Pursuing God: Presence Over Performance

 

 

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I want to start by continuing what we did last week. Last week was Resurrection Sunday, Easter Sunday, and if you weren’t here, it was great. And this is the response—remember this: He is risen!

Yes, He is risen. Yes.

So, Easter season—do you know how long Easter lasts? You know that Easter is not over in the church calendar. Did you know this? Lent, which we spent 40 days on—this Lenten journey, conscious and aware of our dependency on God, on the sin that so easily entangles us in the world—that’s 40 days.

As we journey with Jesus… The season of Easter is 50 days—50 days to live in light of the resurrection, conscious awareness of the fact that God is risen. He is risen indeed, as we said last week. Because Christ has risen, we are dead to our sin and fully alive to love—fully alive to the love of God, to the love that we can share between one another, to the love that we have in all creation.

This idea of peace—shalom—wholeness in all directions. This is what we were created for. And in light of this, that we are alive, we want to talk about our vision statement that, as you listened to the Lord for several months, as we came together over multiple what we call Summits, we got clear on what God is inviting Foothills into in this season.

We looked at—we created a vision statement, hopefully rooted and grounded in Scripture, but also in what God is doing in this moment, in this time, with this people, in this place. And so here it is:

Together: pursuing God and reflecting the light of Jesus.  To see: burdens shared, joys multiplied, and love bridging differences.

Can you imagine a world in which this occurs? A world in which burdens are shared, in which joys are multiplied, amplified, and where difference—there’s so much difference in the world—causes so much conflict, violence, pain, suffering. What if those differences were bridged by the love of God as we pursue God and reflect the light of Jesus?

So we’re going to walk through this. What does it mean? What is God inviting us into? Today we’re going to look at pursuing God.

I, as many of you know—maybe not all of you know—I pastor another church that meets in the afternoons. And we had the privilege of baptizing a brand-new believer in Jesus. He had never, ever been to church just about eight weeks ago and walked into our life and met Jesus.

And it’s been beautiful. He got baptized last week on Easter Sunday at our church. And on Monday morning, he texted me and said, “There’s a concert I was thinking about going to. It’s this heavy metal band I love, and I was thinking about going, but they’re not Christian. I’m thinking I shouldn’t go. Thoughts?”

Okay—how would you respond to that text message? Would you ask which band it is? Ask for a copy of their lyrics? What would you do?

This is how I responded. He is learning, right? He’s exploring what it means to be a Christian, what it means to follow Jesus. He’s trying to understand what he thought maybe were the rules—the yeses and the no’s, the do’s and don’ts, the behaviors that are appropriate. He wants to do right. He wants to please God. He wants to walk in righteousness. And I love it.

So here’s my response to him. I said:

Here’s the question. It’s not really a question of “should you” or “shouldn’t you.” It’s not a question of whether it’s Christian or not Christian. You might disagree with me, but here’s the question I would ask:

Will it stir love for God and for others in you?

Will going to this concert—this event—stir up, wake up, love for God and for others in you? Or will it stifle it? Will it subdue it? Will it shrink it?

To follow Jesus is much more than just following rules. It’s about living in love. It’s about living in relationship with God. And that’s dynamic. That depends on where you are, who you are, what you’re going through, what this particular thing will do in you, and how it will serve love.

How will it make you alive to the love that God has stirred up in you?

So that’s the question: Does it produce in you love, joy, peace, patience, kindness?

Look—I am inspired to love and to joy and to peace and a longing to serve the world by Christian artists and non-Christian artists, by Christian movies and non-Christian movies, by themes of joy and happiness and love, and very dark movies and art that stir in me a desire to see a broken world be mended. Joy is multiplied.

So the question is not about do’s and don’ts, but about—it centers around love. We are looking for rules. God is looking for relationship.

All right, as human beings, we want rules. We want to know very clearly. But God is like, “No, we’re going to talk about this. We’re moving together. We’re at work in the world. This is about relationship.”

So here we are—we’re pursuing God. If it’s understood, Foothills, as performance—rule-keeping, a list of do’s and don’ts, behaviors—if that’s what we consider pursuing God, it will lead to death. It will lead to a legalism that will stifle joy, that will not share burdens, that will actually multiply pain and increase divides. It’ll have the opposite effect.

So how we pursue God matters. How we define pursuing God matters.

Our pursuit of God is about being free from performance and alive to presence.

Okay—that’s alliteration. That’s pretty cool, right? Good preaching there.

We’re free from performance, alive to God’s presence; free from rules, invited into relationship—a living, dynamic relationship.

There’s lyrics from a song—we’ll listen to it a little later—it’s called “Happily Hidden” by Pat Barrett. I want you to… let’s read these lyrics together. I think it describes our condition as human beings—our desire to be seen and to be known.

It says:

“We beg for attention, someone to see who we really are,
caught in the system, using each other to get what we want.
The lust for approval, using the spotlight just like a drug,
makes you feel noticed and valued, forgotten and used—
the counterfeit to love.

Let Him be your hiding place.
Let Him be your joy.
Let Him be your audience.
Let Him be it all.
Happily hidden, happily with Him.

We’re like little commercials, trying to sell everyone ourselves,
like marketing billboards, trying to catch every eye that we can.
You can feel the imposter wanting to be the one who’s seen.
Are we feeding a monster and still wondering why we’re not free?

Let Him be your hiding place.
Let Him be your joy.
Let Him be your audience.
Let Him be it all.
Be happily hidden, happily with Him.”

Can you feel the desperation for an audience—a desperation to be seen? Can you resonate with this in your life? This need to be your own commercial, to sell yourself to people, to be seen in a certain light?

And the endless hamster wheel, right—the exhaustion that comes from trying to get people’s approval, trying to get belonging, trying to get significance, trying to get security, trying to feel safe, trying to feel like we belong—performing, performing, performing.

Performing for God, performing for others, performing for ourselves so that we feel safe.

And can you feel the relief? Like, what if you responded to the invitation of Jesus who says, “Come to Me,” right? “All who are weary and heavy laden, and I’ll give you rest. Come and learn from Me. My way is gentle. Come.”

Come be happily hidden. Be with Me. Receive from Me.

We’re desperate for that—and we can have it. All—everything that we desire—in relationship with God. This is what pursuing God is.

When we say, as Foothills Fellowship, we are people that pursue God, this is what we’re talking about: presence, not performance. Being with God who loves us.

So let’s unpack a couple aspects of this as I see it.

First: pursuing God is what you were made for.

As we talked about last week—what were you made for? What is the direction, the end destination of your life? Do you remember? It’s a four-letter word. It starts with an “L.”

Love. Love, right?

And we don’t—we define love—it’s not just the love that the Beatles are talking about. It’s the love that looks like Jesus. It’s the love that is defined and lived out and exercised by Jesus. It’s the love—the self-sacrificial, other-centered, non-coercive, non-controlling, non-manipulative, unconditional, unbreaking love of God revealed in Jesus on a cross.

That’s the love we’re talking about. And that’s what your life was made for, designed for. You are meant to find your life in the life and love of God.

God is love, and He invites you into a loving relationship with Him and with His people.

So you were made to love and to be loved by God. That’s what this is all about. This is about communion with God.

So when we use the word “pursue”—to pursue God—I think it’s describing a journey back into union with God. What we lost at Eden.

To pursue God is to return to where we were meant to always be, and that is in the presence of God. To pursue God is to return to loving relationship for which we were designed.

The psalmist describes this pursuit as a deep thirst.

Have you ever been thirsty? I’m really thirsty right now, actually—I’m going to take a drink of water. But have you been thirsty? When you’re really thirsty, it’s all you can think about. Your mouth is dry, right? And if you let it go too long—I get a headache. Do you get a headache from dehydration?

I feel like my kids have headaches all the time. I’m like, “Did you drink water?” “No.” “Okay, let’s start there.”

Our bodies long for it.

So the psalmist uses the imagery of thirst: “As the deer pants for streams of water…”

Did you know an elephant can sense water—don’t quote me on this—like 30 to 100 miles? It’s in that range. It’s impressive. We’ll go with the lower number—30 miles is still impressive. And that’s what they do—they’re just pursuing water, sensing it out.

So my soul pants for You, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

“You, God, are my God.” This is Psalm 63. “Earnestly I seek You. I pursue You. I thirst for You. My whole being longs for You in a dry and parched land where there is no water.”

Can you hear that? The imagery of thirst—it’s a deeply biological metaphor. It’s playing on what we need as humans to survive.

You can go days and weeks without food. You can only go a few days without water. And your body will cry out for it almost immediately. As soon as you sense dehydration, you’ll get a headache, you’ll shrivel up, you’ll start to experience hallucinations, you’ll get weak.

You need water to survive. We can’t live without it.

So “my whole being longs for You.” This is our longing. This is what we need. This is talking about something so basic to our survival as human beings.

We need to be in relationship with God like our bodies need water—to enjoy God’s presence.

So to say we are pursuing God together is to say we are about the most important thing as a church. We are about the most important thing, and that is to be and to enjoy and to live in the presence of God—in loving relationship with the God of the universe who made us, created us, died for us, lives for us, invites us.

To pursue God is to pursue healing of the deepest wounds that we have. To pursue God is to pursue forgiveness of our deepest betrayals and failures to love. To pursue God is to pursue the peace and joy we long to experience as human beings—the fulfillment, the belonging, the security, the significance.

To pursue God is to find—to return home—to be at home in the loving presence of God where we were created to live, and to share that life in the love of God.

So that’s pursuing God.

Now, this is where it gets a little odd. Pursuing God is becoming awake to God who is already present.

Look, I find that this idea of pursuing God—and it’s in the Scriptures, I don’t think we should change it—but let’s just think about this. It’s kind of an oxymoron. It’s a bit of a paradox, actually, to pursue God.

Why is it an oxymoron?

Because pursuing God… and this is actually really, really good news… the reason why is you can’t pursue someone who is already always and forever present. You can’t pursue someone who’s already there.

He’s there.

You don’t have to go looking for God, because He is closer than you could ever imagine. He never left you. He never left you. You might have left Him, but let me tell you—you actually can’t leave God. I don’t believe that.

He is always and forever present. There is nothing that can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. There is nowhere we can go apart from His presence. He is not absent—He is near. He is not far from anyone.

This is a repeated theme in Scripture.

Just start with creation. Can we go all the way to the beginning? God created the world. He said, “Let there be light,” and there is light. And He goes on.

On the sixth day, He creates humanity. On the seventh day—I love this—what happens on the Sabbath? He rests. He invites humanity and all creation to be in relationship, to enjoy the good creation that God made, to enjoy the very presence of God for which this world was made.

This is a dwelling place for God, in which we dwell with God. This is what we were made for.

Of course, very quickly we break that. We break that fellowship. We break that relationship. We cease to love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that relationship—that connection—is severed.

But does God leave?

I don’t think He does.

Let’s look at Acts. I’m going to read a few verses leading up to this. In Acts 17, Paul is talking in Athens—this awesome sermon to people who’ve never heard of Jesus. And he speaks of God. He says:

“God is not served by human hands as if He needed anything. Rather, He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man, He made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth, and He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their land.”

Verse 27: “God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him—though He is not far from any one of us.”

“For in Him we live and move and have our being.”

Right now, God is present. Right now, as you breathe air into your lungs, you breathe the very presence of God.

Right now, God is present. We live and breathe and have our being. The thoughts you’re having right now, the breakfast you had this morning, the lunch you’ll go have—this is all in the presence of God.

Psalm 139—very famous, another classic:

“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there. If I make my bed in the depths, You are there. Even there, Your hand will guide me. Your right hand will hold me fast.”

God is not distant.

So we pursue a God who is already present.

So the issue is our alertness to His presence—our awareness of His presence.

So—TJ, come here. This is cheesy illustration time. You guys ready? Let’s try it.

Hopefully it’ll lock it in.

All right, so TJ is a man, just like any one of us—a human being looking for meaning, looking for purpose, looking for healing, looking for joy, looking for contentment.

And I am, for this case, God. Okay, I’m Jesus—don’t quote me, don’t take it out of context—but here I am. He’s looking, and here I am.

All right, okay, so now when we leave—God, keep going. Yeah, like I’m just here.

Now he is unaware. He’s looking for everything, but if he stops and waits and becomes aware—I’m here, right?

If he’s in his sin, walking away from me, I don’t turn my back on him. I don’t go the other way. I am always—Jesus is always there. He’s ready if we will embrace.

God is always near.

Thank you—give him a hand.

I think we get this idea of pursuit as if God is far away because of our sin, or distant because of His dissatisfaction with us or His displeasure with us. That is not the story that Jesus paints.

It’s a story of God’s always-forever commitment to be present with us no matter what.

And He leads us in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. In green pastures and still waters, in the valley of the shadow of death, if we’re at a table with enemies—He is there, preparing a table for us.

He is there with us. His love will follow us all of our days.

This is all throughout Scripture: the presence of Jesus is always with us.

So to pursue God is to become aware and awake to His presence that never left—to His love that is always there and always available.

And all we have to do is realize:

“I’m looking for satisfaction. I’m looking for belonging. I’m looking for security. I’m looking for love. I’m looking for forgiveness. I’m looking for healing.”

And we’re looking for it in our work, in our relationships, in our food, in our shopping on Amazon or whatever.

And Jesus is right there—shopping with us, eating with us.

And if we’ll just stop for a minute:

“God, where are You?”

“Oh—you’re right there.”

And we receive the presence of God that has always been available to us.

But that’s pursuit. It’s a paradox. It doesn’t really mean what we think it means.

Like The Princess Bride—“I don’t think that word means what you think it means.” Remember that? No? Okay—deep cut there.

Okay, this leads us to a third concept around the pursuit of God. And again, this is related to His ever-present presence. This is that God pursues us first.

Did you notice? I was just kind of with him. I’m not controlling. I’m not yanking him back with a leash. He’s not on a leash, TJ. I’m just there. I’m not coercive. I’m not controlling. I’m not manipulative. I’m not trying to jerk him around. I’m just there. I’m ready. I’m present. And I’m pursuing.

And we see this all throughout Scripture too—God pursues us. He takes the initiative.

It starts all the way at the beginning with creation. Did we create ourselves? We did not. God’s idea—out of perfect love. God did not need us, but God wanted us. And God creates us out of love, out of desire. He makes us. He forms us in His own image. In the image of God He made them. And He walks with them.

He takes the initiative there.

When humanity sins, rejects God, rejects His love, goes their own way, hides in the bushes—naked—what does God do? He goes and pursues them. He finds them. He clothes them. He makes a way.

When they go off into the wilderness and reject God—after being in slavery, enslaved by the Egyptians—what does God do? He goes into the belly of the beast. He rescues them. He leads them out.

The prophets call them out—call them back. Invite, invite, invite. Pursue, pursue, pursue.

God takes the initiative. He doesn’t wait. He goes. He’s always near us. He’s always pursuing us.

Here are some Scriptures:

Romans 5:8—this is ultimately revealed in Jesus, His ultimate pursuit, His final pursuit:
“God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

This is love.

1 John 4:10: “Not that we loved God, but that He loved us.”
And it goes on to say, “We love because He loved us first.”

God created you out of love. God pursues you in love. And God rescues you through Christ back into love. He’s pursuing us.

All right, finally:

Pursuing God is the way back to ourselves.

Our culture—and each one of us here—is trying to find ourselves. However you want to use that language: trying to find ourselves, trying to figure it out. What’s life? Who am I? Why do I matter? What’s the purpose?

And our culture, including church culture, in this present moment is extremely self-focused. We’re all very introspective. We’re all trying to figure out what went wrong in our childhood. “Why am I depressed? What’s the trauma?” We’re trying to unpack that.

And please don’t hear sarcasm there, because I think it’s very good and very necessary. I think it’s a response to many aspects of culture, including the church, that have shamed self-care and shamed getting help.

We’ve ignored self. We’ve mocked self-care. We’ve preached a kind of self-denial that has crushed human dignity.

And I think in this present moment, we’re reacting to all of that negative stuff. I just see my generation and younger being so extremely introspective. It’s all about care for yourself, love yourself, protect yourself—and that’s all that matters.

And I wonder—I’m increasingly wondering—have we overcorrected a little bit? Or is it a both/and? We need to work through this.

But maybe the solution to all the pain, anxiety, and depression we’re experiencing is not just a deep dive into ourselves. Maybe it’s a pursuit of God—outside of ourselves, or rather, near us.

Research—psychological research—is showing this. It shows that self-rumination, constant rehashing of negative emotions, leads to deeper anxiety, deeper depression, deeper emotional stagnation. We get into this loop.

So we need to go through it. Again, hear me clearly: I am not preaching against therapy. I am not preaching against going deep into trauma with a professional. Please do it.

But the solution isn’t found purely inside yourself. It is not found by overindulging in those negative emotions.

There’s a great reversal. I think Jesus, Scripture, and even science are pointing in the same direction:

We find ourselves—and our healing—by going beyond ourselves.

Now think about this: you go into yourself because you need to. You need to sort through the junk. But you go through yourself and out the other side.

We need to do the work—but we need to bring all of our experiences, all of our pain, all of our trauma, all of ourselves to God and allow God to do the work.

We find ourselves by going beyond ourselves.

Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you.”

James 4:8: “Come near to God, and He will draw near to you.”

Amos 5:4: “Seek Me and live.”

The great commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Paul says in Acts, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

The prayer of Saint Francis—I love it: we want to be understood, but instead we seek to understand; we want to be loved, but instead we love.

This is the way to life—an external focus outside of ourselves. And that’s where we find ourselves.

So I want to go full circle.

To pursue God is to look fully in the face of God as revealed in Jesus and be present with Him. And we will see ourselves rightly mirrored back in the face of God when we look into the face of God.

Now what will we see?

We’ll see that you are loved. You’ll see that you are forgiven. You’ll see that you are worthy. You’ll see that you were made in the image of God. You will see in God a delight that comes from your Creator that will fill you with joy and purpose and connection—and even power, a power to move into the world with great love.

I love this verse—I came across it this morning. Psalm 32:8—we don’t have a slide for it—but God says, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with My loving eye on you.”

Don’t you love that? God’s loving eye on you.

What’s the picture—the mental image—that you get when you think of how God sees you? Disgust? Disappointment? Is He petty?

What God wants you to see is a loving, affectionate smile that says, “I want you. You were made for a relationship with Me.”

Pursue Me. Pursue the God who is already present and alive. Become awake to that.

I want to give you a moment to sit with this.

If we could, I’m going to play the song that I went through the lyrics of, and you’ll see the lyrics again. Please just allow this song to stir in you and to be an invitation—to return to the presence of God that has never left.

You beg for attention,
someone to see who you really are,
caught in the system,
using each other to get what we lust for…

Using the spotlight just like a drug,
makes you feel noticed and bowed to—
God, name you the counterfeit to love…

Let Him be your hiding place.
Let Him be your joy.
Let Him be your audience.
Let Him be it all…

Happily hidden, happily with Him…

We’re like little commercials,
trying to sell everyone ourselves,
like marketing billboards,
trying to catch every eye that we can…

You can feel the imposter,
wanting to be the one who’s seen,
always feeding a monster
and still wondering why we’re not free…

Oh, let Him be your hiding place.
Let Him be your joy.
Let Him be your body—
and let Him be it all…

Let Him be our hiding place.
Let Him be your joy.
Let Him be your…
Let it be known…

Happily… with Him.

The Westminster Confession of Faith says, “The chief end of humanity is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

A popular preacher and theologian shifts this a little bit and says the way we glorify God is by enjoying Him forever—that it’s enjoying the presence of God for which we were created that makes us most fully alive.

As we talked about last week, Irenaeus says, “The glory of God is humanity fully alive.”

We’re invited to receive everything that we need in the presence and in the loving gaze of Jesus.

I just want to give you a couple invitations—ways that you could pursue God, be aware of His presence with you.

Number one: I would encourage you to dwell on His love for you. Spend some time in the quiet—in the evening, in the morning, when your home is still—and dwell on His love for you. Dwell on maybe a passage of Scripture—Psalm 103, Psalm 91, Jesus’ invitation to receive rest in Him.

Sit in God’s loving affection—His affectionate gaze, His smile. Receive it.

And process with God the images of God frowning and angry. Process it. Talk with God. It’s a relationship.

Remember Psalm 32:8: “I will counsel you with My loving eye on you.”

I love the woman at the well, right? Jesus tells her everything she’s ever done, and she can’t wait to tell everyone about Him: “Come and see the person who told me everything I ever did.”

To be confronted by Jesus is the best thing that could happen, because He does it so perfectly, so lovingly, with His loving eye on you.

Sit with Jesus. Let Him be near you. And do the work.

Again—be awake to God.

I’ve said this many times: Eugene Peterson says whenever we come to meet a person—we’re showing up to a conversation already in progress, and that conversation is between them and God.

God is always present and at work in our life, in the life of our children, in the life of the grocery store clerk. Our job is to be awake to the presence of God already at work.

How do we join with what God is already doing? Because He’s already present.

So practice being awake. Practice looking for how God is at work.

And then—you’re doing it today. Coming to gather for worship is a way to keep alert, to be reminded of the presence and the love of God as a community.

We pursue God together. We stir one another up in love and good deeds. We remind one another that God is here. We call one another back. We wake each other up as we fall asleep, unaware of the presence of God in our life.

So gather and worship.

And finally: love others. We’ll talk about that next week—reflecting the love of Jesus.

As we see ourselves fully in the face of God and realize we are fully loved, we are then truly free to love others, to forgive others.

And that’s what reflecting the love of God into the world means.