Isaiah 43:18-24 - Knowing Jesus – Seek His Face

21-02-07 - Knowing Jesus – Seek His Face - Isaiah 43:18-24

HBI –  As we continue to know who Jesus is, He wants to do great things in our life but this means we are going to seek Him in all that we do.

Intro

We have been learning what it means to truly Know Jesus. We have gone through the truth that to have eternal life means we truly know Jesus. 

We have gone through the truth that Knowing Jesus starts with faith. By grace are we saved through faith, not through anything we can do, or works that we can accomplish. 

And we have gone through the truth that To Know Jesus means the passions of our heart need to be on Jesus and the need for them to not be on our own pride and the world but rather on Humbly submitting to God and living our lives for Him. Fully devoted hearts to Jesus. 

The last think I want to go through is the truth that to know Jesus we need to continually call on Him and seek His face. 

It is one thing to say you know Jesus but another thing to actually know who He is. Confusing? Well let me put it this way. 

Take an athlete of your favorite sport. You might know everything about them, there stats, there best and worst games, their likes, and dislikes and so on. 

Fans have a fascination with the athletes or movie stars they look up too and often will memorize many details about their lives. 

And you may think that you actually know that athlete or movie star, but you do not. It is a whole another issue to be friends with that person and to know them on a personal level. 

All this memorization of stats and memorabilia from your favorite athlete does not mean that you actually know them. 

Like that when a person truly knows Jesus it is based on a relationship not just memorizing scripture and going through the motions. 

The next step we are going to go through in What the gospel is, is growing in Jesus. This sermon is a bit of both, what it means to know Jesus more and going into what it means to grow in Him. 

Back to the Old Testament

So, we go back to the Old Testament to see another aspect of what it looks like know Jesus.

As we continue to know who Jesus is, He wants to do great things in our life but this means we are going to seek Him in all that we do. A Phrase I have heard in the bible before is to seek God’s face. 

This passage that we read through talks about calling on Him in all that we do. But to seek His face and to call on God is what we are going to deal with, both aspects of what it means to know Jesus. 

What does it mean to seek the face of God? To seek someone’s face is to turn towards them, to seek out their gaze and to get to know them. This is an intimate thing. 

Just think about it how many of you like to look right in someone’s eyes when you are talking to them? Is it your girlfriend or wife, that is not to hard as long as you are not in trouble for something?

What about a friend. That one is not as bad but a little harder. If it is a stranger though it makes it even harder. But even with friend’s people have trouble staring in their eyes. 

It is an intimate thing, and to seek God’s face and to call on Him, both referencing the same idea is the same thing, it means seeking an intimate relationship with God constantly without wavering. 

We continue to go back to the story of the people of Israel back in Isaiah 43. The threat of being sent to Babylon for their sinning against the Lord is at the beginning of the chapter. Isaiah 43:19 (CSB) 19 Look, I am about to do something new;

All that has happened before? Forget it, It is nothing compared to what I am going to do, I brought you out of the land of Egypt. I did this through great wonders and miracles. I parted the red sea so you could cross on dry land while Pharaoh and His armies were washed away by the waters. While you were wandering through the desert, I provided food and water for you so you were never lacking, though you still had to have faith.  But because of your sin I am going to send you into captivity in Babylon. But after 70 years I am going to bring you back and just wait and see what I will do. 

Isaiah 43:19–21 (CSB)19 Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert. 20 Wild animals— jackals and ostriches—will honor me, because I provide water in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people. 21 The people I formed for myself will declare my praise.

The people that I made for myself, some day they where always supposed to honor me in front of the world, but they didn’t always. But the day will come when they will honor me in front of the whole world. 

Isaiah 43:22–24 (CSB)22 “But, Jacob, you have not called on me, because, Israel, you have become weary of me. 23 You have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings or honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings or wearied you with incense. 24 You have not bought me aromatic cane with silver, or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins; you have wearied me with your iniquities.

I am going to do these great things; I have already done great things in your life. I love you with an everlasting love. But God is always honest with us. God is always loving; He lovingly convicts us of our sin. He will not gloss over the sin and junk in our lives. 

But He says, here is what hurts me though. You have gotten tired of me, you don’t come to me with your problems, I would have helped. You don’t talk to me anymore; you don’t tell me when you are tempted and week. 

Where is the praise that you used to give me? But you don’t talk to me anymore. You are so busy with life, not that I don’t love you, not that I don’t want to bless you, but you don’t come to me anymore.  

You see Israel already had the knowledge. They knew How God had done so much for them. They had the knowledge of the law and how to have a relationship with God. 

The problem was that they stopped seeking the face of God, they stopped calling on the Lord. There where generations who had the knowledge but that was it. But you have stopped calling on me God said. 

misconceptions in Christianity. 

God was going to do great things in the midst of the people of Israel. There would come a day when the people would come to know God through their lives because they were seeking an intimate relationship with Him and people would notice. 

There will come a day when they would honor God in front of the whole world but first, they had to have that relationship. 

This leads to some misconceptions in the pursuit of knowing Jesus more in the church. We deal with this quite often unfortunately. 

It is by thinking that because of all the knowledge you have, it will produce holiness and a Christlike life in you. 

The filling of your head with knowledge is not necessarily a bad thing. It is good to seek to know more about the things that we face in the world. 

As we have been learning the this is not good enough to just fill your head with knowledge. But if you think that knowledge, or the pursuit of it will draw you closer to God then you are mistaken. 

The 2nd misconception is – Just because God promised something that automatically means he will do it even if do not seek to have a relationship with Him first. 

. We quote the saying “I know the plan I have for you, plans to prosper” but we think we can go through our lives ignoring God and His plans to bless us and work in us will still come to pass. 

This will not happen in your life unless you Know God. Quote scripture all you want but it will not help. 

I was once having a discussion with a fellow pastor about a passage of scripture. Using the knowledge, I had on the passage to explain the meaning behind the passage. 

He then proceeded to explain to me that I was so focused on the small details that I was missing the point of the passage that God was trying to get across. 

Now my knowledge of the passage was not necessarily wrong, nor was my pursuit of trying to figure out all those small details. But in doing that I missed out on what truly God was trying to tell me. 

My focus was not really on knowing Jesus and what He was trying to teach me through the scriptures. 

The pursuit of Knowledge in itself is not necessarily going to draw us closer to God. The Israelites where pursuing everything but the God that saved them. They where no longer calling on the Lord. 

If you are pursuing knowledge in itself, it is not going to get you anywhere. Knowledge or the pursuit of doing anything other then calling on the name of the Lord to be saved will not make you are Christian. 

What we need to do first of all is seek to have an intimate relationship with Jesus. Do you claim to know Jesus? Then seek His face. Do you claim to be Christian then to truly know Jesus means we will call on His name and live our lives completely for Him?

So What?

Why does this matter? To know Jesus means that we will seek His face. That is to have an intimate relationship with Jesus. 

Like when you have a conversation with someone and you stare into their eyes, being a Christian means that we will have that level of intimacy with our Lord and savior. 

To know Jesus, to have eternal life, having faith in Jesus means that we will seek Him in all that we do. 

The misconception that says the pursuit of knowledge, just knowing who Jesus is, knowing what the bible says, doing good things is enough to produce Holiness in our lives. 

We need to seek Jesus to the point of having an intimate relationship with Him. To often I hear of people that Have gone to church for many years but never actually pursued Jesus in a relationship. For them it was just going through the motions 

Great things, and trials as well await those who seek the face of God. We don’t do all of these things because we are legalistic, we do this because God says “if you love me, if you want to draw closer to me, if you want to be a part of the promises I have for you, you need to seek me. I love you, seek my face”. 

Unless we gather together in prayer, how will we know what God is going to do in our lives. Unless we are seeking the face of God through prayer and through the word, how can we truly say we know Him. All we know him as is an acquaintance. 

This is not just talking to God before we go to bed either, there needs to be way more to life then this. How can we say we are standing on the word of the Lord unless we are coming to God with all things in our life? 

To grow in God means that we will be producing fruit. To produce fruit then means that we will be seeking that face of God in all that we do.

 This goes beyond just knowledge but truly knowing Jesus as we have been learning. This means seeking the face of God beyond just a cursory glance at the scriptures. 

The person that is living according to the two misconceptions that we talked about is not going to produce fruit of the spirit, and even if they can pretend it isn’t going to last for very long and the charade will be dropped as soon as they are by themselves or in their comfortable place. . The fruit of the spirit in someone life is a sign that they are truly seeking God. 

The only way this is going to happen in our lives is if we are actually spending time with God. 

Think of it this way. When hunting when I walk around, I look for deer far away. To do this I keep my eyes open for movement or things that don’t look like they belong. This way I can usually spot deer a few hundred yards away. 

But when I do see something that may be a deer that far away, I have to find a way to bring it closer to myself so I can actually see what it is. Usually that is where binoculars or sneaking closer comes into play. 

To seek the face of someone you need to get closer to them so you can actually see the person. To truly know what it means to Know God in all the ways that we have discussed we need to seek His face, and we seek His face by drawing close to Him. 

How much of your life will change if you commit to spending this time seeking the face of the Lord? Only God will heal your heart, in His presence alone there is peace and healing for our lives.