SERMON: Seek The Lord And Experience His Presence.
Opening Verse:
Lamentations 3:25
The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;
Today, I would like to take you back to biblical times and examine closely how God blesses those who seek HIM and why it is crucial for us in our modern day to seek him too. As we enter a new month, the month of August. Let it be a month where we can renew our minds and tune it with Gods mind. Are you ready? Alright, lets pray! Father, in your name, your glory and presence , we come into your throne room to hear from you, to commune with you, to learn from you oh Father! Grant us the grace and understanding of your word this morning in Father! Open our hearts, make it fertile ground ready to receive. In your son’s name we pray, the name that is above all names, Jesus!
Alright! Open your good bible with me to Acts 17:24 and we are going to read to v 28
A bit of a background here, the Apostle Paul is invited to speak in a public arena, his audience were very varied, many of them intellectuals, scholars, pagans. Its a mix bag of people from various backgrounds and he’s there to talk to them about GOD, the one and true God. Lets take it from Verse 24:
Acts 17:24-28 NIV
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
God, the creator, author, maker, giver of life, the very breath we have, our very existence is from GOD. And in these verses He did this, meaning he created us all for us to SEEK HIM.
WHAT is seeking GOD?
Seeking the LORD is the intentional and purposeful pursuit of GOD.
Seeking the LORD is the intentional and purposeful pursuit of GOD. To seek GOD is to pursue GOD. It’s that internal longing to commune from God, to hear from HIM. Seeking God is pursuing GOD!
ONE It’s intentional meaning we prioritize seeking him, we put it first and foremost in our lives. That’s intentional seeking.
TWO Its purposeful meaning the reason we seek him is actually 4 fold: to know him, to draw close to him, to build a lasting relationship with him and finally to walk in his perfect will!
So pursuing GOD is Seeking God ajd seeking God is both intentional and purposeful.
Seeking the Lord opens up a gate into the mind of GOD! Is an exciting privilege to get to know how God operates. And God operates by His great attributes or divine characteristics. If I ask you, to define who God is to you? What would be your answer? I knew it: God is loving! God is merciful, Good is kind, God is good, very common attributes, but there’s more. So much more! He is just, immutable meaning unchanging, he is perfect, no one can compare. He is just, his justice is righteous, he is also incomprehensible - we will never dully understand the Lord. He is immortal - he wasn’t created, as BT would always say, he was there before the beginning even began. God has over 20 attributes and as we seek HIM he reveals himself, his attributes to us fully and wholeheartedly!
Jeremiah 29:13
And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with ALL your heart.
Key here is we seek the Lord with all our heart. Its not out of obligation, not a ritual, it has to be a lifestyle. An automatic part of life!
1 Chronicles 16:11
11 Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.
1 Chronicles 2:19
19 Now devote your heart and soul to seeking the LORD your God.
Let me ask you this. Are we really devoting our heart and soul to seeking the Lord! I don’t think so. If you look through research reports most people seek the Lord only when they’re in trouble, when they need help, when they’re looking for miracles! Seeking the Lord is not a lifestyle for many, it’s only when the need arises. Am i right? Kilala natin si Marites? Yes! Second name na nang karamihan yan. Maritess, Maria Marites prudenciano, Lourdes Marites Gonzales, puro tayo Marites. Pero kilala nyo ba si Jan MayKel? Jan lang pag may kailangan! That’s who many of our have become Jan lang pag kailangan ang panginoon. We’ve put the LORD in a box! Parang tool kit, power up, only when needed only when necessary!
2 Chronicles 7:14
14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
This is key, lets not wait till its too late. Oftentimes we go to the LORD when we are already in need of a miracle. When the MESS of our own MAKING is too much to bear.
Let me check: friends, do you remember What was our opening verse? You forgot already, wala na, microwave minds. We easily forget.
Lamentations 3:25
25 The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;
Did you see that - The LORD is GOOD to those WHOSE HOPE is in HIM to the ONE WHO SEEKS HIM!
WHY DO WE SEEK GOD?
0. TO KNOW HIS PERFECT WILL FOR US!
Each and every individual has a special purpose that GOD has laid out for them. GOD has a plan for you dear friends. God has a purpose in your life - His WILL is PERFECT for your life!
The question really is this: DO You know HIS Perfect Will for you in this season in your life? Do you know His perfect will for you for the rest of the year 2024? It’s an important question. It’s a life changing, course directing, future revealing question that you need to answer —— And you can only find it out when you SEEK THE LORD
Let me tell you this brothers and sisters, When we don’t seek the LORD, we are on our own, we walk in the common grace of our LORD. Yes, you heard me, when you don’t seek the LORD, you are no different from the unbeliever who walks in the COMMON GRACE of the LORD. When we don’t seek the LORD, we rob ourselves from knowing his PERFECT WILL for us and instead we only enjoy his Permissible Will.
The permissible will of GOD is what GOD allows, what he allows. But you need to understand this truth, the fact that GOD permits something does not mean it is HIS will! God permissible will is hinged on his attribute that HE is patient, he gives everyone the privilege to choose.
Yup, by his common grace, GOD allows us to live in his common grace that is available to all and allows through his permissible will to live year after year pursuing our own desires, our own wants, our own dreams, devoid of the LORD. ( Its all Me, myself and I ) and the problem with that is - and I will be brutally honest with you dear friends - it will lead to ruin. It will lead to premature death, it will lead to a sad, unfulfilled, empty LIFE.
So Gods permissible will is hinged on his attribute that HE is gracious and that he gives us the privilege to choose; GOD never forces anyone, He allows us to Choose!
Big difference - GODs PERFECT WILL and GODS PERMISSIBLE WILL.
Gods permissible will, carries his common grace available to all, devoid of the full measure of HIS blessings.
Gods perfect will carries his divine grace, only available to those who seek HIM, follow HIS ways and they experience HIS PRESENCE, HIS POWER, HIS SUPERNATURAL BLESSINGS.
Let me give you an example: When Adam and Eve were living in the Garden of Eden, they were living in Gods perfect will. His perfect will is HIS divine will for us! In the book of Genesis, chapter 2, When God formed Adam, you will recall that Adam was not yet in the GARDEN OF EDEN. Right. Adam was formed from the dust on Earth, then God created the perfect paradise, the garden of Eden - it was perfect - God placed Adam in this perfect place and God had a perfect will for ADAM. HE told Adam to take care of the Garden, Adam obeyed and Adam stayed in paradise! That’s Gods Perfect Will. Then God told Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve were communing with GOD, they were living in His presence. They were both obedient to God.
BUT as we all know, that did not last. Lets look at Genesis 3
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’? ”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Here is a great demonstration of GODs PERMISSIBLE WILL. Again, it does not mean that God permits it that it is his perfect will. No. Gods permissible will is hinged on his attribute that HE is patient and that he gives us the privilege to choose.
Adam and Eve chose their way. They chose to disobey God. You might be thinking? Well, could they have known better? Baka naman they were ignorant. AND this is where SEEKING the LORD is so critical. They had a choice to seek GOD regarding the matter that the devil presented to them. They could have simply asked the LORD - sought him out and ask HIM - LORD, can you confirm, is this speaking serpent talking nonsense or not? IF they did that, they would have moved from the PERMISSIBLE WILL OF GOD to HIS PERFECT WILL and spared humanity from the curse of SIN.
Matthew 7:7-8
Ask, Seek, Knock
7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
The original Greek translation of this verse.
7. “You must regularly ask and it will be given to you, you must continually seek and you will find, you must knock habitually and it will be opened to you: 8. for everyone who asks takes, and the one who seeks finds, and it will be opened for the one who knocks.
Pursuing GOD is the intentional, purposeful ASKING, SEEKING, and KNOCKING. As you draw close to the LORD, you dwell in HIS presence, soak in the peace of his characteristics, his attributes.
we humble ourselves before God, we seek his assistance to break the chains of the stronghold of sin in our lives so that we can commune with God and hear him clearly. we approach his throne with praise and thanksgiving. We are confident in faith knowing fully well that our decisions in life are blessed by the almighty, when we walk in HIS perfect will, he commands our footsteps and he goes before us.
Do you know see how critical it is to seek the LORD? Unfortunately, we don’t do this most of the time. When we have a major decision to make in life, when we are at a crossroads, we look back at our experiences in life, we depend upon what we know, we talk to people who we think can help out, we completely NEGLECT the fact the almighty GOD is waiting for us to SEEK HIM.
Okay, let me ask you again. What was our opening verse this morning?
Lamentations 3:25
25 The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;
So this brings us to the second reason
WHY DO WE SEEK GOD - We seek God for Him to Direct Our Footsteps.
0. GUIDES our DECISIONS - God’s desire is for us to seek HIM, when we do, we walk in his perfect will, as we walk in His perfect will, we experience his power, his presence his blessings. God is perfect! He knows what is best for us, he knows what is best for your relationships, who should you marry, how do you handle your finances, where do you invest, how do you handle your children, which business should you get into! God is all-knowing, he is omnipotent - He knows the results of your decisions, the consequences of your actions and so SEEKING HIM - involving GOD in your decision making process ensures a successful outcome! Let me repeat that - when you involve the LORD in your decisions, it ensures a successful outcome.
You might be wondering, why are some Christians more successful than most Christians? It’s very simple really - successfully Christians were far more prepared than those who were unsuccessful. Just look at the lives of the disciples of JESUS - When Jesus started out His ministry. He selected people for different backgrounds, situations, profession to follow HIM - now you have to remember that He asked them to follow Him - there was a decision the be made - it was either living in GODs permissible will or his PERFECT Will - the disciples decided to follow JESUS - following JESUS was Gods perfect will for them. Done. Then its takes JESUS Christ 3 years to prepare them for what was ahead, and if you read the synoptic gospels - all of them - you will see their journey with JESUS, His teachings, trainings, empowering, HIS outpouring into their lives. The disciples had to renew their minds, to absorb the mind of Christ. Their decisions were guided by the most HIGH and when JESUS ascended into heaven - the whole book of ACTS details the successful mission of the disciples to take the good news of JESUS to the ends of the earth.
Another example - The Kings in the Old Testament. Most specifically the Kings of the divided Kingdom of Israel. And I site this examples because of the clear and visual picture of the Kings who sought the LORD and prospered compared to those who did it their own way, me myself and I and completely FAILED!
If we look at our chart here. I’m showing the Kingdom of Israel that divided in two - North and South, both had 19 KINGS each but JUDAH had an additional ruler a queen, Ataliah. Of all these Rulers, 39 of them only EIIGHT Sought the LORD, followed His commands, walked in HIS perfect will and their land prospered, there was peace and protection from the LORD. BUT despite that, all these Kings failed to be completely faithful to GOD and what happened, they failed and their kingdom was lead into exile and ruin. There’s a clear correlation between SEEKING The LORD, walking in HIS ways and leading a successful, grace-filled, peaceful life.
Shan, let’s talk about the third reason
WHY DO WE SEEK GOD
0. GOD BLESSES THOSE WHO SEEK HIM.
Lets read Psalm 119:2
0. Blessed are those who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart!
Oftentimes, we want the BLESSINGS, we desire the blessings, we long for the blessings but we don’t do the part - our part is to keep His statutes - which means to follow GODS Will for us in our lives - AND, it says here - SEEK HIM with all of our hearts!
Those who desires HIS blessings must walk in the ways of the LORD and SEEK HIM! P
And FINALLY we COME The HOW we seek GOD? This is the last part of our discourse this morning.
We started out with WHAT: Seeking GOD is the intentional and purposeful pursuit of GOD, The we move to WHY we seek GOD? we seek GOD to know HIS perfect will for us, His plans and purposes for us. WE seek GOD for HIM to direct our footsteps. Since HE is perfect He knows that is best for us. And lastly We seek GOD for God blesses those who seek him.
and finally we reach the part where we put this into practice: HOW do we seek GOD.
Four Fold Approach to Seeking GOD.
0. Die to Self.
0. Renew Your Mind.
0. By Meditation on His Word
0. Prayer
Romans 12:2 will guide us in the first 2 Fold approach:
Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Other versions of the Bible actually say - do not be conformed to the patterns of this world - whats that pattern - it’s a pattern of self righteousness, self exaltation, me, myself and I. We need to die to self, if we want to experience Gods presence when we seek him. God is not interested in your outer appearance, He is interested in your heart. When you die to self, in humility, you are actually telling the LORD, Father, I belong to you, my whole being is yours. When you Die To Self, God fills you with his spirit because you are not full of yourself.
RENEW Your Mind. When you renew your mind, it’s a transformation of your thoughts and your intentions - From worldly to GODLY.
MEDITATION OF HIS WORD - I need you to remember this. The word of GOD is living. It’s one of the most powerful tool to know GOD. To understand his character to draw close to HIm. Did you know that the BIBLE is one of the most suppressed book in the world because it talks about the truth. There are many places in the world that the Bible is not allowed, why because it reveals truths that breaks strongholds. But it’s never enough to just read the book, you have to meditate in it, meaning - as you read the book, allow the spirit of the LORD to speak to you through HIS word. I will admit it is difficult at first BUT when you die to self, renew your mind and open the pages of scripture, YOU will encounter GOD! **BIBLE STUDY PLUG. God is a personal GOD, He speaks to
Joshua 1:8
Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.
PRAYER -
Jeremiah 29:12
Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
I have a bonus for you this morning. I’m my study of the Bible, there are 2 Chapters in Psalm that are identical. Both of which starts with the very topic we are talking about this morning. That’s Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 And in Both the 2nd verse of these 2 PSALMS it says this:
“The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.”
Ask yourself this, why would GOD allow two psalms to be written the same way? That is to remind US how critical it is in our walk on earth to SEEK HIM!
God is waiting for you to spend time with him, dear friends. He’s looks down from his throne room in heaven to see if you have finally decided to let go of your own self, to rid yourself of pride, self righteousness, self dependence, and seek HIM!
Are you that PERSON? Will you seek GOD?
Psalm 27
Of David.
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?
2
When the wicked advance against me
to devour[a] me,
it is my enemies and my foes
who will stumble and fall.
3
Though an army besiege me,
my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me,
even then I will be confident.
4
One thing I ask from the Lord,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.
5
For in the day of trouble
he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent
and set me high upon a rock.
6
Then my head will be exalted
above the enemies who surround me;
at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make music to the Lord.
7
Hear my voice when I call, Lord;
be merciful to me and answer me.
8
My heart says of you, “Seek his face!”
Your face, Lord, I will seek.
9
Do not hide your face from me,
do not turn your servant away in anger;
you have been my helper.
Do not reject me or forsake me,
God my Savior.
10
Though my father and mother forsake me,
the Lord will receive me.
11
Teach me your way, Lord;
lead me in a straight path
because of my oppressors.
12
Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes,
for false witnesses rise up against me,
spouting malicious accusations.
13
I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
14
Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.
LET US PRAY.
