What Are You Looking For?

Psalm 14

Good morning. It’s good to see everyone here this morning. Nice weather we've been having. You laugh at that. Hopefully things are getting better. The indicators aren't saying, well, that means that things will start to happen, like I'll finally be able to safely go get a haircut. It's good to be here with you today.

We need to be asking a big question, which is, what are you looking for? What am I looking for? Let me give my turning to Psalms 14. Where God somewhat indirectly here asked that question through David, I should say. The fool says in his heart, there is no God. They're corrupt. They do abominable deeds. There is none who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand who seek after God. What are we seeking? I saw a news story two or three days ago on the newsfeed, it said that archeologists in the southwestern United States have found a huge treasure trove of Spanish artifacts, supposedly from one of the first Spanish expeditions into what is now in the United States.

The Spanish were famous or infamous for their lust for gold. They went to great lengths, of course, crossing the ocean in search of gold and treasure. They were enraged (These are confirmed stories.) when they didn't find any in what's now the United States. Legend has it, when Francisco Coronado, the Spanish Explorer, came to what is now Kansas, he was so disappointed that he had his guide strangled. They didn't find Eldorado, the city of gold. He went to great lengths to seek things, material things. As one famous hymn puts it, treasures that perish with using. Other, wiser people, I should say, seek God. That's what I want to turn our thoughts to this morning. How can we find God? How can we truly find God? Turn over to Genesis, chapter eleven and we see one of man's earliest attempts to find God. I should say one of man's earliest attempts to find God on his own, as in a man made attempt. While you're turning there, I should simply summarize by saying right now, there is man's way to try.

The operative word here is TRY to find God. There is God's way to find him. Humans have tried a variety of ways to find God. Lest you think these people are silly, they're superstitious, they're ancients. There was someone on the Internet this week who said, and I'm quoting that we can find God today through the truckers. Through the truckers, meaning the truckers who converge on the Canadian capital. That's how God is speaking to us. You can find God through the truckers. What's some other attempts before we evaluate that a bit...other of man's attempts to find God. Here's one of the earliest, of course, earlier Genesis, as you sure should, or already are probably familiar with, man lost his connection with God thanks to the sin and the Garden of Eden and of course, the flood. Here we are now in chapter eleven.

Genesis eleven, beginning with verse one. It says, from the new King James, now the whole Earth had one language and one speech or the same words, ESV. And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east. They found a plain in the land of Shinar. And they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, Come, let us make bricks and Bake them thoroughly. They had brick for stone and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves. Lest would be scattered abroad over the face of the whole Earth. But the Lord came down to see the city in a tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, Indeed, the people are one, and they all have one language. And this is what they begin to do now. Nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let us go down. And there confused their language that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the Earth. And they ceased building the city. Therefore, its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the Earth. And from there, the Lord scattered them abroad over all the face of the Earth.

They're going to build a tower, often called the tower Babel.

If you just make it high enough, that's where God is. That was their idea. If you just build this tower high enough, you'll reach heaven, where God is. This idea, by the way, did not completely die. There was never this kind of effort. Of course, again after God scattered people throughout the Earth, people who lived in that area, believed to be Babylon, continued to build their temples on mounds. If there wasn't a mountain, they'd make one. They heaped up bricks to make artificial mounds called ziggurats. The idea was, they believe, of course, that God lives up there. The higher you get physically, the closer you get to God, the more direct the connection to God. Could they have built their way into heaven even when their speech was united? No, of course not. Can we literally build our way to heaven or launch our way to heaven in our day and age—the rocket age? Of course not. Building a tower into the sky, that's silly. That is not the way to find God. Neither of us building a space vehicle jumping ahead about 7000 years. Neither was building a space vehicle.

Of course, the first man in space was a Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin. The Soviet Union, for those of you who don't know, of course, was aggressively atheistic. Gagarin proclaimed, of course, the victory of atheism as he circled the planet and said, well, essentially, I'm up here and there's no God up here. Therefore, God doesn't exist. Of course, God isn't reachable by spacecraft and he's not reachable by building a tower. Someone said, of course, that if Gagarin was up there in orbit and he couldn't see God, then he must have been staring at his console and not looking out the window.

If you turn over to Ecclesiastes, among many other places in scripture, but we will use Ecclesiastes, chapter three, you'll see what that statement means. If you just looked at the window, he should have seen evidence of God. He should have seen evidence of God. The scripture proclaims that elsewhere that the heavens declare the glory of God. Here in Ecclesiastes three, verse eleven, it says he has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart so that he cannot find out what God has done from beginning to end.

As I said about the weather, you look outside and we can see the marvelous creation of God all around us. I'm from Appalachia originally. I know at least one of us here also. Around there you can look around and see the hills and the mountains, the trees, the flowers, the animals, the changing seasons.

Even eventually, in Chardon, winter does end. We see the beautiful sunrises and sunsets and the vastness and variety of all these things. I've often heard that it takes more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in God. The chances (a math person could help us out here) people have calculated the chances of all this is in the entire world and all of us, all humans. The chances of all this happening by the random chance that evolution would have us believe are infinitesimally small. It's so tiny, the odds of a single cell evolving into a human being are so small mathematically that they may as well not exist. The chance is non-existent that's even if we take their theories at face value. So the point is, if Gagarin couldn't see God, then he could look at his own hands.

He didn't see God because he chose not to. We can see God's handiwork in nature. That's true, we can. A lot of people take the wrong conclusion from that. They say, well, close up the building, let's get out of here. Let's go find God in nature. I've heard this expression, how many of you have? I'm going to go find God on Sunday on the golf course. I hear a couple of chuckles Yes, you might have heard that one. I'm going to go find God on the golf course because I'm out there and it's quiet and I hear the birds chirping and I see the trees and these very carefully manicured golf greens and everything else and lawns. That's how I'm going to communicate with God. We can communicate with God through just well, just going out and being in nature. Let's go on a hike instead of going to services on Sunday. Turn to First Kings, please. Let me ask two related questions. Can we see God in nature? We already said the answer to that is yes. Can we find God in the sense that we can have a meaningful relationship with Him just by going out and taking a hike?

The answer there is no. God created the universe, Genesis One, of course, and everything in it. It speaks to his handiwork. It proclaims his glory, but he's not contained within nature, not even the most impressive aspect of nature. First Kings, chapter 19, 1st Kings, chapter 19. These days, anything is on the Internet on video. I've seen some videos of the most impressive storms caught on camera. It's pretty terrifying footage of ships tossing like this and like that and being carried over, being carried over docks and into city streets and so on and waves crashing against shores and so on. God isn't contained in all that. He's far more powerful than that. He's infinitely more powerful than that.

One of the lessons that he was telling, I should say, trying to tell, because it took Elijah while to get it, but trying to tell Elijah in First Kings, chapter 19. Back up to verse nine. It says, there he came, that's Elijah, he Elijah came to a cave and lodged in it. Behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, what are you doing here, Elijah? He said, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the people of Israel, have forsaken your Covenant thrown down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. And I even I only am left and they seek my life to take it away.

Jezebel, of course, wanted him dead after the confrontation at Mt. Carmel.

Verse eleven. And God said, Go out and stand on the Mount before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord.

Very impressive, but finish the verse. The Lord was not in the wind and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake and after the earthquake of fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, the sound of a low whisper or King James a still small voice a low whisper. God can, of course, and has in the past spoken very, if you will, loudly (see his initial interactions with Israel at Mount Sinai in Exodus, Leviticus) where his voice thundered in the mountains, shook and so on.

God doesn't, and He never did, of course, have to talk that way, to communicate that way. He didn't here. Here he speaks to Elijah in a still, small voice, a low whisper. Elijah didn't find God in nature. He didn't find a relationship with God, so to speak, in nature, we can see evidence of God, but we can't find out what it is we need to do to have a relationship with Him in nature. God is God. That's a very simple statement, but it's one that we simply don't think about. God is God. By thinking it through, we should know that God is the Almighty and the all powerful and all Holy creator of all that there is. It is above our level to figure him out, so to speak. God is not to be found by building a tower. He's not to be found through technology. God is not to be found out in nature and only in nature. A meaningful relationship with God, of course, is the connection of a lot of the idols you read about in the Old Testament. Read through Isaiah and Jeremiah, particularly and somewhat in Ezekiel.

They'll talk about the idols of wood and stone and gold. What are these things made of? Things you find in nature. You might have to take them out of the ground, but they're here. They're already here on planet Earth. Okay, so that won't work either. You can't find God on the golf course. What about other things? Can we find God through doing good deeds or having a good relationship with our family? I'm not a country Western fan, by the way, but I am aware of one country song that's about 30 years old by Ricky Van Shelton. And he talks about how having a relationship with his family. This is the title, I believe, that's his way of talking to God. You just have a great relationship. You got a loving wife and loving kids, and you have a loving relationship with them. That's how you have a relationship with God. We could spend all day talking about scriptural examples of how that is just not true. We find examples of how of good relationships and bad family relationships in the Bible. But what does the scripture tell us in both Testaments? Each person or each one shall give an account of who? Himself or herself to God.

I will say bluntly, my father's not a Christian, but my relationship with God does not depend on his relationship with God. I have my own relationship with God. So does he, or lack thereof, and so do you. So do each one of us. It's great. Of course, to treat other people as they should be treated, we're commanded to do this. We're commanded to love each other—treating people right. Having lots of kids and loving lots of kids is not the way to have a relationship with God. There is (I didn't know her personally) an older person within the Sidwell family. I believe she was 88 or 89. She passed away about 30 years ago. I didn't really know her, but my mother went to the funeral and she said, basically at the funeral, they preached her in heaven. In other words, in their own minds, in their own words, they basically tried to explain how this woman, who to anyone's knowledge had never set foot in any sort of church building whatsoever, was going to go to heaven. Why?

She had lots of grandkids. She had lots of kids and they had lots of kids. She had lots of grandkids, in other words, and that's why she was going to go to heaven. We can read through people often pass over those lists of names in the Bible, but read through some of the names that are listed, for example, Jacob's children and their grandchildren. The list of names found in of the Book of Chronicles and then skip to the end of the Books of Chronicles and see that Israel was not found faithful. They had lots of kids. It didn't save them. It did not save them. That won't work either. Trying to use building or technology won't work. Trying to find God in nature by taking a hike or playing golf won't work. We should be loving towards one another, but trying to have a good relationship with our families or having lots of kids or even having kids won't work either. I've heard lots of people say preachers should be married and have kids. Find me a place in the Book of Acts or any of his letters in which Paul was married or had kids.

The point is, I think one can serve God. In fact, Paul addresses this in First Corinthians. One can address God. Paul can serve God. We can serve God regardless of whether we're married or not, regardless of whether we have kids or not. That won't work either. How do we get a relationship with God? Let's stay in the Old Testament and then we'll go to the New Testament.

Turn to Deuteronomy. Firstly, to have a relationship with God requires effort. It requires effort. It is always that way and has not changed between the Old Testament and New Testament. Having a relationship with God is not automatic. It requires effort. To be sure, we don't do the sacrifices and such of the Old Testament. See the Book of Hebrews for details on that. That much, though, is true. It's constantly true. It requires effort. A relationship with God requires effort. We're coming in to Deuteronomy chapter four.

I'm going to begin with verse 25. I'll jump on to verse 26 the second time he says in the New King James I call heaven and Earth to witness against you this day, that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess. You will not prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed. And the Lord will scatter you among the Peoples and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you, and there you will serve god's, the work of men's hands. (We just talked about) wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him. If you seek him (with what?) with all your heart and with all your soul, when you are in distress and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey his voice, for the Lord your God is merciful God. He will not forsake you or destroy you, nor forget the Covenant of your Father's, which you swore to them.

That much has not changed. The covenants have changed, but that much has not changed. If we want a relationship with God, we must do what? Seek him with all our heart and with all our soul.

We must seek God (to make this very simple) we must put effort into it...a lot of effort. If you will turn over to Proverbs how we find God is we put effort into it. Probably you've all met someone who is, I’ll use a scene from a movie. You’ve probably met someone like this in real life. There's a scene in one of the horror movies. It's kind of old movie where the monster of the mummy is closing in on the person, and he's got a necklace full of religious icons. He's got a cross and he's got a Crescent and he's got a Star of David, and he's pulling out one after another, chanting with every religion under the sun, trying to stop trying to call upon whatever deity you can find to save himself from this monster. A lot of people in real life treat religion that way. I'm going to get into this Christianity stuff because there might be something in it, just in case there's something true, what they're saying then I'll be secure. I'll have my bases covered, so to speak.

God doesn't work that way, not in the movies, and certainly not in real life. God does not work that way. If we want to seek a relationship with God in the real world, we need to seek after him with effort. How much effort? With all our heart, and with all our soul. It can't just be something like an election. We have elections every year. I teach politics. How many politicians I won't single anybody out. How many politicians find God during election season? All of a sudden they get photographed many times, of course, I'm not being flippant, but the thicker the Bible they're holding, the better for them. All of a sudden they use religion, as Paul put it, a means of gain. Godliness means gain. It's not approved of by God.

Proverbs chapter one, verse 20. If we are truly wise, we will seek God, and we will seek God in God's way. It says, Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the market. She raises her voice at the head of the noisy street. She cries out at the entrance of the city gate. She speaks. How long simple ones will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? If you turn up my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you. I'll make my words known to you because I have called and you refuse to listen have stretched out my hand, and no one is heeded because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind. When distress and anguish come upon you, then they will call upon me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but will not find me.

Like the example, I use it again because I don't want to single anyone out. The example we just talked about, all of a sudden trouble is coming. Then all of a sudden people want God, and people want God's wisdom. Well, in terms of the consequences of your actions, it may very well be too late. You have to live with the consequences of those actions.

Verse 29, because they hated knowledge. What kind of knowledge? I'll pick on everybody here. Some of us can memorize mathematics, how to do mathematics. Others can memorize historical timetables and details of how the US government operates, which always seem to bore my students to no end. That's not the sort of knowledge that the Bible is talking about. Not knowledge for the sake of just knowing things, being able to do well on Jeopardy or some other trivia quiz show. It's talking about knowing God's word and knowing enough and believing in it enough to follow it, to follow God, believing God enough to follow him. They hated knowledge in verse 29. They did not choose the fear of the Lord. Verse 30, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof. Therefore, they shall eat the fruit of their way and have their fill of their own devices. For the simple are killed by their turning away and the complacency of fools will destroy them. But whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease without dread of disaster or without fear of evil.

The New King James says to find God, a person must diligently seek him and listen to him. What does James tell us? That God is a order of those who will not diligently seek him. That means we must long for knowledge of God. Remember what happened in Revelation when part of the Revelation couldn't be revealed at first. What was John's reaction? Oh, well, it's just another scroll. I'm sure one of these days God will get around to delivering it. No, he wept. It says he wept much because there was no one worthy to open the contents of the scroll until the Lamb, Christ, opened it for him. That's how much he wanted it. That's how much he wanted God's Word, knowledge of God, knowledge of God's Word. That's the kind of desire we need to have. What did Jesus say? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled. That means we need to listen and we need to obey. It's a serious commitment.

We've all probably been around these organizations that some of them will say, how do you get a relationship with God? They avoid many of the things we've talked about, but they'll say, well, you believe in Jesus. Yes. Okay, well, then you're good. Some of them say here's a pen. Sign this pledge card. I’ve read the pledge card. It says something along the lines of and I quote, Lord Jesus, I hereby receive you into my life as my personal savior. Amen. It says something along those lines. I mean, it's about two or three sentences. You sign your name on this little card. You can put it in your wallet, and you have a relationship with God. That's not the way it works either. If we want a relationship with God, we have to seek him with effort. Jesus spoke of having a relationship with God and using what terms those of us who grew up in the country can perhaps better more directly understand this, a yoke. Psalm 78 take my yoke upon you...a yoke and a plow. These things require work. They require effort. Finding God is hard for many because they want to find them the easy way, so to speak, their own way or on their terms.

Acts 17 we'll summarize everything but with one last big example, one last sort of lengthy example of how people have tried to find the divine, tried to find God, and they didn't succeed. Here Paul, inspired by that and by God, and his relationship with God, summarizes man's efforts to find God succinctly. One of the best summaries though I've ever heard one of the best one sentence summaries I've ever heard of what the Bible is from outside the Bible itself comes from a scholar named Alfred Edersheim, and he said that the Bible is the story of man's relationship with God. That might be the best single sentence summary of the Bible, the end of man's relationship with God in the Garden of Eden. God reestablishing His relationship with man through Abraham, through Israel, and now through Christ. God must be sought on God's terms, so to speak.

Acts 17, verse 22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus the center of the city of Athens and said, Men of Athens, I perceived in all things you are very religious. That's a better word, actually, than the King James’ superstitious.

You're very religious. I was passing through considering the objects of your worship. I even found an altar with this description to the unknown God. You could see the ruins of ancient Greeks today, and all the altars and such are still there. The Greeks were so conscious of making sure they sought every single deity as they saw it, that they even made this one in case they missed one. Paul says, Therefore the one whom you worship without knowing him, I proclaim to you God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is the Lord of Heaven, Earth does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he worshiped with men's hands, as though he needed anything.

You say, wait a minute. We worship him. According to ancient Greeks and Romans, their gods needed food. They literally needed worship or they would die. Their gods would cease to exist if they weren't fed with literal sacrifices of food and given worship. That's what Paul's talking about here, as though he needs anything. God doesn't need us, so to speak, since he gives to us verse 25 all life, breath and all things, and he is made for one blood, every nation amended well in all the face of the Earth and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, the Tower of Babel where we started, so that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us (as we've been talking about) for in him. We live and move and have our being, as some of your own poets have said, for you’re also his offspring. Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent because he is appointed a day in which he will judge the world of righteousness by the man whom he has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead.

That passage summarizes our thoughts pretty well that God must be found on God's terms. We have to come to Him His way. That means becoming a part of his body, the Church. We cannot live as we please, and we cannot worship as we please. The people of Athens were religious. That wasn't enough to save them.

You may say, Well, I'm a good person. I'm religious. Being religious, especially as the world defines it, is not enough. We need the right religion, so to speak, the right worship, worshiping God his way. We need to make it our aim to please God, not the other way around. If we seek to please him, if we really want a relationship with him, we can have it. We need to read his word and do what it says and do what he says.

I'll give you one last story. We'll wrap our thoughts up here. My father hates I don't know how to make you understand this, but he does. He hates mashed potatoes. I love mashed potatoes. He hates mashed potatoes. He said he would never like to see another mashed potato. He could go the rest of his life and never see another mashed potato. Guess how often my mother fixes mashed potatoes? She doesn't. So it should be in our relationship with God. That's much more serious than mashed potatoes. Obviously, if God says that he doesn't like something, then we shouldn't be doing it. If God says that he should not be worshipped in this way or he needs to be worshipped in that way, then we should follow his instructions.

That means he said that a person must hear and believe and obey the gospel. You cannot find God through technology. You cannot find God just by taking a walk in nature. You cannot find God through your relationships with other people. You cannot find God through religiousness or religiosity that is less than wholehearted, that doesn't give your whole effort. You can find God His way, and that means you need to hear that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of living God. You need to believe that. You need to be willing to confess that faith before men and repent of your sins. You need to put him on a baptism that he's commanded for you to do and then continue to live to the best of your ability, using that effort that we talked about for him, continually growing in your knowledge of him and having a relationship with him. If you've never put him on in baptism, we're giving you a chance to do that. If you have done all that, but your effort isn't what it should be. Your relationship with God isn't what it should be. We'd be more than willing to do whatever we can. Pray with you and talk to you and help you with that as well.

If there's any need you have please come forward as we stand and sing.