The Pursuit Of God On Purpose

William Lane Craig said, “If you are sincerely seeking God, God will make His existence evident to you.”

Pastor Ray shares a message titled, The Pursuit of God from his current series… Living On Purpose.

What is Ridgecrest Baptist Church - Sermons?

Ridgecrest Baptist Church is located in Dothan, AL and exists to Reach the lost, Build the believer, and Connect people of God to the mission and purpose of God.

Today we want to continue in our series on purpose and I want to talk to you about the pursuit of God. A couple years ago we studied a book here in our January book study by AW Tozer, entitled the Pursuit of God. Now I'm not going to preach on that book this morning, but I highly recommend it. If you've never read it it is worth your reading. But the pursuit of God should actually be the natural rhythm of the Christians life and when you consider everything that's going on in our world, it we should be driven to pursue God. Would you agree with that? I mean now perhaps more than ever before. But for too many believers, I'm afraid, seeking and pursuing God is actually kind of a last resort. It's not a first kind of natural thing. For them, it's kind of the last thing. It's almost a desperate reaction rather than this deep desire to know God and to know what his will for our lives is. And I believe the reason that many followers of Christ are disconnected from the sense of the abiding presence of Christ is not that they don't want that presence or the sense of him with them, but it's simply that their lives are being driven by the pursuit of so many other things that God takes kind of a second place or a third place or fourth place down the list. William Lane Craig in his book God a debate between Christian, a Christian and an atheist writes this he says if you sincerely seek God, god will make his existence evident to you.

There's a relatively new term that's emerged in the last really decade that dismantles long-standing foundational principles in all kinds of different areas. The term is deconstruction. I don't know if you've heard that, if, now that you've heard me talk about it, you'll probably be a little more keen to that word deconstruction and it involves all kinds of areas of life. For example, there's now we're hearing about the deconstruction of Christianity, and that is where people are leaving the faith. They're deconstructing their faith spiritually. They're departing from what they have believed. That's sort of a deconstruction. There is social deconstruction. The idea, for example, of the family has been deconstructed. Everyone from psychologists to the UN have redefined what family is and what a family looks like. It's a deconstruction of the family. There is scientific deconstruction. Human biology has been deconstructed and dismissed as irrelevant. People, including scientists, are now afraid to acknowledge that there is such a thing as male and female deconstruction scientifically.

There's moral deconstruction, that is, the deconstruction of the values between what's right and what's wrong. These values have been demolished and are being done away with and, as the Bible says, we're in an age where everyone does what's right in their own eyes. That's moral deconstruction, you might say. There's ethical deconstruction. Truth is being deconstructed to become subjective, and truth that we're being told today is based more on circumstances and situations. Now, when I was coming up in school years ago, a popular book in the 60s was a book by a man named Joseph Fletcher called Situational Ethics. Situational Ethics argued that it doesn't matter what action you take, as long as you can consider that it's the most loving thing to do. That's kind of where we've progressed to today. Truth has been deconstructed and circumstances and situations, rather than foundational truth, determine what's right and what's wrong, and that's why decisions today are often based on emotions rather than what the truth is, as in. I know what the Bible says, but I just feel like that's kind of an ethical deconstruction of truth.

And then, nationally, we're seeing the deconstruction of our borders. Our borders have been breached. They haven't just been crossed, dear friend, they have been breached. Do you know? The Bible has something to say about that In the book of Deuteronomy and again in Hosea, the Bible says this cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor's landmark. Do you know what that means? That means boundaries. Cursed who is anyone who violates. The Bible talked about that. You see, that was long before they had GPS and things that they could determine boundaries with. And so you know how a person established the boundaries of their nation or their property they would take stones and they would line their property with stones, and that represented the boundary line. And today we're seeing that being breached, aren't we? On a grand scale, on a national scale? Now, all of these things and more created deep need, I think, for us to seek God while we can. And these are the very same characteristics of God's people when Solomon wrote to them and said to them that if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their lands. That's why Solomon wrote those words to his people had deconstructed, they had moved away, they had departed from the foundational principles that God had established.

I think one of the most disheartening things that I've seen through the years as a pastor is to watch people that I thought would never abandon the faith, leave the faith. People that I thought, man, they've got it, they are living it, they are committed to it. And I think of people in under my ministry through the years. I think of people I've known that I thought, man, if anybody's got it, they're going to do great things for God. And then to see them just depart from the faith. The Bible says this, by the way, they went out from us because they were never really one of us. John says but it's still tough, because you see people sometimes and you say how did they? Why were they so strong in their pursuit of God? And then suddenly they just left it as quickly. Paul talked about Demas, a brother who had been used, evidently of Christ greatly, for a number of years in ministry as a partner and a comrade with Paul, and Paul describes him at one point in time, says Demas has departed from me having loved the things of this world.

There's a lot of deconstruction going on in our age where a lot like they were when Solomon wrote those words, where a lot like the age of the New Testament when the people of God were pursuing things other than God. The passage that we're going to look at in just a few minutes is a passage about that very thing. The people of God were in captivity in Babylon. Do you know why? They were in captivity in Babylon? Because they had departed from the foundational principles of God. They had departed from their belief and their pursuit of him. And so the scripture, the prophet Isaiah, writes to these people and he tells them what can be and what should be the course of their life, and it involves the pursuit of God.

If you're physically able to do so, why don't you stand with me this morning as we read just a couple of verses from Isaiah 55, verses six and seven? The scripture says and the prophet said to the people this message from God seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Father, would you take your word this morning? Speak your truth, not subjective truth, not the truths of the world, but the truths of your word. Speak it to us. Use my thoughts, my study, my words. Father, to cause your truth, father, to be received in our hearts. Convict us. Challenges convert us. Call us back to you. Calls us to hear. We're listening in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, you can be seated Now.

There are a series of commands here in this particular couple of verses and, by the way, this is one of the best chapters in all the Old Testament and I would urge you to go back and read chapter 55, all of it. I mean, look at the way it starts Come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. These words are being given to a people that were in captivity, who had moved away from God, and, in fact, many of them thought that God had forgotten them. Actually, it was the other way around. They had forgotten God, they had abandoned God, they had abandoned seeking and pursuing Him with all their heart and soul and mind and strength, and it had eventually brought them into captivity. And even in captivity, they continued to move away from God. They had great freedom in the Babylonian empire, even as captives. They had freedom. In fact, when Israel would actually leave Babylon and return to Israel and Jerusalem in particular, did you know many of the Israeli state in Babylon, because that's where they'd grown up.

Think about it 70 years of captivity, that's three generations plus 10. Three generations, and so you had a couple of generations that were born and grew up in Babylon and that became the pattern of their life. Babylon became the way of the world to them, and so many of them didn't even really know who God was. That is Jehovah God. They might have heard Him mentioned, maybe, but each generation that forsakes God takes the next generation further away from God. And so you had a couple of generations, for sure, that had very little knowledge of God whatsoever and the importance of seeking Him. And so, against this, they heard, we've heard, we understand that David had a covenant with you, god, but where are you? We don't see you. And here we are in this captivity.

This is another testimony of the fact that, listen, when a nation rebels against God, god will allow even pagans to overtake them in order to get their attention, to break them or to discipline them. Babylon had conquered God's people, babylon had put them in bondage and, as a result, that's why they began to question God are you there? And against that, isaiah the prophet writes and says here's the message from God for you. God urges you to return and repent and to seek Him while he provides the opportunity. And that statement where it says seek the Lord while he may be found, is a reminder to us that the opportunity to seek God will not always last forever. The passage is this reminder of the importance of not missing the chance to align ourselves with God and the importance of seeking God and accompanying it with repentance.

So let's talk about these three commands from our passage. First of all, there is the command to pursue God, pursue God. That's the need to seek Verse six. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Pursue God while you can find Him. D L Moody said we ought to see the face of God every morning before we see the face of man. Now it's important to understand that the pursuit of God is really all about seeking the God who is and not the God I want. Don't miss that statement.

You see, we're pretty good at chasing the God we want, but not always seeking the God who is, and so what we do sometimes is we try to make God into the God we want Him to be. We make Him into a God who thinks like us, a God who exists to make us happy, or we construct a God who we expect to like the things that we like and affirm the things that we affirm, and that's dangerous. Listen to our spiritual wellbeing, to create a God after our own image, instead of understanding the God who is. In fact, if you look on down, look at the next verses. We didn't read verses eight and nine, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways. My ways declare the Lord for as high, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

You see, the God who is is probably not at all like the God we want Him to be, and I've heard people say this. I heard a popular TV celebrities say the reason I don't follow God is because God doesn't do things the way I think he ought to do them. Well, there's a day of surprises coming. Oh, you mean, you're the creator, I'm not the creator, but we have this way. We may not say it, but sometimes we live that way, don't we? And seeking the God you want will prevent you from discovering the God who is.

And with that in mind, this passage, I think, teaches us at least three important things about seeking God. So what is the pursuit of God? The need to seek. What does that look like? Well, number one it means that we must seek God with urgency. And he says that seek the Lord while he may be found. There's urgency in the message that Isaiah brings to the people. It's a statement of importance, of timing. Right now he's saying seek God. There's an opportunity. God wants to be found, god wants to make Himself known and so seek Him.

And then David said in Psalm 63.1, oh God, you are my God and earnestly I seek you, my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you. As in a dry and weary land where there is no water, david was desperate. And when you read that Psalm Psalm 63, it is a good Psalm, worth reading the whole Psalm. But when you read it, what you see is this desperate desire for God. There's an urgency in the voice of David and his desire to pursue God and drink in the knowledge of God and the presence of God.

I wonder this morning, do you have that sense in your relationship with God? Can you say, like the Psalmist God, you are my God and earnestly, with urgency, my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints? I want to tell you, when you look in this world, your flesh ought to be feigning right now and what's happening around you and it should drive us to say, god, you alone are my refuge. I seek you, I want to know you, I want to understand you. Like Moses who said God, let me see you, that I might know you, god, I want to know you. Do you have that same sense in your relationship with God? You say, well, I used to, I don't so much anymore. Well, what happened? I promise you God is the same God today as he was when you had that desire to know him. So what happened? It doesn't mean that God changed. It means you moved away.

And again, that was Israel's problem. That's why they were in Babylon is because they had moved away and they had moved so far away from God and their pursuit of God and their obedience to God and their knowledge of God. Guess what? God eventually said I've had enough and I'm gonna have to discipline you. It didn't say God stopped loving them. Whom the Lord loves, he disciplines. The scripture says. And then so he said I had to discipline them, I had to take them into a pagan captivity. Why? To try to bring them back.

The ways of the world have a way of robbing us from our sense of urgency to seek God. You know, I mean just the mundane, the routine things will rob you of your sense of urgency, won't they Caused you to say I'm so busy, I'm so busy, I've got so many other things that I've gotta give energy to? And it's not even usually an overt kind of distance from God. It's not even an intentional or malicious drifting from God. It is simply I am consumed by other things. I have become captive to other things, and those other things control my life. That's what had happened to Israel they had become captive and the Babylonians now controlled their life.

So I was thinking, as I was working on this message what causes us to lose our sense of urgency? I think there are several things that cause us to lose our sense of urgency, and so I jotted down a few. For example, I think what happens is we lose our perspective on the eternal things, we lose our perspective on what really matters, the things that last forever, and those things begin to take second place to the routines of our life. Would you agree with that? We just kind of lose. We all want heaven. That's our aim. That's our ambition. We want heaven. We all believe in the eternal. We don't have any problem with that. But we lose a sense of perspective about what really counts. We lose a sense of perspective, I think, about the brevity of this life, how quickly this life comes and goes, but eternity is forever.

If we really ever could get a glimpse of eternity, I think it would change our present and it would change our sense of urgency about seeking God, and Jesus tried to help us with this. Jesus said but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you. Everything you need, everything that you believe is important and I'm not suggesting that everything isn't important, but what Jesus is saying look, the important things, the routines of your life in this life that are essential and necessary, I'll take care of. If you'll seek first the kingdom, we lose perspective about eternal things. I think we lose a sense of urgency because we lose the fear of God. You see, I really believe this. I think we've lost the fear of God and you know, sometimes what we do is we go well, but the fear of God is to revere God, and that's true.

The Bible speaks of the fear of God in the context of revering God or seeing that God is worthy, and we agree with that. But what happens, I'm afraid, is we've lost the sense of terror of God. You see, the terror of God you produce a reverence for God. So there's the fear of God. That is reverence, but there's the fear of God.

As the writer of Hebrew said, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Do you know when the servants of God in the Scripture would come into the presence of God? You know what we read they would fall down on their face. They couldn't lift their heads up. They would fall down on this sense of awe and a kind of holy terror.

Now, god is a God of love, but listen, friends, sometimes we've overplayed the love card and not played the fear card enough because we want everybody to be comfortable. I tell you, part of the problem with the American church today is we've lost the fear of God because we want to be happy and comfortable, and so we've lost the fact that he is a holy and awesome God. And one day he's going to step out of heaven and say I've had enough, and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, not a good teacher, not a rabbi, not a preacher, not a moral authoritarian. He is God Almighty. And every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. That's going to happen. That day is coming and I'm afraid that we've lost our sense of urgency to pursue God because we have lost our fear of who God really is.

And then I think we've lost our urgency because I think we've lost our sense of time. We assume we just have all the time in the world to get serious about God. We just assume, well, I've got plenty of time, I'll get it together, I plan to, I want to, and it may not, again be a malicious thing, it just may be a lazy thing. I just hadn't got my act together with God yet, but I'm going to and I will. We've lost our sense of time and assume we got all the time we need. That's why, again, I go back to what Jesus said in Matthew 6 and 33, seek first the kingdom of God. We say I will, I will, but right now I'm building my career, right now I'm focused on my future. Right now my family gets my priority.

You say well, pastor, shouldn't family be a priority. Family should be a priority, but not at the expense of God. You see, listen. Now let me be careful about what I'm saying, because the family is incredible. My family is traveling down here today. The grandsons are bringing their parents too, and they're coming down today. I love family. You know that. We support family, we want family. But I want to tell you what we've done is we have in some sense, made family an idol in the Christian community.

I didn't just say family. I don't walk out of here and say, well, he doesn't think much of the family. You know that's not true. But do you understand what I'm saying? So what we'll do sometimes is God will get the leftovers from our family and, by the way, if God is the priority, our families need to line up under him.

I've had parents say this well, my kids, they don't like going to church. Okay, that's why you're the parent, that's why you're the head of the family, that's what God puts you in. Yeah, but I don't want to press them. So what are you going to do? Press them into hell? Well, they just didn't like it. They're going to grow up and guess what they're going to do? They're going to deconstruct their faith.

You'll say well, I don't want to push them away. Friend, I want to tell you something quit worrying about pushing them away, worry about their soul being lost forever in hell, because you were afraid to say. Thus says the Lord we love you, god loves you, I love you. But our family puts God first above everything. Everything, by the way, everything band, school, athletics, everything.

Jesus Christ comes first, and one of the reasons that we're in trouble in this country is our churches have slipped back from the priority of pursuing God, hoping that the culture will like us because we look so much like them that they'll gravitate to us. We are not supposed to look like them. We're supposed to look like Jesus Christ. Are we supposed to live like him? I'm sorry, I went off my notes.

Jesus said seek first the kingdom of God. I will, but I will, but right now I've got to give energy to this. I will, but Jesus said seek first the kingdom, and all of these buts, he said, will be added. Seek first the kingdom of God, and all of these will be added, he said. So. We must seek Him with urgency. Listen, seeking Him. We must seek with intensity.

That's number two. While he may be found denotes the need to seek God intensely before he withdraws His presence. Did you know? In Genesis God said my, my spirit will not always contend with man. I won't fight you, I just won't keep fighting. I won't always keep fighting. The fact is, if you resist God and the promptings of His Holy Spirit repeatedly, he will eventually leave you alone. He'll give you over to a reprobate mind. But here's the good news If you will seek Him intensely God says this to His people and, by the way, he said this through the prophet Jeremiah and he said it to the same captive people in Babylon you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. And then he adds I will be found by you, declares the Lord. You see, that's the good news is, if you will seek Him with intensity, you will find Him. He wants to be found. This isn't a God's not playing this cosmic hide and seek kind of game. He can be found and, better yet, he wants to be found by you. God wants you to find Him. The eyes of the Lord roam to and fro throughout the whole earth.

Second Chronicles says seeking one whose heart is holy is that he might strongly support Him. He wants to be found. He's not playing hide and seek. I'm going to see if I can hide, so far away they can't find me. This is what he was saying through look, seek the Lord while he may be found Jeremiah 29,. I will be found by you If you'll seek me with all your heart. That's the good news. God wants to be found, but we must seek Him intensely, we must seek Him urgently. And third, we must seek Him with sincerity. Now, isaiah is not suggesting a ritual here, but a serious, sincere, genuine pursuit of God, not just going through the motions, a genuine practice that leads to a deep desire and longing and knowledge of God.

You say this but, preacher, I just don't feel like seeking God. Well, listen to me, don't let your feelings prevent you from your practice. There are a lot of things you don't feel like doing that you do because you know they need to be done. But when it comes to God, we say, well, I just don't feel like really pursuing God. I'll just kind of, I'll do only what I need to do, only what I have to do. Don't let your feelings of seeking God prevent you from your practice. When it comes to your feelings, seek God when you feel like it. When it comes to your feelings, seek God when you don't feel like it. And when it comes to God, seek Him until you do feel like it. Just don't let your feelings keep you from seeking God.

The Psalm that's said. In Psalm 14, too the Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, if there are any who seek after God. God is looking, he's looking, he's looking. And all you've got to do is say here, I am Lord, I'm going to be a seeker, I'm going to, I'm going to see. And sometimes seeking God is about being disciplined in your pursuit of God. You know what disciples are. They're disciplined ones, and sometimes pursuing God is about disciplining yourself to chase after Him.

God is looking for those who are looking and seeking for Him. And did you know? Hebrews 11, 6 tells us that God rewards those who seek Him. He is a rewarder of those who seek after Him. That's what Hebrews 11, 6 says. God rewards those. So if you seek Him, you will find Him, because he wants to be found. He wants to be found by you. That's personal. And then the Scripture says and he rewards those who seek Him. So the pursuit of God is about seeking God.

But second in the pursuit of God, here's the second command we must pray to God. We must pray to God. We must pray to God. He says there again, in verse six seek the Lord while he may be found. Call there it is. Call upon Him while he is near. Do you know who God is near to? The Psalms tells us.

David answers that in Psalms 145, in verse 18, he says the Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him. In truth, that's who God is near to. You want to pursue God, you want to seek God? Then you're going to have to call upon Him. We're commanded to call upon Him. Call upon Him while he is near, while he's presenting Himself and making the opportunity to do that. The Lord is near. David says to all who call on Him you see, the pursuit of God is in part conversational. That's prayer, it's talking to God, it's up close and personal. To pursue God, your prayer life is essential because that's the means by which you're going to stay clean and stay connected to Him. He tells us that we are to forsake our wicked ways and our wicked behavior and thoughts. We stay clean. Prayer is the means of pursuing God and staying clean so that we can know and understand the ways of God.

Four years ago I purchased a set of walkie talkies for Allison and I to have in the event with all the hurricanes and storms and tornadoes and power outages and all of that. I thought this would just be good in case we lost cell coverage and all of that kind of stuff. I bought this particular set of walkie talkies because they advertised having a range of 35 miles. I thought that's pretty good, don't you? 35 miles? And I said baby, you can get me 35 miles away. We can talk to you. If the phone cells go down and whatever, are you there? So I thought you know what I was excited about. That Charged them up. When I got them I said let's test them out. I'm going to drive 35 miles from here. No, I didn't do that. I said let's turn them on. We got them synced to the same channel. We tested them right there. They were working.

I was in the garage, she was in the house. I said all right, now's the next test. I'm going to get in my car and I'm going to begin to drive and I'm going to keep talking. We're going to keep talking. We're going to see you know. And we kept talking.

I drive, I'm driving through the subdivision. Hey, are you there? Yes, I'm there. Test one, two, three Test. I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yeah, that's right. Can you hear me now? Can you still hear me? That was really what. Can you still hear me? Where are you? I'm down here now.

And then it began to fade. I'm driving. It began to fade. It began to fade and, by the way, we didn't get 35 miles. In fact, I didn't even get out of the subdivision. About a quarter of a mile was all the distance I could get. And then they faded, they were gone. I was so disappointed. That's not 35 miles.

So I went back and started researching a little bit and investigating the reason for the range and discovered that there was a disclaimer, and the disclaimer said that 35 miles is based on a direct and open path. So if we're in a field that's 35 miles long and I'm on one end and there's nothing in between the other end for 35 miles, I can say come in, babe, I'm down here on this end of the field, can you hear me? Or if I happen to be on the top of a mountain and she's on the top of another mountain and we're shooting above the gap, then we can potentially get up to 35 miles. So I just told her. I said here's what's going to happen If power goes out we lose cell phone service and everything. I'm going to find the nearest mountain and I will send you to the other nearest mountain and then we can talk to each other. But I was thinking about that as I was working on the message and I thought so much for range, right.

The fact is, listen, to communicate effectively with those walkie talkies, we got to stay pretty close to each other. But you know, that's the way it is with God too. It's about proximity, and proximity matters. That's why James said this in James 4, verse 8. He says draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. And then he adds this cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your heart.

You double minded. You know, sometimes we wonder why our prayer life is so weak. Is it possible that we're so far away from God personally and that we're living with and tolerating sin in our life and that sin has created a barrier between us and God and is a hindrance to our prayer connection, just like those walkie talkies. Well, if you got a lot of things, the disclaimer, as I went back, says if there's houses and trees and all this in between you and the object and that changes, that changes your ability to connect and communicate. You know what. You know what Sin changes our ability to connect and communicate and I've noticed this the closer I am to God, the more he can deal with the sin. The further away I am, the less I am aware of sin and the less conviction falls upon me by the Holy Spirit.

That's why the Psalmist said in Psalm 6618, if I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear. And that leads me to the last command that I want to show you this morning from our passage here, and that was that we need to purge the hindrances to God, and that is the need to forsake verse 7. Let the wicked forsake his way, the unrighteous man his thoughts. The connection here is with the previous verse, verse 6, in which calling to God in prayer is joined with repentance and returning to God. So God is saying to them look, here I am, I'm available, seek me and then call on me, seek me and then call on me. And as you call on me, I want you to do something. I want you to repent. God. I'm sorry, god, here's some sin that I need to deal with. I need to purge these things because they're hindering my ability to have a good connection with you. It didn't change their relationship, it hindered their fellowship. And that's what sin does. When we tolerate sin, it keeps our fellowship disconnected.

And notice they were to forsake two things wicked behavior and wicked thinking. Wicked behavior is external sin. There are some things that are no brainer right. There are some things yes, that's behavior that you need to forsake. And then wicked thoughts, one's external, one's internal Wicked thoughts. That's the covert. There's the overt sin and then there's the covert sin. You know, this is the stuff that only you and God know about. This is the stuff that you have to stay close enough to Him so you can deal with it, and it's like what the Bible teaches in Hebrews 12.

Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every weight and every sin which clings closely to us and run with endurance or racism set before us. You see, the pursuit of God requires attention to sin in our lives, because harboring sin prevents our relationship with God not from existing but from thriving. Let me ask you today are there things in your life that are tripping you up in your pursuit of God? Dealing with those things is essential to your pursuing God. Maybe you say, yeah, pastor, I've tried to deal with them, but the battle continues. Listen, the victory is found daily. You fight in the armor of God today. Stop trying to win the battle six months from now. Fight today, one day at a time.

Jesus again in Matthew, chapter six, reminds us of the importance of living for Him today, one day. The battle is fought one day at a time. You can't fight tomorrow's battles today. You can't fight the battle six months down the road today, but you can fight today. And if you'll fight today and then you'll do it again tomorrow and then tomorrow, one day you'll be six months down the road and one day you'll be a year down the road, in two years, and the battle will always rage. But you'll find victory in daily fighting, putting on the full armor of God Paul talked about and fighting under the power of the Holy Spirit. You can't win the battle, not even on a daily basis. You can't win the battle against sin without the armor of God and the Holy Spirit.

In Zachariah four, six. Then he said to me this is the word of the Lord. Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of host. This is spiritual war. But as long as you desire to live for God, as long as you pursue and seek God or make it your pursuit, you are going to have to fight the good fight of faith. You're going to have to, and the enemy of your soul does not want you seeking God. He doesn't want you seeking God, not because he wants to have you he doesn't have you if you belong to God. But what he wants to do is he does. He wants to break your fellowship with God. He wants to render you helpless spiritually. He wants to keep you from being impactful in the life you have. He wants to break that fellowship. You see, the devil hates it when you say I'm going to serve God, I'm going to follow God, I'm going to pursue God. So don't be surprised if he attacks. He attacks you with what Paul calls the fiery darts. The fiery darts. Paul says we're aware, he has a scheme, he has a plan. He does and he'll attack, because the devil hates when you seek God. You know he hates when you seek God because he hates God and so he hates when the children of God draw near to God and pursue God with all their heart. So he wants to fire darts at you and missiles at you to discourage you and to defeat you and cause you to feel like a failure and make you say I just can't, I'm not going to pursue God, I'm going to work.

Twenty five years ago I was thinking twenty five years ago before I was your pastor. I was serving the North American Mission Board and I traveled. I was an interim pastor at a church in Conyers, georgia, and it was about an hour's drive from where I was and I lived, and so I would leave early on Wednesday to avoid the Atlanta traffic. I'd leave about four hours early, to be honest, and I would get on the other side of Atlanta. I would go to a restaurant, an outback restaurant, and I would sit there.

And I asked this young man named Dave on one of those visits. I said hey. I said I've got to do some work. I'd take my briefcase. It was had my laptop and just a bunch of files and work. I was working on some material we were producing and I said can you get me? I would show up at four o'clock. I didn't have to be at the church till six. I said if you will get me a booth in the back, I will tip you. Very well, I need to work and I need to be kind of alone. He said absolutely. He took me back and this corner booth. I was all by myself four o'clock and I had too many people at outback anyway.

So I'm working, I put everything out on this big table and I'm working and doing my thing and after a while he comes by and he says, hey, what you working on? I said, well, it's important stuff. It's important stuff. He says okay. He said what do you do? I said well, I said I travel around the country helping people understand how they have a relationship with God. He said oh, wow.

And he turned and walked off and I went back to work. He came back to me and he brought my drink to me, you know, and he brought my salad to me and he sat down there and he said so. He said I bet that's a pretty I see. He said I bet that's pretty interesting, isn't it? I said, yeah, and he turned and walked off. Little dense. So he comes back a third time, he brings my meal and he sits down on the other side of the table this is the waiter and he said well, could you tell me about that? See, I was slow in picking up the signs and, by the way, you know what my job was.

Before I came here, I was the head of personal evangelism for the North American Mission Board, which is the charge of the entire Southern Baptist Convention. But I was slow. And he sat down and said, well, could you tell me about that? And I said, no, I'm sorry, I'm too busy. No, I didn't, I'm not that slow. But I said, well, yeah, I'd love to.

And so I realized God, this was a divine appointment. But he didn't share Christ with him, he didn't receive Christ. He said, wow, that's. He said I need something in my life and his life was a little bit different. He said, well, I'm going to look out his wife and he were separated, long at any rate. So I said I offered him an opportunity to receive Christ. He said, no, I'm not ready for that.

I said, well, could we talk about it further. I said I'll be back here next week. I just said at that point I'd be back next week. And I said will you be here? He said I will. I said let's talk again. I said you want to do that? He said yes, I came back the next week. We didn't went through the same process.

He came back long and short over a period of three weeks. On that third week he sat down. Every week he would sit down and say tell me about that again. I would tell him about that. And that third week he prayed and trusted Christ as his Savior and I had the church. I was the inner man. I had them praying for him. They were praying. He didn't know that because I told them the story after that first time Y'all pray for David.

They were praying for David. And so after a third week I said now I'm a pastor down here at this church and why don't you? You come? So on the following Sunday he not only he, but his wife showed up too and she trusted Christ. And they asked could they join the church? And I said well, I don't know. And so I told the people. I said folks, I've got a couple here that if I did this. This was fun. I said I had a couple here and they want to know could they become a part of this family. I said this young man's name is Dave. They'd been praying for Dave and they stood up. I'm sorry. I said he's trusted Christ's Savior. This is his wife. She's trusted Christ too. By the way, god healed their marriage and all that.

But I told him something. Here's why I'm telling you that lengthy story. I told Dave this. I said Dave, you get ready for something. I said don't be surprised if the devil doesn't turn the fire up in your life, not that it goes down.

He called me the next week at my office. He was in tears. He said Ray. He said I. He said I just.

He said man, every since I asked Christ to come into my life. He said it's like everything that can go wrong has gone wrong. I said remember, I told you don't be surprised. I didn't know if that would happen, but I said don't be surprised. I said here's what's going on. You're being tested by fire.

I said now, god is still there. God has allowed it. But the enemy is attacking you because he wants to rob your desire to live for God, now to know God. And he was so eager, like new Christians are so eager to to. And I said but you just, I said, just understand this is spiritual war. And I said I'm going to be there with you. You call me if I can help you. I'm going to walk you through and be with you and be by your side. But don't be surprised if it can, if it even gets worse. And I'd like to tell you this morning that if you pursue God, if you really get close to God, your battle with sin will be over. But that's neither true or biblical. But you do have weapons to use in the battle. The battle won't cease, but you do have weapons to use. In fact, listen to what Paul said.

Paul been a Christian for 22 years when he wrote the following in Romans, chapter seven for we know that the law is spiritual, but I'm of the flesh sold under sin, for I do not understand my own actions. This is Paul been a Christian 22 years, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Can you identify with that? Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law. That it is that it is the law is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. Hello, for I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand, for I delight in the law of God and my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? That's the apostle Paul.

You'd think after 22 years I'm really disappointed in him. I mean, you'd think after 22 years, three missionary journeys already, by this time he'd written at least five of the New Testament books. By this time You'd have thought that Paul would have had this thing figured out, this spiritual warfare thing figured out, wouldn't you? Well, frankly, we all identify with that, don't we? When Paul says, listen, the battle never goes away, that's what he's saying. And, by the way, he doesn't end on just that note. I say the last for best. He says thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. That's how, that's where my deliverance is found. So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. But Jesus Christ is the source of victory. And it's the same Paul who would write the book of Ephesians, chapter six, about spiritual warfare. And then you know how he transitions into the next chapter, that's chapter seven. He goes right into chapter eight. You know we put the chapter breaks in.

You know what the next verse says, romans eight one. I love this verse and you should too. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Isn't that good? Listen, the greatest ambition that you can give your life to is the pursuit of God, to know Him and to live in the power of the Holy Spirit on purpose. So I invite you today to that life.

If you don't know Christ, start there today, start right there. If you do know Christ, ask yourself are there things that are getting, or have made me captive to, over the pursuit of God? Are there things you need to forsake, the things that are hindering you, then why don't you tell Him today? God, these are things that have taken precedent over. Listen, you say, well, are they all bad? Now, there may be some very good things. The order is out of place. So get the order right so you can get up near Jesus, because he is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

Father, thank you for your word. Thank you this morning, reminding us, father, that you want to be found by us. Thank you this morning, father, that the importance of seeking you, father, put within us the discipline and the desire to seek you with all our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen.