Does God Need Me?
Isaiah 40:28
Does God need us? That is a question many have asked over the years. It deals with our imperfect emotions; we have a desire to be needed. In many ways it defines us, especially us men. We need to feel that we have a purpose, our purpose has to translate to something we do, not what we say or feel. But as I looked through scripture for this message I found an overwhelming comfort in the fact that indeed, GOD DOES NOT NEED ME.
Lets take a look at our core verse this morning: Isaiah 40:28; Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.
What a wonderful scripture; God doesn’t need me because he never gets tired. He doesn’t “faint or get weary”. He is always there. In the morning when we pray God is there in the middle of the night when sleep will not come as the world’s attacks race around in my mind and I cry out to him, God is there. What a wonderful promise. As far as us type A personalities that have to fix everything, God created the very “ends of the earth” he doesn’t need my help fixing anything.
Jeremiah 10:10-12; But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth will tremble, And the nations will not be able to endure His indignation. Thus you shall say to them: “The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.” He has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom, And has stretched out the heavens at His discretion.
One of the silliest statements in all of Christianity is “We are going to take this street, city, town, etc. for Christ.” This verse tells us that any town God would want He can take without our help. The world will be shaken by God’s wrath but we think He needs us to take a city or town. Every god that man has made up will perish and the lies made known. God doesn’t need me to “do” anything. He is in fact all powerful.
Acts 17:24-26: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
Luke 19:37-40: Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying:
“‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD!’ Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”
But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”
These two verses go hand in hand to show us that God who created us for the purpose of worshipping Him does not need our worship. In Acts 17:25 it tells us “Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things” What a statement. He is not worshipped by men’s hands. How then is he worshipped?
RABBIT:::
Lets look at how we are to truly worship him…John 4:22-24: You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” So what does it mean to worship in spirit and in truth? Does it mean to worship him in an unknown tongue as some denominations teach? I do not think so. So what does it mean? To worship in spirit we first must understand the meaning of “spirit”. As we stand here today we nave a physical body. If we die prior to the Lord’s return our physical body will be placed in a hole in the ground, but scripture tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. That being said we need to be absent of the body; we need to clear our minds of all that we deal with here in this world and truly focus upon God, we need to let the essence of our being, our spirit, take over that we may come into presence, we need to be “absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”
Scripture also tells us that Jesus said to the Pharisees “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.” God doesn’t need my worship, He wants it, but if man stops worshipping God all of creation will pitch in and make up the difference. As Jesus said; “The stones would immediately cry out.”
I hope that through these verses you can come to the understanding that God does not need us…He most definitely wants us; scripture says: The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9
So God wants us doesn’t need us but we need God
But, We Need God:
Jeremiah 9:23-24; Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the LORD.
Our glory should come from the fact that we know God in all His majesty and splendor, in His loving kindness and judgment.
James 1:17: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
Everything that we have that is any good came to us from God.
Titus 3:4-5: But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit
It is through the Spirit, God, that any of us are called to Him. It is through the spirit of God that we can be regenerated, made whole again and be renewed, made sinless in order to be allowed to stand before God. Earlier we talked about worshipping God in spirit and truth. To do that it is essential that we can stand before Him without guilt and shame. For that to happen one must be renewed.
Conclusion: God has a desire to have a relationship with us, but he will still be God without it. Our absence does not change a thing for God, just for us. We truly have a need for a relationship with God. When we pray and read and Worship Him, we are blessed by His presence, not the other way around. We need God, The Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Without them we are lost.
John 3:16-17 reads For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
God could have just as easily came to condemn the world not save it. We truly need God with out Him on our lives we would really understand the phrase: “Hell on Earth”.
