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June 25, 2006
Good Morning!
Thanks, Jim. I want to thank you for coming today. My sincere prayer is that – whatever reason you came today – the worship, vote, investigating our church – that you will be blessed this morning and walk away wanting to grow closer to God.
When Jim asked me to do the sermon he said, “Just do it on something that is important to you, something you feel deeply about.”
Well, that could be any one of many possibilities and I went through hours and hours on my knees asking for clarification from God on what He might want me to speak on today.
Then one day a few weeks ago, I carved out the morning to go up to the mountains, read scripture, pray, sit and listen. I spent this time with God - not about the sermon - but about my overall walk with God. I’ve been keeping a journal over the past several years. It is packed with sincere cries to God asking Him how he wants to use me. You see, honestly, I’ve been going through a tough time. I’ve been frustrated. I’ve got a good job and involved with good activities – but have felt unfulfilled – like God gave me talents and passions that He won’t disclose to me. That there are ways I should be serving Him that he won’t show me.
And it has been difficult. I relate to Psalm 83 verse 1: “Oh God, do not keep silent; be not quiet, O God, be not still.” I’ve prayed for Him to show me how to use me – I don’t care, God – send me to Botswana. – Not so sure my wife likes that prayer…
It was at the base of Longs Peak, where I felt God say, “It’s not about you – your fulfillment, your passions, your talents, your service – it’s about Me.” LIGHTENING BOLT! Although, I meant well, I had it backwards for years. He was saying to me “Be with Me, Get close to me. Get back to basics, Dean. Just Love Me.
Love Me.
Be close enough to Me to hear My heartbeat. Feel my strong arms around you affirming you, that you are My lovely child. Come to Me and let Me hold you. Squeeze me with the excitement and joys of the day – or let your tears wet My chest.”
I knew that was God talking, because I doubt I’d say those things.
As we walked along the path together, I asked Him the basic question, “How, then, God do I really love you?” I realized that I don’t know how to love Him like I should.
So how do we truly love God? How do we get close enough to hear God’s heartbeat? How do we get to the point of praying like the Psalmist: -
Ps 84:2 - My soul yearns, even faints,
I. How do we get that close? As I spent time trying to cut out the craziness of life, He put several fundamentals on my heart. When I coach kids or instruct Tae Kwon Do, we spend most of the time on the basics. These are the basics He brought me back to: - We must Pursue God . - We must Know God and Believe God - We must Give Ourselves completely to Him - We must Obey Him and be Holy These are the basics – and they are applicable to the investigating unbeliever as well as the 40 year veteran – it is a constant journey: 1.) We must Pursue Him. a. How can we get that closeness with someone unless we truly pursue them? God wants us to pursue Him and we can do so with confidence. He invites us to. He yearns for us to seek Him. But He wants us to seek him all the time, tirelessly searching for Him with our whole heart a whole heart means no room for anything else. i. “ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jer 29:13). ii. Ps 27:8 - My heart says of you, "Seek his face! Your face, LORD, I will seek.” iii. Ps 119:2 “Blessed are they who keep his statues and seek him with all their heart.” iv. How deeply do you want to seek? Listen to the start of Psalm 63: 1. "O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where no water is. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory” (A great example of Seeking and Finding.) v. You can tell by this verse that David is seeking a deep longing to discover more about God. But we must search for God all the time . 1. Ps. 105:4 “Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.” 2. in the bad times and the good times Ecclesiastes 7:14 When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has mad the one as well as the other… (I think we all know it is easier to seek God during the bad times…) vi. I want to ensure that I am seeking Him throughout the big events in life as well as the menial tasks of the day. Searching for how has he orchestrated my day. What is He trying to teach me? How is he trying to guide me? What is He really like? Why did I run out of toilet paper and have to go to the store at 2:00 on Wednesday afternoon – was it because Charmin was on sale and I could save a few cents? Maybe it was because I ran into a friend that really needed encouragement.
2.) Part of Seeking God is so that we might know Him more fully and truly believe Him. a. To really get close to someone, you really need to know as much about that person as you can. b. To the degree that our finite minds can handle Him, we need to know as much about God as we can. We need to investigate Him through His Word. This is where He will reveal Himself to us. We need to ask probing questions of Him in our prayers, with other believers. Sermons, books, radio. Finally, through his actions in our lives, our friends, and history. c. We need to dig into these areas to discover God. The whole Bible is full of descriptions of God. Just a few select verses to give a taste: i. His Character – Ex 34:6 “compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love…forgiving…” ii. His Behavior – Ps 9:7 “…He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the people with justice.” iii. His History – Acts 3:18 “But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer.” iv. His Will – Is 53:10 “Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer and through the LORD makes his life a guilt offering…” d. So if we truly Know God – not just know about God – but truly Know Him, then we are bound to believe him. If He is perfect and flawless, love and truth, then, just by that, we are BOUND to believe all that He tells us. If we know Christ to be 100% God and 100% man, then we can believe with 100% assurance that he died for our sins and the only way for our salvation is through his sacrifice and blood.
a. Slide 7 - Therefore, if we Know Him and, Believe His salvation plan for us, then we are bound to realize our sin and the HUGE sacrifice He made for us. The only logical and emotional response to his sacrifice for us is Giving ourselves completely to Him. i. It starts with repentance. ii. Jesus said “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” Mark 1:15 iii. “That if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” Romans 10:9-10 iv. Knowing God, Believing Him and His Sacrifice, we are forced to our knees in guilt, shamefulness, brokenness, sorrow, and repentance at the base of the cross. v. It is there we receive the grace and the power to Love Him.
b.
So now, this is where Loving God really kicks into gear – we have
received His grace and have the power to love Him. Out of our gratitude, we
Love Him with all we are. Is there any other possible response? No - It is our
only response. i. Mark 12:28-34 - One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"
i.
The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the
Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The
second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment
greater than these."
ii.
We’ve probably all heard 4 bullet sermons on this passage – loving God
with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Each one of the four has its own
elements. The end result, however, is Totally, Completely. Taking the four –
is there anything other part of us not named? The four entirely encapsulate the
human being
iii.
Something to think through: If Jesus said that loving Him in our entirety
is the Greatest Command, would not doing so be the Greatest Sin? c. Giving ourselves to Him means spending time with Him. This world is a crazy one. We often cram God into a few short moments per day. If we did that to our family members the family would disintegrate quickly – we see results of broken relationships all over the place because of “other” priorities take the place of those we love. If we need to spend time with those we love to build our relationships, how much more true is this, then with God?
i.
This is a pain point for me because I am horribly guilty of this. The
demands of my boss outweigh my time with God. The demands of my family outweigh
quality time with God… ii. God will always be there, waiting for us. But in view of all He is and all He’s done for us are we OK with keeping Him waiting while we do other things? Am I any busier than King David? Read the Psalms and see how David meditates on Him all the time.
1.
All the way through the Psalms– I will meditate on
all your works, I will meditate on your precepts, I will meditate on your
wonders…
2. When? Joshua 1:8 states: Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditated on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.
3.
Spending quality time with God is an act of Worship – Are we
really worshiping God the way we should. This is another area of study I’m
interested in tackling is true worship from the heart – worship through prayer,
study, song, church. It has driven me back to Psalms again for great examples
of worship. I need to continuously check if either the type of worship or the
attitude of my heart during worship is not appropriate before the throne of God
– it is not appropriate - period. 3.) Finally, giving ourselves completely to Him in an effort to get as close as we can to Him, we must obey his commands and we must be holy - Obeying God is not a list of rules – it is the Spirit of Loving God – it is done out of deep gratitude and desire for God. I want to make sure that the Spirit of Loving God through Obedience is not replaced by Obedience through Following Rules: a. Obedience to God’s commands: i. John 14:15 “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” ii. John 14:21 “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father and I too will love him and show myself to Him.” (Show myself to Him – the fulfillment of Pursing/seeking that we spoke about earlier.) iii. Deuteronomy 7:9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. b. His Commandments are designed to drive us to holiness. And lets look at the command to be Holy i. 1 Peter 1:15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” ii. Eph 4:24 - and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. iii. Romans 12:1 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.” c. So how do we strive for holiness? i. The essence of biblical holiness = conforming to the character of God ii. Back to Romans 12:2 – Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing, and perfect will. d. I think conforming to the Character of God and renewing of our mind starts with Loving what God Loves and Hating what God hates. 1. Since God is Love, this section could go on for a while. Let me, however, hit the high points. 2. What does God love most of all – I think you’ll all pass this quiz. He Loves people a. Mark 12:31 “Love your neighbor as yourself." This causes our love for God to overflow into our relationships with others b. 1 John 14:19 We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. c. Neighbor and Brother - which are extremely important. But to hear the heartbeat of God we must love as John 3:16 says “the WORLD.” d. Do we love the world? Do we have any right at all to select who we share God’s love with? e. Do we love the unlovely? Do we love the mean, the deformed, the poor, the homosexual, the druggie, the outcast? f. Chuck Coulson states, He fed the hungry, healed the lame, gave sight to the blind, not only saving man from hell in the next world, but saving him from the hellishness of this one. g. Do we Love people like He loves people? Are we acting like Christ. Jesus did not set up camp in a building and wait for the middle class to pour in. He went OUT to the rejected, the outcast, the suffering, the forgotten. h. I am thrilled to belong to a church that believes in going out into the world via missionaries and short term missions. It is not, however, just up to those called to be missionaries and our high schoolers. This is the responsibility of all of us to love people as God loves people. 3. He loves “Good Fruit” a. Again, a series on sermons all by themselves, but His heart loves what Paul spells out in Galatians 5:22: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self control. b. By me and perhaps by some of you, this is a pretty easy list to rattle off. I would challenge us all to, as David gave us example of earlier, meditate on these individually and see if they are woven into the fabric of our daily lives. 4. Conversely, hating what God hates, and God hates evil. a. Still in Galatians 5, starting with verse 19: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealously, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness and orgies and the like. b. And to expand on my challenge from earlier: what pieces of this are woven into the fabric of our daily lives that needs to be torn out? America today has become so desensitized to evil that it rarely rattles us at all. How can we hear the heartbeat of God when we are not disgusted by the things that disgust Him?
e. The last part of being Holy is living up to the creation He made us to be. i. God is holy and he created us in His image. He replaced our cold dead heart with a holy heart and he gave us an abundant life and calling to holiness. Are we doing justice to His creation? 1. First, Gen 1:26 – “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…” God is holy and he made man in His image. Are we living a life worthy of His image? 2. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26 3. John 10:10 to quote Jesus,” I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” He created us with the ability to be holy and gives us an abundant life in which to live that holiness. 4. St. Bernard of Clairveaux, 100s of years ago stated, “In the first creation, He gave me myself. In His new creation, He gave me Himself and by that gift, restored me to the self that I had lost”. What are we doing with our restored self to glorify God?
4.) All these things, then, lead us closer and closer to God, further our love for Him, and allow us to hear his heartbeat – hear his desires for our lives, and knits our hearts together.
1.) So, then, what are the benefits of loving God, of being that close to Him? i. Love of God! A deep, unselfish, all consuming love for our Savior. Do we need anything else? ii. That deep love for God is shown in an imperfect way with the love we have for those closest to us. I love my family dearly. I love them for them. I thoroughly delight in them. We all sacrifice daily for your family, but if we delight in them, it is pure joy to love them. If you are willing to do this for your family – how much more, then, for God.
iii. “Delight yourself in the LORD…” Psalm 37:4 iv. “Rejoice in the Lord always" Phil. 4:4. v. So true Love for and from God are enough reward in itself – our hearts are filled to the brim. We need nothing else.
2.) Yet our gracious heavenly Father rewards our love even more. Here are just a few of the endless supply that our Lord bestows on us. i. Back to Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart." ii. He loves us and allows us to find him: "I love all who love me. Those who search for me will surely find me." Proverbs 8:17 iii. Remaining in His Love, Joy, Friendship: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in His love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command (Jn. 15:9-14, NIV). iv. Orchestration of all good: Rm 8:28 – And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. v. Union with God / No Fear: 1 John 4:16-21 - And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. vi. And how about this one! The Unimaginable: No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. 1 Corinthians 2:9 vii. Some list, huh? 5.) And so, looking at this list on how to get closer to God, close enough to hear His heartbeat, by truly loving Him a. Pursuing Him b. Knowing Him c. Believing Him d. Giving ourselves completely to Him e. Obeying Him and striving for personal holiness
We should delight / we should find complete joy in sacrificing time to pursue and know God with our whole heart. We should delight and find joy in giving ourselves completely to Him, to obey Him and to be holy for Him. The reward? A deep relationship with the very real God. A heart that prays and means the prayers of David. A closeness to God where you feel his strong arms around you and can hear his heart.
So, how close are you to God? I know where I want to be (and that is not where I am now – I told you I’m on this journey myself). No more high-fives and passing buddy hugs. I want to be so close to Christ that the blood from his brow wipes off on my cheek, that his hands stain the back of my shirt. That, I can feel the thorns of his crown in my own head. I want my heart to beat as one with His. |