Reaching

Series: God Search

Introduction: 

First Obstacle: We tend to think of God as absent, distant, hiding, and/or beyond reach.

Truth: God is always present, close, revealing Himself, and reaching out to us.

Psalm 46:7a - The Lord Almighty is with us…

John 14:9 - Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

Example: Jacob

Genesis 28:10-16 - Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set…He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac….I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go…When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”…He called that place Bethel...

Reality 1: God’s great desire is to be with us.

Leviticus 26:12 - I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.

1 John 4:9 - This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

Reality 2: Fullness of life is only truly experienced in His presence.

Genesis 2:7 - The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

John 10:10b - I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Reality 3: The distance between God and us exists because of us not Him.

Genesis 3:8 - Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Revelation 3:20 - Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

Application:  If we genuinely search for God, we will find Him.

Matthew 7:7-8 - “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

John 6:37b – (Jesus said)…whoever comes to me I will never drive away.

Genuinely searching involves:

·        Searching for the God who is not the God we want.

Exodus 3:13-14 - Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

·        Searching for God on His terms not ours.

John 14:6 - Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Romans 1:16-17 - I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes…For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

·        Searching for God where you are and as you are.

Matthew 11:28-30 - “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Final Question:  Where are you in relation to God?