RHYTHMS - Week 2
PURSUING GOD
Matthew 11:28-30 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (MSG)
“Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth.” - AW Tozer
Psalm 63:1-5 God, you are my God; I eagerly seek you. I thirst for you; my body faints for you in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water. So I gaze on you in the sanctuary to see your strength and your glory. My lips will glorify you because your faithful love is better than life. So I will bless you as long as I live; at your name, I will lift up my hands. You satisfy me as with rich food; my mouth will praise you with joyful lips. (CSB)
Pursuing God is about Spending Quality Time with God
How do we spend quality time?
1. Select a Time
Psalm 63:1 Early will I seek You (NKJV)
Mark 1:35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he got up, went out, and made his way to a deserted place; and there he was praying. (CSB)
2. Find a Solitary Place
Psalm 63:2 So I gaze on you in the sanctuary to see your strength and your glory. (CSB)
Mark 1:35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he got up, went out, and made his way to a deserted place; and there he was praying. (CSB)
Pursuing God is about: Satisfying our Souls by Enjoying God.
Psalm 63:1,3,5 …I thirst for you; my body faints for you in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water….My lips will glorify you because your faithful love is better than life…You satisfy me as with rich food; my mouth will praise you with joyful lips. (CSB)
FOUNDATIONS FOR ENJOYING GOD
God is the most joyful person in the universe.
Psalm 16:11 “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (ESV)
God created us to enjoy Him.
Psalm 100:2-3 Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. (NIV)
What is the chief end of man? - Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever. - The Westminster Shorter Catechism
Delight leads to Discipline
“I am inclined to think that joy is the motor, the thing that keeps everything else going. Without joyous celebration to infuse the…Disciplines, we will sooner or later abandon them. Joy produces energy. Joy makes us strong.”
–Richard J. Foster
“God is most glorified, when we are most satisfied in Him” - John Piper
Sin is counterfeit joy.
Hebrews 11:25 Moses preferred faith’s certainty above the momentary enjoyment of sin’s pleasures. (TPT)
Jesus came to satisfy you and be your ultimate joy.
John 4:13-14 Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life. (NLT)
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
— CS Lewis