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GOD SEEKING

J.Renton

I just have an impression to speak to you this afternoon about God seeking. It is a wonderful thing, in fact it is an extraordinary thing, that God should be seeking. It is an unusual attitude on the part of the blessed God to be seeking persons. God who is all wise, all powerful, who sees and hears and knows everything, is seeking persons; that is remarkable. None of us would be blessed unless God was active in this attitude of seeking. We have read of the Son of man who has come to seek and save that which is lost. Think of man being lost! This is ridiculed by unbelieving scientific men around us in the world. Many educated men and women regard the description of the garden of Eden and man placed there and man's disobedience as a kind of fable. God placed man in the garden in order to get pleasure from him. Man was created for God's pleasure. There is a word in Revelation 4: "and for thy will they were, and they have been created" (v 11); that was God's purpose in creating men, but also, man has been lost because of the activities of Satan; the serpent in the garden instilled into the woman doubt as to God. The woman gave her ear to the serpent and Adam disobeyed; the serpent, cunningly, craftily got at man through the woman but both were involved in the fall. He suggested that God was not all Eve thought He was. The serpent succeeded in bringing a distance between man and God. It is an awful thing that God lost the confidence of man. No being has more right to man's confidence than God, but the serpent so intervened that man departed from confidence in God. That is where the distance came in, where the darkness came in, darkness and doubts as to God; such thoughts are in every human breast.

The gospel tells us that God is seeking the recovery of men and women and boys and girls. God is seeking the recovery of that which is lost, and in order to recover what was lost the Son of man has come. Various reasons are given in Scripture why the Lord came and why He went into death, and one of them is that "the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost". When Adam sinned, when the fall took place, God felt the loss far more than Adam did. It was God who said "where art thou?", Gen 3: 10. Adam never thought of saying regarding God, where art Thou? In fact, Adam and his wife were hiding themselves from God in the trees of the garden. You see thus the distance, the doubt as to God, the lack of confidence that the serpent was successful in instilling into the hearts of Adam and his wife. It was God who said "where art thou?"; it was God who felt the loss and it is God who is active in the recovery of that which was lost. By nature we are all lost, and if we have been found it is because of the activities of the Son of man, because He has come into manhood being in His Person God Himself. This morning those of us who broke bread worshipped the Lord Jesus because He is God. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God", John 1: 1. The Word became flesh but it never altered the fact that He is God. How wonderful to think of the greatness of the Saviour, the Son of man, the Lord Jesus Christ! He was pleased to become a Man to seek and to save that which was lost. It meant, dear friends, that men were at a distance from God, and if we are at a distance from God, that distance had to be gone into by the Saviour Himself. If you could measure what it cost the Lord Jesus to be abandoned by God you would get some idea of the moral distance that there was between our souls and God. O how awful the darkness! How hopeless man's position! No one could recover himself and no one could recover his brother. There was only One who could effect the basis of the recovery of men and that was the Son of man. We read of His suffering at the hands of men, but there was also His suffering at the hand of God, becoming the sin bearer that the distance might not only be bridged but removed. God is presenting glad tidings from the standpoint of reconciliation having been accomplished. When the Son of man was here amongst men the distance was in a sense removed because He came near to men; in manhood the Lord Jesus came near. He was available to everyone who had need; He was available for healing, for giving power, forgiving sins, for every human need. How remarkable that the Lord should come so near to men! But then He has sustained the abandonment, He has suffered the penalty of death, He has poured out His precious blood, He has been buried, that a righteous basis might be laid that men might be recovered. No one could be recovered apart from that tremendous work undertaken and completed by the Lord Jesus Christ. Every person needs a Saviour, every one who ever lived needs a Saviour. There is only One who did not need a Saviour and that was the Saviour Himself. There is only one Saviour; no matter what men say, there is only one Saviour; salvation is in none other. The Lord Jesus Christ raised from the dead by the glory of the Father and highly exalted is available as a Saviour. We might think it would have been simple to have been alive on the earth when the Lord was here and be able to touch Him as some persons did. The Lord Jesus personally touched certain persons and others touched Him. You might say how simple it would have been! But, dear friends, the Lord is more available where He is now as a Saviour than He was when He was here. The Lord moved in a very small area when He was here, geographically He covered very little ground, sixty miles I suppose from Galilee to Jerusalem, and if we were alive in this country we should have had to travel to Palestine; but you need not make any journey, you can contact the Lord where you are in this room, in your own room or wherever you may be at any time. The Lord is more available as Saviour in His present position than He was when He was here; He is available for all men. It calls for the exercise of faith; it is a matter of simply believing, simply trusting. We often speak about the Ephesians as being a remarkable company that lived in the time of the pristine glory of the assembly; how did they begin? You will find it in verse 13 of Ephesians 1: "the Christ; in whom ye also have trusted". They trusted the Saviour; that is how they began. O what a simple beginning! Paul was able to announce to them the whole counsel of God; they were ready to receive the fulness of the light of Christianity; but how did they begin? They trusted the Saviour. Just where you are, dear friend, you can lift up your heart and trust the Saviour. Maybe you are burdened with your sins; if you are you can lift up your heart to the Saviour where He is. In fact in the preaching of the glad tidings the Saviour comes near to you. In the Spirit's power the Saviour presents Himself to you. If you are as yet an unbeliever and have not trusted Him the preaching of the glad tidings is a difficult position for you to be in; you have to thrust Him away because the preacher presents the Saviour to you as available to you now at this moment where you are. If you are burdened with the sense of your guilt and your need of a Saviour, lift up your heart now and trust Him. You can tell the one who sits next to you, I trust in Jesus as my Saviour. It is the basis on which your sins are forgiven. The Lord Jesus is the One who has the administration of the divine bounty, of all the blessings that God has in mind in the glad tidings beginning with the forgiveness of sins. The Son of man has made possible the way in which we who are lost can be recovered, found. There is no other way.

Then there is the Lord seeking now. The Lord said to Zacchaeus "To-day salvation is come to this house, inasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost". The seeking is of that which was lost of the house of Abraham. While in one sense God is seeking in a universal way all men, there is a sense in which God is seeking certain persons, for the setting here of that which is lost is Zacchaeus and his house. In the glad tidings God is specific and particular and personal. While the glad tidings are available to all men, God speaks to individuals; He is speaking to you personally. The Lord is seeking Zacchaeus and his household. It is a good thing to take account of our households in that way; maybe some of our households are not all we would like them to be; let us think of the Lord seeking with a view to salvation. Reference was made this afternoon to the jailor: the word to him was "Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house", Acts 16: 31. If we realise that the Lord is seeking certain persons, then maybe we will be on that line of seeking too. The Lord is very gracious and very patient in His seeking; He is of course very faithful too. Joseph was sent out by his father to seek the welfare of his brethren, and someone asked him what his purpose was and he said "I am seeking my brethren", Gen 37: 15. Joseph acts with remarkable skill; he knows when to be firm and when to show grace. Joseph spoke roughly to them; that is, he was faithful with them, but he gave them their money back in their sacks; that was grace. What affected them more than the hard speaking was the fact that they received their money back; that upset them. We need to learn skill; sometimes we are hard when we should be gracious and sometimes we are gracious when we should be firm. Joseph was skilled; eventually he secured his brethren. It says "he kissed all his brethren" Gen 45: 15. What a fine conclusion! It is worthwhile setting ourselves to be with the Lord in His seeking and seek wisdom from Him to be faithful and yet to be gracious and secure the end He has in view.

Now in Luke 15 we have the woman seeking. She is suggestive of the Holy Spirit's activities. There is one drachma, one piece of silver, lost which was of great value to the woman. Maybe others would not think of it as of much value but this woman set her heart on the securing of this lost one. This lost drachma would no doubt suggest one who is a believer but not in circulation, not in function. If a piece of silver is yours and it is lost you may as well not have it, it is of no value until it is found. There may be many believers today who are not available for what the Spirit has in hand. It says "if she lose one drachma does not light a lamp". Light is needed; this coin is in darkness, maybe covered up with dust under some piece of furniture; the woman brings in light. Believers can be used by the Spirit to enlighten other believers. What a service we can render to fellow believers not available for what the Spirit has in mind, perhaps sitting at home! She lights a lamp and sweeps the house; she disturbs things, maybe sets some dust moving; the drachma may be covered up with dust; she sweeps the house and seeks carefully till she finds it. I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit is active at the moment in this kind of service, and He would look for some of us too to be more available to secure what God Himself values so much. It is a very homely kind of parable: it is a woman and her house. It is a house she would know well; she would know every bit of furniture and every corner of the house, just as the Spirit knows all about us, and if we are not available as we ought to be He is seeking. He would bring light through the glad tidings, and He would disturb our consciences so that we might be discovered. Then, see the rejoicing that comes in: "and having found it she calls together the friends and neighbours". It is a fine thing to be found. If the owner has lost something of great value, O think of the joy he has when he finds it! Have we all been found? As believers we could be lost as far as the present activity of the Spirit is concerned because the Spirit would bring us into the current and the power of what is for the pleasure of God at this present time. It says "Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma which I had lost. Thus, I say unto you, there is joy before the angels of God for one repenting sinner". The sweeping of the house and the seeking must affect the conscience because it brings about repentance as to the lost condition and of being out of circulation, and now there is recovery, a lost one is found. I trust we are all found; I trust we are all in the current operations of the Holy Spirit. There is blessing for the believer in being found and there is joy before the angels of God, joy in the presence of God when one is actually found.

Now John 4 shows that all is in view of the satisfaction of the Father. The glad tidings are meant to bring us into right relation with the Lord Jesus, into the possession and power of the Holy Spirit, and into right relations with the Father. This is the seeking of divine Persons not only for the blessing of the believer which is great and vast, but for the satisfaction of the heart of God Himself, the Father seeking such as His worshippers. Here was an unlikely person, as has often been said, this woman by the well of Sychar, a disreputable character possibly. It has been said that she came to the well when the other women would not come because she felt the reproach of her sinful history. She came there seeking water from the well, but there was the Lord Jesus seeking her in view of the satisfaction of the Father. What a privilege we have, dear friends, to be here for the satisfaction of the blessed Father Himself! That will be eternal. We are to be secured now as one of the true worshippers, and this will go into eternity. It says here "the hour is coming and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for also the Father seeks such as his worshippers". This is not formal worship; this is worship in spirit and in truth. "In truth" would be in the great light of Christianity, of revelation, of God's purpose and of God's thoughts. "In spirit" would be reality with us, not formality; not merely nominal but in spirit and truth. May the Lord help us to be persons who are not only sought but found, secured and fully recovered, for the glory and pleasure of God.

LOCHGELLY

11 September 1977

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