Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What's Your Deepest Desire? | Torah | Exodus 40:34-38

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

What do you want most in life? What makes you most excited? What are you living for? Is there anything that you put in the place of Jesus? In today's episode, Patrick uses Exodus 40:34-38 to discuss the true purpose of your life. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Exodus 40:34-38 Resources: O Say, Can You Stand? with NBA Forward Jonathan Isaac

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller, and right now we're going through the Book of Exodus. What do you want most in life? We recently interviewed Jonathan Isaac. He's a power forward for the Orlando Magic, and he's also the author of I Stand. This was on our other podcast, Truth Over Tribe, but I appreciated his story deeply because Jonathan is just like you and me. He wants approval.

He wants success. And as a young man, the one place he found it all was basketball. He was a stellar high school player who turned into a stellar college player whom the Orlando Magic drafted super early. And he was going to be a stellar NBA prospect. But then, every athlete's worst nightmare hit. He got injured. On ESPN, people began to conjecture about his future.

Would he be a draft bust? Like so many other top ranked players? Meanwhile, he felt distance from his team. While they were practicing a, playing, he was going through physical therapy and recuperating. How would he get their approval? How would he win back the approval of Orlando Magic fans? How would he get ESPN to stop calling him a bust? How could he ever be successful as an NBA player? In the midst of that, he found himself making choices he never wanted to make, just to fit in with his teammates. For the first time in his

life, he had a lot of money and a lot of fame, but the more he pursued stuff and pleasure, the emptier he felt. One day he was in a hotel elevator with another guy he didn't know, and the other guy didn't recognize or know him. But somehow this guy figured out in his head that Jonathan Isaac wasn't very happy, that in some sense he'd got in everything that he wanted, but it still wasn't enough. And so he looked at Jonathan and said, you know what? You'll never be happy unless you have a relationship with Jesus. At first, Jonathan Isaac was offended. He called himself a Christian. He knew about Jesus. But as the man talked, he knew it was all a charade. He wasn't living for Jesus. He was full of anxiety because he was living for fame, approval, and success. And those things come and those things go.

So after the elevator conversation, he called the guy, and it turned out that he was a pastor. And over the next year, he helped Jonathan reconstruct his faith and seek satisfaction and something more than the things of this world can offer. As Jonathan Isaac reflected on his past, he realized that he'd literally been rescued. If what he wanted most in life was approval and success, money, and fame, he would have to put himself in an unending hamster wheel of anxiety, because no amount of those things would ever be enough. And more importantly, no amount of those things could ever satisfy him.

He discovered that his hearts, mind, body, and soul were meant to find their deepest, profoundest, most lasting joy in his creator, not in created things. could compare to that. What do you want most in life? We're not in church or small group, so give yourself an honest answer. What makes you most excited? What makes you feel the most valuable and worthy? What do you expend the most energy and emotion pursuing?

What do you most fear losing? Your answers to those questions is a good indication of what you're living for. And the truth is that if you're anything like me, the honest answer is not often Jesus. At my best, I'm a cocktail of desires, but my prayer is that over time I can enjoy Jesus neat. The climactic moment towards which all of the Book of Exodus builds are the very, very final verses in the entire book. See, the book opens up with the story of God's justice and revolutionary love. He sets the Hebrew slaves free, and he brings them to himself at Sinai. And yet, as quickly as he rescues them, they turn on him.

They demand that Aaron make them idols so that they can worship them. them and they bow down praising the golden calf for taking them out of Egypt. The strange thing is that they saw the idol they were worshipping. They saw it as Yahweh himself. They were confused. They committed idolatry by bowing down to the calf while pretending that the calf really was God. What they wanted most in life was a God that they could see. What they wanted most in life was a God that they could manipulate and control the same way that pagans did with their idols because then they could just get whatever they wanted. We do the same thing with our idols. Yes, Jesus rescued me from sin and death and all of that, but we quietly put the boat we want in his place, the car we want

in his place, the relationship we desire in his place, the career advancement we demand in his place, the sex life we want in his place, the social status we want in his place. We bow down and worship those things. And we say, you've rescued me, you will rescue me. I trust you, I pursue you, I want you. In the aftermath of Israel's idolatry, God's justly wrathful with Israel's infidelity. But Moses intercedes and God forgives his mercy and love simply know no limits. And what Moses begs for in that moment, he says, God, let me see you. What he begs for is that God's presence would please go with Israel.

And God agrees. The Israelites build the tabernacle and they place it smack in the middle of their camp. somehow through their repentance they've come to see that the only thing that can truly satisfy is the one true God they want his presence to come down and be with him they want God to move into the neighborhood and then we read exodus's conclusion in Exodus 40 verses 34 to 38 then the cloud this is the cloud of God's glory covered the tent of meeting that's the tabernacle and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle Moses cannot enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

And all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out. But if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out until the day it lifted. So the cloud of Yahweh was over the tabernacle by day and fire was in the cloud by night in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels. The Apostle Paul says that the church is now the tabernacle of God. His spirit and His glory fill us as his people. The question is, do we want this more than anything else? Jonathan Isaac got all the glory the world had to offer.

It wasn't enough. We were made for more than fame and wealth and success. We were made for the living God. Jesus, like Yahweh on Sinai, has forgiven your sins so that God can move into the neighborhood, into your church, into your life. Today I want you to pray that you would want this more than anything else. Pray to desire Jesus more than anything else. And then satiate your heart on him because he satisfies and he satisfies alone.

Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that's going to help you beat that midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening. Thank you.