2025-05-24 Hungering for a Holy God

Published May 24, 2025, 5:00 AM

Moody Founder's Week has long been a shining example of time spent learning and growing from God's Word.  Students, staff, alumni and friends of the Institute gather to hear what it means to take a new and powerful step closer to Jesus.  We'd like to take you back to a previous Founder's Week on the subject of Holiness.  Pastor Mark Jobe presents what it means to have a holy hunger for a holy God.

So you call yourself a follower of Christ, but do you really follow him? Do you really know him? Here's doctor Mark Jobe, president of the Moody Bible Institute.

Do you realize that you can be a believer and have known Christ for a long time and yet not really, really know him?

Welcome to the most refreshing half hour that you've encountered in a long time. As we hear pastor Mark Jobe here on Moody Presents, Doctor Jobe is president of the Moody Bible Institute and founding pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago. I'm John Jaeger, daring you to dig deeper with us as we discover what it means to have a holy hunger for a holy God. Hey, I'm guessing that, like me, when you're hungry, you're not always hungry for the right things, right? Most of us have an appetite for stuff that just doesn't belong on a healthy menu. But what about our spiritual appetite? Can we honestly say that we know what it means to have a holy hunger for a holy God? Several years ago, pastor Mark spoke at Moody Founders Week, the annual Bible conference on Moody Campus, to bring us a message on this very theme. It's a message that is connected so powerfully that we wanted to share it with you here on Moody Presents. Right now, I want to bring your focus to the Old Testament character of Moses. What a great leader he was. But how often have we connected his usefulness to God with his hunger for the holiness of God? If you're able, grab a Bible and open it to Exodus chapter three. As we hear pastor Mark Jobe today on Moody Presents.

My heart and my soul hunger for the living God. As we continue to read in these verses, I am convinced that that hunger for God was created and in all of us. I believe if you're here today and you have no holy hunger, no passion, no desire. Nothing that drives you, that propels you to want more of him. If you force yourself to read the word and drag yourself to prayer and bribe yourself to go to church and worship, I want to tell you that you're living. You're living in a way that's unnatural to how God has designed you. Because your physical body parallels your spiritual body, you were created to have physical hunger. And when you don't have that food, you hunger inside. And I believe spiritually from the beginning we were created to hunger after God. And it's only when our appetite has been spoiled by cheap substitutes that we lose our appetite for the real thing. I believe all creation hungers for God. I believe in Romans chapter eight, verse 22, and it says, we know that all of creation has been groaning in pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit, groan. Why? Because our appetites have been awakened by the deposit of the spirit inside of us. Creation groans for the manifestation of God. The earth groans for the day of his appearing. Our spirit groans inside of us with a hunger that cannot be satisfied in woman, and success in drinking and popularity, in anything that's out there. You have been created with a hunger, a divine holy hunger that can only be satisfied in the person of God through your relationship with Jesus Christ. You see, another way that holy Hunger Affects Us is found in the following verses. God replies to Moses in verse 14 and he says, the Lord replied, my presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. Oh God seems so easy. Almost like he's looking for someone to say, I want you, God. God says, okay, my presence will go with you and I will give you rest. In verse 15 it says, Then Moses said to him, if your presence doesn't go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth? You see, I know theologically that God is omnipresent. I was taught that very well in this institute. God is immutable, which means he never changes. Think about that. God never improves because he's always been perfect. He never gains knowledge because he's always known all things. He doesn't get better with age because he's always arrived. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He's immutable in his character and he's always been omnipresent. He will always be omnipresent. Omnipresent. He is present. If you go to the deepest of the sea, he's present. If you go to the highest of the mountain. He was there when the first Americans landed on the moon and put that flag. Hey, he was there already. So what is Moses talking about? The presence of God. Oh, I'm not going unless you go with me. Hey, God is present everywhere. He's talking about not just the presence of God in that way. He's talking about the manifest presence of God, you see. God is omnipresent, but he chooses to manifest himself at times and places in special ways. In the temple he manifested himself with Shekinah glory, which means he came down with so, so much power. And so much radiance, that the priests who were dedicating the temple had to stop the services, because the presence of God interrupted them. Isaiah was praying, and the presence of God came in such manifest power and glory, and that he had to stop. And he cried out, woe is me, for I am a sinner, and I live among a sinful people. I need cleansing the manifest presence of God. He's present all the time. But there are ways and times in which God shows a portion of his glory manifests a bit of himself. And that's exactly what Moses was asking for. O God, I want your presence, your tangible, manifest presence, to go with us. And God, if you don't go, I'm not going anywhere. You know, early on in my ministry. I did not understand this concept in principle. As a young 21 year old pastor. Coming to the city of Chicago with needs all around issues and problems and gangs and brokenness and. I thought that I could solve a lot of problems, and it seemed to be working for a while. People seem to need me. And I felt like, well, here I am, God, ready to help people. And I remember running around and counseling and discipling and leading people to Christ. And, pastor, would you come and pray and pastor, would you help this? And pastor and as a 21 year old, yes. Oh, God, thank you that you have me on your team. Right? God. The cockiness of youth. And it was just six months into that journey of of burning the candle at both ends and running around that I fell sick. I mean, really sick. So sick that I could barely get up and walk. So sick. I didn't have insurance. I didn't have a doctor. I just had to get up and preach. And I thought, oh Lord, help me not to pass out. And I remember having to go when I finally saw a doctor. He said, you're exhausted, you need bed rest for a week. And I said, you don't understand. You see, I'm a pastor. The people need me. He said, I don't care what you are, you need to rest. And I remember laying on that couch crying out to God and saying, God here, I'm trying to serve you here. I'm trying to do your work, and you knock me out on a couch. I mean, you're supposed to give me power. You're supposed to give me strength. You're supposed to be my source. And instead you let me get sick. And here I am. And have you ever heard that gentle, quiet voice of the Holy Spirit bringing about a little conviction? How many of you know the voice I'm talking about? I sense the voice of God speaking to my heart. Listen. You have been doing your work, not mine. You've been doing it on your power, not mine. I didn't ask you to do that. And I realized that the conviction of the voice of the Holy Spirit was right. That I had been trying to do God's work in my own power and that it wasn't working. I remember weeping with repentance before God, crying in my sick bed, asking God to forgive me, realizing how proud and self-centered and cocky I had been, thinking that I could even do a dent in the kingdom of God in my own power, when it was really Him and His strength. I realized how little I had invited the presence of God. I realized how little I had prayed. I realized how. How little importance had given to the sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and what he was trying to say and what he wanted to do. I realized that I had spent way too few. Hours on my knees asking him to go before, and way too much time jumping into things in my own strength. I vowed on that sick bed, oh God, if I can get up and if I can serve you. God, I I'm going to cherish your presence more. I'm going to invite you more in. I'm going to walk behind you, not in front of you. I'm going to try to keep in step, not not get out of step. I'm going to try to pause and listen. I'm going to try to keep my heart in check. Because, Lord, I want to love your presence more. You know, down through the years, it's been part of what what we've sought to do. And there have been so many times I've jumped ahead and had to say, God, sorry, I forgot. We've planted 14 campuses around the city of Chicago. Pastors from around the country come and they say, so what's your strategy? Do you you know, what's the demographics you study and how do you go about what? Your system. And I feel a little foolish when we say, but it's like, don't have a system. Truth be told, we say, God, are you doing something? Where are you working? Is there divine activity? If you're moving somewhere, Lord, maybe we can go help you out. We look for divine movement, and sometimes that will come in the way of someone gives us a building, or a bunch of people start coming to Christ in an area, but we step back and we say, God, where are you moving and where should we go? And what do you want to do? And I've never done demographics. I've never done a study. I've never seen where the greatest growth was happening. It's God, where are you moving? And let us follow. Because what I want more than anything else is the presence of the living God. There. You see, Holy hunger creates a dependence on God's presence and an unwillingness to move forward without it. When's the last time you said, God, I will not go forward unless you move ahead? When's the last time you've cried out to the heavens and you say, God, I stay put? I've had some wrestling matches with God, even over this city. I love this city of Chicago, one of the greatest cities of the world. I would I love this place, but there have been times when I've said, God, if you're not going to be there, if you're not going to show up, if you're not going to come with power, then I'm out of here, Lord. You have to go before me. You have to show up. Oh, God. And I believe that God looked at Moses, and he loved that heart that Moses had, crying out for dependence on God's presence. Listen to me, some of you that are seasoned leaders and ministers, and you've walked with God for a long time. The great thing about experience is that you hopefully grow in discernment and maturity. The downside about your experience, the trap of having years under your belt, is that you may end up like a king. Asa who learned how to manage leadership, and he knew how to manage crisis and circumstances. And he started depending more on his knowledge and more on his experience than he did look to God. May we grow older but not lose our innocence. May we grow wiser, but become more dependent on the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. May we never lose that hunger and desire for the sweet presence of God to lead us and guide us. Then thirdly, here's what happened. Holy hunger drives us to pursue God with a sacred boldness and a burning passion. Look what it says in verse 18. God says, I'll do what you ask because I'm pleased. Then Moses said, oh, oh, he prayed a prayer, said a statement that only someone half out of their mind would say. Only someone possessed by a passion, a boldness of living and walking. Only someone with deep holy hunger would dare to say this to God. Moses then looks at God as he's speaking and he says, now show me your glory. Now it's hard to even fathom what Moses was asking of God. Because when we say glory of God, it seems like an ethereal term, a vague statement that we hear in the hymns of old. But when we're asked to define what glory means, it's elusive. It's hard to explain. But it's what Moses wanted to see. What is the glory of God in the New Testament? The word doxa is used. It means beauty, radiance, brilliance, the total manifestation of his attributes, the revelation and manifestation of all that God is. Piper refers to it as the glory of God is the beauty and excellence of his manifold perfections. God's glory is the perfect harmony of all of his attributes into infinitely beautiful and personal being. Another way of saying it, it's the total sum of the attributes of his characteristics. The glory of God is the manifestation of his holiness. It's going public with his holiness. In essence, the glory of God is the core of who he is. Listen to me. You're in the balcony. Look at me in the back. I want you to. I want you to hear this. Listen, it's really important. You cannot understand the purposes and plans Of God. Unless you understand and begin to grasp the glory of God, the purposes of God are wrapped around his glory. The plans of God revolve around the orbit of his glory. The salvation of humanity revolves around the essence of the glory of God. Because all throughout Scripture, from the beginning of creation and to the end of creation, it all swirls around this gravitational pull of the glory of God. Because the glory of God is the essence of who he is. It's the manifest beauty of all of his attributes. And at the center of what God wants to do is he wants to reveal himself. In salvation, he reveals himself through your life. He reveals himself through worship. He's revealed in himself. It's the revelation of who God is, that changes you and I. And I don't know what surprises me more Moses requests or God's response. He says, show me your glory. And God says. Okay, I will show you my glory. I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you. And I will proclaim my name the Lord in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But he said, you cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live. Then the Lord said, there's a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock, and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand, and you will see my back, but my face will not be seen. I love the way commentator Matthew Poole puts it. He says, thou shalt see the shadow or obscure delineation of my glory. As much as you can bear, though not as much as you desire. God says, okay, you want to. I love that God says, you want to see my glory. I want to show you as much of my glory as you can possibly handle. Later on, it tells us that the glory of God began to pass by and God proclaimed his name. I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion and have mercy, on whom I will have mercy. I will judge who I want to judge. The guilty will not go. His glory passed by and his glory passed by. Moses was hidden in the cleft of the rock so that he could not see the glory of God. And as soon as the glory of God was past in its full magnificence, then the hand of God lifted off of Moses and all he saw was the train of his glory, the back of his glory. I will show you as much of my glory as you can handle, or as you have a holy hunger for. The Bible tells us in Habakkuk 214, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. When Moses came down from the mountain, he had a problem. He glowed. My kids wonder if he glowed in the dark. He glowed. And he put a veil on his face so that they could not see the fading of that glory. Sorry. Here's what I want you to understand as we close our time together. You see, in second Corinthians chapter three, verse 17, it explains what was happening there, and it tells us now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being what transformed? How are we being transformed? We are being transformed when we begin to see his glory. We are being transformed as we begin to gaze at his glory, because we have a hunger to know him, a holy hunger that drives us and we are being transformed. It tells us, unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image. What image? The image of God. The image of His Son Jesus. And we are being transformed from glory to glory, just as from the Spirit of God. What will change your life more than anything else? What will transform you from the inside out? Is continual exposure to the manifest glory of God. You see, some of you say, why don't I change? Some of us never change because we don't hunger. For more of him. There's something that happens in his presence. There's something that happens with holy hunger that causes us to desire more. Spend more time with him that makes his word more sweet, that makes praises more dear. That causes us to be still and know that he is God. There's something that occurs when we've tasted and seen that God is good, that makes us hunger and desire more of him. And a strange thing begins to occur. The more you hunger for God, the less you hunger for the things that compete with God.

What a memorable close to our message with pastor Mark Jobe here on Moody Presents. Let me share that last sentence of his one more time. The more you hunger for God, the less you hunger for the things that compete with God. And moments ago, Mark pointed out that you and I can't really understand the purposes of God until we understand his glory. And that begins with your salvation encounter. So let me ask, have you ever actually asked Christ to be the leader of your life? The forgiver of your sins, if you'd like to. But maybe you've got some questions. We'll talk to a volunteer right now who would love to talk with you at eight, eight, eight? 88 need him. There's no cost, no obligation. Nobody's going to try and sell you anything. So take that next step and begin a relationship with Christ when you call 888 need him. Well, I can't wait for next week's broadcast. A brand new text and a brand new theme. Unstuck. That's what we're calling it. The truth is, we all get stuck at times in our Christian journey, right? We get stuck mentally, physically, sometimes spiritually. It happened to Peter. It happened to Elijah, and it happens to you and me. But pastor Mark will challenge you and I to get unstuck out of your cave and into your call. That's next week with Mark Jobe here on Moody Presents. I'm John Gager, thanking you for listening to Moody Presents, a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.

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