Mark Engler
Leonard Christian Church
Leonard Missouri
Where is God in your life?
INTRO: In camp last summer I taught a class. The class I taught was for the Jr. High week 1, and the class was to be on Practical Christian Living. Practical Christian Living is something that we should have down pat. It should be something that we do everyday of our lives, day in and day out. But is it? Do we consider God in everything we do? Do we consider God when we wake up in the morning? Do we consider God when we go to work every weekday? Do we consider God when we make plans for the weekend? Or do we just consider God when we come here on Sunday morning. We should and need to consider God in everything we do. I posed a question to the Jr. High class everyday of the week that I taught. That question was: Where is God in your life? You see we live our lives a bubble. When we start our lives our bubble is very small, and they consist of our basic needs. They include mainly our mother and father and maybe a sister or brother, if we have a sister or brother. And who’s going to feed me, and who’s going to change my diaper? As we grow older our bubble gets bigger and bigger. We meet more people, we have more things, we have jobs, we have homes, and we have children. We move from place to place and we meet many, many different people. So as we grow our bubble just continues to get bigger. When our bubble is small it’s easy to keep our focus on one thing, but as it gets bigger we start splitting our focus on many different things. It’s inevitable that we do, I don’t think it’s wrong to have our focus on many different things, but I believe it’s wrong to focus on those many things without considering God first.
When I asked where is God in your bubble? Most of the kids said that God was not even in their bubble and some said He was way off to the side. What we need to do is get God in the center of our bubble. When He is in the center then we will consider Him in everything we do. We must seek God first in all we do. When we get up in the morning, when we go to work, when we plan for the weekend. If you are not a Christian then you need to seek God all the more, but if we are Christians we still need to seek God. So what should we know about seeking God. Lets turn to God’s word and find out about seeking Him.
Isaiah 55:6 & 7
"Seek the LORD while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him
return to the LORD, And He will have compassion on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon."
So what can we find out from this verse about seeking God? Well, you see that verse 6 says Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near.
POINT 1: There is a time to seek after God
2 Corinthians 6:2 says this: "for He says, “AT THE ACCEPTABLE TIME I LISTENED TO YOU, AND ON THE DAY OF SALVATION I HELPED YOU” ;behold, now is “THE ACCEPTABLE TIME,” behold, now is “THE DAY OF SALVATION"
So you see in this verse that it says that now is the time that we need to be seeking after God. Why? Because now is the day of salvation! You might think that I’m saying that today is the day that the Lord is coming back, well no I’m not but, I’m not saying that it isn’t. Do I know when the day of salvation will be? Do you know? No! Only God knows the day the Lord will return. But what does that tell us? It tells us that we need to be seeking God today. We cannot afford to wait until tomorrow because tomorrow may be to late. If Jesus where to come back today, would you be ready? If you’re not ready, then now is the time to seek after God. Now is the time to put Him in the center of your bubble.
We have a duty to seek after God, Zephaniah 2:3 says this: "Seek the LORD, All you humble of the earth who have carried out His ordinances; Seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you will be hidden in the day of the LORD’S anger."
We have a duty to seek out the Lord; everyone on this earth has that duty. All those humble on the earth are supposed to seek out righteousness. And if we are not humble it tells us to seek humility.
I. The time for seeking is not fixed by our convenience
Man does not set the time for seeking God, but God sets it. We are to the point in this world today that we think we can set the time when we should seek God. Have you ever heard someone say? Oh well, I can do that later; I’ll accept God or I’ll seek God after I’ve had my fun on this earth. We do that everyday; we do it in our everyday lives, with everyday things, so why wouldn’t we do that with God. Haven’t you heard the slogan, “Why do today, what I can do tomorrow.” We live by that a lot of the times don’t we? I know that I’m guilty of that. Right now at house I have a back door that needs to be fixed, I have the sump pump in the storm shelter that needs to be looked at. I have try limbs that are down all around my house. My lawn mower needed to have the oil changed in it before last mowing season was over, but didn’t get done. I keep on saying that I will do these things later, but later seems to never come.
ILLUS: The electric control for the seat of my car was just lying beside my seat for a long time; I was just dealing with it until I felt like fixing it. It finally got fixed, but not because I felt like fixing it, but because Ray T. (a man in our church) took my car home when we borrowed his van to go bowling one night. When I got my car back it was fixed, what I had been putting off was done and I appreciate that being done very much. He did something for me that I was putting off. Seeking God is something that no one else can do for you; you must do it on your own. We can’t put it off until tomorrow for tomorrow may never come. Ray saw that I had a need for that to be fixed. God sees that we all have things that need fixed in our lives and tells us to seek Him and to seek Him today for today is the day of salvation, tomorrow may be to late.
II. The time for seeking God is fixed by God’s invitation
It must be by fixed by His invitation. The gift He has for us is an absolutely sovereign and free gift and the Giver must be allowed to find his own time and way. If salvation were a matter of purchase, we might expect it to be dependent on our time. But it’s not something that we can purchase is it? Jesus said this in John 6:44: "No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day." So we are drawn to God by God, it is set by Him at His invitation. His invitation is there in plain sight for all people to see. His invitation is set in His word, Rom 10:9 says: "that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved." Mark 16:16 says: "He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned." In Acts 2:38 the people wanted to know what to do to be saved, and it says this: "And Peter said to them, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." And John 3:16 says this: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."
I could go on and on with scripture that says what to do to obtain salvation. God’s invitation is there in His word over and over again. God is found in His word, if we are seeking Him we must go to His Word or we must hear His Word.
ILLUS: There are times that God draws you to Him. That not only goes for those that are not saved, but for those that are. Just the other day I was in a situation in talking with someone that I was calling on. They told me something that just shocked me and I didn’t know what to do, I just felt the need to pray. I know that I have felt the need to pray before, but not in this way. I just felt like God was calling me to pray, He knew that I didn’t know what to do so He called on me to call on Him. God gives you those moments in your life, whether you’re a Christian or not. He will pursue you or draw you to Him; He will give you those times when you just feel that He is calling you. If you are reading His Word and you feel that, then you need to respond to it. If you are here today and you feel that God is drawing you then you need to respond to it. God is calling you today. Are you listening? Anything and everything that brings to us the sense of God’s nearness is an appropriate thing to set us hopefully seeking after Him and His salvation.
Point 2: In order to seek and find God we must prepare ourselves to receive God’s pardon.
Isaiah 55:7 says this: "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, And He will have compassion on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon."
There are a couple of things that need to be clearly recognized. 1. Is that God’s pardon is absolutely free and priceless. It is a sovereign gift, based on no condition, won by no payment and is responsive to no merit in us. 2. There are conditions which those who receive the grace are reasonably required to be in. The two things need to be harmonized. That the gift or pardon is free and priceless and yet there are conditions to it and I think they can easily be harmonized.
ILLUS: If we were going to give a gift to someone we would look for a gift that would suit that person. We would be looking to give them something, but we put conditions on what we will give them based on what they have done. For example: If I were to give my brother a gift I would look for something like fishing lures or a new lantern or maybe an air mattress. I wouldn’t give him a gift like a new printer for a computer or the latest neat program that I found for my computer. Why would I give him the fishing lures or new lantern or a new air mattress? Because he is prepared to accept a gift like that. He likes fishing and camping out. He already has a tent and he already has fishing poles and a tackle box. Those are things that he could use properly because he is prepared to use them. I wouldn’t give him the printer or the neat new program that I found, why, because he doesn’t have a computer. He could not use them and therefore they would go to waste, because he wouldn’t be able to use them properly. The same goes with God’s pardon, it’s free but He looks to give it to those that are prepared to accept it.
So how do we prepare to accept God’s pardon? Well I think we can find that in this 7th verse of Isaiah 55, the preparation takes a threefold form.
Isaiah 55:7a, "Let the wicked forsake his way."
1. There must be the putting away of all wrongdoing.
ILLUS: Is it conceivable that we ask God for a pardon, while we keep on doing wrong things? What would you do if your child came up to you and asked for a pardon for something they refused to stop doing? Wouldn’t you say, I’ll give you the pardon when you stop doing what you are asking me to pardon you for? If we are sincere in asking for a pardon from God we must also be sincere in separating ourselves from the sin in our lives. We can not go on willfully sinning, doing things that we know full well to be wrong in the sight of God and except that God will pardon us of our sins.
I want you to take note here though, I didn’t say that if we sin God will not pardon us, I said that if we go on sinning willfully. Rom. 3:23 says; "All of us sin and fall short of the glory of God." All of us are sinners, but we must not go on sinning willfully.
We all should know what sin is by now, but one thing I would like to bring up here is James 4:17, "Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin." So we stop sinning by stopping to do some things, but we also stop sinning by doing things. In God’s Word it says to love your neighbor as yourself, it tells us to pray, it tell us to go into all nations and make disciples, it tells us to baptize and to be baptized. Have we done that, are we doing that? Lets just take one of these, Jesus in Mathew 28 told us to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Have you been baptized? If not, why not? Jesus tells us to be. Is it a sin not to be baptized if Jesus commanded us to? Well, I’ll let you be the judge of that, but while you are judging that remember to consider James 4:17 and that is says "Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin." So consider what you have to stop doing and consider what you need to do.
Isaiah 55:7b, "And the unrighteous man his thoughts;"
2. There must be a cleansing of thought and heart.
The love of sinning must go and the act of sinning must cease. We cannot go on desiring to do what we have done in the past. We can’t go on thinking about how fun those things we used to do where. Sin is fun, we like sin, if we didn’t like sin, we wouldn’t sin.
How many times has it happen that people accept Christ and get baptized and then go back to the things they were once doing? It happens a lot! Why? Because they are not making an effort to cleans their thoughts and heart. They are not making an effort to stop doing what they did before. There was someone that I was trying to work with this summer that was baptized last April. Since the time that person was baptized that person has not been to church. I’ve talked to the person, Bruce the other minister at the church talked to the person. We both encouraged the person to come to church. We told the person that the bus would be by to pick them up and what time the bus would be there. Not one time was the person up and ready to come to church when they said they would be. That person hasn’t put the thought of sin out of their life. The person enjoys too much what they have been doing and is making no effort or little to cleans their thoughts and heart.
Until we have a change of thought and heart we will not be truly repentant. Being repentant means that we turn away from what were once were and turn to God. Reformation of life and repentance of heart must go together to make the proper recipient attitude.
Isaiah 55:7c, "And let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him;"
3. There must be a positive turning towards God.
Repentance is that positive turning to God. When we sin we should be repentant of the sin that we have committed. There is a difference between repentance and worldly remorse. Repentance draws us toward God in hope and remorse drives us from God in despair. So maybe you can see and maybe understand why people, like the person that was baptized last April never came to church after they accepted Christ and was baptized. If the person has a remorseful attitude then how are they going to feel when they come here to church and how are they going to feel when they come before God. They are going to feel ashamed, they are going to be embarrassed, aren’t they.
I know in my past when I have done things wrong I have felt remorse. When I would do wrong things, especially things that I knew other people in the church knew about I wouldn’t want to come back to church. I’d find reason after reason why not to go to church, over and over again it would be. This is my only day to sleep in, or the Chiefs game comes on at 11:00 and I won’t get to see it all if I go to church, or missing one week won’t be so bad, we’ll go next week. Then the next week I wouldn’t want to go because I didn’t go the week before. It would go on and on, you see I was only feeling remorse for the sin that I was committing. It wasn’t until I was truly repentant that my life changed. Now I have hope, now I try to draw close to God. Now in God through Christ Jesus, because I’m repentant I want to be near to Him instead of running from Him.
So lets not be remorseful of our sins and continue doing them, lets make that positive turn to God, be repentant of our sins and we will have hope and faith that we will have eternal life with Christ.
Now that we know that this is the time to seek God because now is the day of salvation, and we know how to prepare for God’s pardon,
(Point 3) How should we seek after God.
Jeremiah 29:13 say this: "And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart."
Think of the most favorite thing you like to do or the thing that you want most in your life. Whether that be a material thing, a relational thing, a physical thing, or just anything. Is there something that you want more than anything else?
Now I can think of some things that some people want more than anything else. I’ll bet the person that has cancer wants the cancer to leave their body. I’ll bet the person that I read about in the paper other day that got a 4 million dollar settlement because he lost his leg in a car accident, wishes he had his leg back more than he wants the 4 million dollars. If the person with cancer could have a way that the cancer would leave their body and person that lost his leg could have a way to get his leg back. How do you think they would peruse that? The person with cancer most of time does have a way to get the cancer to leave their body and that’s through the chemotherapy that they dislike taking so much. Why do they take the chemo, even though they hate it? because they want the cancer to leave their body with all their heart. That is the same way we are to seek after God, with all our heart.
Proverbs 8:17 says: "I love those who love me; And those who diligently seek me will find me." Hosea 5:15 says: "I will go away and return to My place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face; In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me." Psalm 105:3 & 4 says: "Glory in His holy name; Let the heart of those who seek the LORD be glad. Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face continually."
So you should be able to see some ways we are to seek God. Seek Him with all your heart, those who diligently seek me will find me, earnestly seek Me and seek His face continually. Seeking God is not something that we should do half way; it’s something that we must put everything into. We cannot neglect it! We must not neglect it! If we do stop seeking Him then we may very well loose our eternal salvation. Amos 5:4 says: "…Seek Me that you may live."
CONCLUSION:
So what do you think? Where is God in your life? Is God where He needs to be? Is He in the center of your bubble? Those are questions that you must ask yourself. As we go on living our lives, are we going to go on living them as we have in the past? Or are we going to consider God in all that we do? God is there waiting for you to come after Him, He wants you to come after Him. He has the free gift of salvation waiting for you. We discussed earlier about the time to seek God. Didn’t we conclude that now is the day of salvation? Now is the right time to come to the Lord?
Now I know that this message has targeted those that are not Christians the most, but for the Christian you should know that God is still calling you. He is calling you to work. God has something for each and every Christian to do. Has God been calling you to something? I believe that God was calling me to go into the ministry for many, many years. I resisted that for a long time and now I regret it. I really wish that I would’ve heeded his call at first. I really love to do ministry, it’s something that I wish I had been doing for a long, long time.
So Christian, is God calling you? Are you seeking Him? So if you’re not a Christian. Is God calling you today? Do you want to know Jesus as your personal Lord and savior? Where is God in your life? He is calling, are you listening?
If you do feel His call today, then I urge you to accept Him today, accept Him this morning. If you don’t feel His call this morning but you do later, I am available anytime and will be more than happy to talk with you. So come during the invitation if you are feeling His call today.
Stand and sing.
