Sermon Notes from August 20

Sermon Text:  Deuteronomy 6:4-9

We continued in our series looking at the different cultural values we desire to take shape in our church.  This week, we looked at how we want to have a culture of pursuit in our church.  

The value of pursuit is closely connected to the values of grace and enjoyment that we have looked at in previous weeks.  Because God has shown us His grace in Jesus Christ, He stirs our hearts to find our enjoyment in Him, which is one of the primary ways that we glorify God.  And it is the enjoyment of God that will drive our pursuit of God.

As we talk about the pursuit of God, it's important that we realize that we can only pursue God because He first pursued us.  While we were charting our own course in our sinful and destructive ways, God reached down into our lives through a friend, through a family member, through His Word, through a miracle, or even through heartache and pain.  However it happened, God reached down and grabbed a hold of us and pursued us with His love in such a way that we saw His grace and we wanted to lay down our lives before Him.

God always pursues man first.  And it is His pursuit of us that should cause us to pursue after Him.  

We read Deuteronomy 6:4-9, which is called the Shema, and it is one of the most important prayers in Jewish life.  It would be recited at least two times a day as a hymn of praise and a pledge of allegiance to God. The Shema shows us that there is one true God and He is the Lord.  And because the Lord is the one true God, we ought to love Him with all that we are.  The way that we show our love for the Lord is in an all-out pursuit of Him.  His Words should be in our hearts, we should teach them to the next generation, we should talk of them wherever we go, they should guide our vision and our actions, and everyone ought to know that we follow the Lord because they see our pursuit of Him.  

So, how do we want to pursue God together at Christ Central Church?

1. Grow in our knowledge and understanding of God in our heads.  This will primarily happen as we pursue God through His Word.  It is the primary way we hear God speak today as His Spirit illuminates His Word.

2. Grow in intentionality in our hearts.  If we want to draw near to God and we believe that He rewards us as we seek after Him, then we must root out the sins in our hearts in repentance and fill our hearts with affections for God grounded in the gospel.  This requires constant intentionality on our part.  We must not be apathetic towards this pursuit.

3. Grow in discipline in our hands.  We must take active steps towards pursuing God.  It won't just happen. So we must be disciplined in our active pursuit of God.  This means we must consistently find time to meet with God in His Word and prayer, confessing and repenting of sins, and reminding ourselves of God's love and grace to us in the gospel.

I desire for us to be a church that pursues hard after God in our heads, hearts, and hands, recognizing that we need His Spirit to help us in this pursuit.  And my prayer is that the Lord would allow us to see a revival in our own hearts, in our church, and in our city as we pursue after Him and long for His presence.