Cedar Park Girls are state champions in Varsity Softball.

Cedar Park Boys are either first or second in Varsity Baseball. The answer is at http://www.wiaa.com/brackets/tourney.asp?ID=3020304

Tonight David Dolan on Israel’s current events and Bible Prophecy plus a night of worship.

 

Pastor Joe Fuiten, June 1, 2003

 

Scripture Reading:  Psalm 14, Page 388

1 The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. 2 The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. 3 All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. 4 Will evildoers never learn-- those who devour my people as men eat bread and who do not call on the LORD? 5 There they are, overwhelmed with dread, for God is present in the company of the righteous. 6 You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor, but the LORD is their refuge. 7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad! (NIV)

 

            Several times in the Old Testament we have the idea of seeking God.  In the New Testament, it uses the term “seeking God” to summarize the search that people have to get right with God.[1]  In Christian settings, we use the term to describe our whole relationship with God.  Even after we become Christians we continue to seek God.  It seems odd.  God lives within us by his Spirit, yet we seek him.  Can he get closer to us than within us?  I think the answer is yes.  Even more, I think it is what God wants from us.  He wants us to continue to pursue him just as he continues to pursue us.

            My titles at Cedar Park include President and Senior Pastor.  I would like to also have earned the title, Chief Seeker.  I want to be a seeker of God and I want to lead the congregation in seeking God.  My hope is that this message will help us to seek God

            I think I have learned a few things about God, at least in how he has dealt with me over the years.  I think it is typical of how he relates to human beings.

            For me, God’s methods have involved difficulties, needs, and blessings.

 

God allows me to seek him through blessings.  I have been blessed in so many ways and I often feel close to God as I experience these blessings.  Maybe one of the reasons God has blessed me is that I really do believe I am grateful.  When I signed on to be a minister, I knew I was agreeing to a lifetime of poverty.  There was nothing in my experience to suggest otherwise.  As it has turned out, I have been greatly blessed with wonderful experiences.

For example, I almost never play golf without giving thanks to the Lord for the opportunity.  That is particularly true when I play a nice course.  Often I am nearly moved to tears.  This usually happens before I play the first hole.  After I start hitting the ball an entirely different emotion comes over me that is not nearly so edifying.  There is something about the experience that speaks to me about God and his blessing.

What do you have in your life that represents blessing?  I have noticed that it sometimes centers around something you didn’t have much of as a kid.  For some people it is the opportunity to eat a meal in a nice restaurant.  For others it is the car they drive.  For you it might be buying a nice outfit.  It is not so much the outfit itself, but the opportunity to buy it.  One that speaks to me is having lunch with my wife and children on Sunday.  In that moment I feel blessed.  I’ve had the experience when I am fishing.  Believe it or not, I feel that way about my job.  I feel blessed to have the job that I have.  For example, I cannot remember the last time I heard someone swear.  Some of you hear that several times an hour.  It is so nice not to have to listen to your Lord’s name being taken in vain.  I think the last time I heard someone swear was when I hit that guy on the next fairway!  (Just kidding!)

I am not describing just thinking of yourself as lucky or even blessed.  I am describing the recognition that opens the door to seeking God.  In human relations, gifts are not about gifts.  Gifts are about love.  The same is true with God.  If it is about gifts and blessings, we will almost certainly become increasingly selfish, self-centered, and pleasure oriented.  God brings these things into our lives out of relationship.

I believe tithing is about relationship and response to God.  When God blesses me financially, I show that I understand that by tithing.  If I don’t want to tithe because I need the money, it shows that I think that I am responsible for the money rather than God.  If God gave me the 100% in the first place, is it hard to believe that he can make up for the 10%?

God also allows me to seek him through difficulties and troubles.  When I have a problem, for sure God is going to hear from me.

At one point, Israel was being very rebellious toward God.  God sent a series of prophets to try to bring correction.  Prophets like Joel, Amos, Micah, Jonah, Obadiah, Isaiah, and Hosea were more or less contemporaries.  Of these Hosea was the first to foretell the destruction of Israel.  I was very moved reading Hosea this week.  It is a great picture of God and how he works.  Hosea 5:10-15 and particularly verse 15 captures the way God operates.

Judah's leaders are like those who move boundary stones. I will pour out my wrath on them like a flood of water. 11 Ephraim is oppressed, trampled in judgment, intent on pursuing idols. 12 I am like a moth to Ephraim, like rot to the people of Judah. 13 "When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his sores, then Ephraim turned to Assyria, and sent to the great king for help. But he is not able to cure you, not able to heal your sores. 14 For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away; I will carry them off, with no one to rescue them. 15 Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me."

Even the judgment of God is not about judgment.  It is about seeking him.  God said all this even before the trouble began.  The trouble I am referring to was the Babylonian Captivity that lasted 70 years.

Even when the Captivity was under way, you would think God would be telling Israel how terrible they were and how they deserved all they were getting.  In fact, God was encouraging them.  Everybody likes to quote Jeremiah 29 about God’s plans to bless us.  The context begins in verse 10.  They are in exile but God is speaking to them about his plans for blessing. “This is what the LORD says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."

Before they went into captivity, God said they would return to him and seek him.  Once they were in captivity he spoke again of his plans for blessing and again that they would seek him.

In an odd way, we could say that both blessings and difficulties have the same purpose.  God wants us to seek him.  We prefer the former over the latter, (Mark Twain said, “I’ve been miserably poor and I’ve been miserably rich.  I’d rather be miserably rich.) but they both should bring us to seek God.  This must be why James opened his epistle with the words, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds…”  I like one of the other translations that says don’t resent these trials as intruders but welcome them as friends.

Somewhere on this continuum each one of us finds himself.   Among those experiencing blessing, I want to urge us to seek the giver of the blessings, not just the blessings. Are you in difficulty today?  Seek God, not just the answer to your problem.

 

 

I shared this word with our Pastors this week: 

 

We have become more and more aware that we need a moving of God’s Spirit at Cedar Park.  We need a revival.  We need it for the sake of the people of the Church.  We need it for the sake of the community.  We need it because that is what Church is, a moving of God’s Spirit.

Lane has been working hard to see this happen in our services.  We appreciate his heart in this matter.  One Sunday morning recently, there seemed to be an unusual move of the Spirit in the second service as people opened their heart in worship.

We had Paul Wilbur here on the Sunday night of Mother’s Day.  He did a great job of leading us in worship and we appreciated his role in that.  God’s Spirit touched a lot of lives.

On the first Sunday night of missions emphasis, Jireh led the worship.  There was a moving of the Spirit in that service at the altar time.  We acknowledged Jireh’s role in this as well as the role of the supporting musicians.

We are planning a series of meetings at the end of July with David and Karen Davis.  We have a similar set of meetings planned for September 21 to 24 with Glen Bertau and Brandon Beals.  Then again in January, in conjunction with Snow Camp, we are having Pat Shatsline stay over and do some meetings.  These meetings, set three months apart, are unusual opportunities for us to seek God.  These various people have been invited because they seem to be gifted in helping people draw near to the Lord.  Naturally, we want to appreciate these guests and people within our own congregation, who have the ability to lead us to the Lord.  On the other hand, we want to be careful to give glory to God who is the one we seek.  None of these people bring the presence of God.  God is his own presence.  His presence is felt when He reveals himself.  We want God to reveal himself to us and to our congregation.  Let us each one work hard to create the opportunity for God’s presence to be revealed by our attitude, actions, and seeking of him.

 

Here are some related Scriptures

 

Jeremiah 29:10-19

10 This is what the LORD says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile." 15 You may say, "The LORD has raised up prophets for us in Babylon," 16 but this is what the LORD says about the king who sits on David's throne and all the people who remain in this city, your countrymen who did not go with you into exile—17 yes, this is what the LORD Almighty says: "I will send the sword, famine and plague against them and I will make them like poor figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. 18 I will pursue them with the sword, famine and plague and will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth and an object of cursing and horror, of scorn and reproach, among all the nations where I drive them. 19 For they have not listened to my words," declares the LORD, "words that I sent to them again and again by my servants the prophets. And you exiles have not listened either," declares the LORD. (NIV)

 

Isaiah 65:1-12

1 "I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, 'Here am I, here am I.' 2 All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations—3 a people who continually provoke me to my very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick; 4 who sit among the graves and spend their nights keeping secret vigil; who eat the flesh of pigs, and whose pots hold broth of unclean meat; 5 who say, 'Keep away; don't come near me, for I am too sacred for you!' Such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day. 6 "See, it stands written before me: I will not keep silent but will pay back in full; I will pay it back into their laps—7 both your sins and the sins of your fathers," says the LORD. "Because they burned sacrifices on the mountains and defied me on the hills, I will measure into their laps the full payment for their former deeds." 8 This is what the LORD says: "As when juice is still found in a cluster of grapes and men say, 'Don't destroy it, there is yet some good in it,' so will I do in behalf of my servants; I will not destroy them all. 9 I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah those who will possess my mountains; my chosen people will inherit them, and there will my servants live. 10 Sharon will become a pasture for flocks, and the Valley of Achor a resting place for herds, for my people who seek me. 11 "But as for you who forsake the LORD and forget my holy mountain, who spread a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny, 12 I will destine you for the sword, and you will all bend down for the slaughter; for I called but you did not answer, I spoke but you did not listen. You did evil in my sight and chose what displeases me." (NIV)

 

Ephraim and Judah chose to do wrong.  In the time of trouble, Ephraim turned to Assyria for help rather than to the Lord for salvation.  So God tore them as a lion tears its victim.  God says that he then retreated and waited for them to return to him.  Because they were miserable, they sought God.

Hosea 5:10-15

10 Judah's leaders are like those who move boundary stones. I will pour out my wrath on them like a flood of water. 11 Ephraim is oppressed, trampled in judgment, intent on pursuing idols. 12 I am like a moth to Ephraim, like rot to the people of Judah. 13 "When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his sores, then Ephraim turned to Assyria, and sent to the great king for help. But he is not able to cure you, not able to heal your sores. 14 For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away; I will carry them off, with no one to rescue them. 15 Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me." (NIV)

 

Hosea 10:12-15

12 Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you. 13 But you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception. Because you have depended on your own strength and on your many warriors, 14 the roar of battle will rise against your people, so that all your fortresses will be devastated-- as Shalman devastated Beth Arbel on the day of battle, when mothers were dashed to the ground with their children. 15 Thus will it happen to you, O Bethel, because your wickedness is great. When that day dawns, the king of Israel will be completely destroyed. (NIV)

 

 

Hosea 11:1-11

1 "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. 2 But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. 3 It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. 4 I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them. 5 "Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? 6 Swords will flash in their cities, will destroy the bars of their gates and put an end to their plans. 7 My people are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the Most High, he will by no means exalt them. 8 "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. 9 I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man-- the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath. 10 They will follow the LORD; he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west. 11 They will come trembling like birds from Egypt, like doves from Assyria. I will settle them in their homes," declares the LORD. (NIV)