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Seeking His Face | David Fisher

Elders, I’d ask for you to continue fasting through the month of January. You don’t have to stop then, but I hope that God has spoken to you during this month and has revealed things and shown you things because you’ve diligently sought after Him. And the Word says those who diligently seek Him, He’s going to reward.

And if you’re going to, those who knock, the door will be open, and those who seek will what? They’ll find. And I hope that God’s helping you find and helping you see things this month that you may never have seen before. I pray that God will stir in your hearts, it will stir in your souls, just that desire to serve Him and the desire to seek Him and to enjoy more love and more glory and just more of His presence in your life because that’s why His Son Jesus died, so that we could enjoy that presence with God.

Today’s message, y’all ready to study the Scriptures today? I am. I’m really looking forward to this one. It’s about seeking His face.

Y’all ever play hide and seek as a child? My grandchildren are of the age where they like to play hide and seek, and not too long ago Hallie and Madeline said, Mom and Papa, let’s play hide and seek. It’s kind of hard for me to hide, you know, I’m big. Back when I was small, I could get in cabinets and get in nooks and crannies, but I’m kind of hiding in plain sight.

So I’ll maybe put a blanket over my head, you know, I’m hiding, and sometime I’ll leave the room and I can hear them, where are you, where are you, you can tell they’re just kind of giggling, getting all excited because they’re looking for me, they’re looking for me, and they find me, and they go, wow, I found you, and oh, we hug them, and oh, what joy, joy, just of seeking. I think God intended us to get that same kind of joy in seeking Him, to seek Him, but the truth is, as we get old, like Pawpaw, and we don’t get as much enjoyment out of hide and seek and seeking things anymore, and God knows that, that’s why He wants us to be like children, to be like children, to learn to seek Him, to seek His face. You wonder what God’s doing, I want to turn to Psalms 14 verse 2, if you have your Bible with you, I’d love for you to keep taking notes, many of y’all, I see many of y’all still taking notes, y’all doing great, the verse should be up on the screen, we got that Psalms 14 2, Psalms 14 2 says, the Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek God, can you get that picture in your mind, of God looking over the children of men saying, where are the seekers, because I’m here to be found.

As I was preparing for this lesson, I recalled a memory that I had completely forgotten, but it came back to me, and I can remember being at my cousin’s house, or I guess it was my great aunt’s house in Temple, Texas, it was kind of a family reunion time, cousins that I hadn’t seen in a long time were there, and we were playing, and we decided to play hide and seek, and it was my turn to go hide, and so I went and hid and found this place in the house, and I was there, and I waited, I waited, I might even dozed off, I don’t know, I just remember kind of coming to, and nobody’s found me, and I remember coming out of the closet and looking around for my cousins that I hadn’t seen in a long time, and I asked my great aunt, I said, where are the cousins, she said, oh, their mama already got them, and they’ve left, right in the middle of the game, their mama came and got them, and nobody was looking for me, it’s kind of ugly, isn’t it, kind of cruel, it’s a bad feeling to know that people ought to be looking for you, nobody’s looking for you, I have a feeling how God feels when he looks down upon his people, and he sees people going about their business, taking care of their things, doing all their stuff, concerned about themselves, and not seeking him, and I can only imagine the grief that our holy father feels when he realizes and looks not only on the lost world, but on his church, when we’re not actively seeking him, because he wants to be found. I’m going to read a few psalms, if you don’t mind, and then a prayer of David that talks about seeking God, more particularly seeking his face, we’re going to start in Psalms 27 verse 4, Psalms 27 verse 4, we used this verse two weeks ago when we were talking about desire, desire for God, this is one thing I’ve desired of the Lord, that will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. Let’s get down to verse 8, this is David speaking, when you said seek my face, he’s talking to God here, he’s saying God when you told me to seek my face, you understand God told him seek my face, when you said seek my face, my heart said to you, your face Lord, I will seek, do not hide your face from me.

Sometimes we know that God plays hide and seek, he just wants to know if you’re going to look for him, the things of God even though they’re in plain sight, we don’t have the spiritual eyes to see it. I’m going to tell you our Lord, Savior Jesus Christ is seek my face. Psalms 105 verse 3, this Psalm is also recorded over in First Chronicles chapter 16, it was after David was bringing the Ark of the Covenant, the golden box with the cherubim on it, bringing it to Jerusalem, to the tabernacle that he had made.

It’s also recorded here in Psalms 105 verse 3 and 4, it says glory in his holy name, let the hearts of those who rejoice to seek the Lord, seek the Lord in his strength, seek his face evermore. I’m going to turn to Second Chronicles, last one we’re going to read, Second Chronicles and you all know this one probably by heart, it’s where Solomon was dedicating the temple, it’s used by those who want restoration and revival of God’s ways, even in our country, in our nation, we should always pray for our nation, this type of prayer. In verse 13, God has appeared to Solomon and told him that he’s heard his prayer, he says, and this is God speaking, when I shut up heaven and there’s no rain, I mean when there’s drought, when there’s bad times, or I command the locusts to devour the land, there’s things eating, gobbling it up, or send pestilence among my people, there is a solution.

Verse 14, if my people who were called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, two separate things, right? Pray and seek my face and then we turn from our wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land. Is that a prayer we should pray for our country? Absolutely, and for all of our leaders, that God will answer that, but he has some conditions there, he says, I want you to humble yourselves and I want you to pray and I want you to seek my face. That’s a strange phrase, seek my face, because you look for God, Moses wanted to see God, God says you can’t see my face, you have to see my back as my glory goes by you and he declares his name, but God’s still saying I want you to seek my face.

Scripture says no man can see his face and live, how do you reconcile that? Why is he asking you to do something that would cause you not to live anymore? The truth is we will see his face in heaven, we will see his face when we are resurrected, but he’s telling us to seek his face now, so what does that even mean? Probably means a lot of different things to different people, depending upon where you are in the journey and your walk with God. You’ve probably heard me say this before, I think of it like this, I hope this will help you understand the phrase, to seek his face. What does that even mean? When I come home from work, if my wife is at the door, the first thing she does is she looks at my face and she can almost instantly tell what kind of day I’ve had.

Why? Because it’s on my face, isn’t it? If I come home and I’m frustrated, well she sees it, says oh what happened? If I come home and I’ve got a smile on my face, she says what good happened today? She instantly knows because she is looking at my face, she knows what’s on my mind by reading my face. There’s sometimes when she’s not there when I show up, maybe she’s in the back room, maybe she’s cooking dinner, maybe she’s tending to something and I go and I sit down in my big fat lazy chair, kick it back, got my feet up and I’m just minding my own business. Maybe we’re watching TV, maybe I’m reading, she says I’m often distracted, she’s right.

Thinking about work or thinking about church or just my mind’s always spinning. Sometimes I’m sitting there in my big chair and I just get this feeling that some eyes are looking at me. You ever got that feeling before? You just know somebody is looking at you and I can just feel it and I look up from whatever I’m reading and she’s sitting right there on the couch and sure enough she’s staring at me.

She’s just staring. She’s not staring at my feet that are moving, you know, that drives her nuts. My foot’s always moving.

She’s staring at my face, staring at my face. Why? Because she wants to know what’s on my mind and she’ll stare at my face. I say, what are you thinking about? Most of the time I say a hundred different things.

She knows that I’m not there. She knows I’m somewhere here. Any of y’all have that experience? She can read me like a book.

I don’t have to tell her I’m upset, she knows I’m upset. I don’t have to tell her I’m excited, she knows I’m excited because she is studying my face. She wants to know what’s on my mind whereas a man can sit there and I don’t have to talk all day or all evening.

I’m just fat and happy sitting and being quiet. She wants to know and she wants to communicate. She wants to know what’s on my mind and I believe that’s what God’s saying.

I want you to know what is on my mind. I want you to look for my face because if you could just look, look upon me and read the circumstances, read the situations, what would I be thinking about what’s going on right now? I believe God wants us to be intentional in our thoughts. You don’t seek somebody’s face by accident.

You seek it on purpose. I’m going to tell you the truth is we get so busy in our busyness that we don’t seek God the way we ought to seek him. Maybe I’m just preaching to myself today.

Maybe none of y’all have that problem but I’m going to tell you I get too busy sometimes and I quit seeking his face. You know what happens when I quit seeking his face? I don’t start thinking about what’s on his mind. If I’m not thinking about what’s on his mind, sometimes I just really not even considering what’s on his mind.

I’m more worried about what’s on my mind. If we’re going to have the mind of Christ, we need to spend time, intentionally spending time thinking, God what are you thinking right now? God what’s on your mind? What gives you pleasure? What brings you joy? Father what’s going on in my life that is bringing you grief? Father what are things am I doing that are causing you to say stop? And if I’m seeking his face, I’m going to tell you we’ll be learning to hear and to know exactly what’s on his mind because we’re looking at his face. I believe what God is showing through this.

I believe when God gave the command to David he says I want you to know what I am thinking and I want you to consider what I am thinking and I want you to do what I am thinking because I’m telling you stuff to do. You know you can do that and I 100% believe in reading his word and pouring over his word. Very important.

But I’m going to tell you what, you can seek God’s face without consulting your Bible. You get thrown off on a deserted island, you don’t get a free pass to say well I don’t got to seek God anymore because I don’t got a Bible with me. As long as you’re breathing, as long as your mind’s operating, I’m going to tell you God is telling us to seek his face.

I want you to get in my mind. I remember when I was a teenager I was working on our farm and my dad gave me a list of things to do and I got through with all 10 of them so I assumed there wasn’t anything else to do. So I went inside and watched TV for the rest of the day.

My dad got home and he said what are you doing watching TV? So I finished the list. He said so what? You think there’s nothing else to do? Well you didn’t put anything on the list so I didn’t think you had anything else for me to do. I mean you wrote a list for me.

He says come on with me son. And he grabbed me. He didn’t grab me by the ear but he might as well have because I was already shamed.

I was walking like this like a puppy with my tail between my legs because I knew he was scolding me. He took me and began to walk me through the garden. He says you see these weeds? What do you think I’d tell you if I was here? Pick them.

Come on. He walked over a little bit more the portion of my mother’s flower garden. He says what’s all that? Some sticks.

What do you think I’d tell you if I was here? You tell me pick them up. Okay. He’d take me to another thing and he started taking me to things all over the yard.

He took me down the one of the fence lines and said you see this barbed wire? It’s all dangly. What do you think I’d tell you if I was here? Fix the fence. Says why do I have to be here? This was a true story.

He said learn to think like me. Think my thoughts. And he became the voice in my head.

When I get through with something that was being told for me to do, I’d think what would my dad want me to do? I’ll tell you that’s how our father God is saying you don’t wait for somebody to come tell you to do something good. You do what you know he would want to tell you if he was standing there looking at you and showing you. How many times do we wait for somebody to say well that you know they never told me to do anything.

Nobody asked me to do it. That’s the greatest excuse for a church member. Nobody asked me.

I’ll tell you your father’s asking you to think his thoughts. You see something needs to be done, get after it. Giving you permission as a elder in this church.

You see something that God puts on your heart needs to be done, get after it. Don’t wait on us. You think somebody needs to be prayed for? Get yourself on over there and start praying for them.

You see somebody who’s missing? Don’t be saying well you know those elders and deacons just don’t got a good program. You get on with it. Get on with it.

If we’re going to seek the face of the father, we’re going to be listening and looking for the things our father would tell us to do. Would he tell you to do it? If he was standing there, then get after it. I love the voices in my head.

I get them all the time. Not crazy voices. Not split personality voices.

It’s the voice of my wife. My wife’s voice. When we first got married, I thought washing your hand just mean you put your hand under the water sink for about two seconds and dried clean.

Any of you men do that? How you wash your hands? If you had my wife’s voice around, you wouldn’t do that for long. You would know because the voice would be, did you use soap and water? No. Get on back.

I watch our kids grow up and they go wash their hands and they came back just a little too quickly. And she’d say, did you use soap and water? No. I’m going to tell you after I, when I wash my hands now, I hear this voice that says, did you use soap and water? Why? It’s the voice in my head.

We’ll tell you those who spend time with the father, his voice will be in your head. He promised to send us the Holy Spirit who would be our teacher, who would guide us, who would strengthen us, who would teach us and tell us what it is that this father and the son, Jesus Christ wants us to do. Isn’t that true? We will claim to be spirit filled, but yet we’re waiting on somebody to give us a specific instruction when the Holy Spirit is saying, get on about it.

Get on with it. Do the things that you know I would want you to do. I’m not here today to scold you.

I’m here today to encourage you. Okay. Cause I, I forget all the time and I do use soap now, but there was a time that I didn’t.

As y’all know, I sometimes would drink out of the Coke bottle out of the refrigerator. I used to do that and I don’t do that anymore. Cause the voice in my head said, don’t do that.

I still do it every now and then, but only if it’s my bottle. I don’t do it if it’s her bottle. I’ll tell you, it’s important for us to learn to seek his face.

And I believe that’s intentional. It says early in the morning while I seek you early in the morning, I start off my morning saying, God, what is it that you have for me to do for you today? This is all grace. If you feel in self condemned, stop.

God gives grace for us to seek his face. And he gives us grace to hear his voice. And he gives us grace to accomplish the things that he puts in front of us.

And we fall and we fail and we forget and we get busy. And you know what? His mercies are new every morning. Start over the next morning and say, father, I start in a new day.

Yesterday, I just did all, excuse me. I just did a bad job. I’m sorry.

Sorry. Today’s a new day. This is the day the Lord’s made, right? We’re going to rejoice.

We’re going to be glad in it. You start over every day. His mercies are new every morning.

Isn’t that just a beautiful thing about grace? It’s not like this big, this big slate of all these things I’ve done wrong. And they just continue to add up and add up and add up and add up and just add up and add up. Next day, they just add on to the list.

You ever felt that way? Just piles up and piles up and piles up. And before you know it, your whole slate’s full of marks against you for what you did. I’m going to tell you, we’ve got to learn to accept his grace to say that slate has been clean.

His mercies are new every morning. Because that’s what he wants us to know. That’s what his face would call us to understand.

So important for us to desire him. And you know what? You’re going to look for something that you desire. Don’t you? You’re going to look for it.

And when you really want to look for something, nothing else matters. Don’t bother me now. I’m looking for it.

What are you looking for, David? I’m looking for my screwdriver. I thought I left it right here. What’d you do with it? No, I didn’t do anything with it.

No, you must have put it somewhere. No, you put it. No, you must have moved it.

No, I didn’t move it. No, you left it. It’s wherever you left it.

Nine times out of ten, it’s exactly where I left it. I just forgot where I left it. But I’m going to tell you, when I start searching for something, don’t bother me right now.

I’m single-minded. I’m looking for it. I am focused.

I am intentional. Aren’t you? When you really want to find something, you will tear the house up looking for it. Won’t you? It’s a pretty good test of how much we really want to seek Him.

If I’m doing it half-hearted, I’m not seeking Him. I’m just kind of seeing if it passes by. You want it? You want it bad enough? You’re going to look for it.

You’re going to search for it. You’re going to fast for it. You’re going to pour yourself out before God saying, God, I need an answer.

God, I need some relief. I need to know. There’s an intentionality that comes with it when we’re really seeking God.

Not casual observers, not casual thinkers. I mean seeking. I will tell you it’s going to cost you something because you know when you’re seeking, there’s some things you can’t take, you can’t do because you’re looking for it.

You’re looking for the thing that you seek. Everything else, everything else doesn’t matter. It’s even worse for a man.

I’m single-tracked. My wife can do three things at once. I cannot.

I got one thing and I will drive it to the ground until that one thing’s done. I can’t talk on the phone and change a baby at the same time. I got to do one of two.

I can’t do both. She’s good at that. I am not.

But I can tell you when we start deciding that we desire to seek Him, God is going to place within you a desire to seek Him. He’s going to give you the grace to do it. My question is, do you want to be that kind of seeker? I do.

The last verse I want to read is here in Hebrews, Hebrews 11, 16. I mentioned it earlier in the lesson. It’s all about faith.

We think of faith just in believing in what we think in our mind. I will tell you it’s more than just what we think in our mind. It’s part of what we seek.

Faith and seeking are tied together. In Hebrews, we’re talking about faith. It’s Hebrews 11, verse 6. Without faith, it is impossible to please God.

We all know that. We all know the importance of faith. For he who comes to God must believe that he is.

I think everybody here believes that he is. I really truly believe that. You must believe that he is and.

That’s more, right? And that he is a what? He is a rewarder of those who what? Who diligently seek Him. Faith is not just what you have in your mind. It is what you do with what’s in your mind.

It is seeking God’s face. It is wanting to know exactly what God’s purposes and His ways are. That’s faith.

I want the faith in this congregation to rise that we not only just believe the right things, but we seek the right things. We seek Him not halfheartedly, but with a whole heart. Diligently.

That’s often, right? Often intentional. I’m diligent. When somebody’s a diligent worker, they’re taking care of the business, aren’t they? He says, I want you to be diligently seeking me because I want to give you a reward.

And there is no greater reward than the presence of God. There’s no greater reward than enjoying His love and His pleasure. There’s no greater reward than experiencing His glory and seeing all of His goodness.

You think, how do I do this? Maybe you just go see a tree. How about that? You see God in everything. He made everything.

God’s not in the tree, but God made the tree. That makes sense? There’s these people who believe that God’s in all this. He’s not in the created stuff.

He made all the created stuff. I want to tell you His glory is shown just in the trees. You can look at that tree.

It’s the dead of winter and you said it’s got a green pine needle on it. You know what you could think? God, you’re so good. Even in the midst of winter, there’s life.

Even in the midst of my winter, even in the midst of my cold heart, there is life flowing through that tree. You are a good God. In the springtime, you start seeing buds come from the tree and you think what? Man, there is new life coming.

We can look at the things of His nature and His creation. Look at all the things that He does and just start looking at the simple things of life and say, God, what was your purpose in this? Why did you create this? Why did you do this? God, what are you showing me just with your sunset? My dad tells a story of one of my little nephews who was riding in the car and it was a sunset. It was just beautiful and the child was just talking to himself and he said, he heard my nephew say, God, you sure did good today.

From the mouths of obey. God, you did good and I’m going to look for your goodness and I don’t care how dark the day is, there is always a light. I don’t care how dark your life is right now, there is a light.

Jesus is that light and He wants to fill you with that light if you just let Him. And He’s a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. But if you’ve never become a follower of Jesus Christ and I’m sorry, you just lost.

I’m speaking to people here who I know have put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ at some point in their life and we can also walk through the valley of the shadow of death and we can get dark, but I’m going to tell you there is no reason to fear the evil because He is with us in His rod and His staff. They will comfort us. Do not give up.

The thing I love about this being a worshiping church is you may come here with your heart down and your mind not at peace, but there is something that lifts you up when you see a brother or a sister raising their hand saying they’re praising God and there’s something important about somebody taking your hand and holding your hand saying I love you and don’t you forget God loves you too, isn’t there? Man, when people who don’t come to church, they’re missing that. I’m proud of y’all for being here because it took some effort. My encouragement to you is do not quit seeking the face of God.

My wife can look at me once in the evening, but I tell you what, she’s going to look at me again later in the evening. It’s not a one-time deal. I saw his face, I’m done.

No, it’s continual. If she wants to know what’s on my mind all the time, she’s got to keep looking at my face. Y’all stand up, would you? I don’t know what you’re seeking.

There’s some people here who are just looking for peace in their life and I’m going to tell you there’s a God who’ll give it to you if you’ll just seek it and ask for it. Those who ask, he’s a giver of good gifts, isn’t he? Is he a giver of good gifts? Is he a giver of good gifts? I believe that God also gives the gift of healing and I know there’s some people here today who need some healing and so I’m going to ask Faye and others to come up here and let the elders pray for them and those who believe in the power of prayer to surround them. I’m going to ask y’all to do that now and we’re going to sing, but those who are not praying here with us, feel free to come to the altar and say, God, I’m looking for you.

Please show me. Please show me because I need you. I need you.