"God is Pursuing A Love Relationship with You"
Series: Experiencing God, by Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King
July 14, 2013

Introduction:  Last week Pastor Mike talked about how we can experience God by looking for where He is at work, and then join Him there. We can experience God by helping out those who are in need. We can experience God by seeking to know what His will is for our lives, and then living out the life to which He has called us. As we go through this Experiencing God series we see 7 realities that we are to walk through.

            I want you to know that God has created, you, and He has created me, to love and be loved. This sounds so basic, but until we really understand this truth, we will struggle through life. God created us to be in a love relationship with Him. God desires to be in a personal, loving relationship with you! God pours out His love to us, but He also calls us to respond by loving Him back. In fact, when Jesus talked about the two great commandments, He said in Matthew 22:37-38, “…‘You shall love the Lord your God will all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment.’”            LETS’S PRAY…

I.                   I love You with Everything- (John 14:15, 15:9-12; Matthew 23:23)

Would you describe your relationship to God as “I love you with all my

heart, soul, mind, and strength?” If you say yes, what might this look like? One way you show you love God is by being obedient to Him. Jesus said in John 14:15, “If you love Me, Keep My commandments.” Obedience is the outward way you show your love to God.

            A love relationship with God requires that we demonstrate our love through obedience. God has designed this world in a particular way, and the commands He gives is to help us live well. When we seek to be obedient, we are showing God that we trust Him and His ways. However, when we are obedient, we need to remember that we don’t just follow the letter of the law. What I mean by this is that you can seek to do things right, but have it not mean anything to you.

            For example- Maybe you hear a sermon on giving to the poor. You hear that God calls us to care for those in need. So you go out and seek out a homeless person, you walk with them to a restaurant, and you buy them some food. Then you walk out of the restaurant feeling good about yourself because you did what you were supposed to do. But it didn’t mean anything to you; the homeless person didn’t mean anything to you. You were just trying to be obedient to meet the letter of the law.

            The Pharisees, the religious leaders of Jesus’ time, were like this. They sought to outwardly follow the law and demanded the people do the same. In fact, they were so obsessed with the law that they wrote out specifics of what you could and couldn’t do. When Jesus was talking to the people one day about the Pharisees, He said in Matthew 23:23, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”

            If you have an obedience problem, you have a love problem. But when you seek to be obedient, let it be because you are responding to the love of God, and the way God loves people. Have your love mean something. Let your love transform those whom you love! God wants to transform your life so that you will live a life of love.

            Jesus said it this way in John 15:9-12, "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's command and remain in His love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."
     You see, the Lord does not just give us life, He is to be our life. God draws us to Himself, and He has provided His Son so that we might have eternal life. We do not initiate the love relationship with God, He initiates it with us. In response to God's love for us, we love Him back!
     We need to understand that God Himself, the God of the universe, the God who created all things, is pursuing a love relationship with you, and me. We love because He first loved us.
     When we love God, He promises to respond with His blessings. By trusting and following God, we have eternal life. That is the ultimate blessing. By living for God, we are blessed by blessing others. When we are obedient to God we put ourselves in a place where God can bless us. As we walk faithfully with God He empower us to over temptation and to be conquerors for Him. And on and on and on the blessings go. 

II.                Your First Love- (Genesis 3:8-10; Matthew 6:24; John 15:16)

Example- When you are in a marriage, you know that the love you share with

your spouse is very important. In fact, if your relationship with your spouse is not right, then nothing else is good in your life. Fortunately Tami and I do well most of the time, but when we have had a fight or are at odds with each other, life is not fun.  

This is even more true of our relationship with God. Our relationship with God is the most important relationship in our lives. Our other relationships stem from this relationship. If our relationship with God is not right, then nothing else is important.

Example- (Adam and Eve)- Genesis 3:8-10, “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ ¹⁰ And he said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.’” When they had sinned, it affected their relationship with God, and they hid from God.

            I can’t tell you how many conversations I have had with people who are frustrated and discouraged with life. As I talk with them I realize that they feel this way because their relationship with God is not right. They are not seeking God. They are not being loved by God. They are not able to love for God. When we lack a love relationship with God, nothing makes sense, and nothing will bring us joy.

            To really love God there has to be no competitors. As Matthew 6:24  says, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the others, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” All too often in life we try to love many things. We say we love God, but we also love money and what it can buy. We say we love God, but we want to have control of our lives and do not allow Him to be our Lord. We say we love God but we are too busy to go to church, or be a part of a Bible Study, or make time for God.

            As I said before, God always takes the initiative in this love relationship. God must take the initiative and come to us if we are to experience Him. This is because we get lost in our sin, and care about ourselves and not about God. We forget about God. We lose sight of who God is. We love others things. So God must continually seek us out and draw us to Him.

            Do you know that God has determined to love you? If God had not chosen to love you, you would not have become a Christian. God touched your heart, drew you to Himself, and through Christ enabled you to accept Him and love Him! He had something in mind when He called you. His love for you includes a plan and a purpose.

            When you responded to His invitation and said “yes,” He brought you into a love relationship with Himself. In this God is pursuing A LOVE RELATIONSHIP with you. In John 15:16 Jesus told us just this: "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit--fruit that will last--and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you." 

III.             Creative not for Time, but for Eternity- (Philippians 3:4-14; Matthew 6:19-21, 33)

 God did not create you for time; He created you for eternity. This time

you and I are to spend on the earth provides for us an opportunity to get acquainted with God. It is a time for us to grow our character to be in His likeness. But we are eternal beings. When this body breathes its last breath, our being (our spirit) will continue on for eternity. God wants us to be with Him eternally, and through Christ we can.

            I mention this for you to understand that life isn’t about having fun and trying to do all that you WANT to do. Life is for being in relationship with God, for loving God, and for loving others. The things we do should help us to achieve this purpose!

            Your life as a child has shaped who you are today. Both bad and good, you are who you are today because of what has happened in your life. However, your life as a child of God ought to be shaped by the future of what you will one day be. You may have struggles, hardships, failures that negatively affect you. You may be allowing these things to continue to shape who you are. Know that God can help you overcome your past and help you to orient your life to the purposes of God.

The apostle Paul struggled with his past. Let’s listen in to his struggle as we read Philippians 3:4-14 (slides): “Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. ⁷ But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— ¹⁰ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³ Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

            Paul’s desire was to know Christ and to become like Him. We too can order our lives so that we live under God’s direction; so that we come to know Him, and love Him, and serve Him, and be transformed by Him, and be molded and shaped by Him!

            If you fail to recognize that you were created for eternity, you will invest in the wrong things. You will seek the things of this world, and not the things of God. Jesus warned us about his when He said in Matthew 6:19-21, 33, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also… But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

            This is why a love relationship with God is so important. God loves you. Only God knows what is best for you. If we leave it up to ourselves, we will be like Adam and Eve, and everyone after them, and choose sin. We will follow our sinful desires. We will choose treasures that rust and perish. Only God can guide us to invest in the things that are not only worthwhile, but will having eternal blessings.

            God wants this love relationship with all of us. God wants this love relationship completely infuse us and inspire us and empower us.

YOU might say…

I am too old…. Abraham didn’t begin His journey with God until he was in his 70’s. 

I am too young…. Good thing Mary, the mother of Jesus didn’t say that…I am too unqualified….  As Pastor Mike told us last week, Moses didn’t see himself as fit at all for the journey… I am just a regular person….would you look at Jesus first pick for His disciples; simple fisherman. My sin is too deep and I have been going in the wrong direction too long…. The Apostle Paul couldn’t have committed worse sins or been going in a more opposite direction….

Conclusion: Story of love: John Blanchard one day was in a library. He took a book off a shelf and began to read. But what captured his heart was not the words of the book, but the notes penciled in the margin. He was taken by the soft handwriting and the thoughtful soul and mind revealed by these words. He noticed the previous owners name in the front of the book: Miss Hollis Maynell. With time and great effort he located her address. Her wrote her a letter introducing himself and iviting her to correspond. The next day he was shipped overseas for service in World War II. During the next year the two of them grew to know each other through mail. Each letter was a seed falling on fertile hearts. A romance was budding. Blanchard asked her to send her picture, but she refused. She felt that if he really cared it wouldn’t matter what she looked like. After his return from Europe they planned to meet—7 p.m. at Grand Central in New York. So John Blanchard, in full uniform waited for Hollis, sitting on a bench. He was looking for the woman with the red rose on her lapel….Then he saw a young woman coming toward him. Her figure was long and slim. Blonde hair. Her eyes as blue as flowers. Wearing a pale green suit. As he stood to meet her he noticed that it was not Hollis. Hollis was standing behind this woman. Red rose pinned to her lapel. The young lady in the green suit walked past him. He looked at Hollis. She was a woman well past 40; graying hair. She was not slim. At first it was a jolt to him. Her appearance was not what he expected. But then he remembered the deep longing he had for the woman whose spirit had truly touched his. He smiled and said to her: “I’m Lieutenant John Blanchard, and you must be Miss Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me; may I take you to dinner?” She smiled and said: “I don’t know what this is about, son, but the young lady in the green suit who just went by begged me to wear this rose on my coat. She said that if you asked me out to dinner I was to tell you that she is waiting for you in the big restaurant across the street. She said it was some kind of test!”

(Stories for the Heart, p. 117)

        Someone once said: “Tell me whom you love, and I will tell you who you are.”

            No one seeks after God on his or her own initiative. God takes the initiative to pursue a love relationship with us. God wants you and me to love Him with our whole being; not because of what He will do for us, or what we think He looks like, or so that He will give us what we want. We love Him because that is what we were created to do. We love Him because He loves us. We love Him because it will make our lives complete. We love Him because it will lead us to become who we were created to be. If your love relationship with God is right, then the rest of your life will fall into place, because you will be following and living out God’s will for your life, and you will be living in a way that fulfills your eternal destiny. Live in a way where others can see that you love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Amen. Let’s pray…