Developing Our Connection with God
Series: Crave: Seeking God...Himself
Brad Bailey - Feb. 24, 2013
Intro
Last week....we focused on the fact that we all have a "first love" in life... created to know and have one relationship that is the most intimate and influencing... and that is with God. God is our truest first love.
How do we connect with God in this way?
As we continue in our Lenten season series entitled "Crave: Seeking God...Himself"... God reveals to us such a relationship exemplified in the life of David. David became the second King of Israel. he was one of who God said was a man after God's heart. Along with the Scriptures sharing a lot about his life with God.... he wrote many of the Psalms. They are an inspired devotional.
We're going to look at just a few verses from Psalm 27... in which we can discover some foundations for developing our connection with God.
Psalm 27:1, 4-5,8 (ESV)
1 The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? ...4 One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple. 5 For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock. ...8 You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, LORD, do I seek.”
David begins by declaring that God is who he needs.
"The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? ... For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent..." - Psalm 27:1,5
David acknowledges the reality of needing light amidst a darkness of soul...and a stronghold - the reality that enemies cannot ultimately destroy him.
The world is not safe....not covered...we are not "home."
There is something that this world can't fulfill...it only offers a taste of.
1. Connecting with God begins with longings - looking through life's goodness to it's greater fulfillment.
We may not even feel our longings. You don't think you long for air... unless your body feels it's lack or loss.
David allows himself to feel his longings in every part of his being. It's not ultimately despairing because he is engaging the creator of the universe...who can satisfy...and who is not just the God of creation ...but Lord...his Lord.
We see throughout the Psalms that he is discovering at a deep level...that "God is the "all satisfying subject" and to connect with Him...is to open up our ongings.
"O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory... your love is better than life..." - David (Psalm 63:1-3)
" How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty ! My soul yearns even faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God." - David (Psalm 84:1-2)
There is a longing that is part of human condition.
In 1977 NASA launched Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 to explore the galaxy. A golden record called The Sounds of Earth was affixed to each of the twin spacecrafts—a message from earth to anyone out there in the universe who might be listening. It contained both music and the sound of a human heartbeat.
Over thirty years later, Annie Druyan, who served as the creative director of NASA's famous Voyager Interstellar Message (VIM) Project, reflected on what she chose to include in The Sounds of Earth:
The first thing I found myself thinking of was a piece by Beethoven from Opus 130, something called the Cavatina Movement … When I [first] heard this piece of music … I thought … Beethoven, how can I ever repay you? What can I ever do for you that would be commensurate with what you've just given me? And so, as soon as [my colleague] said, "[This message is] going to last a thousand million years," I thought of … this great, beautiful, sad piece of music, on which Beethoven had written in the margin … the word sehnsucht, which is German for "longing."
So in the end, NASA chose a great song of human longing and launched it into space.
It's as if NASA's scientists were saying to the rest of the universe: "This is who and what we are as human beings: creatures of longing." [1]
David understands that we are creatures of longing.
• We may be afraid of longing because we think we will be happier if we just focus on what we have. If we count our blessings rather than focus on our wants...we will be happy. That's certainly true. But David is not longing for more stuff....he is longing for the strength and dwelling that only God can be.
> David looks THROUGH life's goodness to it's greater fulfillment.
He does not renounce it.... he enjoys it....but he enjoys it MORE because he sees it not as a joy that leads to the futility of it's end....but as only a taste of what ultimately comes....a window to what is eternal and unchanging.
As Larry Crabb, a well-known psychologist describes,
"Ever since God expelled Adam and Eve from the garden, we have lived in an unnatural environment, a world in which we were not designed to live. We were built to enjoy a garden without weeds, relationships without friction, fellowship without distance. But something is wrong, and we know it, both within our world and within ourselves. Deep inside we sense we're out of the nest, always ending the day in a motel room, never at home."
(Larry Crabb, Inside Out)
MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE ALSO DESCRIBES THE STRANGE SENSE OF SATISFACTION OF NOT BEING HOME THAT WE MUST KEEP ALIVE
"For me there has always been--and I count it the greatest of all blessings--a window never finally blacked out, a light never finally extinguished. I had a sense, sometimes enormously vivid, that I was a stranger in a strange land; a visitor, not a native, a displaced person. The feeling, I was surprised to find, gave me a great sense of satisfaction, almost of ecstasy. Days or weeks or months might pass. Would it ever return--the lostness? I strain my ears to hear it, like a distant music; my eyes see it as a very bright light very far away. Has it gone forever? And then--ah! the relief. Like slipping away from a sleeping embrace, silently shutting the door behind one, tiptoeing off in the gray light of dawn--a stranger again. The only ultimate disaster that can befall all of us, I have come to realize, is to feel ourselves at home here on earth. As long as we are aliens, we cannot forget our true homeland." [2]
• We may be afraid of letting ourselves feel our deeper desires because it will just lead to despair. But David is not afraid of such human longings....because they connect us to the source of satisfaction.
David knows that this does not come from just focusing on the material world.
Verse 4..
" One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple...." - Psalm 27:4
He doesn't presume that he can develop a connection with God without effort.... he wants it so naturally he pursues it.
He 'seeks' and 'gazes.'
2. Connecting with God involves relational time and focus
"Seek" = effort
Often we can say we want God...but do nothing.
It's important to recognize that we can't earn acceptance or forgiveness...but we are commanded to seek what he has made possible.
God promises you:
"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." - Jeremiah 29:13
This involves time and focus.
If I do not give my spouse time and focus...I simply am not being married.
It's not a matter of forcing or measuring...as if the heart isn't the real matter. It's the fact that the heart WILL be reflected in some form of time and focus.
We need time.
Example of Jesus: Even Mark wrote of Jesus, "Early in the morning while it was still dark He went out to a lonely place and prayed." (Mark 1:35)
We need focus.
Paul's eyes were shut that they might be opened. God blinded him to get his attention....and it changed everything. We too have to break away from our circumstances and give focus.
> Everyone who wants to become intimate with the Lord needs some focused time.
...And what does he focus on?
Verse 8..
"You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, LORD, do I seek.” - Psalm 27:8
What are we to seek? Not just his hand but his face. Not just his provisions but His person and presence What is in a face? If you pay close attention to someone's face you can see a lot of things. (....their countenance....their heart...)
This is why if you are holding a small child in your arms and become engaged in a conversation with someone else...or distracted...they will take hold of your face and turn it towards themselves. They are say: "attend to me...give me your attention."
A face represents someone's attention...focus....and presence.
3. Connecting with God must reach through His provisions to His presence.
Do we seek God's help or God himself ?
Consider the difference between being connected to someone for what they can do for us....verses who they are: their provision vs. their presence / person.
Naturally we can't fully separate them...they are bound up in the same person... his provision reflects his nature.
But it's reaching through another person's provisions to what lies in the person that defines whether the relationship functional or truly relational.
Illustration: I could tell my wife all the things I appreciate about what she does for me....and it would be a sincere and meaningful compliment... but missing something.
So with God....we may naturally desire His help... but we won't really know Him until we desire His presence.
Over the years I have reflected on the difference between need and want. So much of what goes on in the name of love between people...is more about need than love. yet they are not opposites.
Need for another is part of our bonds. Need is NOT a bad thing...but it is simply because the bond is reduced to what we feel is a need and what we perceive as a provision. It can begin to reduce the person to an object of provision.
I wonder how much more true that may be of God?
Naturally we want God because of our need for Him. It's a wise sense...but is it the whole sense?
David was anointed King because "the Lord sought out a man after His own heart..." (1 Samuel 13:14). The problem is most people that are "seeking God" are seeking His hands, not His heart.
Many have become familiar with "the Geek Squad." It is the Best Buy electronics store's service providers. The word "Geek" usually isn't intended as a compliment. But if you have a problem with your computer, cell phone, gaming device, or television, that's when you really want a geek around. When you need The Geek Squad, you give them a call, they fix your problem, and then they leave you alone.
> Is it possible to treat God in the same way that people treat the Geek Squad?
In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis described approaching God in a similar way. At a young age, when C. S. Lewis learned that his mother was dying, he remembered that he had been taught that prayers offered in faith would be granted. When his mother eventually died, Lewis prayed for a miracle. Later, he wrote:
"I had approached God, or my idea of God, without love, without awe, even without fear. He was, in my mental picture of this miracle, to appear neither as Savior nor as Judge, but merely as a magician; and when he had done what was required of him I supposed he would simply—well, go away. It never crossed my mind that the tremendous contract which I solicited should have any consequence beyond restoring the status quo." [3]
Anytime we expect God to fix our problems, restore the status quo, and then go away so we can live without him, we've treated God like the Geek Squad.
There is a very subtle but significant distinction between seeking God as the end...and using God as a means to an end.
Not uncommon for us to say something like:
“I am waiting on God to bring me my husband...or wife."
It might sound like one is putting God first....but is that what it may really imply? If that is the ONLY THING that we are waiting on, we have an incorrect perspective.
Picture this: You are at a restaurant and have just ordered a pizza. A friend walks in and sits down with you and asks, “What are you doing?” And you respond with, “I am waiting on the waiter to bring me my pizza.” (Does this sentence structure sound familiar?) In this example, you do not have much regard for the waiter. The waiter is only the vehicle by which you get what you are truly there for: your pizza. You are not expecting the waiter to come and sit down and talk with you, but to simply deliver the pizza.
“I am waiting on God to bring me my husband...or wife." [5]
What are we more excited about: Jesus or the future partner? God was never designed to simply be the means for us to receive things. He was never intended to be our waiter... to fulfill what we are really giving our greatest worth to.
"Good men use the world to enjoy God; bad men use God to enjoy the world." -Augustine [4]
But David.... says in verse 4
"One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD" - Psalm 27:4
What does David focus on? God himself.... he wants to dwell in his presence and gaze upon his beauty....his nature...his attributes.
It is the place he feels most at home...secure and satisfied.
Not merely for what God can do but because what God activates reflects WHO God is. So he wants to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.
When we consider
• Creation.... and see the creativity of God, vastness of God, the beauty of God.
• Compassion - see those often lost be found...and those that are least find dignity - we see God's nature of justice.
God is our ultimate reward.
God told Abraham, “I am your exceedingly great reward”. - Gen. 15:1
Psalm 16:11 (ESV)
"You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." - Psalm 16:11 (ESV)
Conclusion:
God has always wanted to be close to you.
In the Book of Genesis there is the story of God making man. Gen 2:7 . 7And the LORD God formed a man’s body from the dust of the ground and breathed into it the breath of life. And the man became a living person.
God took a deep breath in the creation story. God breathed deeply and infused Adam with life. To Adam, the first human, God gave a breath of life, a breath with a spark of divinity. In the original meaning, there is a sense of intimacy, God breathes into the nostrils of the formed human.
If you've ever taken a CPR class you have learned that to help give life back to someone you had to get pretty intimate.
Face to face, mouth to mouth giving my breath to someone else.
When God created man he didn’t create him from a distance, he created man different that anything else he created. That creation was a illustration about how he wanted man different that any other living thing.
Genesis 3:8-10 (NIV)
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" 10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
God wanted intimacy and man was afraid. That trend has extended right to us today. We are still afraid of intimacy.
We run from intimacy in relationships with fellow man, wife our spouses, even our kids.
Exhausted from the day, nerves shot, the dad was not in a mood to pay much attention to his son. But the little boy persisted, "Dad, how much do you make?" Agitated, the dad replied, "Enough! Now go to bed." "But Daddy, how much do you make an hour?"
A quick lecture and in no mood for games: "They pay me $25 an hour." "Can I borrow $10?" Grumbled, "NO! Now go to sleep."
Next morning, the father felt bad about how he treated his son, and gave him ten dollars.
The little guy lit up like a Christmas tree and rushed to his room and got his piggy bank. He carefully counted out pennies, dimes & nickels he’d saved. Reached into his pocket for the ten dollar bill, and said, "Here, Daddy. $25. Can I buy an hour of your time?"
God was saying to Adam and Eve in the garden I want some of your time… and they hid.
God already knew what happened at the tree. Yet he still sought them out and he still is today!
God’s plan for man’s salvation and for being right with Him is told throughout the Bible, in the Old Testament and the New Testament. God’s plan is not based on people’s efforts and good works, but is based on His amazing Love and amazing Grace for us; His plan involved His precious Son Jesus paying the price and cost for our sins on the cross.
"Man’s way to reach God is religion; God’s way to reach man is Jesus."
For by grace are you saved, through faith; and this not of your own, it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast." - Ephesians 2:8-9
So the first step is always about accepting the grace of God through Christ.... and embracing what God has done.
Another step is to honor Him... worship....which reflects expressing worth.
Worship must be directed to God's face and not his hand. Look for opportunities to offer God praise and worship in things around you.
Finally, enjoy receiving his Spirit.
This pledge is His Spirit.
Ephesians 1:13-14 (NLT)
When you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.
He who created intimacy.... by breathing into the matter that formed us...now has breathed again his Spirit... to connect us.
His Spirit is here connecting with our spirit. God wants to take hold of our face. He knows many of us are distracted .... many of us are avoiding him in shame.
Resources: Brad Dyrness message 'Draw Near to God' (got ideas related to Genesis in conclusion)
Notes:
1. NASA information adapted from Christopher West, Fill These Hearts (Image, 2012), pp. 3-4; confirmed at Wikopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record
2. Malcolm Muggeridge, From Houston, "Happiness," p.266. Some similar insights by C.S. Lewis include:
C.S. LEWIS DESCRIBES OUR DESIRE TO "ENTER" BEAUTY
God has given us the Morning Star already: you can go and enjoy the gift on many fine mornings if you get up early enough. What more, you may ask, do we want? Ah, but we want so much more—something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves—that, though we cannot, yet these projections can, enjoy in themselves that beauty, grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can't They tell us the "beauty born of murmuring sound" will pass into a human face; but it won't. Or not yet. For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendor of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very n ear the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in. - "The Weight of Glory," p. 16-17
C.S. LEWIS NOTES DESIRE POINTS TO EXISTENCE OF SATISFACTION
Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire for which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
As we have seen, C.S. Lewis, more clearly than most writers, has sensed the uniqueness of God-inspired desire and of having God as the object of desire. In his book, The Pilgrim's Regress, he says that the experience of intense longing is distinguished from other longings by two things:
In the first place, though the sense of want is acute and even painful, yet the mere wanting is felt to be somehow a delight. This hunger is better than any other fullness; this poverty better than any other wealth. In the second place, there is a peculiar mystery about the object of this desire. Every one of these supposed objects for the desire is inadequate to it. It appears to me therefore that if a man diligently followed this desire, pursuing the false objects until their falsity appeared and then resolutely abandoning them, he must come out at last into the clear knowledge that the human soul was made to enjoy some object that is never fully given—nay, cannot even be imagined as given—in our present mode of subjective and spatio-temporal experience. -Houston, "In Search of Happiness"
3. Van Morris, Mount Washington, Kentucky; source: C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1995), pp. 18-19
4. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, 22:20
5. Drawn from Kelly Needham "My First Love – Part 1 of 4" posted on May 1, 2010
at http://kellyneedham.com/2010/05/01/74/
