“The pursuit of God”
{Acts 17:24-27}
In confronting the thinking of the Athenians, Paul begins correcting their view of the “Unknown God” as he says in verse 23;
“Now what you worship as something unknown, I am going to proclaim to you.”
He begins by taking them back to the beginning of time, when all things were created by this God who is unknown to them.
He tells them that this God who made the world and everything in it, is the Lord of heaven and earth, and he does not live in temples built by human hands.
He goes on to tell them in verse 25 that it is this God who gives all humans, life and breath and everything else.
Then in verse 26 he says that this creator God caused every nationality to spring forth from one man and he did this, so they would inhabit the whole earth.
Paul tells them that this God did not just scatter man all over the world like a sower sowing seeds, No, this God had already determined exactly when all these different nationalities would spring forth and even the exact places where they should live.
And the reason why he did this was so that all men everywhere, would seek him and reach out for him and find him, because he would not be far from any of them.
Paul in these verses is talking about the pursuit of God and what God has done on his part to make our finding him easy. And at the same time he talks about mans pursuit of God and how plain God has made it for humans to find him.
And so this morning I too would like to speak to you about the pursuit of God, and I too would like to approach it from both perspectives, that is from the point of view what God has done on his part to make it plain for YOU to find HIM and what YOU need to do on YOUR part if you desire to find him.
And I too would like to take you back to the beginning, to the creation of this world and everything in it, back to where it all begin, this pursuit of God.
And my reason for doing so is that it is there that we first meet God, it is in the beginning where we get our first picture of him, in fact in Gen.1:1 it is with those exact words that the story begins.
“In the beginning, God” (Gen.1:1)
Now there it doesn’t say anything about him it just says; “In the beginning, God.”
You see, the Bible never starts out by giving evidences for God existence, it just says that He did exist, that’s where faith comes in and even faith is a gift from God.
The Bible goes on to say that in the beginning God created, now that says something about His power.
It says that he created the heavens and the earth; now this tells us something about how much power, but it doesn’t tells us everything about all of his power.
It says; That the earth was with out form and void,,, and the spirit of the Lord moved upon the face of the deep, and God said; Let there be ???????
Now I need you to help me out here with this sermon, I’ll give you part of the verse and then you help me finish it off O.K.? Now I need you to do that for two reason’s;
1. So that I’ll know that your still with me and I haven’t lost you as I continue on and develop my points.
2. So just in case I forget what I’m talking about, you can help bring me back to the point to where I got lost.
Let’s try it one more time; And God said, let there be ???????
Now the Bible goes on to tell us that when God said let the be Light, there was ???????
Now I don’t know if it made a loud thundering sound, like a bolt of lightening when this light appeared, maybe it didn’t make any kind of sound at all, but one thing I do know and that is that when God saw the light, he said that the light was ??????? {GOOD}.
The Bible goes on to tell us that he made the sky, to separate the waters above from the waters below and that was good too.
He then pushes the water off to one side and the dirt to the other, separating the waters from the land, and guess what? That was Good too.
Then he made the sun to take care of the day and the moon and stars to take care of the night, and that’s good.
Next he created the birds to fly in the heavens and the fish to swim in the sea and yea, that was good too.
And then the Bible goes on to tell us that on the sixth day of creation God scooped up some dirt and formed man out of the dust of the earth. And then he breathed into him the breath of life and man became a living soul.
After God had breathed into Adam the breath of life, he probably began to warm up a little, breathing in and out, gets on his feet, stretches out a bit, looks around and probably says; Wow, this is great!!!
We go on and read of man looking for a mate, but he finds no one suitable for himself and so the Lord causes a deep sleep to come over him and from his side takes part of him and fashions a woman.
Kind of like the little kind who was told this same story in his Sunday morning Bible class. After church on way home mom asks him what they talked about in Bible class, little boy tells her that they talked about the creation story and how God had taken a rib from mans side and made a wife for him. : after lunch mother finds him doubled over in pain, mother asks what’s wrong little boys says; “My side hurts mommy, I think I’m having a wife.”
Well, the point of all of this is that when God had completed his creation the Bible tells us that God saw what he had done and said that it was very good.
Why was it so? Because that’s exactly the way the Lord wanted it to be, it was the way God intended it to be.
You see, when God had finished creating everything and when he had put man in the garden with him, that’s where he really wanted man to stay.
He wanted man to eat from the tree of life and live forever, he wanted us to be with him eternally.
He wanted us to live without guilt or fear and anger. More than anything folks, he really wanted it that way, but we know that’s not what happened, right?
We know that it just didn’t work out that way AND WE ALSO KNOW WHY IT DIDN’T WORK OUT THAT WAY.
You see, we can’t blame this whole mess just on Adam or Eve, You see, because even if Adam and Eve never would have eaten from the forbidden tree, one of us would have and the reason I know that is because every one of us has sinned.
Now maybe we weren’t standing around that tree plucking fruit, but we are none the less guilty of it aren’t we? You see, because how many times have we done what we know we should not have? How many times have we sinned against God just like they did?
And don’t we have enough of the fear,,, the guilt,,, the anger and bitterness,,, the lack of self-control and all the rest of the stuff that they got when they sinned? Yes we do, don’t we?
Can you imagine what God must have felt when he saw them sin? I don’t know exactly, but I’m pretty sure he did not say that it was good.
But, the Bible tells us that before he drove them out of the garden of Eden, he clothed them with the skin of an animal.
That means he probably had to kill not just one but two innocent animals, he had to shed innocent blood for a covering because of their sin.
And in that one gesture of covering them up, God was demonstrating his willingness to take care of them. And not only them, but all us who have sinned after them.
God was not pleased with sin in the picture now. So he drives them from the Garden and places Cherubim in front of it’s entrance so that man would not return and eat from the tree of life and live forever lost in sin.
He did that so that we would not have to live forever in fear,,, so that we wouldn’t have to live forever in anger,,, He did that so that we wouldn’t have to live forever without him.
God did not and God does not want that. He did not make us for that. He did not want it then and he does not want it now,,, and so God begins his pursuit for what was lost in Eden. (A Relationship)
And along the way, in his pursuit of us, he will rescue us over and over and over again from ourselves. Why? Because he wants us to be with him. That’s why he made us.
You see, part of the story of God’s pursuit of us came about when the world and all the people in it, were so wicked that he couldn’t stand it anymore and so he sends a preacher with a message to them.
A preacher by the name of Noah. And for a 120 years this preacher tries to get the people to repent, to change their way of thinking and living, and to turn back to God their creator.
But the people would not listen to him. But he continued to preach anyway, because it was God seeking us through him.
It was God trying to get us to turn back, because he wanted more than anything for us to be with him.
But the people would not have it and so the Lord washed the earth clean and put a rainbow in the sky as a reminder to himself that he would never again flood the world.
After the flood, Noah’s son’s went on to have a whole bunch of kids of their own and the descendants of those children decided that they were not going to let anybody flood them out again.
And so they started to build a tower that would reach into the heavens, so that the next time it started to rain they would not drown like their fathers had, for I am sure that the story of the great flood had been passed down from generation to generation.
And so they started building and God saw that this thing which they desired to do was possible for them and so he came down and confused their language.
In all of this God was still in pursuit of man, that’s why he confused their language, now they had to look for strength beyond themselves.
He was trying to get them to look up, to get them to come toward him, but they would not do it.
They just kept doing their wickedness and sinning against their creator.
So God later on decides to bless a man, named Abram. I’ll bless him so much that maybe people will say; “Man that Abram sure gets a lot of blessings from God, I want to be like Abram.
Maybe then they would walk in faith, but they didn’t.
And God who is long in patience, decides to do something else, he will cause them to become slaves in a foreign land and he will allow them to be punished for along time, 400 years.
And so he puts them in a place where they will suffer, a place where they will cry out to him and when they do, he will respond.
And maybe then they will believe in him, maybe then they will listen to him, so that they can be restored to what he meant for us to be when he first created us.
But that is not what happened.
Because even after he responded to their cries for help and set them free from slavery
And split the waters of the red sea for them to cross on dry ground.
And fed them bread from heaven and caused water to come forth from a rock for them to drink, they still would not believe, they still would not come back to him.
But God, was in pursuit of man and he wasn’t going to give up. So he gives them his law, so they would know for sure how he wanted them to live, but they didn’t care about that either.
In all of this God was pursuing his people so they would come back to him, he was trying to get their attention just long enough to convince them of his love for them.
To get them to understand that he didn’t want us to be separated from him, but they would not listen.
They just kept on sinning and all the while God kept on trying.
He gave them Kings, like they asked for,,, He sent them prophets to tell them his thoughts, but they still would not listen.
And so for a while it seemed as though God had finally had enough, he didn’t send them anymore prophets, he didn’t give them anymore messages to deliver, for four hundred years, God remains silent.
That’s longer than this nation has been around folks, for 400 years God didn’t say a word to anybody.
But then he breaks from his silence, quietly, slowly by sending an angel to a young girl named Mary and his massage was this: You!!! Are highly favored. The Lord is with You.
In God breaking his own silence he is saying one last time, I am still in pursuit of you, because more than anything I want you to be with me.
And I’m going to do whatever it takes to make you understand, that I have really loved you even from the beginning.
I am going to do what ever I have to do to save you from yourselves.
I am going to do whatever I have to do to take away the guilt, the fear and I am going to make possible a way to bring peace to your hearts.
And so he begins his final pursuit like this; Matt.1:1ff
Abraham was the father of Isaac -
Isaac the father of Jacob -
Jacob the father of Juda and his brothers -
Judah the father of perez and zerah whosemother was Tamar -
Perez the father of Hezron -
Hezron the father of Ram.
Now I’m going to stop right there folks because those are about the only names I can pronounce in this list. Some of those are names that only their mothers could pronounce.
But, listen to me, listen to me, this is the point of all those names listed there, God has been in pursuit of you for a long, long time.
And he was not willing to give up on us even when we had already given up on him. God was willing to do whatever it took to make us right with him again, even if that meant that he would have to sacrifice his own son for our sakes.
And that’s exactly what he did, God was going to come into the world himself, so that he could take us back home, not to some geographical place on the map, but to a relationship.
A relationship where there would be no more fear,,, No more guilt,,, no more anger,,, and no more death.
In Matt.1:18 this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about; His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.
This was God’s doing and he did it in spite of history. He did it in spite of all the years that had gone by when people continued to sin against him.
He did this because he wanted us to be forgiven more than we wanted to be forgiven.
You see, not a single one of us has been willing to die to be forgiven, while God on the other hand loved us to death.
And so God comes to earth in the flesh, why? Because he is still in pursuit of us, his lost children.
And God was willing to do that inspite of history. That’s what the first chapter of Matthew is all about.
That is what all those names are there for. Because God wants you to know that he has been working those all those people to get to us, for a long time.
But God did not just overcome history to reach us, He overcame nature as well. Because the bible tells us that before Mary and Joseph were married she was already pregnant, through the Holy Spirit.
Now you take out that phrase; Through the Holy Spirit and what have you got? Adultery, Fornication, Rape, you’ve got some kind of sin going on, right?
Because woman don’t have children without knowing a man and I know that’s what Joseph must have thought too, because the very next verse tells us that he planned to divorce her because of this.
But what he did not know was that God was in pursuit of us and he was going to work out his plan of bringing us back home to him, inspite of history and inspite of the laws of nature.
God chose Mary to be the earthly mother of his son. He was willing to come himself to take away the sins of the people,,, to take away their guilt,,, to make possible a way for people to come back home.
We need to realize that we can not stop God’s will. Oh, we can deny it,,, We can disobey it, we can even reject it and in the end we will be judged by it, but we can not stop it.
God has given us the Bible to show us that. The Bible tells us that he worked through history and through nature and through people, so that we might turn to him.
This is a simple story, one which I am sure that you have heard many times over in your life. The story of God bringing a child into this world to save us from ourselves.
Now I ask you a question, where would you be, where would I be, if God had given up on his pursuit of us?
As God watched Adam and Eve leave the garden he knew what the cost would be and he knew that he would have to pay it, because of us.
Today is no accident, remember God works through nature and history and people to accomplish his purpose and that means he controls time and places and events.
Just like Acts 17:26 says: He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live, God did this so that men would perhaps seek him and reach out for him and find him, because he is not far from any of us.
This means that he has brought you here for a reason and that reason is this; “He wants you to be forgiven.” Forgiven of all the wrongs which you have committed, because he wants you to come back home.
How much?
This much (Stretching out arms as if on the cross)
You see when Jesus died on the cross, he did not die like this to embrace you, his hands were nailed back to the cross.
He died like this because he was holding back the hordes of hell that are after you soul just long enough for you to embrace him
God has been after you for a long, long time my friend.
Will God be able to end his pursuit of you this day?
Will you finally turn around?
Is today the day that you’ll come back home?
He is calling you, will come to Him?
Surrender your life ti him, today.
Do it now as together we stand and sing.
