The Missing Something
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The Missing Something
The Missing Something
What does it mean to Seek God? Scripture highlights that seeking God is a continual process.
Both the Old and New Testaments describe seeking as setting the Mind and hearts affection on God.
Now set your mind and heart to seek the Lord your God. Arise and build the sanctuary of the Lord God, so that the ark of the covenant of the Lord and the holy vessels of God may be brought into a house built for the name of the Lord.”
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
The setting of the mind and heart on God is divergently different from just coasting mentally in the Christian life.
*We do not make this effort to seek God because he is lost. He is not like the coin or sheep. God is not lost, there is always something around us pointing us to himself.
SEEKING IS THE CONSCIOUS MEANS BY WHICH WE GET PAST THE NATURAL MEANS TO GOD HIMSELF.
How doe we find Him?
*The heavens are declaring his glory
*The word reveals who He is
*Other people are evidence of God’s grace
BIG IDEA: Stop feeding your seeking heart apart from God’s navigational chart
BIG IDEA: Stop feeding your seeking heart apart from God’s navigational chart
A nautical chart is one of the most fundamental tools available to the mariner. It is a map that depicts the configuration of the shoreline and seafloor. It provides water depths, locations of dangers to navigation, locations and characteristics of aids to navigation, anchorages, and other features.
What is the navigational chart God has give us to Navigate the waters of this life? THE HOLY SPIRIT!
The Missing Something! Is the Sprit of God! Francis Chan called it the Forgotten God!
SO? HOW DO WE SEEK GOD’s Navigational Chart?
WHAT KEEPS US FROM SEEKING HIM?
1. Seek God First and Often
1. Seek God First and Often
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Seeking God first and often is all about trusting in His sufficiency.
ILLUSTRATION
How many times have you buttoned your shirt only to discover when you reach the top (or bottom) that you have an unoccupied button hole left over? It’s a scenario that grows in likelihood the later you are for catching your morning bus or the more distracted you are by the headlines on your favorite morning news program. Now you’re even more likely to miss your bus because you have to unfasten then refasten all your buttons.
APPLICATION
Life can be a lot like a mis-matched buttons, “If we get the top button of a shirt buttoned wrong, all the other buttons will also be off. Many people have everything in their lives out of order because they haven’t fastened the kingdom of God button first. … To have a wonderful life, we need to reset our priorities.”
The way of freedom in seeking is not in His omniscience it’s in His Sufficient Hand.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
Seeking God first and often is all about knowing that He holds our future. (the deposit, down payment he has give us is the Sprit)
To often our seeking God is all about knowing Gods plan and will for our life from beginning to end. Jesus tells us in the sermon on the mount not to worry about the future because the future isn’t scary because he cares for us. It’s all in His hands.
God’s will is that we live holy lives; bear fruit; and know Him better.
Kevin De Young
“God’s will is that you and I get happy and holy in Jesus.”
2. Seek God with an Abandonment
2. Seek God with an Abandonment
The freedom found in seeking God is not synonymous with safety.
As Elisabeth Elliot writes:
Our prayers for guidance (or for anything else) really begin here: I trust him. This requires abandonment. We are no longer saying, “If I trust him, he’ll give me such and such,” but, “I trust him. Let him give me or withhold from me what he chooses.”
The freedom in seeking God is standing in His guidance
When Tim Keller first came to Manhattan to start Redeemer Presbyterian Church, people were constantly asking him, “Are you sure God has called you to start this church in New York City?” His answer was always, “No.” Then he’d explain:
I think he did. I see an opportunity. I don’t see anybody else taking the opportunity. I feel an obligation to come. I think it’s a good idea. I think God’s calling me. But I can’t be absolutely sure. I can be sure that I must not lie; it’s in the Bible. I can be sure that I must not bow down to idols; it’s in the Bible. I’m sure of a lot of things that are God’s will. But as far as I know, I won’t be sure that I’m called to plant a church until it happens.
When people would persist, saying, “Didn’t you have a peace about it?” he’d reply:
No, it was too hard of a decision. It was too scary. But I know this: guidance is as much something God does as it is something he gives. Therefore, I knew that by selling my house and moving up here and signing a three-year lease that, if I failed to plant a church, God was preparing me for something I couldn’t envision.
*In other words we are standing in God’s guidance. We are being navigated by God even if we cannot see it.
ILLUSTRATION
In ancient Celtic mythology there was a belief that there are certain places, called thin places, where the world of the seen and the world of the unseen came into closest proximity. In each of the beatitudes, Jesus points us to a kind of thin place, a place on earth where we draw closer to heaven. Surprisingly, these are lowly, humble places, each one of them repulsive in some way to the ego of man. Not one of them is a place that you or I would SEEK to visit in our search for a happy and meaningful life. But Jesus proposes that the treasures of the Kingdom of God are found in just such lowly places.
APPLICATION
So, if we are to discover the blessed life, we must look for it in these lowly places. In want instead of plenty, in weakness rather than in strength, where we are lacking instead of where we feel adequate.
3. Seek God with an active obedience
3. Seek God with an active obedience
There are countless obstacles to get around in order to truly see God clearly.
Seeking God with active obedience involves fleeing spiritually dulling activity.
Daniel fled Potifers wife...... Daniel fled defiling his body with the kings food
“When David exhorted the leaders of Israel to seek the Lord with all of the heart and mind it entailed an active command. Immediately following the command he said; “now go and build that Temple.”
Marine’s have their instant willing obedience to orders........
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ARE SEEKING GOD AND FEEL LIKE HE IS NO WHERE TO BE FOUND?
Seeking God with active obedience involves calling and pleading
“Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
If you will seek God
and plead with the Almighty for mercy,
Seeking involves calling and pleading. “O Lord, open my eyes. O Lord, pull back the curtain of my own blindness. Lord, have mercy and reveal yourself. I long to see your face.”
Seeking God with active obedience involves the whole heart
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah
The heart symbolizes the totality of one’s will and emotions. Loving God with one’s heart is the essence of faith. True circumcision is of the heart, not simply the flesh.
The Great obstacle in seeking the Lord is Pride
The Great obstacle in seeking the Lord is Pride
In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him;
all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
“And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.
ILLUSTRATION
There's a scene in the movie Gladiator where the Emperor of Rome, Marcus Aurelius, asks Maximus to be his successor instead of his power-hungry son. When asked if he would accept this great honor, Maximus says, apologetically, "With all my heart, no."
"Maximus," the emperor replies, "that is why it must be you!"
APPLICATION
This scene is a powerful depiction of the way God responds to the meek in this world. The ones who are thirsty for power (Marcus Aurelius' son) are overlooked in favor of those who are content without it. Marcus Aurelius echoed the truth of Christ's message in the Sermon on the Mount: only those who do not SEEK power and dominion are fit to wield it.
Whoever draws near to God must believe He exists
And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Then you will prosper if you are careful to observe the statutes and the rules that the Lord commanded Moses for Israel. Be strong and courageous. Fear not; do not be dismayed.
He charges them to keep God’s commandments and they will prosper.
Do you ever wonder why when you are seeking God it seems that you are not getting any traction?
“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.
“We give evidence of our faith by our generosity”
“In our spiritual work as well as in our spiritual warfare, we have need of courage and resolution.”
Our hearts must be sincerely engaged for God.
3. David prays for Him. v. 12
Seek God as your chief good and highest end.
If the missing something is setting our hearts and minds on God then how do we effectively do this?
ILLUSTRATION
During the space race NASA spent vast amounts of time and money developing a pen that would work effectively in a zero-gravity environment. What did the Russians do to solve the problem? They used pencils.
APPLICATION
Man spends countless hours gathering statistics and conducting research to determine the right way to live when all he really needs to do is listen to God! When we SEEK God's wisdom we find truths that enhance our relationships and protect us morally and spiritually.
"Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise" ().
BIBLICAL MEDITATION
Martin Luther suggested meditation. For example, if you paraphrase the Lord’s Prayer, as Luther counsels, it forces you to concentrate. Almost any method of meditation can focus the mind and then engage the affections so that when you turn to prayer you won’t be distracted.
WARNING: What I mean about meditation is not the contemplative practice that aims at getting beyond words and rational thought to a pure awareness of oneness with God.
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
I remember the days of old;
I meditate on all that you have done;
I ponder the work of your hands.
Psalm 143
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Psalm
BIBLICAL MEDIATION IS THIS:
*Filling our minds with Scripture
*Loading our hearts with a deep abiding affection for Christ.
WHAT ARE YOU SPENDING YOUR LIFE MEDITATING ON?