Last week, we discussed the topic of "seeking God." We saw that the pursuit of God is a lifelong quest. It’s not merely a phase in our spiritual growth, nor is it an optional activity. Rather, it’s fundamental to our lives as Christians, from beginning to end. You could even say that continuing to seek after God; continuing to draw closer to Him in fellowship; continuing to grow in our knowledge of Him; is what Christianity is all about. Because true religion isn’t just a matter of right knowledge or right conduct; it’s not just a matter of beliefs or morals. Authentic Christianity is a relationship; an ever-deepening experience of God, a lifetime of striving after Him in faith, and obedience, and love.
And so the goal of that sermon was to persuade you that this is something we all need to be doing – that we can’t be complacent; we can’t rest on what we already know and what we’ve already experienced. We need to keep seeking, and striving, and pursuing God, with diligence and perseverance, all our lives. It’s the one thing worth giving our lives to. And it comes with a guarantee of success. For as Moses promised the people of Israel thousands of years ago,
". . . if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him." – Deuteronomy 4:29, NLT
God is not hiding; he is not unwilling to be found. But neither will He reveal Himself to the careless, or to the indifferent, or to the merely curious. God can be known, and He will be known. But only by those who seek.
Well, if last week was the "push," then this week is the "pull". Because this morning, I want to show that, not only do we need to be doing this; but that seeking and knowing God will give us the greatest possible happiness and satisfaction in life, both now and in the world to come. I want you to stimulate you to seek God wholeheartedly – not merely out of a sense of duty or obligation, but out of joy, and hope, and desire. I want you to be convinced that a life devoted to striving after God is the most fulfilling and rewarding life possible. I want you to see it as something attractive and desirable; rather than dull or tedious. I want you to seek God, not reluctantly, but with enthusiasm and relish.
But why? Why does it matter whether we think a life of seeking God will make us happy? Isn’t it enough to know that the Bible commands it? Isn’t it enough to know that this is what we are called to do as Christians? And the answer is no, it’s not enough. For several reasons. First, people naturally choose for themselves what they perceive to be the greatest good; they naturally choose what they think will tend to their greatest happiness and satisfaction. Now, it doesn’t have to be immediate; they may have in mind some future benefit. That’s why, for instance, people who are training to be doctors endure long years of study at great expense, and then work eighty-hour weeks for relatively little pay. Their focus is on the long term satisfaction and pleasure of practicing medicine. But whether the hoped-for benefit is near or far, people naturally choose what they think will make them happy. And "happy" can mean all kinds of things. Personal fulfillment; the opportunity to make a difference; physical pleasure; having control over one’s own life; gaining power and control over others’ lives; respect, recognition and prestige; financial security and freedom from material wants; love; friendship; appreciation. Whatever we find most desirable, personally; and believe to be within our grasp; that is what we will choose.
And so, when Satan wants to tempt someone to evil, what does he do? He presents it to their minds as highly desirable. He tries to convince them that this particular sin – greed, envy, lust, gluttony, sloth, pride – is what will make them truly happy. He plays up the benefits and conceals the costs, especially the eternal costs. And he tries to make that sin look as pleasing, and attractive, and good as he possibly can. Just like he did with Eve. The Bible says that after Satan was done talking to her, she saw that the apple was "good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom." (Genesis 3:6, NIV). She forgot about the fact that it was poison; that eating it meant death for herself and all of her children. Because Satan had made it sound so good. And it worked. Why? Because people tend to choose what they believe will most powerfully satisfy their needs and desires.
And that’s true of us, as well. It’s not a good long-term strategy to just grit your teeth and try to do what God commands, when you don’t believe it will make you happy; when you don’t believe it’s in your own best interest. If you try that, you will fail. Because that’s not the way we’re put together. If we’re not convinced that seeking God is the source of our greatest good, then sooner or later Satan will come along with something that seems more desirable, and we will depart from the path of obedience and holiness. Trying to be godly by forcing ourselves to do things that, deep down, we don’t believe will make us happy, will fail. The only way to persevere in godliness is to be persuaded that seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness is going to produce the greatest happiness and satisfaction possible; that the path of faithful service to Christ is also the road to our greatest joy and pleasure.
You see, the problem isn’t that we desire our own happiness. The problem is that, deep down, we’re not absolutely convinced that following God is the best way to obtain it. Perhaps we would be happier if we devoted ourselves to sensuality, to gratifying every physical desire; or if we devoted ourselves to becoming wealthy, and acquiring houses, and cars, and boats. Perhaps, if we had unlimited wealth, and power, and freedom, we would be more satisfied and fulfilled than we are now. Secretely, in the back of our minds, we’re not really convinced that pursuing God is the path to our greatest joy and satisfaction. We wonder if perhaps we’re missing out on what’s best. That’s the problem. Not that we desire joy and satisfaction, but that we doubt whether seeking God is the way to find it. Perhaps Hugh Hefner really is better off than we are. Or Donald Trump. Or Bill Gates. Or some Arab sheik, with billions of dollars in oil money, and palaces, and fleets of gold Rolls-Royces, and a harem. Are we really better off than they are? Is that possible? Yes. In fact, we have a case study, in the book of Ecclesiastes. King Solomon had all of those things. Listen to how he describes it:
"I thought in my heart, "Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good." But that also proved to be meaningless. . . I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well-the delights of the heart of man. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun." – Ecclesiastes 2:1, 4-11 NIV
If you read through the book of Ecclesiastes, you will find that Solomon had all of the things we usually imagine will bring us happiness and satisfaction. Not only wealth, and power, and every sensual pleasure imaginable; but also wisdom, and knowledge, and respect, and achievement. He was honored by all the nations of the world. He improved the lives of his people, he completed great public works. He was acclaimed as a great ruler. And yet none of those things was sufficient. Now, Satan tells us that if we could have this, or that, or the other thing, we would be happy. And then if we get it, and find that we’re not, he tells us that we just need a little more of it, or that what we really need is something else – and so off we go, at least in our minds, searching for happiness in everything but God Himself. What a tragedy. We labor and strive, and strain and suffer, in order to acquire, and achieve, and obtain. Or we can’t have what we want, and so we lament and complain. When the one thing that would truly make us happy and satisfied has been within our grasp all the time, if we would only reach out and take it. God Himself. What does Paul tell us? That, "godliness with contentment is great gain." (1 Timothy 6:6, NIV). Another translation puts it this way: "true religion with contentment is great wealth." (NLT). Seeking after God results in great gain, great wealth.
Similar statements are found throughout the Bible. In the Psalms, for instance, we read:
"You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence; with eternal pleasures at your right hand." – Psalm 16:11, NIV
"How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights." – Psalm 36:7-8, NIV
"Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." – Psalm 37:4, NIV
And in Isaiah, we find this:
"Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare . . . Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near." – Isaiah 55:2, 6 NIV
Now, someone might object that, although it’s true that seeking God will bring us happiness and fulfillment in life, it’s wrong to focus on that. The benefits to ourselves should only be a by-product of serving and following God. We should do it solely for the sake of His glory, because it honors and pleases Him. And if it benefits us also, then so much the better. But aiming at our own happiness; making that an explicit goal of our obedience, is sub-Christian. It’s appealing to selfishness; appealing to base motives. Well, if that’s true, then God is guilty of promoting selfishness, and God is guilty of appealing to base motives. Because the Scriptures are full of promises of reward to those who follow God wholeheartedly. And these rewards are not just mentioned in passing. They are presented as an explicit motive for seeking God. Let me give you a couple of examples from the gospel of Luke:
"But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked." – Luke 6:35, NIV
"Then Jesus said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." – Luke 14:12-14, NIV
You see, we have a choice. We’ve been taught that the only proper motive for doing is good is one that is completely altruistic; that lacks any appeal to self-interest. We’ve been taught that if we do something good out of a desire for personal benefit, it ruins it. But that idea is not Christian. It comes from secular philosophy, not the Bible. Because over and over in the Scriptures, God holds out the promise of reward as a proper motive for our obedience and perseverance. I know this goes against the grain of what you’ve probably been taught, so let me give you another verse, from Hebrews:
"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." – Hebrews 11:6, NIV
Faith requires that we seek God with His rewards in mind. It pleases Him for us to do so. In fact, (hold on to your hats) the Bible says that Jesus Christ did what he did for the reward.
"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." – Hebrews 12:2, NIV
As the New Living Translation puts it, "He was willing to die a shameful death on the cross because of the joy he knew would be his afterward." In other words, he was looking to the reward.
Friends, this is critical. Many Christians have great difficulty day to day in seeking and following God, because they are intentionally disregarding one of he primary motives for godliness; they are ignoring all the help God has given us, in the form of these precious promises. They think it’s wrong to seek God and obey him, with their own happiness in view, and so they try to do it from purely disinterested motives. But not only does that go against human nature; it is disobedient to Scripture. God wants us to keep his rewards in mind; He wants us to consider the benefit to ourselves of living a godly life. That’s why He put those promises in the Bible! To ignore them is to accuse God of being unwise or unrighteous in appealing to our self interest, and that is blasphemy.
Well, if this is true, then why is it true? Why would God choose to motivate us to faithful obedience by promising us a personal benefit? Here’s why. Listen carefully. Because he wants us to remember that our fundamental relationship with Him is one of receiving from Him, rather than giving to Him. One of being served, rather than serving. In fact, we cannot give anything to Him; except what we’ve already received from Him. We cannot serve Him; except by the power and ability which He supplies. We are in every way recipients of His grace and mercy; recipients of His love, recipients of His blessings and benefits. And every act of obedience, every experience of suffering for Christ, all of our labors and our striving after God – they are all channels by which we receive good things from God. They are avenues by which we appropriate His grace. He doesn’t need our service; He doesn’t need our gifts; He doesn’t need our labors. He is entirely happy and self-sufficient, lacking in nothing. He calls us to obey, and suffer, and strive, not because He needs anything from us, but because those are the means through which he has chosen to bless us, his beloved children.
What does the Bible tell us about God? As Paul said, speaking to the Greek philosophers in Athens:
". . . he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else." – Acts 17:25
"If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it." – Psalm 50:12, NIV
And what does the Bible tell us about Jesus? That he "did not come to be served [by us, or anyone else], but to serve . . . " (Mark 10:45, NIV) Do you think that has changed, now that Christ has ascended into heaven, and been glorified? Not at all. Our fundamental relationship to Christ, even now, remains one of being served by him, rather than serving him, and it will always be so. Listen to how Jesus describes his return:
"Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them." – Luke 12:35-37, NIV
When Christ returns, we won’t be serving him. Instead, he tells us that we will sit at the table; he will wrap a towel around his waist, and he will come and wait on us. Can you take that into your mind? Can you imagine Christ, in all of his resurrection glory, asking us to sit down and relax, so that he can wait on us and serve us? It’s difficult to comprehend. But you need to burn that image into your mind. Because until you can see it, and understand what it means, you will never fully grasp the incredible depths of love and grace and condescension in God our Savior, Jesus Christ. He didn’t save us so that we could wait on him and serve him. He saved us so that he could wait on us and serve us, for ever and ever, throughout eternity. It’s a staggering thought. It’s almost offensive. It makes us want to recoil, as Peter did when Christ began washing the disciples’ feet. "Lord, are you going to wash my feet? . . . you shall never wash my feet." And what was Jesus’ reply? "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me." (John 13:6, 8 NIV). In other words, if we cannot accept that our relationship with Christ is one of being served, utterly and completely; and if we are not willing to have him serve us, but instead insist on serving him, then we do not understand grace, or faith, or forgiveness.
Now, we do serve God, in the sense that we respond to him in obedience, as a servant responds to his master. But not in the sense that we provide Him with anything he lacks. Everything we give to him we first received from him. Jesus Christ did not come to be served, but rather to serve. That’s what grace is all about. Let’s take one more example.
"Peter said to him, ’We have left everything to follow you!’ ’I tell you the truth,’ Jesus replied, ’no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields--and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.’" – Mark 10:28-30, NIV
Here, Peter is saying, "Look how much we’ve sacrificed for you! Look how much we’ve done for you! Look how much we’ve struggled, and suffered for you!" And Jesus tells him that he is completely off the mark. He hasn’t really given up anything for Christ. All he’s done is exchange some things for others that are far greater. Whatever Peter had given, he would receive a hundred times as much in return. Why? Because, no matter what we give to God, we receive back even more. The Christian life is a life of receiving, from beginning to end, and will be throughout eternity. This is what pleases God, and this is what glorifies God. God is most pleased with us, and most glorified in us when we thankfully, and humbly, and obediently accept his grace and his good gifts. As the great missionary to Africa, David Livingstone, said near the end of his life, "I never made a sacrifice." He meant, not that he had never given up any comfort, or security, or pleasure, or possessions. Not that had never suffered for the cause of Christ. He meant that it was hardly a sacrifice to give up something which would be repaid a hundred times over. Let me ask you, do you have that attitude? I hope so, because it’s the only way to be happy.
Let me close by addressing one more question that may be troubling you. How is focusing on the benefits of seeking God, appealing to the benefits of a godly life, as a motive for obedience – how is that not selfish? For two reasons. First, because we don’t seek the things the world seeks, the kind of things that can only be obtained at someone else’s expense. What we seek is joy, and peace, and satisfaction, and fulfillment, and happiness. These are all things of which there is an unlimited supply, and more than this, they are things that come from serving others, and putting the needs of others ahead of our own. That’s the opposite of selfish. It’s finding joy and fulfillment, not in serving ourselves, and putting our needs first, but in serving others and putting their needs first.
But even more important, it’s not selfish because we’re not seeking the blessings and benefits for their own sake, independent of God. Rather, we are seeking them in God, as a fruit of our relationship with Him. Our greatest desire is not for the gifts, but for the giver. When a young man proposes marriage to a woman, and gives her a diamond as an engagement ring, her rejoicing in the gift isn’t because of the number of carats, or the clarity and cut of the diamond, or its dollar value. Her rejoicing is in what the ring signifies – the love and commitment of her fiancé. And in the same way, our rejoicing over all the good things that God promises to those who seek him is ultimately a rejoicing in God Himself. Yes, we enjoy the gifts. We treasure them. We exult in them. We give thanks for joy, and peace, and answered prayer. We’re thankful for Christian fellowship. We’re grateful for all the good things which God showers on us. But ultimately, in everything we receive from God, our heart is lifted up to Him, and His love for us. That’s the real reason for our rejoicing.
And that’s why we can say, as David did in Psalm 40, "I take joy in doing your will, my God." (Psalm 40:8, NLT). We can seek God, and follow him, and obey him, with gladness and joy. Knowing that no matter how much we give, or sacrifice, or suffer, we will receive far more from him in return. It is impossible to give to God and not receive a hundredfold back. Because he loves us. More than we can possibly imagine. Let us, therefore, seek the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, every day of our lives, that we may receive from him all he desires to give us.
(For an .rtf file of this and other sermons, see www.journeychurchonline.org/messages.htm)
