A few weeks ago I was driving down Fifth Street, on my way to a hospital visit. Just this side of the Soldiers’ home grounds, I became aware that some driver was right on my back bumper, weaving back and forth, his engine roaring, his horn blowing. Somebody was in a very big hurry. Well, as we rounded the little curve where you cross Rock Creek Church Road, this driver suddenly shot around me, hit the curb, and drove right up on the sidewalk at breakneck speed. In fact, he was in such a hurry that he managed to put a six-foot wide car through a five-foot space between a telephone pole and a stone wall. Hubcaps and mirrors and door handles went flying. But he didn’t stop. Wow! What could possess somebody to do this?!
Then I heard the siren. Not far behind both of us was a police officer, giving chase. Blasting on his horn, roaring his engine, and also driving at breakneck speed, but at least it was on the street surface. He had plenty of room, since yours truly was having his anxiety attack over on the left side of the street. So that was it, so that was the reason a man puts his car through such punishment, leaving spare parts along the way! So that was it. The long arm of the law was in full pursuit, that driver had only one thing in mind: to escape. Reckless, foolish, useless. But he just wanted to run.
I never saw either car again, probably because when I got moving, I don’t think I got above 20 miles per hour! But of this I am reasonably sure: that the pursuit was successful. Given the condition of the car being chased, and knowing that the police officer had surely called for backup, that guy got caught. That pursuit, however long it took, I am sure, was finally successful.
There is another and equally intense pursuit going on. You and I are driving at breakneck speed through life, aware that there is someone more powerful, chasing us. Pursuing us. And like the man I saw, though running doesn’t make any sense, we do it anyway. Like the driver I saw, we are self-destructing as we run, but we do it just the same. We know who’s coming after us. We know who is pursuing us. God is right behind us. God will not let us go. But we keep on running anyway.
The prophet Jeremiah saw that. He knew that the people of Judah had chosen to go their own way, and that they were paying a terrible price for their wandering. They were off there in exile, snatched out of their homes and families, taken to a strange land as captives. They thought, because they were up in Babylon and not at home in Jerusalem, that God couldn’t reach them up there. They thought that they were beyond the grasp of God. But Jeremiah knew otherwise. Jeremiah knew that God was able and willing to pursue them and to bring them back home. Jeremiah hears God saying:
I am going to save you from far away, and your offspring from the land of their captivity. Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease, and no one shall make him afraid. For I am with you, says the LORD, to save you;
“I am going to save you from far away, says the Lord.” I am pursuing you, no matter where you are.
Now if somebody is chasing you, there are two things you can do. Either you can keep on running, hoping to put distance between yourself and your pursuer. Or you can go into hiding, and hope that he cannot find you.
And there are two basic responses to God’s pursuit. When God comes looking for us, either we can keep on running, hoping to put more and more distance between ourselves and God. Or we can try to hide from Him, we can put on camouflage and hope He won’t notice.
Just know this, whichever method you choose: God is pursuing a love relationship with us that is real and personal. And He is not going to give up.
I
Many people take the first choice: to run from God, hoping to put more and more distance between themselves and God. Some run deeper and deeper into the woods. They run from God by pouring themselves into a dissolute, faithless life, indulging themselves, ignoring God’s commands, and flying in the face of all that God has made us for.
This is the way most of the world runs from God. Most run from God by doing whatever they feel like doing. They break God’s command’s, they ignore God’s will. Murder and theft and adultery, lying and cheating. So what else is new? This is not exactly news. This has been around a very long time. And there is a very precise term by which it is called. There is a word we use for this kind of behavior. The word is sin. Sin is anything that separates us from God. Sin is that thing, deep down in the human heart, that rises up, rebels against God, runs away from Him. Sin means separation from God. Sin is violating God’s law and running from Him. I say that that’s old news.
But what is so devastating about sin that is that it just reinforces itself. It deepens itself. It gets worse and worse the longer you go there. Start the habit of using profane language, and before long you cannot control your tongue, the venom just spews out all the time. Start the practice of abusing alcohol, and before long it takes you over. Start telling lies, and pretty soon you have to create a tissue of untruths to cover yourself, and there is no way out. Sin gets deeper, sin gets you more and more in its grip, you get more and more hardened, more and more separated from God. We run harder and harder and wear ourselves out running away.
But did you know that the more we run from God, the more He pursues us? The more we fight against God, the more He comes after us, in love? Did you know that the more we spit in the very face of God, the more He reaches out, trying to claim us? When God chastises us, it is because He loves us. Listen to Jeremiah’s account of God’s ways:
I will chastise you in just measure, and I will by no means leave you unpunished. For thus says the LORD: Your hurt is incurable, your wound is grievous. ... Why do you cry out over your hurt? Your pain is incurable. Because your guilt is great, because your sins are so numerous, I have done these things to you.
Mark it down: when you see a person who appears to be bent on destroying his life, then you are also seeing a person whom God is pursuing. And God is not going to give up. God is not going to stop caring.
Just this week, I was on an elevator at a hospital, and when I got off a man followed me and asked me if I were a pastor. I guess this Bible was a dead giveaway! He said, “I want to ask you a question. Why does a man drink when he knows it will destroy him? I’ve got cirrhosis of the liver, I may not have long to live, but I still want to drink. Why am I doing that?” Basically what I said to him is that people use alcohol as a way to fill up their emptiness. I said that what he really wanted was fellowship with God, and that until he found that, his body would keep on crying out for the very thing that would destroy him. Pray with me about that man. We are going to stay in touch.
But do you see? God is pursuing a love relationship that is real and personal. God does not give up. How do I know this? How can I say this? Because God came to this earth, looking for a lost and broken humanity; our God came in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, living where we live, feeling what we feel. Our God went so far as to climb up on a cross, high on a lonely hill outside a city wall, and to give His life’s blood for those who were running and running and running.
That’s how much God pursues us. Our God pursues every person who has been running away from Him.
II
But remember that there is another way to try to escape from God. In addition to running into open sin, some of us hide from God. Some of us hide in our goodness. Some of us use our goodness as a way to keep clear of God. But know this: that our God pursues not only those who run from Him. He also pursues those who hide from Him. And God does not give up.
Do you know that some of us try to avoid God by being as good as we can? Some of us are trying to earn our salvation. Some of us think that if we are just good citizens, decent people, stay out of trouble, keep on the right side of the law, well we’re okay. God will just have to send us to heaven, we’re such nice people! But I say, some of us are not so much running from God as we are trying to hide from Him, camouflaging ourselves in our own goodness.
I have to say a word this morning to those who are church folks because they have always been church folks, and that’s just what decent people do. I have to say a word to those of us who have hung around religion all of our lives, but we have a dirty little secret. And that is that we’ve never let God get close to us. We’ve never permitted God to penetrate through the thicket of our defenses and get up close and personal with us. We are hiding from God. We are hiding behind the walls of respectability and conventional goodness, we are even hiding in the church.
Oh, I managed to this for quite a few years. I got very good at this game. You see, I was brought up in the church. From my earliest days I went to Sunday School and worship, I came back at night for Training Union and evening service. I went and at dinner on Wednesday nights and did youth choir rehearsal on Saturdays. I did it all. Whenever the church doors opened, as a kid, I was there. I even opened the church doors sometimes. I was a good kid. In fact, I was an insufferably good kid. I was so good I was repulsive. I was so righteous you couldn’t stand to be around me. I remember the time my parents and my brother wanted to play a game. It was some card game, and there were chips involved. It wasn’t gambling. They weren’t going to play for money. It was just a game. That’s all. They needed a fourth. Couldn’t play it with just three people. They needed me. So I put on my righteous high horse and announced that as a Christian, I was certainly not going to touch cards and poker chips. I was a Christian even if they were not!
But you know, I had a dirty little secret. I was putting on a good front, but I was not in fellowship with God. I didn’t pray. I just depended on looking good. I didn’t read God’s word and ask what it said to my life. I just depended on my camouflage. I didn’t witness in a positive way to others at school. I just hid in the church and thought I had fooled them all. But there was one I had not fooled. And He pursued me, chased me, and finally He caught me. He found me. But when He did, it was love. It was love.
Do you know that you can keep all the rules and still be out of fellowship with God? Do you know that you can be on the rolls of the church and sitting in the pews, and still be hiding from the living God? Are you aware that we can put on the mask of looking good, that we can pose as pious and proper, and still be out of touch with the heart of God? We try to avoid that intense, personal, real, face-to-face encounter with the living God. And that’s hiding. That’s hiding. That’s camouflage.
You see, if we don’t pray, we’re not in touch with God. We’re just putting on a mask. If we don’t study His word, we’re not putting ourselves in His path. We’re just holding Him at arm’s length. And, most of all, if we’re not putting ourselves on the line in some kind of ministry, if we’re not willing to risk ourselves out on the front lines, then I suggest that we’re trying to look good rather than to be good. And it’s camouflage. It’s just blowing smoke.
But I have good news. God is pursuing us, too. God is pursuing not only the blatantly sinful and the rebellious, God is also pursuing those with hidden sins and secret faults. God pursues a love relationship, even with those who would hide from Him under the cloak of respectability. God does not want mere names on church rolls. God wants fellowship with us. That is what He pursues, and He does not give up.
III
It’s time to quit running, and it’s time to come out of hiding. It’s time to quit running from God and it’s time to set aside the camouflage. We don’t have to run any more. He is going to pursue us. Wouldn’t it be easier and so much more satisfying just to let Him catch us? We cannot hide any longer. Just maintaining self-control is not going to get us anywhere. He is going to find us, wherever we go. Wouldn’t it be easier and so much more satisfying just to open up to His love?
For listen to His promise:
when Israel sought for rest, the LORD appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.” He is going to keep on pursuing us. Why not just let go and be caught in His love?
When my children were small, we played a chase game. “Catch me, Daddy.” We would run around the back yard, but of course it was a pretend chase, because I could have easily outrun them. My legs were long enough that with only a few strides I could have caught them. But the game was that I would keep them going for a while and let them enjoy their freedom. Then, when I saw them getting tired, I would catch them, and we would roll around on the grass together, giggling and squealing. You see, I knew and they knew that they really did want to be caught, because at the end of the game they would be picked up in their father’s arms, and it would be a lovely, tender moment. It was a game. I knew it and they knew it, but the point of the game was to end the chase in the father’s arms.
We’re running from God. We’re hiding from God. It’s a game. We know that we are liable to get caught by God at any time. Our legs are too stubby to run from Him. But God is not going to overpower us. He is just going to keep a step behind us. So look, why don’t we just call a halt to this game? For God is pursuing a love relationship with us. He wants it to be real. He wants to embrace us. Why should we tear ourselves up and exhaust ourselves? Why not just give it up, right now? “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”
“O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee. I give Thee back the life I owe, that in Thy ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be.”
Just now your doubting give o’er, let Jesus come into your heart.
