Seek First

Intro

To kick things off this morning, I want you to share your favorite hide and seek story. It can be a personal one, or something funny your kids did. Take a few moments and share your favorite hide and seek story.

Everyone on YouTube, if you want, you can share your favorite story in the comments. Just so you know, I like to go back and see the comments, so if you share a story, I will definitely take the time to enjoy it!

Share your favorite hide and seek story.

Seek and you will find

When we were growing up, we didn’t settle for simple hide and seek. We played kick the can. Kick the can was a little more intense because you weren’t safe unless you kicked the can, which was usually a ball of some sort. On top of that, if you were able to kick the can, not only were you safe, but everyone that got caught before you kicked the can was free as well. Needless to say, this game could easily get out of hand.

I remember one night, we had a bunch of people over, and it was starting to get late. The darker it was, the more fun kick the can got. We were in the final round, and one of the best catchers was up. He had caught most of us, with one person left. Those of us that were caught were huddled around, waiting to see if we would win or not.

Now you have to understand something about our yard. As all good Sask prairie farms have, we had a wind break around our yard. Our consisted of a row of poplars, two rows of thick carriaganas, and a row of evergreens along the grass.

As we sat and waited, suddenly there was a yell, and lots of rustling in the bushes, followed by an explosion of person through the trees. The last hider had been found, and instead running around the trees, he decided to run through. Not an easy task, but with much risk comes much reward.

One of the things I will always remember about hide and seek or kick the can is how quickly the game would die if someone wasn’t willing to put in the effort. All it took was one or two people to put in minimal effort being it and the excitement would die off.

There is a reason it was called hide and seek and not hide and have a look. The idea of seeking has a little extra umph to it.

I think this is why the english translators used the word ‘seek’ so often in our bibles. In the NLT, the word seek appears 95 times in the span of 93 verses. When we did our BE series at the beginning of the year, we came across a couple.

Matthew 7:7–8 NLT

“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

Defining ‘Seek’

for us english speakers, the word seek simply means we are attempting to find something. But for the original audience that received the teachings of the Old and New Testament, seek meant something more.

In Old Testament, when you see the word seek, there is an expectation to extend great effort to find or accomplish something. There was an expectation that you would seek it with diligence.

In the New Testament, there was an element of expectation. You weren’t just hoping to find what you were looking for, but you expected to find it. In some cases, it meant that you strongly desired what you were looking for, you craved it. There was an urgency.

So when you take those added layers and you read a verse like this

Matthew 6:33 NLT

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

it is not something to be taken lightly. What Jesus was calling His disciples to, and what He is calling you to, is to seek the kingdom with everything in you. Not to find the kingdom, but to see the kingdom of God realized on earth.

Matthew 6:10 NLT

May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Because God sought you out

We are going to take some time over the next 4 weeks to unpack what it really means to seek God, and what other things Scripture tells us that we should be seeking, but I need you to understand something really important about this whole seeking thing.

God never asks you to do something He hasn’t already done. God calls us to humility because He is humble. God calls us to love our neighbours because He is the very definition of love. God calls us to forgive our enemies because He first forgave us while we were enemies.

Well God calls us to seek Him and His kingdom because He first sought us.

Luke 15:1–10 NLT

Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them! So Jesus told them this story: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away! “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.”

You were once the sheep and the coin

these parables are often used to remind us as the church that we should be seeking out the lost so that we can share the life giving faith that is found in Christ alone. But there is a layer to this parable that can not be missed.

First, God is the good shepherd. In the song, Reckless Love, it talks about the kind of love that abandons the 99 for the one. Jesus is the good shepherd. It is He who seeks out the lost and draws them home.

Second, you were once the lost sheep and the lost pearl. For some of you, it has been long a time that you’ve been a Christian. For some, the decision to follow Christ is still fresh in your memory. And maybe some here have never made the decision.

The truth is that at one point in your life, you were an enemy of God, and Jesus sought you out. He pursued you the way a shepherd leaves the 99 to find the one. He diligently sought you out.

The amazing things about the word seek in the Old Testament is that it is rarely used of God. Why? Because God always finds you.

Some of you need to hear this right now. The same way God tracked you down when you were lost, He still tracks you down when you are hurting. Your Heavenly Father is still seeking you, still pursuing you. He is never far away.

The same way He sought you out, with the diligence of the woman looking for the coin, with the abandon of the shepherd leaving the flock to find the one. The love, the humility, the service that Jesus puts on display for us in this parable.

All He asks in return is that you do the same. To really truly seek God and His kingdom. To crave His presence and to desire the realization of His kingdom.

The question you have to ask yourself is this: What are you seeking? The reality is that we are all seeking something, but if your honest there’s probably something that competes for your attention. Often, the thing that gets in your way is your pride. Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking about yourself less. Pride is the opposite. Pride is choosing that whatever you think is important trumps whatever God says is important. If your honest with yourself, what do you tend to seek above the kingdom? In order for you to truly seek God, it starts with getting this thing out of the way.

Let’s Pray

1. What stood out to you from the message?

2. What are you seeking?

3. What does it look like to seek God’s kingdom the way scripture describes?