1061. God is Seekable and Findable

Welcome to The Daily Platform. Our program features sermons from chapel services at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Every day, students are blessed by the preaching and teaching of the Bible from the University Chapel Platform.

Today on The Daily Platform, we'll hear a sermon preached by the Chancellor, Dr. Bob Jones III, who is the grandson of the founder, Dr. Bob Jones III. Why are there some here this morning who are running and hiding from the author of creation, the Lord of every man, the Redeemer and Savior and the Intercessor? Such a God as we have who is knowable. Why do we not want to know Him? I would ask you please this morning, in the interest of our brief time together, to turn to Jeremiah 21, 13. Would each of you do that, please?

I would like you to read this. Jeremiah 29, 13, God says, If God were not findable, He would not tell us that He is searchable. Why is it mankind is God averse?

Why are we running and hiding from Him? Why are professing believers only desirous of knowing Him on the saving level and not the sanctifying level? Why is there not more intensity driving purpose in our lives to know God? Well, I think it's in our DNA, that's why. Our parents in the garden, upon sinning, tried to hide from God.

And we, their progeny, are just like them. God is seekable and God is findable. I like what Psalm 105, 3 says, Let the heart of them that seek thee rejoice. Some of you have heavy hearts. Hannah, who prayed for us this morning, has a heavy heart. The one we prayed for, who lost her father, has a heavy heart. You have heavy hearts that are only known to you and God, perhaps. You have fearful hearts, troubled, despondent, desperate, discouraged. The Bible says in this 105th Psalm, the third verse, that the heart of those who seek the Lord are merry hearts. Why would you not seek the Lord if in Him, in the seeking of Him, the heart is made merry? You don't have to have the kind of heart that some of you have this morning.

It doesn't have to stay that way. It doesn't mean you don't acknowledge discouragement or acknowledge grief. But it means that behind it all, there's the hopefulness that causes us to transcend the grief and the discouragement, the disappointments. Because in seeking the Lord and growing in the Lord, we have very merry hearts that can't be found anywhere else.

So I want to ask you this morning, what drives your life? What is it you are seeking if you are not seeking the Lord? The Lord said in Matthew chapter 6 that we are to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto us. I'm speaking to people this morning who have already determined your life's going to be about seeking things.

And you've got it all backwards. God says, seek me first and I'll take care of the things. The essentials of life are from me. So seek me.

And believing me, find out for me how trustworthy I am and how dependable and how much I want to care for you. There are four things that God's put on my heart that I've been meditating on for weeks now. Because God caused the verse to jump off the page at me from the Psalms. Seek the Lord and His strength. Seek His face or His countenance forever or continuously. We'll talk more about that in a moment.

I couldn't get that off my heart for weeks. I began to ponder what these things mean. I'd like to share with you what God has taught me about seeking Him. Four things that we seek God for. Four things we seek God for.

There are more there are four for us this morning. The first thing is found in the book of Amos. Amos the prophet in the fifth chapter it's recorded. Said to the people of God, God says seek me and you shall live. Now keep in mind He spoke that to living people. So what did God mean when He said to living people seek me and you shall live? Well because each of us while enjoying earthly life we're just walking around spiritually dead people.

Dead in our trespasses and sin. So why did God say seek me and live? Because He's the author of salvation. It is found nowhere else but in Him. In Him we live and move and have our being.

Isaiah put it this way in the 55th chapter. Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Call you upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord.

And He will have mercy upon him and to our God for He will abundantly pardon. The invitation from God to spiritually dead people here today, unconverted people is the same as it's been throughout the ages. Seek me and you will live. I'm the God of life. When you departed for me and sin created a chasm between you and me you became spiritually dead because I'm the God of life. You're without me.

You're dead in trespass and sin. But seek me because when you do I have life to give you. Why will you not seek Him my friend? Dear seeking soul God says incline your ear and come unto me and hear and your soul shall live.

Isaiah the prophet is recorded in the 55th chapter of his book. Seek me and you will live. Incline your ear. I'm speaking to you God says. Turn your ear in my direction and hear and get the life that I alone can give you. You're just walking around dead people today if you have not Jesus Christ. The invitation is open to every thirsty soul. Again in Isaiah 55. Oh everyone that thirsteth come you to the waters. He that hath no money come and buy and eat.

Come and buy wine and milk without money and without price. And Jesus said to the woman at the well as recorded in John chapter 4. Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. I think the reason that there are some here that are still dead in your trespasses and you've never never in your life thought that you needed anything more than to be a walking around dead person.

Never dawned on you that you don't have life. You've heard it but it never you never inclined your ear to hear it. You know when God seeks us he does seek us he tells us to seek him but he seeks us and unless he seeks us we can't really have an inclination to seek him. Some of you here are saved because over a period of years as he did with me as growing up in a Christian home and knowing the scripture and being able to quote it and. I began to seek God because I realized I only had a Christian family and an intellectual knowledge of God and I did not have God the Father as my own personal Lord and Father.

Sometimes in a moment of time like the apostles like Saul on the way to wreck havoc with the church in Damascus to persecute them greatly as he'd done other places. He was intersected by God there and in a moment God said to him Saul I am your Lord and from that day his life was ever different. He was not seeking God. He thought he knew God but he didn't know God's son the Messiah and without Christ the Messiah God's own son the second person of the Trinity we can't know God.

I was at a funeral Saturday afternoon Dan Soleil one of our graduates businessman in the community passed away and in the course of the funeral they showed a video that some family members made of him one Christmas when his 19 grandchildren the rest of his family were all around him. Somebody asked him to give his salvation testimony in a nutshell because time is short let me give it to you because it illustrates what I'm trying to say about God seeking us. And how without God doing that we'll never seek him. If you found yourself under conviction for a long time and wishing that God would just leave you alone you better be glad he hasn't. Or if you've never felt God seeking you you've never felt inclined that you really need him life is pretty good okay at this point.

In a moment of time when God does seek you, you will seek him. Dan Soleil said I was out of a Christian home but I strayed far from the Lord I went to Australia I went to New Zealand found a bunch of buddies. We went over there we lived it up life was just a party. After a while we came back to California where he lived we bought an old Cadillac a junker and the five of us guys we headed out to the Mardi Gras New Orleans, we were going to go from there up the east coast to New York have some more fun going to go across the ocean meet our buddies from over there in Australia and we were going to reconnect and we were just going to keep on living and doing our thing.

He said as we were driving across the desert of Nevada one dark night on our way to New Orleans he said one of the guys laughed and said hey you know what there's a lot of experimental aircraft stuff going in there a lot of sightings of UFOs in the desert we don't know what all this is. But wouldn't it be something if a UFO just landed and just took us on board and took us out of here and we began to live our lives somewhere else they laughed and then all of a sudden one of the guys said yeah but wouldn't it be something if Jesus came and took four of us and one was left. Dan Solei said my heart just was terrified he'd had enough of the gospel in his heart that growing up he knew what was going on and he said I was scared to death all the way to New Orleans and we got to New Orleans we got to our hotel we decided that we would hit every bar between our hotel and where the Mardi Gras was being staged and he said it was impossible of course there are about 200 bars along that street and but we started and we changed that in the middle of one of those we were drunk and a big fight broke out in the bar. My buddy his head was split wide open with a bottle that somebody put across his head it says my back was cut with a razor and I was so drunk I didn't even know it till afterwards and I realized my whole back was soaked in blood and he said all of a sudden when the fight was over my buddy said I'm gonna seek God I need God and Dan said yeah I do too. And he said right there in that setting with our minds still crazy with alcohol we just got down and called out to the Lord to save us we we knew enough to know that we needed Christ and we did and we went back to our hotel the next morning we woke up and he said my buddy and I looked at each other and we smiled.

And we said something happened to us last night we're different people aren't we and he said yeah we sure are and they said goodbye to their friends said you take the car you go wherever you think you've got to go we're getting on an airplane we're going back to California we're different people. The Lord sought them that night and they sought him on the spot that could happen to you today. Secondly we must seek those things which are above where Christ did it on the right hand of God and set our affection that is our interests our regards on things above not on things on the earth.

Colossians three one and two you've already had preaching about that since you're in Colossians right now on the Monday chapels. What does it mean to seek things that are above what does it mean to seek heavenly things. It means to seek the kingdom of God and the king of the kingdom whose throne is there above. Seek to embrace what you believers already possess. You possess the kingdom of God.

You possess the inheritance of eternity and glory that comes with the redeemed who are made part of the kingdom of God. You know what happens though friends we the song today was about reaching the world across the world across the lens for Christ we will never do that until we first leave the world. By that I mean we seek God and not the world neither the things that are in the world its values its its kingdom its enticements its allurements its material things until we stop seeking that. We will never seek God with a passionate heart that takes us beyond just having sought him and found him as our savior. And some here are very content to have no more than that because truthfully you're scared of God. You're afraid of getting too close to him as Israel was at Mount Sinai they didn't want to hear God speak and they said to Moses you talk to God and then you tell us what God has to say. We don't want to get too close to God. Some of you are just scared to death to grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ you don't want to get too close to God because of the implications of giving up yourself and letting him rule your life and enjoying that which he gives you and gives you to delight in that the world cannot give you. Seek what the natural man knows nothing of nor can know and because he can't he scorns it and he feels threatened by it.

Jesus says to the citizens of his kingdom to stop making material things what we seek leave the essentials of life in the hands of the king of your kingdom. Matthew 6 33 seek first the kingdom of God. You know astronomers as astronomy fascinates me astronomers seek the heavens with their telescopes ever more powerful they can seek more and more but the problem is they can never seek high enough. They're trying to discover the secrets of the universe but they don't go high enough their telescopes will never get to God's heaven. The psalmist said in Psalm 97 you Lord are most high over all the earth you're exalted above all gods. My friends those who live in this world seeking answers from this world will never get the answers that they really need because they don't seek God. He's out of this world. Jesus said in John 8 to the Jews you are of this world but I am not of this world. He left that kingdom came here and went back where he rules it.

Have you ever been in a place where you were so lacking in what you desperately had to have and you had no way of finding or getting yourself. It's a it's a scary place to be in but it's a wonderful place to be in quick illustration years ago after the Iron Curtain fell it had been open Russia and all the satellite countries had been open only about two months. Four or five of us preachers went over there two of us took our wives Dr. Ed Nelson took his wife Gila and I took my wife Bennett and we went over there for 12 days and we ministered in the churches of the pastors who'd been in prison for years many of them in the Gulag in Siberia and these people were just now coming into freedom that they had never known for 70 years.

That's what Marxism does it shuts down the freedom makes the state God and only lets people do what the state can tell them they can do it's a horrendous awful hell hellish system but that's what they had been under for all those 70 years now they were free. We went to try to encourage them at the end of it benefit I got on the train back to Moscow and overnight train we arrived at a train station we had vouchers to take us from the train station to the airport, we had about a 17 hour layover. We wanted to go to Red Square which we'd seen on television for all these years and they're marching parades military show and we arrived this train station they told us that these vouchers could be redeemed at the the one and only travel agency in Russia the official travel agency called in tourists. We knew what the sign looked like we went the train station was immense much huger much huger this auditorium. We went around at about four times looking for the interest guy you know nobody spoke English, there were no English there was no English signage. Everything was Russian, we couldn't find the symbol anywhere and we what are we going to do, we don't know we can't talk to anybody. What are we going to do, I said benefit we're going to stand right here, we're going to pray, we're going to tell God we're desperate, and we have no means of helping ourselves we've already tried to help ourselves. God please send us somebody to speak English and tell us what train to catch, they'll get us to Red Square and from there get us to the airport. About 10 minutes later this man walks up in a beautiful blue suit man about early 30s he said, Can I help you? He said yes, we prayed for you. You can help us here's our dilemma.

Well, I'm from down in Belarus, and it was a terribly dark place in one of the worst places. And he said I'm on vacation. And I thought you were English speaking people. So I'll help you. He went away I said Bennett, that was an angel dressed up as a businessman on the way to a vacation.

People who've been under communism and living for 70 years and that kind of, they don't go on vacations like we take vacations. But I said, regardless, whoever he was, he was sent of God to us we were desperate. We sought the Lord. Have you been desperate enough that you just had nowhere else to turn. You know he should be the first place we turn, not where we go in desperation only, but the first place. I have another point here.

But time doesn't permit it. But I want to make it one point from the 105th Psalm, the fourth verse that I've referred to, seek the Lord and his strength, seek his countenance continually. What does that mean? How do we seek him? Well his word is where he puts himself on display. His face as it will, the God who is knowable, makes himself knowable through his word. Psalm 119 10, with my whole heart I seek you, let me not wander from your commandments.

Why did he say let me not wander from your commandments? Because God that's how I know you. That's how I see your face.

That's how I know what you look like. You reveal yourself in your word, what you have spoken. And you know what, when we see God's face, we see a gracious God. A knowable, gracious God. Why would you be afraid of him?

Why would you be running and hiding from him? In the prayer of Aaron the high priest, in number six, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

You may be fearing, you may be dreading, you may have ulcers, nervous disorders, depression. And that's what you're bound to get if all you can look at for your help and hope is this world. But there's joy greater than the farmer feels when he has a bounteous harvest, which you and I can get by seeking to know what God looks like. Dear friends, make the knowledge of God the ruling desire of your heart. Get into God's presence, into his word, into a church that makes God knowable. If no church is worthy to be a church, it's totally fraudulent and misnamed.

It's not the church of the living God. If it doesn't bring us as we join collectively in God's worship there into the knowledge of God, that's why we go to church. To find out what God looks like at a deeper level. And that psalm we read in the hundred and fifth psalm, it says to seek him continuously. Continuously, daily, in all times, at all experiences. God requires that for us. My friends, I would suggest to you that what you desperately need, not only for your life here, but for all of your life, if your life is to be worth the living and you claim to be a redeemed child of God, seek the Lord daily. Make it an all-day experience, just as he said, seek my face continuously.

It's something that begins when you get out of bed in the morning and the dawn appears and continues until we go to sleep. I pray that somehow God would put that passion within your heart so you can live the redeemed life. With all the joys and satisfactions and blessings that he has in store for you as your Heavenly Father, dear God, please help us. The world is too much with us.

It's too much our passion. We're pursuing that which is going to be burned up one day and the fires of your judgment. And you've given to us eternal life through the Son, Jesus. God forgive us for the sin of ignoring you and seeking everything but you. Pray in Christ's name. Amen. You've been listening to a message preached by Dr. Bob Jones III, Chancellor of Bob Jones University. Thanks again for listening. We hope you'll join us next time as we study God's Word together on The Daily Platform.