God Reaches Out

Introduction

Soren Kierkegaard has written the following romance story in the book “Disappointment with God.”

“Suppose there was a king who loved a humble maiden. The king was like no other king. Every statesman trembled before his power. No one dared breathe a word against him, for he had the strength to crush all opponents. And yet this mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden. How could he declare his love for her? In an odd sort of way, his kingliness tied his hands. If he brought her to the palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed her body in royal robes, she would surely not resist – no one dared resist him. But would she love him?

“She would say she loved him, of course, but would she truly? Or would she live with him in fear, nursing a private grief for the life she had left behind? Would she be happy at his side? How could he know? If he rode to her forest cottage in his royal carriage, with an armed escort waving bright banners, that too would overwhelm her. He did not want a cringing subject. He wanted a lover, an equal. He wanted her to forget that he was a king and she a humble maiden and to let shared love cross the gulf between them. For it is only in love that the unequal can be made equal.”

The story goes on that the king clothed himself as a beggar and renounced his throne in order to win her hand.

Is the story we celebrate today not just such a story of love?

I. God Pursues Us

God has always pursued us in order to show his love toward us.

Immediately after Adam and Eve rejected God, we read in Genesis 3:9, “But the Lord God called to the man.”

Later when people became more and more sinful, we read in Genesis 6:6, “The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain” And yet God did not give up on them, He continued to pursue them.

God spoke to Noah, to Abraham, to Moses, and each story tells of God’s initiative in coming to people and in each of these stories, we also read that the purpose of God’s coming was to bless them and to bless all people through them. For example, to Abraham he said in Genesis 12:3, “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Even in the darkest days of Israel’s rebellion against God, we still read about God’s loving pursuit of His people. I have been studying Hosea for my devotions lately and it is an amazing story of how much Israel had rejected God. Because of this God calls them “not my people” but even in this terrible brokenness God promised, “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”

Today we celebrate Christmas. In some ways there is nothing new about Christmas. It is the same story which has always been there. It is the story of God’s pursuit of those who have rejected Him.

The story begins with God’s visit to Zechariah in the temple. God took the initiative to come to him and announce to him that his son would be an important figure whose job would be to “make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Then God also came to Mary and revealed to her “the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”

As we think about the story of the birth of Jesus, we understand that it is a story about God becoming a man. The story of Kierkegaard approaches the wonder of what it means that God has chosen to pursue us. In order to communicate His love to us and in order that we will come to truly love Him, He Himself came into our world. He came in the most vulnerable way possible – as a child. He came as one of us. His name was “Immanuel” which means, “God with us.” He came, as the angels said, because we are the ones “on whom his favor rests.”

Wouldn’t we say that that is the greatest story of loving pursuit that we have ever heard? I John 4:10 says, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

Cecil Murphey says, “Instead of thinking of the Christian life as what we do, isn’t it time to emphasize once again what God does? That’s really the biblical perspective; Scripture provides hundreds of examples of the Holy breaking into human existence, chasing us, wooing us, reaching out toward us, embracing us, and changing us.”

Henry Blackaby says, “God Himself pursues a love relationship with you. He is the One who takes the initiative to bring you into this kind of relationship.” “You did not initiate a love relationship with God. He initiated a love relationship with you.”

God has pursued us.

II. What Pursuit Communicates

A lover’s story is a wonderful way to think about the pursuit of God. Have you ever found out that someone loved you? Have you ever been pursued by someone? Perhaps it was someone you liked and you found out they liked you too. Perhaps it was your wife or husband who was pursuing you. What does it feel like when you don’t even have to pull the petals off the flower because you are being pursued and you know, “He loves me?” What does it feel like and what does it mean that God is pursuing us?

A. Choice

The fact that God pursues us lets us know that we are chosen.

1. We Were Picked

This was the message which God communicated to Israel throughout their history. Psalm 135:4 says, “For the Lord has chosen Jacob to be his own, Israel to be his treasured possession.”

This idea, with its rich background of being chosen and being God’s treasured possession carries over into the New Testament. Peter picked up on many Old Testament images when he wrote in 1 Peter 2:9,”But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

But as we examine the wonder of this choice, we see how amazing it truly is. Paul lets us know in Ephesians 1:4 that, “he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.” Did you see that phrase, “before the creation of the world?” I think it is hard for us to understand all that God knew before He even created us. Is it possible that before we were ever made God already knew that we would sin and reject Him. What does it mean that He still created us and pursued us? It seems that what happened in the Garden of Eden was not a mystery to God. He knew it was going to happen. It elevates the wonder of His love and His pursuit of us to see this eternal intention of God.

Another amazing aspect of His choice of us is that revealed in Romans 5:8 where we discover that God not only had this eternal intention to choose us, but that he chose us while we were totally uninterested in Him. There we read, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

It seems that God does not only respond to goodness, he reaches out to wickedness and chooses us to be His people.

B. Relationship

One of the key concepts in the Old Testament is the concept of covenant. A covenant is a relationship based on a promise and a commitment. Israel was chosen by God for just such a relationship. In Deuteronomy 7:6-9 we read, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.” I love that phrase, “covenant of love” for it tells us that God has chosen and pursued us for the purpose of a relationship with Him.

We make a distinction between the two parts of the Bible calling them the Old Testament and the New Testament. In Christ, we have entered into a New Testament or Covenant with God. Hebrews 9:15 reminds us, “For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.” So we understand that God’s pursuit of us, God’s choice of us allows us to enter into a relationship with God.

C. Love

Many people like Jeremiah 31:3, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.” It reveals more of what it means that God has pursued us. The message of Christmas, the message we celebrate today is a message which tells us that we are loved by God. God’s intentions towards us are the best of intentions. I love Romans 8:28 which shows us this love message when it says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

In the book “The Sacred Romance” Brent Curtis & John Eldredge write, “The Incarnation, the life and death of Jesus, answers once and for all the question, ‘What is God’s heart toward me?’”

The Christmas story is so wonderful and so much appreciated for it leaves absolutely no doubt about God and His relationship with us. He has pursued us by becoming one of us. He has chosen us, set us into a relationship with Himself and demonstrated an amazing love for us. How can we ever doubt His great love towards us when He has so relentlessly pursued us? How can we doubt His great love toward us when we know the Christmas story?

III. Responding To Pursuit

Sometimes we hear some pretty awful stories of pursuit. We hear about people who pursue others because they claim to love them, but they constantly bother them, write to them, force them into situations in which they can be with them and force their unwanted attention on them. We call that stalking. Is God pursuing us or stalking us? What is the difference?

Stalking is done selfishly. It says, “I want you for myself and cannot comprehend the idea that you don’t also want me. I function under the assumption that my feelings for you are the same as your feelings for me. You will love me!”

God’s pursuit is quite different. God knows that we may reject Him. God does not force us to love Him. Rather, the story of God’s pursuit of us is a story in which God opens doors, welcomes us, makes a way for us, invites us, wants us, but does not force us, does not stalk us.

We would respond to stalking by running the other way, but how do we respond to such gracious loving pursuit? How do we respond to God’s sacrifice, God’s love, God’s offer, God’s grace, God’s choice? What does it mean to live with the knowledge that God has pursued us in love?

A. Free To Know

First of all, it means that we are free to know that we are loved. Simon Tugwell says, “So long as we imagine it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about – He is looking for us. And so we can afford to recognize that very often we are not looking for God; far from it, we are in full flight from him, in high rebellion against him. And He knows that and has taken it into account. He has followed us into our own darkness; there where we thought finally to escape him, we run straight into his arms. So we do not have to erect a false piety for ourselves, to give us the hope of salvation. Our hope is in his determination to save us, and he will not give in.”

B. Free To Trust

If we are pursued by God, we are free to trust God. God’s pursuit of us assures us that His intentions towards us are good. Philippians 2:13 says, “…for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”

If God is working in us for His good purpose, then we have every reason to trust Him completely. It frees us from all fear, from all worry. We aren’t tenuously in God’s hands depending on the terrors of life or the fickleness of our own sins. God is pursuing us for our good. If someone has sinned, it does not mean that they are forgotten by God. Even though He leaves them to their choice and path, He does not give up on them.

Therefore we can trust that I Corinthians 10:13 is true; “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful…”

Therefore we can hope that Psalm 91:10 is right when it says, “…no harm will befall you.”

If God pursues us, we are free to live by faith.

C. Free To Hope

If God has pursued us, we are free to hope. We are certain that the future is secure. Jesus promised in Matthew 25:34, “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” It has been God’s plan all along to welcome a people who love Him. He has pursued us for this very purpose and if that is true and we have trusted in Him, we can be sure that this hope is certain.

D. Free To Love & Obey

If we have been pursued by God, then we are also free to follow God in obedience and love. The apostle John recognized this connection in I John 3:16 when he said, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”

Henry Blackaby says, “A love relationship with God requires that you demonstrate your love by obedience.”

Why is this connection so significant? In “The Sacred Romance” the writers put it this way, “There are selfish forms of love, relationships that create closed systems, impenetrable to outsiders. Real love creates a generous openness. Have you ever been so caught up in something that you just had to share it?”

If God has so pursued us in love, this is a message to share by loving others.

Conclusion

As we celebrate God’s coming at this time of year, it is not only nice, but important to know that we are loved.

This is what Christmas does for us. It lets us know beyond a shadow of doubt that God has pursued us and continues to pursue us because He loves us.

During this Christmas season and in the days beyond, may that knowledge bring us great joy and also strengthen us for the difficult times.