Jesus, there was years later, I found myself in the exact same place I was when I said yes to him. That's not the life that you're meant to live. And if you just show up here on a Sunday, you're gonna get a good word and an encouragement, but you will not know the depths of who God is and what he has for your life if you just sit and leave. There's so much more for you. And so brother Lawrence, he would scrub pots and he would talk to God and he would carry food through the monastery and he would just be so aware of God's presence. He said he felt closer to God washing dishes

than most people feel in church. And here's what happened. He just stopped fighting his desires through his willpower and gritted teeth and they begin to change, not overnight, but over time, because he was in the presence of someone so real, so beautiful, and so good that the desires of the world lost their appeal. And that's what walking in the spirit, by the spirit looks like. It's to be so aware of God's presence in the smallest of things and also in the biggest of things. I feel like I need to say this, but God is not playing hide and seek with you. He's not playing peekaboo. You know what I'm saying? Some of us think that he's like hiding from us. God is everywhere all the time. The question is, where are you? Where are you? Because God wants to be with you. How I know this? He sent his son, Jesus, to take on flesh because he loves you and he desires a relationship with you. You just have to become aware of his presence. And here's, it's very simple. The less time you spend in his presence, the harder the fight against misdirected desire will be. The more time that you spend with him, the more your wants become to sound like his,

not because they're forced, but because you were with him. You were near the source. And how many of you know it's real? Proximity changes you. Who you hang out with, you will become like. And the more you were with Jesus, the more you will become like Jesus. It's no secret, but I want to give you a couple practical, a few practical things here to walk in step more with the spirit this week. The first is this, you gotta know what you're not, because what matters if you do it, Name the desire that didn't come from the Father. Name the desire that didn't come from the Father. you're not gonna see normal people. Not to condemn yourself, but to see it. You have to pick one thing, whether it's the way that you relate to money, the pull of lust in your life, the need for status, the envy, when envy flares up, when someone else wins, right? You gotta bring it before God, you gotta name it, because you can't, I've said this before, you cannot surrender what you haven't seen in your own life. A desire brought into his presence is a desire already beginning to change. So you gotta name it. Another thing you gotta do is you gotta cut off what's feeding it.

Whether for one week, one app, one voice, one habit, not forever, but maybe. Long enough to hear God's voice without the world script running underneath everything. You gotta get quiet. Brother Lawrence found God in the kitchen, and listen, I'm just here to tell you, you don't need a vacation for two weeks in Aruba to hear the Lord. You don't need to go to the Smoky Mountains and get away and have some time. All those things are great. What you need to do tomorrow is on Monday, you need to shut the door, and you need to open your ears and open your mind and say, Lord, I'm listening. He desires to be with you. You gotta cut off the world. You gotta shut the door on what's feeding those desires and tell the enemy, hey, not, no, I'm with the Lord today. You gotta name it, you gotta cut off what's feeding it, and then you gotta arm yourself. Before the battle arrives, see, Jesus wasn't flippant. He didn't have the word right here, but he had it in his heart, but he wasn't flipping through the scriptures when something bad, when the enemy showed up. Oh, no. He knew.

He quoted back scripture. And for you, it's like whatever hook that it is, whether it's flesh, eyes, or pride, mine's pride, so my verse for my whole life, and it's always been since high school, James 4.10, humble yourself before the Lord and he will lift you up. I pray that, I carry it, because I know that is a temptation that the enemy can get me with. And I just do not want him to have a landing place in my life or in my heart. You gotta be armed. You gotta name it, you gotta cut it off, and you gotta be armed when it comes to your desires. And can I beg you today? Can I beg you today? I truly believe this, that the more the world that, the more, the faster we go and the further we go in the world, I think those who will continue to follow Jesus are the ones who choose to get in God's presence and get quiet in a world that is so loud. Because how many of you know, it's so easy to get caught up in the desires of the world and get really, really far from Jesus? So I wanna invite you back to the secret place, and the secret place is simple.

It's just a place where you and God can be together, where you can hear his voice and you can dive into his word and you can talk to him because he loves you and he wants you. Maybe those of you, you've been, you've been trying really hard in this life and you've been reaching for things and there's been so many desires that you've tried to grab onto that are just leaving you empty. And I wanna tell you today that there's a life for you that Jesus offers that is worth surrendering your life to. Jesus came to this earth. He took on flesh, not because he had to, but because he wanted you and he wanted to start a relationship with you. And he died for your sins. And three days later, God raised him from the dead. And because of that, we have hope, eternal life and purpose. And we get to walk by the spirit that he has given us and is the best life that you can possibly live. It is a life. It's the abundant life. It's the John 10, 10 life. And man, he's inviting you today to start that relationship. So man, I want to ask you this. For some of you in the room,

you need to take a step to say yes to Jesus today. And here at Faith Promise, we don't pray alone. We always pray together. And man, this would be a moment where you just surrender the desires, the desire really to put yourself first. And you would say, God, I'm going to put you first. So if you want to receive Jesus today in your life, the forgiveness of your sins and spend eternity with him today, I just want to ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes and we're going to pray together. Just repeat this prayer after me. Say, Jesus, thank you for loving me. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I surrender my life to you. Thank you for your forgiveness. Thank you for resurrecting from the grave. So that I have hope, purpose and eternal life. I commit to follow you for the rest of my life. With your eyes still closed and your head still bowed, if you want to begin a relationship with Jesus today and surrender your desires and love him forever, would you just lift your hand up? Lift it up high, lift it up high. We're going to put just a resource in your hand. We want to walk with you. We want to help you follow Jesus and know him more. Amen. You can look up this way.

Can we celebrate all that said yes to Jesus today? Amen. If you would go ahead and stand with me, we're going to respond in worship. Our prayer teams are going to be up front and the response is pretty straightforward today. It's just, for those of you who are following Jesus, maybe you find yourself today, not near to God, but far from him because you've slipped back into the world's desires. And you've got away from having a true, intimate relationship with him. So man, today we just want to repent and turn back to the Lord. And so if that's you today, our altars are open. You can come down and kneel as a symbol of like, man, I'm coming back to you. I'm coming back home and I'm going to put you first in my life. I'm not going to let the world's desires take me here and there, but Jesus, I'm going to, I'm going to let you do that. Our prayer teams are available if you need prayer today. We have communion up here as well. And if you have somebody in your life that is far from Jesus, we have candles that you can light up here as well to just signify that you're going to be the light of the world to them. And so I'm going to pray for us.

And then, man, let's draw near to God. Let's pray. Father, we love you. God, make us more aware of your presence. In the mundane moments, in the majestic moments, make us aware of your presence. Draw us back to what we were made for. Lord, you're doing that in my own life right now. When I go to bed at night, I'm thinking about waking up and spending time with you. And that's not always been the case, but I'm so grateful that you're drawing my heart back to yourself. So Lord, would you create that same hunger in our church? We love you. We praise you. And we draw near to you. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.