[0:00] John chapter 6 beginning in verse 22 and I'm going to read through verse 27.
[0:14] On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples but that his disciples had gone away alone. Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum seeking Jesus.
[0:43] When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give to you for on him God the Father has set his seal. May God add a blessing to you. Please be seated.
[1:17] One of the most famous sayings of the early church fathers came from Saint Augustine who said, you, speaking of God, you have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you. And I believe that with Augustine there is a God-sized hole in every human heart that only God can fill. Now you can try to fill it with treasures, experiences, substances, you name it. And though they might leave you feeling satisfied for a moment, that satisfaction again is temporary and it's often fleeting, meaning you've got to go to it for more and more and more in order to try to feel the same satisfaction that you once felt before. But it won't be enough to satisfy your restless heart or be able to give meaning and purpose to your life. But I think we know deep down we know that our life should have meaning. We aren't just here by accident. We exist. So then the question becomes, well, what purpose do we exist for? And so a lot of people have sought to find an answer to that question in many different ways. They've tried to find that truth. And so commonly what many have done is turned to religion in order to find what they hope will be that missing piece that will fill that
[3:11] God-sized hole in their heart. But is that the message of the Bible? Is that the way in which God tells us that he can be found? And not only that, people will look not only to religion but also to pleasure to find that missing piece. And that truly is the primary motivation of what we call the health and wealth gospel, is that you can turn to God and if you say the right words or if you do enough good things that you put God in a place where he will bless you with the treasures of this world. And so in that religion and that faith, they use God and they use religion to acquire more of the world's pleasures for themselves. But again, is that the message of the Bible? Is that the purpose for which Jesus came?
[4:15] Is that even what he taught? The Bible says that God isn't playing some kind of cosmic game of hide-and-seek with us. The fact of the matter is that Scripture portrays us as the ones who are hiding from him.
[4:33] And if you remember back in the Garden of Eden when sin came into the world, who was it who hid? Adam and Eve hid. Adam and Eve were the ones who hid from God. Why did they hide? Well, to put it simply, because they were ashamed. And then once God found them, they continued to hide from the truth. If you remember by seeking to blame everyone else or any other person for the sin that they committed. Still hiding from God, then hiding from the truth.
[5:12] And when I think of that, I think about when I was a young boy playing baseball in our neighborhood with my other neighborhood friends. And so one of our friends had a big backyard made for a good baseball field. And so we would get together and we would play baseball frequently, especially this time of year. And what we would use is tennis balls because we felt like, you know, tennis balls aren't going to do as much damage as real baseballs. And so really there was only one neighbor in one house in line of where we were playing. That was a house right down the left field line. Everything else was pretty much open field. And so we felt pretty safe about doing that. And we felt like we had gotten pretty good about doing that. And so we decided, you know what? Tennis balls really are for wimps and for sissies. Let's pull out the real thing. And so we played with the real baseball and you know what happened before too long? One of us struck the house. And you know what we did? We all got together and we calmly walked over to the neighbor's house and we knocked on the door and we said, excuse me, sir, we have a sin that we would like to confess. We played with a real baseball and we hit your house and we're willing to pay or work off whatever damages. No, no, we ran. And we all ran in different directions, right? Every man for himself. Some of us ran into the woods that were nearby and hid behind trees. Some of us ran all the way home and crawled under our beds. All of us ran in different directions, each man for himself. And when we finally had to face the music, we all had an excuse or a reason for why we shouldn't be the one primarily to blame. And so it is with humanity. When it comes to seeking the truth and the only true God that there is, that's what scripture says clearly in Romans 3, 10 through 12. There it says, as it is written, none is righteous, no, not one. No one understands.
[7:17] No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Now, some will hear that and they'll raise a couple of objections to that. First, they might object to that statement that none are good, that there are no good people. Because we know that people are capable of doing good. And even the worst person in the history of the world, someone like Adolf Hitler still loved his mother, which is a good thing. But what you need to keep in mind is that God doesn't compare our goodness or your goodness to other people. He compares your goodness to his goodness. And we all fall woefully short of such a comparison. God is perfect. God is perfectly good.
[8:12] He is totally righteous. He was completely without sin. He is a perfect being in every sense of the word. And by comparison to him, none of us measures up, not even close. He is the standard of goodness. He is the standard of righteousness. And we all fail to meet the standard that God requires. Secondly, they might object to that statement that no one seeks for God. Because they might say, well, look, I look around. I see that there are thousands of religions. And I see that there are millions of followers who follow all of these different religions. They all claim to know something about God. And they all claim to be seekers of God and seekers of truth. But truthfully, according to this verse, Romans 3, Romans 3, verses 10 through 12, the implication is that all the world's religions are merely mankind's attempts to continue to try to hide from the true God of Scripture. Fallen humanity created in God's image has the habit of seeking to make a God in theirs, a God that they are comfortable with, a religion that promises to bring enlightenment to them. But that search is never ending. There will always be in these other religions, in these other faiths, one more step to take, one more task to perform, one more level of enlightenment to achieve. It is a search that I believe truly knows no end.
[9:51] And as Scripture says, it only really deepens the divide between those who practice them, those who follow them, and the one true and living God. In fact, Christianity is the only religion where God is depicted as being the one who searches. All the other religions of the world put the onus of finding God on the individual. But in Christianity, we see that truly the seeker is God, and we are the ones who hide, and we are the ones who are found. And so Jesus explicitly said that his mission was not to be sought, but to seek. We see an example of that in the instance of Zacchaeus, the tax collector in Luke chapter 19. If you remember, he was a man who was reviled by his community. He was seen as the sinner of sinners. He climbed a sycamore tree because he wanted to see the Lord. It looks like he is seeking, but then as Jesus comes, all Zacchaeus wants is a glimpse, but Jesus wants so much more of Zacchaeus. And so
[11:05] Jesus finds him in the tree, and he calls him down, and he invites himself over to Zacchaeus' house that day, where he is going to reveal the truth of who he is and Zacchaeus' need to trust in him for his salvation.
[11:22] And Zacchaeus does, and as a result of that, he's transformed. He repays more than what he took unjustifiably from his neighbors. He was transformed as a result of Jesus looking to him, finding him, and entering into his house, and then as a result of that entering into his life. Jesus concludes his time with Zacchaeus by saying this to him in Luke 19 verse 10. Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. In a similar way, Jesus told a parable explaining how he is not the one who hides, but he is the seeker. In Luke 15, 4 through 7, Jesus tells the parable. He says, what man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors saying to them, rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost. Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. You see, there are times when believers have realized that while they thought they had been seeking God, they eventually come to the realization that all along truly they were hiding from God. And it was God who was pursuing them. It was God who was seeking them. It was God who found them. Now, there does come a time when once the believer has been found by God that God calls them then to seek him. But again, this isn't some kind of a game of hide and seek, as if God doesn't want to be found. It's more like when you've had a good teacher or you've had found someone who knows a lot about a subject that interests you, you're eager to do something that we call picking their brains, picking their minds. I want to be around you. I want to learn more about this thing from you because I know that you know a lot about it. And then that person is eager to dispense that knowledge with you, eager to share that knowledge with you. And so Christians who are called, we are called to seek God. We should know, though, that the knowledge that God calls us to seek from him is knowledge that he is willing to give to us, willing to dispose to us. It isn't hidden in some kind of secret Bible code that we have to uncrack. We've been given the Holy Spirit. We've received the mind of Christ. And so Jesus calls us to seek him and promises that when we do, we will gain increased knowledge and understanding of the truth. In fact, Jesus encourages us to undertake such a pursuit.
[14:28] In Matthew 5, as Jesus is preaching what we call the Sermon on the Mount, he talks about how we should not be anxious, how we should not seek for the treasures of this world, that they are passing away, that instead we should live our lives not in fear or worry, but trust in him. And then he concludes that point of his sermon by saying this, Matthew 6, 33. There he encourages, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. And then later on in that same message, Jesus says, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, seeks, or everyone who asks, receives, excuse me, and the one who seeks, finds. And the one who knocks, it will be opened. So Jesus wants you to seek him, but he wants us to seek him for the right reasons. And unfortunately, a lot of times he has not been sought for the right reason. And if you're willing to be honest with yourself this morning, even as a believer, sometimes, sometimes your motivation for seeking the Lord is more self-centered than it is Christ-centered.
[15:58] And so today, as we continue in John's gospel in chapter 6, we encounter a group of people who are seeking after Jesus. But we learn from Jesus that they are seeking after him for the wrong reason.
[16:15] And in this encounter, we learn from our Lord that, or we should, we learn from our Lord what the disappointing results are of those who seek after him with impure motives, but also the blessing that results for those who seek him from a pure heart. And so now we come to the main idea of this morning's message, which is this. Those who seek Jesus for the wrong reasons will be disappointed with what they find, but those who seek him and whose motives are pure will be blessed, will be blessed. And so, if you are here physically today, or if you are watching on Facebook live, I presume that that means that you, at least in some way, that God has found you. And each of us needs to come to this text, and I think we need to see ourselves in this crowd on that day so long ago and put our motivations for seeking the Lord right now to the test. Are our motivations for seeking the Lord pure or impure?
[17:48] And so from this text, the Lord reveals three principles concerning those who seek him. And again, the point is that if you aren't already, you would seek him for the right reasons. And so the first principle that the Lord reveals to us comes from verses 22 through 24, and it's this.
[18:06] It is not that you, it is not that you seek Jesus, but why you seek him that matters. So first principle again, it is not that you seek Jesus, but why you seek him that matters. And so again, we know in verses 22 and 24, Jesus, between his feeding of the multitudes and now this day, had encountered his disciples on the Sea of Galilee. Remember, he walks on water, and we talked about in that experience, he shows us, he tells us about the purpose of trials and tests and tragedies in our life. And so now they're on the other side. This is that next day. This crowd that had been filled by the bread that he fed to them has followed him to the other side. And they are seeking him. But again, based upon their encounter with him the day before, when they attempted to make him their king, their pursuit of him was still motivated by their selfish desires. In addition to that, Jesus had fed them that day. And now it was close to lunchtime, and they were hungry. So they seek Jesus also because they would like something physically to eat. And that bread and that fish that he supplied the other day must have been pretty good. They want Jesus. But again, as we saw a couple of weeks ago, they desire to use him for their benefit. They were coming to him once again with the attitude that you give us what we want, and we will follow you. We will make you famous. We will give you a following. Their motivation was not all that different from the motivation of the rich young ruler, if you remember him from Matthew 19. This man had everything that the world desires.
[19:58] He was rich. He was young. He was powerful. He had all of these things at a young age. He had the rest of his life to enjoy his wealth and his treasures. But all those things could not fill the God-sized hole in his heart. And so he goes to Jesus, wanting to know, asking the question, what must I do to have eternal life? Why would he ask that question with all that he has? Well, I think to put it simply again, he wasn't at peace. He wasn't at peace. Those things, those possessions that he had, weren't enough to fill that hole. There was an emptiness in his heart that was bothering him.
[20:46] He was a religious man. He claimed falsely to have kept all that the law required. But he's still desperate because he knows that something isn't right, that something is missing.
[21:03] So Jesus tells him the truth. He tells him by asking him to go and sell all of his possessions and to give them to the poor and then to follow him. The rich man was unwilling to make such a sacrifice and he left Jesus that day. He rejected his offer to follow him. Why? Well, I think that it's because his identity, his hope, his meaning, his purpose for life were still wrapped up in all the possessions that he had. And he just couldn't imagine living another day or a day without having possession of those things. And so truthfully, those possessions became his idol. They became his God. Even though they still left him empty, he loved them. They gave him a sense of pride. And you know, pride truly doesn't take pleasure in having things. It takes pleasure in having more than somebody else.
[22:13] And he had more than a lot of other people. And that gave him a sense of pride. He couldn't let go of that pride. He wasn't willing to humbly come before Jesus for salvation that he lacked and that peace with God that he knew that he didn't have. And so this crowd in John 6, like the rich young ruler, would eventually turn away from Jesus as well because they realized that they weren't able to have him on their own terms. Jesus wasn't interested in growing his social media platform, right, today. He wasn't concerned that he might say something that offended his Twitter followers and he would lose some of his following that way. He wasn't concerned at all with any of those types of things. He wasn't concerned that he was going to say something that would be perceived as being politically incorrect and that people wouldn't vote for him or anything like that. One of the things that you've got to love about Jesus is he spoke the truth and only the truth. Only the truth. You go to the Bible and you read it, you know that you're going to get the truth and only the truth. Unfortunately, I think today, though, that more and more pastors are concerned with drawing a crowd, more so than they are concerned with making disciples. And I think, if we're honest, many of us ministers, even church members, we would be enthused if we saw that large crowd that was willing to follow Jesus that day fill our worship space. And, you know, we would be equally as ecstatic if we had such a high-profile member join our church as the rich young ruler. You know, we maybe would selfishly be thinking, we wouldn't confess it out loud, but, you know, we'd be thinking maybe, oh, you know, man, giving is going to go way up. We're going to be able to get all kinds of things done now that we weren't able to do because of this rich, handsome man. But here we see, and we should be reminded, that none of those things impressed Jesus. You know, we could have that large crowd that Jesus had.
[24:28] We could have those high-profile members that were willing, at least for a time, to follow Jesus until they heard the truth. And we could think that we've been successful. But according to Jesus and how he sees things, that would not be success at all. And so here we see that they are seeking him for the wrong reasons. And he's not going to allow them to do that.
[24:55] So the second principle that we come across from this passage is that Jesus is fully aware of the motivation of those who seek him. Jesus is fully aware of the motivation of those who seek him.
[25:10] Verse 26, Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. And again, I love how Jesus gets right to the point. And he just tells them, I know why you're here. I know why you're here. I know why you've come. I know why you're seeking me.
[25:30] Sit down and let me tell it to you straight. I love that he does that. Again, the point of his miracle the day before, the feeding of the 5,000, which was more like with the women and children, more like 20,000, was not done by him to primarily fill their stomachs, but to draw their minds to him.
[25:50] As we continue to go through this chapter, Jesus unpacks more and more the purpose of that miracle that he performed that day. The physical bread that he miraculously multiplied to fill their bellies was done to illustrate to them that Jesus was capable of doing more than that.
[26:09] He was able of giving them the spiritual bread that filled that God-sized hole in their heart. In him, we have peace. We find peace with God. In him, our life has meaning and purpose.
[26:26] In him, we find hope and rescue and grace and forgiveness and love that never comes to an end.
[26:39] But so often, we desire the physical over the spiritual. We long for the bread of this world more than we do for the bread of heaven.
[26:56] Listen, God created the world and all the things that are in it. He declared them to be good. It isn't wrong to have possessions. It isn't a sin to be wealthy.
[27:07] Jesus confronted the rich young ruler with this truth that he had turned his possessions, his titles, his relationships, his social status into an idol. He worshipped what he had.
[27:20] And he couldn't imagine losing those things because those things gave him, again, a sense of identity, a feeling of worth. Like the rich young ruler and like the crowd that sought Jesus that day, we too often come to God, but only when our possessions are threatened or if we feel like we want more.
[27:42] I know I've been there. I'm sure that you've probably been there as well. Maybe even some of you are there still today. You're only coming to God when you feel like your possessions are threatened to be lost or it's because you feel like you deserve more.
[27:59] And thank God that he has a way of revealing our true motivations to us and then setting us free from our possessions, which we often allow to take possession of us.
[28:13] In the Old Testament, Abraham, the patriarch, had everything that you could want during that time in human history.
[28:24] He had a wife who loved him. He had friends who admired him. He had a wealth of possessions that God had blessed him with. But primarily, he had a son, Isaac, who was the son of the promise.
[28:43] The promise that God had made to him that through Isaac, God would make a nation, a mighty nation, and that through this nation, the Messiah would one day come.
[28:58] What a promise. What a promise. But then God did something. After making this promise, time has gone by, and God says to Abraham, take your son Isaac and sacrifice him.
[29:19] No doubt, Abraham was perplexed by such a request. And as he journeyed to the place where God instructed this sacrifice to take place, Hebrews 11, 7 through 9 reveals that as perplexing and as painful as this request was that God made for him to carry out, it reveals that even still he trusted in God, that he would bring that knife down upon his own son.
[29:54] Hebrews 11, 17 through 19 says that by faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promise was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
[30:13] He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. And so as Abraham raises the knife and he's ready to bring it down upon his son, the son of the promise, God stopped him.
[30:30] God stopped him. And he provided a ram. He provided a substitute sacrifice to take Isaac's place that day. Abraham, I believe, as a result of that test, learned an important lesson from God that we need to learn and apply and pray that God would continue to teach us today.
[30:51] Abraham was rich. He was rich with things. But he realized through that trial, one thing I think he realized of many things, was that he truly possessed nothing.
[31:09] He truly owned nothing. Whatever he had was something that God had given him. Even his own life was something that God had given to him.
[31:24] He truly possessed nothing. Whatever he had was from God. Whatever he had belonged to God. And therefore, he was willing to sacrifice to God whatever he wanted because truly he understood that he possessed nothing.
[31:39] But here's the great thing, the great lesson that he learned, that we can learn today too. In knowing that he truly did not possess anything, he then was able to truly enjoy what he had.
[31:52] You understand? In understanding that he didn't truly own or possess anything, he was then able to truly enjoy what he had. In other words, I can truly enjoy my relationship with my wife, my children, my friends, my career, my possessions, because I'm not using them as trophies.
[32:13] I'm not making them into idols in order to inflate my ego so that I feel better about myself. I don't need these relationships in my life.
[32:25] I don't need to use my spouse. I don't need to use my children and their success to make me feel like a success. They're not trophies. They're people. And my relationships and my friendships aren't used in order to network my way to the top, but they are mine to have because I enjoy that person and being in relationship with that person.
[32:48] I care about them personally, not because of how I can use them or because of what being seen with them might give to me in the eyes of others.
[32:59] They're not trophies. They're not idols. And so when you understand that you truly possess nothing, that can be a hard lesson to learn, but when you understand that you truly possess nothing, then you will truly enjoy what you do have.
[33:16] You will truly enjoy what you do have. I want my kids to do well in school. I want them to do well in their extracurricular activities, but I want them to do that for their sake, not for mine because I don't need them to be my idols that make me feel like I'm a good parent.
[33:33] I don't need them to be my idols to make people be jealous of me and what I have. And so the question is, do you seek for things or do you seek for God?
[33:44] And how sad it would be and how sad it will be for those who seek for things in this world to realize at the end that all along they were destined to perish and kept them from eternity.
[33:59] Mark 8, 36 through 38, again, Jesus tells it like it is. He says, For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, the whole world, and forfeit his soul?
[34:13] For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and my works in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with his holy angels.
[34:28] So again, Jesus makes it crystal clear. If you're seeking him today, he knows your motivation for doing so. And if you're seeking him for the wrong reasons, he offers you life, truth, meaning, purpose, everlasting life.
[34:52] But we learn that these things come through self-denial. Not through works, but come through the realization that I can do nothing good enough to put myself in a place where God should save me.
[35:09] It's not about my good deeds outweighing my bad deeds. I can't do enough. And so the first act of self-denial is to know that you can't do it.
[35:19] But Jesus can and Jesus did. And then to humbly acknowledge, Lord, if I am to be saved and I don't deserve it, it's only through Jesus Christ.
[35:34] Third principle, Jesus gives. Jesus gives. And I tell you, the Southern Baptist pastor in me really wanted to have another M for the third principle. But I couldn't come up with another M and I wasn't going to spend too much time trying.
[35:50] Jesus gives those who have sought him for the wrong reason a second chance. He gives those who have sought him for the wrong reason a second chance. Verse 27. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.
[36:05] For on him, God the Father has set his seal. Though Jesus knew that the crowd who sought him that day had misguided motivations for doing so in his grace, he didn't turn them away.
[36:20] He wasn't the grumpy old man at the end of the block who doesn't like people walking on his yard or people knocking on his door. Get out of here, right? I know what you guys are here for. I'm not interested in any of that.
[36:30] Get off my lawn or anything like that. He was gracious to them in giving them more truth. And he tells them what they must do to seek God properly and successfully.
[36:44] First, he says that to find God, to find truth, you must look to him. You must look to Jesus. When Jesus says that God the Father has set his seal on him, he was referencing the way in which important messages were signed during those ancient days.
[37:07] You know, if there was an important document from Caesar or whomever it was and it had an important message, important instructions, it was folded up and it was sealed.
[37:17] Wax was coated and wax, you know, was put on it and then it was sealed with a symbol, with a marking so that when that person received that message they know, oh, this comes from Caesar or this comes from this person and so they know that it's authentic based upon the seal, that it's not a forgery.
[37:37] In the same way, God has authenticated Jesus by his life, by his sinless character. While we don't measure up, Jesus Christ, being the Son of God, did and was able to.
[37:50] He authenticated him through his sinless life. He did not sin. He authenticated him through his teachings. I encourage you, read the Bible, read the words of Jesus and come away, I dare you, thinking that these are not words from an inspired person.
[38:07] More than inspired, again, he's the Son of God. He authenticated Jesus through his miracles. How else could these things happen? How else could he feed 20,000 people with the sack lunch of a little boy?
[38:21] But above all things, he authenticated that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life through his resurrection from the dead. Jesus was crucified.
[38:33] He died in the place for sinners. If God was going to make a way for us to have peace with him, a sacrifice must be offered. But this time, as God spared Isaac's life, he would not spare his one and only sons.
[38:50] But Jesus willingly went. He willingly died on the cross. And there, as excruciating as crucifixion is, what was more intense, more severe, was the fact that there on the cross, God poured out his wrath upon your sin on his body and his flesh and his spirit.
[39:15] He died for your sins. If you are saved, you should know that your sin has not gone unpunished, but it was meted out upon Jesus Christ on the cross.
[39:30] If we were going to be saved, we needed to have an alien righteousness. We all fall short. We needed someone to come and do it for us.
[39:41] Jesus came and lived that sinless, righteous life. He met that good and holy standard. And so as a result, the Bible says what God does is when you believe in him, when you trust in him, when you realize that his death was necessary for your salvation, that he rose from the dead on the third day, a substitution takes place as well within you.
[40:03] Your sinfulness, your shortcomings, your impure motivations, all of your sin is placed upon Christ on the cross and his righteousness, his sinlessness, his holiness is imputed to you.
[40:18] It's placed upon you. And so now when God sees you, what does he see? He sees Jesus Christ, his son. He sees his righteousness righteousness. That's the gospel.
[40:29] That's a message of grace. That's a message that should bring us to our knees every day in worship and prayer of a God who loves us, who is willing to come, willing to die, to save us.
[40:46] He is the one in whom God is to be found. Jesus said in John 14, 6, I am the way and the truth and the life.
[41:01] No one comes to the Father except through me. And so if you're seeking Jesus, eventually you're going to come to these truths and he's going to tell you that it's me, it's only me, and there's no other way.
[41:15] Second, to seek him properly, you must come yourself. No one can come for you, not another Christian, not a believing spouse, not a grandparent who loves you, or a friend, or your pastor.
[41:31] You must come. No one but you. Finally, you must come wholeheartedly. Matthew 5, 6, Jesus said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.
[41:47] You come to him in such a way you will be filled. The hole in your heart will be filled.
[41:58] And you'll realize all along, all along, as you thought that you were seeking for God, you'll realize that truly he was the one seeking you.
[42:09] that truly he was the one who found you, was gracious towards you, and who saved you. W.C. Fields, the famous comedian of the early 1900s, was once visited by a friend in the hospital.
[42:31] And Fields was very ill. He was dying. And one of his friends walked into the room and was astonished to see what he saw. W.C. Fields was in his hospital bed and in his hands was a Bible.
[42:47] And he was flipping through it. And this friend knew W.C. Fields' life, knew that this man was not very much of a saint at all. And so he asked him, what are you doing?
[43:00] And W.C. Fields replied without looking up, I'm looking for loopholes. There are no loopholes. There are no loopholes.
[43:11] If you seek Jesus, you will find truth. And I'll tell you that you may not like the truth that you find. Unfortunately, like the rich young ruler, like this crowd who will see eventually, you like them may reject that truth.
[43:30] But you'll find truth. the truth that there are no loopholes. The truth that you must deny yourself. The truth that you must pursue him with the right motives.
[43:41] You must take up your cross daily and follow him. And if you do so, I promise you, more importantly, the Bible, Scripture, God promises you that you will find joy.
[43:57] You will find peace. You will find purpose. You will find a love that will melt your heart of stone and totally transform you.
[44:14] Jesus' primary motivation in coming was to seek and to save the lost. He did that by revealing the truth. The truth of our sinful condition.
[44:24] The truth of our inability to measure up to God's perfect standard. but then the truth that he had come to make a way for us to have peace with God by living, by dying, and by rising again.
[44:39] So as we come to our time of application as we're continuing to pursue the best Highland Park Baptist Church in 2020, how do we apply this to our text? Well, first, we know that we are seeking to build community.
[44:53] Seeking to build better community. community. So part of the way that we do this is that we make sure that we are building community the right way through right motivations.
[45:04] We're not trying to build a community by drawing in a large crowd or other things like Jesus did, but we are trying to build our community, the community that we have in Christ by being a part of one another's lives.
[45:19] And there are times where the Lord will use us, as we'll see, to, in one of our other application points, to tell each other the truth.
[45:30] Hey, I'm looking at your motivations and I have questions here, brother or sister in Christ. So secondly, we equip believers and then that's going back to that as well. The Lord uses us to teach and equip one another.
[45:46] Iron sharpens iron and so that's why it's so important that you are here and you are present with our different ministries, that you're involved with them as well. These are your opportunities to be sharpened, to be used by the Lord in this world to bring truth and to make sure that your motivations aren't out of line with what they should be as a follower of Jesus Christ.
[46:11] Third, we share Jesus. We share Jesus. Again, we can do a lot of things to get a lot of people inside of this room, but if they aren't involved or if they don't involve sharing Jesus, then we've missed the mark.
[46:26] We're way off. Our job is to share Jesus. The results are up to him and then finally, we teach the word. Right now, this world is filled with lies and lie tellers.
[46:40] This world is ruled by the father of lies, Satan himself. The ones who have the truth are you and me. What good does it do the world if all we do is go from here, go to home, go to work, and not seek to be used by God to share that truth wherever he has us to go.
[47:04] We are the ones who have the truth. We are the ones who are the truth tellers. We tell the truth by teaching the word of God. Amen.
[47:18] Thank you.