Seeking God's Face
Introduction
In the summer I was struggling to read through 2 Chronicles with its lists of names and numbers, it’s not the most exciting of books in the bible, but I’ve been encouraged to read it through, I’ve been assured by others “God will speak to you through it” and I’ve thought “really?”
Well this summer He did. I have read 2 Chronicles a number of times but this time I was really struck by a verse where the leaders of Israel had been challenged by the prophet Obed, in the face of the difficulties and troubles the Israelites had endured.
Obed told the leaders “If you seek God He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him he will forsake you” (15:2). The leaders responded to this very positively and called all the people together in a great act of worship and then it says in v.12 “they entered into a covenant to seek the LORD God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul”.
I sensed that this was what God was calling me to do and I began to think about the whole process of “seeking the Lord” and looking for verses in the bible that spoke about it – I was staggered by how many times we are encouraged to seek the Lord! And then there are other words with the same sense: desire, follow, search, look, long for – as in Psalm 42.
“As the hart pants for the water so my soul longs after you”
Whilst as Christians we have received Christ, scripture encourages us to seek more of him through the power of the Holy Spirit. Simon Ponsonby, who spoke at New Wine, has written an excellent little book simply entitled “More” in which he explains how even though we have Christ, the scriptures tell us there is more for us to enjoy as we continue to seek God.
He says “We are searching for the place of encounter, depth, intimacy with God, that place of power to serve, of character to conform us to Christ, from which we may live, move and have our being in the fullness of God’s Holy Spirit.” Ch. 1 p.15
I sense that God is saying to all of us that we need to seek more of Him at a personal level – and that from this we will be enabled to live out our calling as the community of the church and to make Christ known in our town.
And as we seek God’s face more as a community of God’s people so we will be better connected with his purposes for his church in this place.
Many of us can feel a certain emptiness in our spiritual experience, a disconnect in our relationship with God, a dryness in spiritual lives – and we cry out in the words of the song “there must be more than this”.
Why does God seem to be so elusive, especially when He is the One who is supposed to be in the business of making Himself known? I believe it is because the more elusive He is, the more we want Him.
He is elusive precisely because He wants to share more and more of Himself with us, drawing us to Himself like a lover draws the beloved. He wants to reveal Himself as God Almighty, Holy, Wondrous, the God who in His infinite love revealed Himself to us in Christ and started us on a journey of love that will never end.
Guess who moved
You sometimes see outside churches a poster which says “If God seems far away guess who moved!” the implication of this statement is that it is we who have moved, we have turned away from God. And yet it is often mature, committed Christians who feel some distance from God, who do not sense his daily presence – have they moved away from God?
They may have done so, but not necessarily so – God does move, and we need to move with him!
John’s Gospel tells us that the Holy Spirit is like the wind – that blows where it wills - we have to follow the wind of the Spirit.
We can become lazy, complacent and presumptuous in our Christian faith. We have found God, he has found us, we can now sit back and relax, we know we are not perfect but we have in some way “made it” in a spiritual sense.
It is then we begin to feel distant from God and the fire of our love for Jesus begins to fade.
Our presumption is foolish:
- Like sitting down when someone has moved the chair
- Like a sportsman at their peak forgetting they need to train
- Like a husband presuming on his wife whilst never expressing his love
- Like driving off in your spouses car and running out of petrol – presuming the tank is full
We each need more of God and to seek after him continually – for he is like the wind. I thought I had found him and no longer needed to seek – but I realised I need to continually seek his face, otherwise I lose sight of him and become presumptuous - I presume on my relationship with Him and simply accept what I have, the way things are, I end up settling for second best in my relationship with God and in my Christian life.
Contentment with what we have of God and failure to seek for more of him, leads to lack of faith, low expectation and ultimately disillusionment.
Our Top Priority
God’s heart is for all people to seek him and his promise is that those who seek will find. Seeking God is both a matter of the heart and a command to be obeyed. Seeking God is our number one priority – Matt 6:33 “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” and if you do that – all the rest will be given to you as well!
So often it is the “other things” that we make our number one priority – health, wealth and security, family, relationships, work, but Jesus says, when we make seeking God our number 1 priority, all our other needs will be met as well.
Seeking God’s face is the continuous and permanent priority for every Christian and it is an issue of our heart’s desire
Psa 27:8 “My heart says of you, "Seek his face!" Your face, LORD, I will seek.”
OR NKJV – the psalmist speaking to God says:
“When You said, “Seek My face,” My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”
The scriptures are full of promises for those who seek God, seeking leads to:
- Forgiveness – 2 Ch 7:14
- Blessing – Ps 119:2
- Protection – Ps 27:4f
- Provision – Ps 34:8f
- Wisdom and understanding – Pr 28:5
- Renewed strength – Is 40:30f
- Rejoicing – 1 Ch 16:10
I don’t have time to give all the references but I can let you have them if you want them.
There are also warnings for those do not seek God – that failure leads to:
- Loss of life - 2 Chr 15:13
- Loss of salvation - Ps. 119:155
What is it that stops us seeking God, what are the hindrances. The bible gives 5:
- Sin – Hosea 10:12-13 – when we love sin more than we love Jesus
- Pride – Ps 10:4 - we think we don’t need God, we are sufficient in ourselves
- Trusting others rather than God – Is 31:1 – Egypt here, who do we trust above God, who do you turn to first?
- Idolatry – Zeph 1:4-6 – we may not worship idols, but anything that comes before God in our lives is our idol.
- Superficial religion – Am 5:5,6 God condemns Israel who have the appearance of being religious yet have rejected him. This is the laziness and lack of commitment that characterizes so many Christians in our own day.
Isaiah’s call in our reading this morning in 55:6 tells us to “seek the Lord while he may be found” – a time is coming when it will be too late to find him.
“Call upon him while he is near” – a time is coming when a gulf will be fixed between God and those who failed to seek him.
Jesus’ promise is clear: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” Luke 11:9,10
How Do We Seek God?
How do we seek God:
1. Spending precious time in his presence, listening to him.
2. Seeking him in every aspect and every moment of every day
Many want to experience God; they want to know Him and know when He’s speaking. The problem is - when we pray we tend to do all the talking and seldom listen for His voice.
Someone said “You would think that the One who has the most important things to say would have the most time to speak” – but it’s usually the other way round.
We take our shopping list asking God to meet all our needs and wants, then, we go about our day, we make no connections of the day’s events with our prayer requests. And God could not get a word in edgewise to speak to us anyway because we are going at such a furious pace, all that we hear is the noise around us. Our minds are attentive to everything else but God.
We are just so busy – but what does that word mean? How about this that I came across this week – BUSY “Being Under Satan’s Yoke”. Our busyness puts us under Satan’s yoke, rather than the yoke of Jesus which is “easy and light”.
I believe it was Dallas Willard who wrote – “We must ruthlessly eliminate hurry”.
When we listen to a friend speaking we are saying to them, “You are worth listening to, you are valuable.” How much more should that be the case with God?
Friendship and intimacy grows through being really present to each other. Listening involves being with another person in a special way, giving attention to the other’s words and especially it involves being fully present to the other individual.
Relationships involve so much more than words and prayer is more than saying words to God. To be present we have to listen.
The reason we want to hear from Father is so that we can come into a more intimate relationship with Jesus. As He reveals Himself to us in love, we can’t help but to respond in love. We begin to fall in love with Jesus and we are forever changed.
God, not ourselves, is the source of our transformation to be more like Christ. As we come to Him, we yield ourselves to Him, putting aside all that is of self, setting aside our agendas, our expectations, our dreams, our hopes, so we can hear from Him. It’s deciding that we want what God wants for us, more than what we want for ourselves. It’s a choice to let go, surrender ourselves to Jesus, and hear from Him.
Our first calling as a Christian is not to serve the Lord. Our first calling is to sit at His feet and learn from him, like Mary who Jesus said had chosen the better part. We need to seek his face and start listening to Him more closely in prayer.
I believe Father wants me/wants us to give to Jesus some of our valuable time and energy instead of giving Him our leftovers. The enemy has robbed us of our highest privilege long enough – to live in the presence of God.
As we begin a new season in our church’s life – and the regular round of autumn activities leading up to the frenzy that the Christmas celebrations have become;
As we face a new chapter in the development of our parish – with the PCC tomorrow discussing new ways of working more closely together across the parish;
My prayer is that Father would increase our hunger, our desire for him – that together we might seek His face.
I believe that as we seek more of God we will receive more from God.
When the prophet Obed called on the leaders of Israel to seek the face of God with all their heart and soul, they covenanted together, with all the people, to do so.
Will you covenant with me to seek the Lord God with all your heart and soul? To seek the Lord while he may be found, to call on him while he is near? To seize every moment, to look for every opportunity, to be in His presence and to seek his face.
Martin Saxby
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