Faith in Focus is a weekly reflection on what God has been teaching me throughout the week regarding my faith. Whether it’s personal interactions, reading, or the Sunday sermon, God speaks through it all, and I hope this helps you focus on His mission.
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Sermon Reflection
Psalm 81 confronts a problem most of us recognize. We’re very good at wanting more, but not always very good at wanting the right things. The invitation of verse 10 is not to shrink our desires, but to redirect them toward the God who alone can truly satisfy.
Based on the sermon by Ryan Franchuk, Connection Church Sioux Falls, August 16, 2026.
What Are You Desiring?
There was something strangely familiar about this week’s sermon.
Just four weeks ago, we walked through Psalm 81 with Elder Nathan. This week, we opened the same Psalm again, this time with special guest Ryan Franchuk from a local church in Dell Rapids. Ryan is no stranger to preaching at Connection Church, but hearing the same Psalm preached twice within such a short period was an interesting experience.
At first, I wondered what could possibly be different.
The answer, was perspective.
Nathan approached the Psalm through three movements of remembrance, receiving, and repentance. Ryan came at it from another direction, using the broader framework of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation that has become a helpful way of thinking about the overall Psalms and the seasons of life they express. Walter Brueggemann popularized this framework as a way of understanding how the Psalms give language to seasons of stability, disruption, and renewed understanding.
Different approaches. Same Scriptures. Same God. And ultimately, the same warning.
We’re prone to desire good things in the wrong direction.
The World Behind the Text
Psalm 81 begins with celebration. Israel’s called to sing, shout, raise a song, and remember the God who delivered them.
Then the tone changes.
God reminds His people of what He had already done. He had relieved their burdens. He had heard them in distress. He had delivered them. The God speaking in Psalm 81 isn’t distant from His people. He’s the God who’s already acted on their behalf.
Yet the people didn’t listen.
By verse 11, God says, “But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me.”
That’s where the Psalm exposes something uncomfortable about the human heart. We can experience God’s faithfulness and still decide that we know better.
We can see what He’s provided and still believe we need something else. We can receive His grace and then turn around and chase satisfaction somewhere else.
This is part of what makes Psalm 81 so relatable. The problem isn’t that we have desires. The problem is that our desires are easily disordered.
Ryan’s emphasis on disorientation helped put language to this. The framework is useful, but it should be understood as a lens for reading the Psalms rather than a rigid classification system that every Psalm fits perfectly. Psalm 81 contains celebration, historical remembrance, warning, lament, promise, and hope. Its movement is more complicated than a simple label. Still, the framework helps us recognize the disruption taking place when God’s people refuse to listen to Him.
And that disruption begins with what we want.
Walking the Passage
Psalm 81:8 turns the reader toward repentance, “Hear, O my people, while I admonish you! O Israel, if you would but listen to me!”
The problem isn’t that God’s stopped speaking. The problem is that His people have stopped listening.
Then comes the warning in verses 9 and 10. Israel is told not to have other gods, and God reminds them of who He is. “I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” Then comes the remarkable invitation, “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.”
Wide.
That single word stood out.
God doesn’t tell His people to barely open their mouths. He doesn’t tell them to settle for a tiny portion. He tells them to open wide.
There’s something beautiful about that picture.
God isn’t calling His people toward smaller desires. He’s calling them toward properly ordered desires.
We often assume holiness means wanting less. Sometimes it does mean letting go of desires that are destructive or sinful. But Christian maturity isn’t simply becoming a person who wants nothing. It’s becoming a person who wants what is good because we have learned to want God above everything else.
Psalm 73:25 gives us one of the clearest pictures of this kind of desire. The psalmist eventually declares, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.”
That’s not the language of a person who’s stopped desiring.
It’s the language of a person whose desires have been reordered.
Jesus gives us a similar invitation in Luke 11:9-10. He tells His disciples to ask, seek, and knock, trusting that the Father hears and responds.
Isaiah 55:1-2 likewise invites the thirsty and hungry to come to God, while warning against spending our resources on what doesn’t satisfy.
The Bible isn’t telling us to stop wanting. It’s teaching us where our wanting should lead.
A Fair Counter-Reading
There’s a danger in hearing “open your mouth wide” and turning the verse into a promise that God will give us everything we can imagine.
Psalm 81 doesn’t teach us that.
The surrounding context matters here. God’s invitation comes in the middle of His call for Israel to listen to Him and reject other gods. The promise isn’t a blank check for every earthly ambition. It’s an invitation to trust the God who’s already proven Himself faithful.
The Christian life isn’t about convincing God to fulfill our wish list. It’s about having our hearts transformed so that our deepest desires increasingly conform to His will.
The gospel makes this even clearer. God has already given us what we could never earn through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Christian doesn’t approach God as a vending machine for blessings. We approach Him as Father because Christ has reconciled us to Him.
The greatest gift isn’t what God puts in our hands.
The greatest gift is God Himself.
The Turn
Psalm 81 eventually reveals what happens when God’s people refuse to listen. Verses 11 through 15 describe Israel’s stubbornness and God’s response. Instead of walking in God’s ways, they followed their own counsel.
There’s the warning for us. Our desires don’t remain neutral.
Whatever we continually pursue begins to shape us. If I constantly desire recognition, I‘ll eventually measure my worth by recognition.
If I constantly desire comfort, I’ll eventually avoid anything that requires sacrifice.
If I constantly desire control, I’ll eventually struggle to trust God.
If I constantly desire possessions, I’ll eventually convince myself that the next purchase will finally make me content.
But if I desire Christ, something different happens.
My desires begin to move outward from myself.
I can desire success without making success my identity.
I can desire relationships without making another person my savior.
I can desire comfort without making comfort my god.
I can desire more while remembering that “more” is ultimately found in knowing the One who made me.
The goal isn’t smaller desires.
The goal is better desires.
God doesn’t ask us to stop desiring. He calls us to desire Him above everything else.
Carry It Into the Week
So what does it look like to actually live Psalm 81:10 this week?
Start by paying attention to what you want.
Not just what you believe.
Not just what you say.
What do you actually want?
What occupies your imagination when you have nothing else demanding your attention? What do you find yourself repeatedly thinking about? What disappointment keeps resurfacing because you believed something would finally make you happy?
Those questions can reveal the direction of our desires.
Then bring those desires to God.
Don’t pretend they’re not there. Don’t sanitize them. Bring them into prayer.
Ask God to redirect what needs redirecting.
Ask Him to increase what needs increasing.
Ask Him to make Himself more desirable than the things that continually compete for our attention.
And then open your mouth wide.
Pray boldly.
Ask deeply.
Seek faithfully.
Knock persistently.
But do it with the confidence that God’s greatest gift isn’t necessarily the thing we’re asking Him to provide. Sometimes His answer is the thing we requested. Sometimes it’s something different. Sometimes He changes our circumstances. Sometimes He changes us.
Either way, the invitation remains the same.
Come to Him.
The God who delivered Israel from Egypt is still the God who satisfies His people. The God who calls us to listen is still speaking through His Word. And the God who tells His people to open their mouths wide isn’t stingy with His grace.
So perhaps the question this week isn’t, “How can I want less?”
Perhaps it’s, “What if I wanted God more?”
Because when our desires are pointed toward Him, we don’t have to live with small expectations of a small god.
We can open our mouths wide.
And trust Him to fill us with what is truly good.
Song of the Week: Faith Hope Love - We Are Messengers
The opening verse of We Are Messengers’ “Faith Hope Love” is something that can resonate with so many of us, especially in a culture that constantly pushes us toward a selfish mentality. We’re encouraged to build our own kingdoms, chase our own success, protect our own image, and live as though we’re the center of the universe. We can spend so much time polishing our own crowns, trying to become the king or queen of our own lives, that we forget there’s already a King on the throne.
And the King we worship doesn’t look like the kings this world celebrates.
Jesus wore a crown of thorns.
He didn’t come demanding that we serve Him because of what He could gain from us. He came to serve, to suffer, and ultimately to lay down His life for us. While the world tells us to chase power, possessions, recognition, and comfort, Jesus points us toward something far greater. He reminds us that everything we spend our lives building here will eventually fade away.
Our careers will end. Our possessions will belong to someone else. Our accomplishments will eventually be forgotten. Even these bodies we spend so much time caring for are temporary. None of the things we accumulate on this earth can follow us into eternity.
So what remains?
Faith. Hope. Love.
Faith in Jesus, our Savior. Not faith in ourselves, our accomplishments, or our ability to control what happens next. Faith in the One who gave everything so that we could be reconciled to God.
Hope in the eternity that awaits those who belong to Christ. Our hope isn’t simply that life will get easier or that everything will eventually work out the way we want it to. Our hope is anchored in a promise far greater than anything this world can offer. Jesus has prepared a place for His people, and one day we will see Him face to face.
And then there is Love.
The love of the God of the universe, who doesn’t merely tolerate us but calls us into relationship with Him. The God who’s prepared a place for His people and invites us to receive a love we could never earn on our own. It’s a love demonstrated through the sacrifice of Jesus and freely given through grace.
There’s something freeing about remembering that none of us arrives in this world rich. We enter with nothing, and eventually we leave with nothing. If everything earthly is temporary, then why spend our lives chasing things that can’t last?
We should be chasing Jesus.
Not because the things of this world are inherently bad, but because they were never meant to become our gods. Success, money, possessions, recognition, comfort, and even our own plans can become distractions when we allow them to take the place that belongs to Christ alone. The world will continue to tell us that we need more, that we need to be more, and that we need to build something impressive for ourselves.
Jesus simply calls us to follow Him.
The things of earth will pass away, but God remains. Our circumstances will change, but Christ doesn’t. Our earthly treasures can disappear overnight, but the treasure we have in Christ can’t be taken from us.
So perhaps the challenge is simple.
Turn your eyes toward Jesus in Faith. Place your Hope in the table He has prepared for you in eternity. And receive the Love that God freely gives.
We don’t need to spend our lives polishing our crowns when the true King has already worn the crown of thorns for us. Our kingdoms will eventually crumble, but His kingdom will never end.
Faith. Hope. Love.
And above all, Jesus.
Week in Reflection
This week I was asked to do the call to worship and the opening prayer for our last Gospel Community get together before the semester starts back up in September. Nervous is an understatement. The idea of standing in front of a group of people, even ones I know well, is already enough to make my heart race, but being asked to not only give a call to worship, but also lead everyone in a corporate prayer to begin the evening? My blood pressure was probably through the roof.
I’d prepared for it. I’d written everything down in my notes, thought through what I wanted to say, and tried to mentally prepare myself to step into a role that, quite honestly, still feels a little outside of my comfort zone. There’s something intimidating about being the person who has to stand up and direct everyone’s attention toward God. You suddenly become very aware of every word, every pause, and every person looking back at you.
And then the kids started getting rowdy because it was time to eat.
Before I really had a chance to step in and do the whole spiel I had prepared, the host of the evening jumped in and started praying for the meal. And just like that, my opportunity was gone.
My first reaction was relief. A huge sigh of relief, actually.
I didn’t have to stand in front of everyone. I didn’t have to stumble through my carefully prepared words. I didn’t have to fight through the nerves that had been building all evening. I could just sit down, eat, and move on with the night.
But as the evening went on, that relief started to mix with something else.
Guilt.
I’d been asked to do something, and I didn’t do it. It wasn’t because I intentionally refused. I didn’t decide that I wasn’t going to obey or serve. The circumstances simply moved faster than I could react. Still, there was a part of me wondering if I should have spoken up. Should I have stopped him? Should I have said, “Hey, I was actually supposed to do the opening prayer”? Should I have been more willing to step outside of my comfort zone?
And honestly, I’m not entirely sure how I should feel about the whole situation even as I’m writing this.
Maybe God knew just how nervous I was and, in His providence, allowed the moment to pass. Or maybe I simply didn’t step up quickly enough when I had the opportunity.
Maybe it’s a little bit of both.
What I do know is that God is gracious in both circumstances.
It’s easy to think that serving God means we have to execute every opportunity perfectly. We can put pressure on ourselves to say the right thing, pray the right prayer, lead the right way, and never stumble. But that’s not the gospel. Jesus doesn’t invite us into ministry because we’re perfectly capable. He invites us to follow Him while reminding us that our strength ultimately comes from Him.
Paul wrote, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9 (ESV)
My nervousness didn’t disqualify me. My failure to speak up didn’t disqualify me either. And even if I had gotten up there and completely stumbled over every word, God’s grace would still have been sufficient.
There’s also something humbling about realizing that the opportunity to serve isn’t always going to look the way we imagine it will. Sometimes we prepare for something and never get the chance to do it. Sometimes we step forward and absolutely crush it. Other times we step forward and realize just how much we still have to learn. All of those moments can be used by God to shape us.
And I’m thankful for the grace of the people around me, too.
I’m thankful for my GC leader who trusted me enough to ask me to do this in the first place. I’m thankful that there wasn’t some dramatic confrontation or disappointment when the moment passed. I’m thankful that I can admit that I was nervous without pretending that I had it all together.
More than anything, I think this experience reminded me that God is still teaching me what it means to serve.
I’ve already been asked to step into more leadership within my Gospel Community, and there are plenty of moments where I feel completely unqualified for what’s in front of me. But maybe feeling nervous isn’t always a sign that I shouldn’t do something. Maybe sometimes it’s simply evidence that I’m being stretched.
September will bring our regular weekly gatherings back, which means there will undoubtedly be more opportunities to pray, speak, serve, and step outside of my comfort zone.
And I’m pretty sure this won’t be the last time I’m asked to do something like this.
Maybe next time I’ll be ready.
Maybe next time I’ll still be nervous.
Maybe next time I’ll stumble through every word.
But regardless of how the next opportunity goes, I can rest in the same truth I needed this time: God’s grace is already there.
I don’t have to be fearless to be faithful. I just have to be willing to step forward when He gives me the opportunity.
And always remember, God loves you, and so do I.
Connection Church in Sioux Falls is a gospel-centered community committed to helping people follow Jesus through authentic relationships, biblical teaching, and everyday mission. Rooted in historic Christian belief and aligned with gospel renewal movements, the church exists to see lives transformed by Jesus. Learn more: https://siouxfallsconnection.com/who-we-are
