The God Who Seeks

Sunday Sermons

Mark Dunagan
04/16/06 - Sunday Morning

The God Who Seeks

“ ‘In the beginning God’. The first four words of the Bible are more than an introduction to the creation or to the book of Genesis. They supply the key that opens our understanding to the Bible as a whole. They tell us that the religion of the Bible is a religion of the initiative of God. Before man existed, God acted. Before man stirs himself to seek God, God has sought man. In the Bible, we do not see man groping after God; we see God reaching after man. Many people visualize a God who sits comfortably on a distant throne, remote, aloof, uninterested, and indifferent to the needs of mortals, until, it may be, they can badger Him into taking action on their behalf. Such a view is wholly false. The Bible reveals a God who, long before it even occurs to man to turn to Him, while man is still lost in darkness and sunk in sin, takes the initiative, rises from His throne, lays aside His glory, and stoops to seek until He finds him” (Basic Christianity, John R.W. Stott, p. 11).

· God took the initiative in creation (Genesis 1:1).

· He took the initiative in revelation (Hebrews 1:1).

· And He took the initiative in salvation (Romans 5:6-8).

Thus God has created. God has spoken. God has acted. “This means that Christianity is not just pious talk. It is neither a collection of religious ideas nor (merely) a catalogue of rules” (Stott p. 12).

· God has created:

Without such an act, none of us would exist. We cannot create ourselves and neither can we bring the smallest amount of matter into existence, rather we live in, and work with what He has created.

· God has spoken:

“ Man is an insatiably inquisitive creature. His mind is so made that it cannot rest. It is always prying into the unknown. He pursues knowledge with restless energy. His life is a voyage of discovery. He is always questing, exploring, investigating, and researching. When man’s mind begins to concern itself with God (apart from revelation), it is baffled. It gropes in the dark. Nor is this surprising, because God, whatever or whoever He may be is infinite, while we are finite creatures. He is altogether beyond our comprehension. Therefore our minds, though wonderfully effective instruments—cannot immediately help us here. They cannot climb up into the infinite mind of God (Isaiah 55:8-9; Jeremiah 10:23). And so the situation would have remained if God had not taken the initiative to remedy it. Man would have remained forever agnostic, asking indeed with Pontius Pilate, ‘What is truth?’ He would be a worshipper, for such is his nature; but all his altars would be inscribed, like the one in Athens, ‘To an unknown god’” (Stott pp. 12-13). God certainly has not left us groping in the dark for answers (John 8:32; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 1 Corinthians 2:9).

· God has acted:

“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10); “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all” (1 Timothy 1:15). “God has spoken. God has acted. The record of these divine words and deeds is to be found in the Bible. And there for many people they remain. As far as they are concerned, what God has said and done belongs to past history” (Stott pp. 15-16). Yet God has spoken; have we listened? God has acted, but have we benefited from what He has done?

Seeking God

Remember Jesus promised, “Seek, and you will find” (Matthew 7:7), and Paul noted, “That they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27). “If we do not seek, we shall never find. The shepherd searched until he found the lost sheep. The woman searched until she found her lost coin (Luke 15:4-8 “Until he finds it”; “And search carefully until she finds it”). Why should we expect to do less? God desires to be found, by only by those who seek Him” (Stott p. 16).

· We must seek Him diligently:

“God has little patience with triflers; “He rewards those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6)” (Stott p. 16). “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:24).

· We must seek Him humbly:

“If apathy is a hindrance to some, pride is an even greater and commoner hindrance to others. It is one of the reasons why Jesus loved children. They are teachable. They are not proud, self-important and critical. We need the open, humble and receptive mind of a little child” (Stott p. 17). “I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants” (Luke 10:21); “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).

· We must seek Him honestly:

“We must come to what claims to be God’s self-revelation not only without pride, but without prejudice; not only with humble mind, but with an open mind. Every student knows the dangers of approaching his subject with preconceived ideas. Yet many enquirers come to the Bible with their minds made up. But God’s promise is addressed only to the earnest seeker; ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart’ (Jeremiah 29:13).

· We must seek Him Obediently:

“In seeking God we have to be prepared not only to revise our ideas but to reform our lives. The Christian message has a moral challenge. If the message is true, the moral challenge has to be accepted. So God is not a fit object for man’s detached scrutiny. You cannot fix God at the end of a telescope or a microscope and say, ‘How interesting!’ God is not interesting. He is deeply upsetting” (Stott p. 17). “We had thought intellectually to examine Him; we find He is spiritually examining us. The roles are reversed between us. We are constrained to take up some inward moral attitude of heart and will, in relation to this, Jesus. A man may study Jesus with intellectual impartiality; he cannot do it with moral neutrality. We must declare our colors. To this has our unevasive contact with Jesus brought us. We began it in the calm of study; we are called out to the field of moral decision” (The Fact of Christ, P. Carnegie Simpson, pp. 23-24). “I remember a young man coming to see me when he had just left school and begun work in London. He had given up going to church, he said. When he had finished his explanations, I said to him, ‘If I were to answer your problems to your complete intellectual satisfaction, would you be willing to alter your manner of life?’ He smiled slightly and blushed. His real problem was not intellectual but moral” (Stott p. 18). “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord’, and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46).

· Overcome our fears:

Stott is right when he observes that intellectual pride and moral self-will are both expressions of fear, and fear is an enemy of the truth (Revelation 21:8 “The fearful”). “Fear paralyses our search. We know that to find God and to accept Jesus Christ---would involve the rethinking of our whole outlook on life” (p. 18).

Making a Decision

“That a decision is necessary in order to become a Christian is an idea quite foreign to many people. Some imagine that they are already Christians because they were born in a Christian country. We cannot remain neutral. Nor can we drift into Christianity. Nor can anybody else settle the matter for us. We must decide for ourselves. We may concede that the evidence for the deity of Jesus is compelling, even conclusive, and that He was in fact the Son of God; we may believe that He came and died to be the Savior of the world; we may also admit that we are sinners and need such a Savior. But none of these things makes us Christians” (Stott p. 121). In John 12:42-43 we have individuals who believed that Jesus was the Son of God and certainly believed they were in need of Him, yet because of fear they refused to commit. In like manner, the rich young ruler believed in Christ, saw his need of Christ, and yet refused to commit as well (Mark 10:17; Matthew 19:20 “What am I still lacking?”).

· More than intellectual agreement or a right understanding of the facts is needed.

· More is needed than simply a fear or dread of God and His judgment (James 2:19). The mere fear of hell never saved anyone.

· I must do more than acknowledge that I need a Savior (Acts 2:37).

· No one can make this decision for me (Acts 2:38).

Revelation 3:20

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me”

· Jesus will not force His way into the human heart; He will not remove our free will.

· Jesus knocks through the Scriptures (Romans 1:16; Luke 16:29; Revelation 3:20 “hears My voice”).

· I make the final decision, “and opens the door, I will come in”. The handle on the door of my heart has been place on theinside, where only I can reach it. “Every man must make his own decision and take this step himself” (Stott p. 126). While others, like parents, teachers, and friends can encourage us and point the way, only we can save ourselves (Acts 2:40).

· Once we open up our heart, we need to give Him free access. “Instead of giving Christ a whole set of different keys to the many rooms of the house, I have given Him a pass key to the whole lot. We must be willing for Him to do whatever rearranging He likes when He has come in. There can be no resistance, and no attempt to negotiate our own terms” (Stott p. 125).

· “It is a deliberate act. You do not have to wait for a supernatural light to flash upon you from heaven, or for an emotional experience to overtake you. No. Christ came into the world and died for your sins. He has now come and stood outside the door of the house of your life, and He is knocking. The next move is yours” (Stott p. 127).

Mark Dunagan/Beaverton Church of Christ/503-644-9017