Time to Seek the Lord
TIME TO SEEK THE LORD
8/4/01 and 8/5/01
-We are entering a season of prayer. It is a time we are calling FULFILLING THE DREAM.
-It is a season to come together in fasting and prayer to lay hold of God’s will for this church and this region and how we need to cooperate with God to do His will.
-I don’t take lightly the power of united prayer.
-My prayer is that we will come to a place where we hear the voice of God individually. The cry of my heart is that you will experience the impressions of God in your own heart.
Hosea 10
12 Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unploughed 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,
-Notice the contrast there between seeking the Lord and depending on your own strength.
-That is so easy to do. It is easy to get into autopilot and think we are on a roll.
-We need God now more than ever!!
-Notice on the prayer cards: C. H. Spurgeon said,
“Whenever God determines to do a great work, He first sets His people to pray.”
-Spurgeon was a well-known pastor of a church in London. When he was asked the secret to his success he said, “My people pray for me.”
-People don’t pray because they don’t think it helps.
John Wesley said, “God does nothing but in answer to prayer.”
Jonathan Edwards said, “Whenever God wanted to do a great thing in the church or in a country, it is His will that it should be preceded by extraordinary prayers of His people.”
Psalm 28
“My heart has heard you say, Come and talk with me, O My people. And my heart responds, Lord I am coming.”
-This is a season or time to seek the Lord.
-We are having a 4-week time of fasting and prayer along with family devotions. We are also having some Friday until Saturday prayer vigils here at the church.
-Testimony: The Wednesday prayer meeting out of hurt and church problem. It resulted in a plan of outreach and many, many people coming to the Lord. The church grew tremendously as a direct result of that time.
-Prayer and intercession is becoming a shareholder in what God is doing.
1.SEEKING THE LORD IS AN ATTITUDE
2 Chronicles 26
1 ¶ Then all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.
2 He was the one who rebuilt Elath and restored it to Judah after Amaziah rested with his fathers.
3 Uzziah was sixteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for fifty-two years. His mother's name was Jecoliah; she was from Jerusalem.
4 He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father Amaziah had done.
5 He sought God during the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God. As long as he sought the LORD, God gave him success.
-It then goes on to explain many things that Uzziah did .
15 In Jerusalem he made machines designed by skilful men for use on the towers and on the corner defences to shoot arrows and hurl large stones. His fame spread far and wide, for he was greatly helped until he became powerful.
16 He was unfaithful to the LORD his God, and entered the ¶ But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense.
-That goes back to the same principle as we saw in Hosea. It is a contrast between depending on God or relying on yourself.
-The O.T. word for seek (baqash) means “to diligently look for/to search earnestly until the object of the search is located.
-I love the story where Rocky is getting ready to fight Mr. T and Mr. T is working out. Rocky is playing celebrity and becoming lethargic.
-The next thing that happens is Rocky bites the dust.
-Mr. T. may be in your future. Are you getting ready?
-We need more than a devotional life, we need a desperate life.
-Seeking the Lord is an attitude.
REPENT FOR INDEPENDENCE/PRAY
2. SEEKING THE LORD IS A PRIORITY
Matthew 6
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.
23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 "No-one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
25 ¶ "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin.
29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these.
30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 So do not worry, saying, `What shall we eat?' or `What shall we drink?' or `What shall we wear?'
32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
-It is an act of faith to seek God first.
Joshua 9
-Israel made a treaty it shouldn’t have made.
14 The men of Israel sampled their provisions but did not enquire of the LORD.
Jeremiah 29
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.
-God expects to be first.
2Ch 16:12 In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet. Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the LORD, but only from the physicians.
-God isn’t against physicians or science but He must be first.
SEEKING THE LORD IS AN ATTITUDE
SEEKING THE LORD IS A PRIORITY
3. SEEKING THE LORD IS A NECESSITY
-Your life and future is as bright as your dependence upon God.
Psalm 16
2 I said to the LORD, "You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing."
Psalm 34
10 The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.
Psalm 84
11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favour and honour; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.
Psalm 34
4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.
Psalm 77
1 ¶ [For the director of music. For Jeduthun. Of Asaph. A psalm.] I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me.
2 When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted.
3 I remembered you, O God, and I groaned; I mused, and my spirit grew faint. Selah
4 You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak.
5 I thought about the former days, the years of long ago;
6 I remembered my songs in the night. My heart mused and my spirit enquired:
7 "Will the Lord reject for ever? Will he never show his favour again?
8 Has his unfailing love vanished for ever? Has his promise failed for all time?
9 Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?" Selah
-There are a ton of Scriptures on this subject.
-EXAMPLES:
1985 in the woods-concerning house.
On vacation concerning finances. The key to financial prosperity is the blessing of God. Our part concerning money is to SEEK THE LORD.
4. SEEKING THE LORD IS AN OPPORTUNITY
2 Chronicles 15
1 ¶ The Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded.
2 He went out to meet Asa and said to him, "Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The LORD is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.
3 For a long time Israel was without the true God, without a priest to teach and without the law.
4 But in their distress they turned to the LORD, the God of Israel, and sought him, and he was found by them.
5 In those days it was not safe to travel about, for all the inhabitants of the lands were in great turmoil.
6 One nation was being crushed by another and one city by another, because God was troubling them with every kind of distress.
7 But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded."
8 ¶ When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Azariah son of Oded the prophet, he took courage. He removed the detestable idols from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the towns he had captured in the hills of Ephraim. He repaired the altar of the LORD that was in front of the portico of the LORD's temple.
9 Then he assembled all Judah and Benjamin and the people from Ephraim, Manasseh and Simeon who had settled among them, for large numbers had come over to him from Israel when they saw that the LORD his God was with him.
10 They assembled at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa's reign.
11 At that time they sacrificed to the LORD seven hundred head of cattle and seven thousand sheep and goats from the plunder they had brought back.
12 They entered into a covenant to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul.
13 All who would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman.
14 They took an oath to the LORD with loud acclamation, with shouting and with trumpets and horns.
15 All Judah rejoiced about the oath because they had sworn it wholeheartedly. They sought God eagerly, and he was found by them. So the LORD gave them rest on every side.
-They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord.
-That is what we are doing.
-We are laying down our ideas and agendas and seeking God.
-Set your heart to seek God.
-Set your heart to seek God for this church’s future.
-Determine your role in the August 27th- September 21st fasting and prayer time.
-Mark your calendar for the prayer service September 19th.
-Be a part of one or more of the Friday night prayer vigils.
-Let’s make a covenant to seek the Lord.