Oakbrook Evangelical Free Church

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Isaiah 55:6-9 ““Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; “let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” ESV

Introduction:
My aim and my prayer in this message is that you would seek the Lord this morning.

Believers need to seek the Lord continually to remain in the love of God (Jude 21). We need to seek the Lord lest you miss his special help and guidance and blessing.

Unbelievers need to seek the Lord decisively that you may be saved (Rom. 10:13).Some need to seek the Lord so that you won’t be left in the hardness of unbelief and destruction.

The message has two parts: First, I want to show you from the Word of God in Isaiah what it means to seek the Lord; and then, second, I want to show you from God’s Word why you should want to seek the Lord?
1. WHAT DOES IT MEANS TO SEEK THE LORD?
A. Call on Him
If you set yourself to seek the Lord this morning, or in the stillness of the night, when you are alone or when you are in a crowd of people. The first thing you will do is call on the Lord. The religious word for this is “pray”.

Psalm 88:1-2 “O Lord, God of my salvation; I cry out day and night before you. “Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry!” ESV

Some people feel that they can’t pray. They feel that it takes a lot of Bible knowledge to know how to say things just right. Or that you have to have a personal relationship with God before you can pray. So the word “pray” is a barrier for some people.

But the word “prayer” is not used here. The word is “call”! And that is part of our everyday life. We call the doctor or the pharmacy or the mechanic or a friend or family member on the phone.
The first thing we do to seek the Lord is call to him.

Jeremiah 33:3 “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” ESV

1 Samuel 1:10-11 “She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. “And she vowed a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.”” ESV

Exodus 2:23 “During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.” ESV

Psalm 18:6 “In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.” ESV

Psalm 34:6 “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.” ESV

Psalm 88:1 “O Lord, God of my salvation; I cry out day and night before you.” ESV

“O God, help me!”
“God, if you are really there, show me!”
“O God, I need you, come and save me, forgive me, make me new.” “Father, I need your guidance, show me the way to go.”

B. To Seek the Lord means to turn to Him away from sin

Isaiah 55:7 “let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” ESV

If we take seriously the positive side of seeking God that seeking God means that we can call on Him any time, any place and he will answer us, then

We have to take seriously the negative side of turning from behaviors and thoughts that offend him. We can’t seek God and hand onto sin or plan sin at the same time.

If we call out to God and he answers us, one of the first things that happens is that God awakens our conscience to something in our lives we need to let go of. If God answers your call in that way and you refuse to let go of what your conscience knows is wrong, then you are no longer seeking God, and your words become empty. You can’t seek God where he is not found, in sin.

There is an incongruence or disharmony between what you say you desire and what you are doing in your heart and behavior.

Seeking God means making many decisions over and over to do what you have to do to let go of sin in order to turn to God.

1 Thessalonians 1:9 “For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,” ESV

2 Corinthians 3:16 “But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.” ESV

1 Timothy 1:6 “For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, ” NASB95

1 Timothy 5:15 “for some have already turned aside to follow Satan. ”

2 Timothy 4:4 “and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. ” NASB95

James 4:2-8 “You do not have because you do not ask. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. “Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? “But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ” NASB95

C. To seek the Lord means to ask Him for guidance and trust him rather than human wisdom

Isaiah 31:1 “Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help And rely on horses, And trust in chariots because they are many And in horsemen because they are very strong, But they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the Lord! ” NASB95

How many times have we faced decisions and made them without seeking the Lord’s counsel at all. Seeking the Lord means pausing before we make a decision and looking to God in your heart and waiting to see how he might lead.

James 1:5-8 “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. “But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. “For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, “being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. ”

Illustration from George Muller, the praying saint who founded orphanages in England in the last century.

I never remember in all my Christian course, a period now 69 years and four monthgs, that I ever sincerely and patiently sought to know the will of God by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, through the instrumentality of the Word of God, but I have always been directed rightly. But if honesty of heart and uprightness before God were lacking, or if I did not patiently wait upon God for instruction, or if I preferred the counsel of my fellownen to the declarations of the Word of the living God, I made great mistakes. (in Wesley Duewel, Let God Guide You Daily, p. 62)

Zechariah 4:6 “Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts. ” NASB95

Psalm 20:7 “Some boast in chariots and some in horses, But we will boast in the name of the Lord, our God. ” NASB95

Jeremiah 9:24 “but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord. ” NASB95

Psalm 84:5 “How blessed is the man whose strength is in You, In whose heart are the highways to Zion! ” NASB95

II. WHY SHOULD YOU WANT TO SEEK THE LORD?

A. Because His ways are higher

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” ESV

Many things are a mystery to us.
Many things confuse and surprise and grieve and discourage us.

But there is a bigger picture.

Romans 8:28

And it is only as we seek Him that our we can close the gap between what we think and feel toward the mind of Christ.

We do not think like God.
We do not act like God.

B. To find mercy and grace and pardon
Romans 10:13 “for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” ” NASB95
1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ”

C. To find Him while He may be found
There is a window of opportunity. And you do not know when it will shut. It is open this morning. We know it is because the the Word of God is being heard. And the Spirit is here in answer to many prayers.

2 Peter 3:8f