Prayer Meeting 10/01/2023

A Responsive Heart  - Part 2

Psalm 27:8

Before we broke for the holiday, our last prayer meeting was on ‘A Responsive Heart’ -  message we drew from puritan Richard Sibbes. Tonight we will follow on from it, but of course I’m not expecting you to fully remember it, so let me jog your memory of the subject.

Sibbes preaches two sermons on this verse. His two sermons are called ‘The Successful Seeker’. The scripture Sibbes uses for this teaching is,

Psalm 27:8

⁸When You said, “seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”

Before we recap and share some thoughts, let’s again read our prayer. This one is from ‘Piercing Heaven’, and it really is about having a responsive heart towards God, and surrendering ourselves to it. The prayer is from the puritan Thomas Brooks, entitled

‘My Amen To Your Amen’, on page 164.

Lord, lay whatever burden You will upon me, only let Your everlasting arms be under me. Strike Lord and do not spare me. I lay down in Your will, I have learned to say amen to Your amen. You have a greater interest in me than I have in myself, and therefore I give myself up to You. I am willing to be at Your disposal and I am ready to receive whatever impression You want to stamp upon me. Blessed Lord, again and again You have said to me, as once the king of Israel said to the king of Syria: ‘I am Yours and all that I have’ (1 Kings 20:4). I am Yours, Your mercy is mine to pardon me, Your blood is mine to cleanse me, Your merits are mine to justify me, Your righteousness is mine to clothe me, Your Spirit is mine to lead me, Your Grace is mine to enrich me, and Your glory is mine to reward me. Therefore, my soul cannot help but to resign myself to You. Lord here I am, do with me as seems good in Your own eyes. I know the best way to have my own will is to resign myself to Your will and say amen to Your amen.

-Thomas Watson

Okay, let me read the scripture again:

Psalm 27:8

⁸When You said, “seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”

The scripture starts with David telling us first of what God commanded him to do, and us to do: “seek His face”. And the second part is David’s obedience to that command: ‘my heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”’ For God to say to us, all of us, ‘seek My face’ tells us all that God is available and accessible to us. Yet, most often we don’t seek Him in prayer, we seek what we want but not Him, for Him. Like a child that really only wants something from you but not really you.

I had the privilege of watching my friend’s daughter Hollie every Friday for years. And when she was little she, like all children, was more into what she was getting and doing than the person she was doing it with. And every time she would do that I would say ‘Hollie it’s a relationship I’m looking for’, and at first she didn’t understand it, because she used to say, ‘we are not in a ship’. But eventually beyond two she got it.

Unfortunately, that is often how we develop our relationship with God, it’s like we only desire stuff, and if that desire is not strong, then our prayers are limp and box ticking without that intimacy, that heart seeking, that wrestling even. Sibbes says it’s no more than

‘designing our own worship’, which, let’s face it, is no worship at all. Its actions without intimacy, without seeking Him. It’s like having a conversation with someone when they are not listening but doing so with God almighty Himself.

How many times could the Lord say to you: you’re absent here in our encounter. You’re using My name, but you’re not even looking at Me or for Me. How often are our prayers help prayers, comfort seeking prayers but with no intimacy, with no seeking His face? Let’s not be confused with crying to God in despair and need, and seeking His face. In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus tells this to the scribes and pharisees:

Matthew 15:7-9

⁷ Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:

⁸ ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth,
And honour Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me.
⁹ And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

To not seek God’s face, to not seek Him intimately, yet to worship and pray, and use His name is to be one whose heart is far from Him. It’s to turn your Christian faith back to a manmade one, which is fitting for where we are at in First Corinthians.

How often are we only going through the motions, or emotions because we are more consumed with our own life? Some may say: ‘well, I didn’t want God to get on board my plan, I was just zoned out.’ Yes, that’s consumed with your own life as well. We must have a heart that says, whenever we approach God, whenever we pray, or as soon as we are in God’s house, or even throughout our day, as God prods our conscience, we must say: ‘Lord my heart says Thy face I will seek’.

With much more intimacy, how many things would not get on top of you? How many bad choices, or saying what you ought not, or doing what you ought not, would have been overcome if in those moments you said: ‘Lord I heard You, Lord I felt You, Lord I will seek Your face’? Instead of ‘Lord I heard you, Lord I felt you;, we end up saying: ‘but Lord I went through the motions but never looked for You. I never drew close to You.’

It’s amazing how we can cry out and seek God about our issues and pain, and struggle. Yet still do so without even seeking Him at all. We are seeking a solution but not seeking Him. How can we expect anything else from God when He commands that, and we in turn say no? And saying no is the apathy, is the box ticking, is the ‘my need only’. Speaking without seeking, worshipping without engaging, praying without awareness . All this says ‘no, I will not do as you command and seek Your face. I will go it alone.’

Is it a wonder why we make so many bad decisions at times, and our flesh is weak? When God says seek my face. He is saying I’m available, you need Me, you have access to Me. Don’t carry it yourself, even the thing you think you are in control of, and more blinding, the thing you think you’re doing that’s loving and Christian, like compassion for instance. There’s nothing like doing a good deed to stop us seeking God. This is why doing good deeds often end up the most damaging. Regardless, God is always accessible, we have continued access to Him in all things.

Sibbes says:

Therefore we may observe by the way, that when we are in any dark condition, that a Christian finds not the beams of God shining on him, let him not lay the blame upon God, as if God were a God that delighted to hide himself.

Wonderful, sobering words. We have no excuse as believers for thinking that God has somehow deserted us, or is not accessible to us . No, not at all ‘it is not his delight’, as Sibbes puts it. It’s that simple - if God didn’t want to be known, and did not want you to access Him, He would have remained anonymous, and just enjoy His own creation by Himself. God wants to be known and He created us to have relationship with Him, in all things. What area is God not in your life? What area, or area’s do you seek Him not?

We hear in the modern church, God can’t do it without you. Nonsense. God was doing just fine. The Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost was fine without us. He doesn’t need us. But as Sibbes points out: ‘but God delights to communicate and spread his goodness’. He asks us, no, He commands us to seek His face that we might receive the riches of His goodness, the understanding of His will, and to receive true love and grace and mercy.

What we get from God when we seek Him and grants us access is what Sibbes calls ‘borrowed goodness’. I don’t know about you, but my life could be way, way richer, by that I mean Christlike, if I was way more reactive to the prompts when the Holy Spirit nudged me to seek His face, and be more like David, who God spoke to and David responded: ‘my heart said to me Lord, I will seek thy face’.

And for me this is the key statement. David said ‘my heart said to me’. God spoke and David’s heart responded. The more we seek God and have communion with God, when we hear God call us or prompt us, our hearts respond, as it loves that intimacy. Like a baby loves to hear the voice of its mother or father, and is instantly comforted by it. That only happens when intimacy and closeness is knit together. It’s how the Holy Spirit speaks to us.

It's where we hear it, we feel it in our hearts.

The key is not the response. Listen to me here. You are all here because you responded. We all sing when the worship is on, that’s responding. We all amen at the end when we pray, that’s responding. But it’s when we answer from the heart, and respond from the heart that that response turns to honest seeking of God.

We can all respond without engaging. David did not simply respond to God’s command to seek His face. David’s heart responded. The response was not an unengaged response . It was one that his whole being answered. As in a way that it became the paramount thing. Too often we respond through the head, through habit. But truly we would be all much richer in our lives, and bear much fruit if we indeed had responsive hearts - not just heads.

Before Christmas, I then spoke of how the heart in essence drives the heart.

Sibbes writes:

When the heart knows once the heart has enough from heavenward, it has enough from heaven.

He adds:

The heart, by the work it has of itself, speaks to itself and to the whole man to seek God.

This tells us we don’t need to think beyond the initial connection, because when we do, the heart will drive us forward; time will go by in a flash. I sometimes start studying or reading, and seeking the Word, and praying, and before long I am like ‘wow that’s almost four hours by. No kidding!’

However, here is a warning to you who like to prepare and study, you need to pray as you go. Most of you won’t, and that is what makes you get stuck, or side-tracked, or caught up in your own message. We must be like Paul and be determined, and that will come in our hearts by seeking Him in prayer during study and reading. Reading and studying must be accompanied by prayers on the way, to enrich the content, and keep God at the centre and present.

Brothers and sisters, the reason I delight in staying in this subject for at least another week, or meeting is, I’m sure like me we all need to develop a more responsive heart. Even if it’s only a small spark, or until we are present with Him. Then that will drive us into His arms, and deeper intimacy. Okay, let me share just a few more layers as we bring this in.

I love that Sibbes makes it clear to the reader, and makes his point clear, that these same commands and promises are for us today as they were for David before us. In fact Sibbes adds more weight when he says:

All truths are eternal truths, they die not as men do. David is dead and Moses is dead but the truth is not dead. “seek ye my face”. Paul is gone, Peter is gone. We are the Davids and the Moses’ and the Peters and the Pauls now. Those truths that were good for them are good for us.

I think sometimes we think we don’t have that access to God. We do. I’m sure Moses, David, Peter and Paul all at times could have said ‘I’m unworthy of seeking You’. But it’s our privilege, it’s our right. For us in the new testament, since Christ, we have this access through His righteousness anyway. Not our own. This is why we can come to the throne room of grace with boldness (Hebrews 4:16).

We need not fret about coming to God, yes humbly but boldly. Too often we allow our flesh and our sin to say: ‘I must not, I cannot, I need to get myself into a more holy place.’ Yet God’s Word tells us, and Sibbes quotes it in his sermon:

Matthew 11:28

²⁸Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

It’s not just that we can, but we must go to Him and seek Him. Lest we carry that burden around with us.

Sibbes writes:

There is no such comfort for men who carry that sin wittingly and willingly.

No respite indeed, the Lord will simply allow you to carry the wrath of your own disobedience, yet we do not need to. Sibbes goes on and talks of how, by our lack of obedience, by our unwillingness to go to him with all our heart in spite of our sin, it is ‘dishonouring God and his bounty’.

He says:

Has God not been so bountiful as to give us many instructions and such promises? And shall we not make them our own?

He then adds this heart-melting, beautiful truth:

What is the end of the ministry but to spread before us the unsearchable riches of Christ. They are yours if you will take them.

To not say to God: ‘our heart will seek your face’, is to say: ‘I will carry this myself, I will allow sin to continue to weaken me’. For let’s face it brothers and sisters, we will, in our own strength and own flesh, have no defence against sinning. Therefore, we must at all times count the blessing of having access to a God, who delights in sharing Christ’s victory. It’s the very purpose Christ came. That we could inherit and claim His victory as our own, and live within those riches.

Without doing so brothers and sisters, and I will conclude with this quote from Sibbes:

We are injurious to ourselves, we rob our own souls.

So therefore brothers and sisters, let our hearts say, in times of trial, in times of darkness, and in all times: ‘Lord, my heart said I will seek your face.’

Amen.