Merritt, Ashcroft, Cawston, Winfield Title: God Pursues
Scripture: Psalm 139: 17-18, How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can't even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, You are still with me!
When my husband George was a little boy, he loved to wear his Father’s boots. Of course the boots were huge on his feet, but it gave George such a good feeling. One day George did something wrong; Father got upset. George did not want to be punished, so he ran. Father chased while George was wearing his big boots. That slowed George down, so he got out of the big boots then ran barefoot down the street. Father kept chasing, but he could not catch him. George was a fast runner. Finally Father gave up running after him and said, “Just wait till you come home!” He turned around and went back to the house. George remembers to this day, he was SO scared he stayed away as long as he possibly could. When we do something wrong, do we feel like running and hiding?
When Adam and Eve disobeyed, their gut reaction was fear of God and shame of their nakedness. When God came to spend time as He always did, they hid. Sin tricks us into believing God is not Someone to be a friend of, but Someone to be afraid of, not Someone to run to, but Someone to run from. Sin has poisonous, guilty fear. When we sin, God does not move away from us; we move away from Him. Isaiah 59:2, Your iniquities have separated you from your God. But God comes calling! His first words after man’s sin are Genesis 3:9, "Where are you?" Not words of condemnation, but of seeking. God does not accuse or blame them.
Instead of leaving them in their junk saying, “You made this mess; you figure it out,” God made them animal skins. In Tokyo, a bull going for slaughter escaped. 1,300 pound bull bolted down the gangplank past port police; 20 men chased it through city traffic, herding it into parking lot of a five star hotel. Police roped the bull's horns, tied it to a tree, then the owner transported it. The animal God killed for Adam and Eve pointed to Jesus Who WILLINGLY died in our place.
Cain sacrificed his own fruit and it was not sufficient. Young's Literal Translation is closest to original Bible meaning. God says to Cain in Genesis 4:7, “Is there not, if thou dost well, acceptance? and if thou dost not well, at the opening a sin-offering is crouching, and unto thee its desire, and thou rulest over it.” God tells Cain, "A sin-offering lies at your door; a proper animal to be offered as sacrifice for sin is available crouching at your door.” Young’s Literal translation opened my eyes to what God is really like. God was NOT out to get Cain for his sin, but provide a sin-offering for Cain. God is not out to condemn but save us.
Cain was wrong not to bring a sheep to sacrifice, but God tells Cain salvation was still available; God put a sin-offering crouching at Cain’s door. Sin doesn’t crouch. Clarke’s Bible Commentary: crouching is lying down of a quadruped which is a four legged animal. God is saying, “I provided an animal at the door. You shall rule over it, just go and sacrifice it.” How many perish, not because we lack a Savior willing to save, but because we do not accept the sin-offering God provides at our very door! Jesus says, “I stand at the door and knock.”
When God called Jonah to go to Assyria, Jonah ran away! A little boy came downstairs crying late one night. “What’s wrong?” asked mother. “Do people really come from dust, like they said in church?” he sobbed. “In a way they do,” said mother. “And when they die do they turn back to dust?” “Yes, they do.” The little boy cried, “Well, under my bed there’s someone either coming or going!”
Jonah was going far from God. While on the boat a storm came up. Jonah the prophet showed no thought of God, no prayers and wanted to destroy himself. While pagan sailors prayed making sacrifices to God and wanted to preserve Jonah’s life. Yet God pursued Jonah. “Engulfing waters of the deep surrounded me; seaweed wrapped around my head. But You, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit.” God pursued Jonah to depths of the sea. Have you been so deep you thought there was NO way out? God pursues even when we hit bottom!
God’s mercy for Nineveh was a big problem for Jonah. He cared more about a plant, his own comfort, how he looked if Nineveh was not destroyed than about people. In running away from God, WE are Jonah. But God pursues even when we run away. Book of Jonah is just 1 chapter about Nineveh and 3 chapters how God pursues Jonah. God doesn’t need Jonah! He could send someone else! But Jonah needs to experience grace. God pursues faithless, fickle Jonahs like us.
We are running scared people would not love us if they knew what real hang-ups we have. The story of the prodigal is really about FATHER waiting. Lost coin is really about the woman who kept seeking. Lost sheep is about the SHEPHERD seeking. God’s unrelenting love for prodigal sons! Oh Love that will not let me go! We think we are the ones who found God, but God found us. 99 obedient sheep, why search for one that wanders? God knows our longings, weakness, hurts, how we need rescue to a safe place. Children love to be captured in a game of tag. Chased, pursued, found by God.
SONG: WHEN GOD RAN
God told Hosea to pursue Gomer as a wife. They had 3 children. Hosea named the oldest Jezreel saying, "The captain was false to his master, whom he should have loved." Hosea named his daughter "No pity" saying, "How can I look any longer with pity on my wife’s conduct?" Last little boy Hosea named "Not my people, for my wife separated herself from me by evil ways." Hosea’s wife left him to run around. All he heard was bad. Her first friends deserted her; she was with worse, then worse still. He heard she lost her beauty. His neighbor said, "I saw your wife this morning in the slave market. She is rejected by all; last of her companions is selling her as a slave."
Hosea 3:1, Then the Lord said to me, "Go and love your wife again, even though she commits adultery with another lover. This will illustrate the Lord STILL loves Israel, even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them." Immediately Hosea went and bought her back. He paid for her with silver and barley. He took her back to the home she abandoned. And the little children came and hugged their mother. God is good but we didn’t believe it! We believe God’s love is less constant than we are, that He’s less forgiving than we are.
God loves His people in spite of our sins. Romans 9: 24-25, Even us God called both from Jews and Gentiles. As He says in Hosea, “They will be named my people who were not my people, and she will be loved who was not loved.” An honest seven-year-old admitted calmly to her parents that Billy Brown kissed her after school. "How did that happen?" gasped mother. "It wasn’t easy," said the daughter, "but three girls helped me catch him!" God loved us first.
After Peter denied Jesus, I thought he and God were over, yet Jesus pursues and draws back the betrayer. God isn’t surprised we fail: Jesus knew Peter. It doesn’t matter how fast we run; God is pursuing us.
A man was driving along when he noticed a chicken running beside his car. Glancing at his speedometer, he was doing 50 miles an hour. He hit 60 but the chicken kept up! Then the man noticed the chicken had three legs. Very curious, he followed the chicken to a farm where all chickens had three legs. He asked the farmer, "What's up with these three legged chickens?"
The farmer said, "Whenever we have chicken for dinner, my family fights over the legs, so I bred a three-legged bird. It's going to make me rich."
"How do they taste?" the man asked.
The farmer said, “I don't know yet. I haven't been able to catch one!” So stop running, because God wants a relationship with YOU.
SONG: SAY I DO
God strives after His people with mighty abandon, in the same way Jesus went after the lost. God’s amazing grace is that we are so loved! We offend and sometimes our behavior stinks. Yet God pursues through our wrong turns, dead ends, back alleys and garbage dumps of life. Do you know when God loved you? Ephesians 2:1 says when we were dead in our transgressions. It was when we were dead with the stink of sin. God did not need to love a nice person who goes to church all dressed up every week. He loved a dead corpse in all its filth! We see God pursue us skunks - but in reality we were dead skunks - that is how God loves!
After police pulled over Kevin Temple, 35, in a routine traffic stop in Bronson, Florida, a police dog sniffing the trunk became agitated. In the trunk and back seat, cops found live animals: 48 rattlesnakes, a Gila monster, 45 non-poisonous snakes, 67 scorpions, several tarantulas, small lizards, and one parrot. Mr. Temple said they were his pets that he loves and was taking them for an outing. God loves the worst offender, as Apostle Paul said, “chief of sinners.”
God’s love pursued though we were helpless, hopeless, lost, dead in sin. Exodus 19:4, "You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself." God freed Israel from horrible slavery to have fellowship with them. Instead they grumbled, and wanted God's blessings rather than His presence. Israelites were NOT a better people than Egyptians, but God rescued them. God said, “Let’s go into the Promised Land,” and they said NO to God out of fear of some giants. They could have gone into the Promised Land, they did not want to, they did not choose to, they would not go.
Isaiah 65:1, I revealed Myself to those who did not ask for Me; I was found by those who did not seek Me. To a nation that did not call on My name, I said, “Here am I, behold Me.” Psalm 23:6, “Surely Your goodness and unfailing love will PURSUE me all the days of my life.” Bible Commentary: “Foes are pursuing David, but God’s favour shall pursue and drive his present pursuers out of the field.” God’s goodness and mercy will pursue us, follow us, hunt for us, chase us! God’s mercy will hunt you down, come after you, pursue you, keep seeking you.
Some of us focus on unpardonable sin instead of on Jesus. Parents, when your children grieve you, do you just throw them away or do you pray and weep for them even more? If humans love this much, how much does God’s Spirit NEVER leave nor forsake?
SONG: MERCY SAID NO
How many Christians live their lives thinking God is ready to abandon us like a "dead beat" Dad? How many see Him ready to punish when we spill the milk? Nothing can separate us from His love, Romans 8:39. All WE see and do is conditional. One native said to the missionary, "We always believed in God. But we thought by now He was so disgusted with us, He left us to fend for ourselves." Who is man - who are we - that God cares and pursues us?
Michael J. Schmidt, 29, set up a hidden video camera at his home in Wisconsin, because he was burglarized and wanted to catch culprits in the act! The burglars came back and were captured on tape, which Schmidt turned over to the sheriff. Now among items the thieves took from Schmidt's house was 8 marijuana plants. So Schmidt also ended up being caught!
God came to earth pursuing broken humanity. Would you be willing to go out of your way for a madman? Mark 5:2-5, "A man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet Jesus. This man lived in tombs; no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. He tore chains apart and broke irons on his feet. Night and day among the tombs and hills, he’d cry out and cut himself with stones." Jesus went out of His way for THIS man "across the lake to region of the Gerasenes," Mark 5:1. His only purpose was to meet this madman and heal him so he sat next to Jesus, sane of mind. Only after his deliverance, Jesus "again crossed over by boat". No other errands and no one else there was healed. In fact, people were scared of Jesus and begged Him to leave! If Jesus would take such a long detour for one man, then you are THAT important to God!
Yet we’re satisfied with just enough religion to look proper but avoid relationship with God. A little girl was playing in the garden when she saw two spiders acting strange, "Daddy, what are those two spiders doing?" Father replied, "They are mating." "Now why is one eating the other one up?" she asked. "That’s a black widow spider," father said. The little girl thought a moment, then took her foot and stomped down on it very hard, "Well, we’re not having any of THAT in our garden!" Did God stomp us when we messed up in the garden?
I remember times I didn’t dare touch God’s love, even though I went to church. Yet He goes out of His way to find you and me. I hide because I mess up. I have eaten the fruit, I fear to face Him, but when I hide, He pursues to bring me back to His love! I want to walk with God in the garden again. Do you?
SONG: SOMEBODY TOUCHED ME