Pursue God
SUMMARY
In this sermon, Karl Ihfe opens a four-week series on Broadway Church's identity and mission, grounding everything in the conviction that God is restoring the world through Jesus Christ and has invited ordinary people to participate. Drawing from John 15, Karl emphasizes that pursuing God isn't about doing more for Him, but about remaining connected to Him — like a branch staying attached to the vine. He walks through four practical ways the church can pursue God: seeking Him daily through Scripture and prayer, gathering faithfully in worship, practicing intentional spiritual disciplines, and placing every area of life under Christ's authority.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Well, if you have your Bible this morning, I invite you to turn over to John 15. We'll wind up there in just a minute. But again, we are so excited to give you a chance to kind of look under the hood here at Broadway. What are we about? We want to spend the next four weeks talking some together about who it is that we're trying to be in the world.
If you're brand new, this will be a chance to maybe hear a few new things if you've been coming for a while, hopefully it's a reminder that these values we're trying to embody in the world aren't just words we put on a poster out in the hallway, but they're actually the way we're trying to show up in the world. Before we get too far down that road, we wanted to start with just talking about why we do this in the first place. What's the foundational reason why we exist as a church? And that's simply put, this way, we believe God is restoring the world through Jesus Christ, and he has invited us to participate with him. I think that's an amazing thing.
We believe the gospel is much bigger than getting to heaven when we die. It certainly involves that, but it's so much more than that. The gospel is Jesus announcing to the world that the kingdom has come near. In fact, in Mark's gospel, the very first thing that Jesus says as his ministry begins is the kingdom of God has come near. The way he taught his disciples to pray was make your kingdom God in heaven be on earth as well.
Make your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. That prayer kind of gives us a picture of where this whole story is going, is that one day God will restore and renew all things and we will be with him for eternity. And yet between that day and this, God's invited us to partner with him. Ordinary everyday people like you and me, we get a chance to participate in God's reconciliation work in the world. And so that's become our vision.
Over the last 18 months or so, we gathered up a group of many of our church to talk and think some about where we headed in the future. What do we want the future of Broadway to look like. And this was the statement that that team came up with. They said, we want to become a church that makes God's restoring love visible in our community, in our city and in the world. And we think each and every word in that statement is important.
I just want to draw your attention to one this morning. And that's the word Visible. We want to make God's love visible. You know, Jesus embodied God's love in such powerful ways, and it became a visible, tangible experience for those who were around him. The sick experienced it whenever he reached out and he touched them.
The hungry experienced it when he fed them. The excluded experienced it when he welcomed them, invited them, and gave them a place at the table. That sinners experienced it when he forgave them. And then he befriended them and invited them into a deeper life. So one of the questions that we keep asking around here as a staff team, when we're looking at who it is that we're trying to become and how we're helping shape our church to become, that it's what would look like for Broadway, or rather for people to actually experience the love of God through the life of Broadway.
What would that look like? And how do we become that which leads us again to that how? The why, the way we're trying to engage in the world, and one of those ways is we're trying to remove barriers and build bridges. We want to be that kind of people who help remove barriers between God and people, between people and one another, and between the church and. And the community, our neighbors.
We want to be the kind of people who help remove barriers and build bridges. Because there are barriers that exist, aren't there? There are barriers between people and God. Sometimes it comes as the result of a distortion caused by shame or fear or maybe a negative experience with someone who's going to church. And there's this barrier between people and God.
Sometimes those barriers between people are caused by loneliness or. Or division or prejudice or unforgiveness. We see in our world especially, there are cultural differences and political differences that divide people. We're a church that's trying to figure out how do we help remove those barriers and instead build bridges to connect people back to one another. But often there are barriers between the church and the community.
Now, I know for those at Broadway, it's kind of hard to imagine that, right, that wouldn't be any of us. But maybe just for example, you might think about how sometimes churches get insular. They just start looking at the inside and they forget to be present out in the community. Life becomes about us instead of about them. That people on the outside may know what we're against, but they're not real sure what we're for.
And so we want to make a change in that. We want to be the kind of church that removes barriers and builds bridges, which leads us directly to our mission. And again, this work that our team did this last year, our mission is these four values. We want to be the kind of people who pursue God, build community, unleash compassion, and share Jesus. And it's those four values that I want us to dive into together the next couple of weeks as we think about how we're trying to show up in the world.
And then on October 4th, as I said, our local mission Sunday, we're going to get a chance to celebrate all that God is doing in these partnerships that we get to have with these 10amazing ministries here in Lubbock and how God is challenging us to take our next step in serving our community. So let's begin this morning with Pursue God. And this one has to come first, doesn't it? Because we can't build the kind of community that Jesus calls us to build without Jesus. We can't unleash the compassion of Jesus without Jesus.
And we can't share Jesus if we're disconnected from Jesus. So this Pursue God, it's important that it's very first. So before we talk about what God wants us to do for him, I want us to think this morning about what it means to spend time with him, to live with Him. You see, And I think that's where these words from John chapter 15, that Dakota read for us just a moment ago become so important and so relevant to this conversation. Jesus says in verse 5, Richard alluded to this in his meditation this morning around the table.
I am the vine, Jesus says, and you are the branches. If you remain or abide in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. But apart from me, you can do nothing. You know, Jesus, first invitation isn't, guys, I need you to do more. I need you to raise your game.
I need you to get better. He says, I need you to remain with me, to abide in me, to spend time with me, to get to know me, to stay connected. You see, a branch doesn't manufacture fruit by itself. The vine does that. The branch's job is to stay connected.
And maybe that's the simplest way to understand what we mean when we say we're a church that's trying to pursue God. This discipleship is less about what we do and more about who we are staying connected to. And that's Jesus. So we've identified these four practices that we're trying to live out as a church. Now, certainly this isn't an exhaustive list, but as this team, as.
As we sat down and kind of talked and prayed and thought through this together, the last 18 months or so. These were four specific practices that we identified that would help us remain in Christ, remain connected to him. And the first one is this, that we're going to seek God daily through scripture and prayer. And we do this because we want to root our lives in God's truth and we want to be shaped by his love. Every day, whether we realize it or not, we are being shaped by something or someone.
Somebody's telling us what matters, what success looks like, what kinds of things we should fear, be afraid of, what kinds of things we should desire. People are telling us who our enemies are, what we should be afraid of, what we should be angry or anxious about. We live in a world of constant formation. There are voices all the time telling us what matters. And if we're not intentional about it, what ends up happening are those loudest voices tend to win out.
They tend to win the day. And that's why scripture and prayer matter so much. Not because reading your Bible, you get gold stars in heaven, although you just might. I don't know that for sure. Can't confirm, can neither confirm nor deny.
But something about learning about God's story in Scripture, God's story is revealed to us, and we have it there to push back against the narrative, the story that the world is telling us. At the same time that prayer creates this space where we can bring our actual lives into the presence of God. We don't have to pretend that everything's okay and that we don't have problems, and there aren't things we're worried about or stressors that are impacting us or barriers that we're trying to overcome. But prayer is this opportunity for us to bring our gratitude, our anger, our confusion, our worry, our temptation, our fear, our hopes, our questions. My weekly I get to be a part of a devotional team, and they're studying the Psalms right now each week.
And man, the Psalms are the prayer book of the early church, right? Bringing all of these things to God to be present fully with God, saying, God, I don't know all the answers, and I don't know why things are happening, but I'm trusting you, and I'm going to give it to you. Because we believe that over time, God's truth is going to replace and become more familiar than the lies that are told to us. And we believe God's love becomes more determinative of our behavior and how we respond to the world than the approval of others we're fitting in. And so our lives slowly begin to change over time.
And what's wonderful about this one is it doesn't require an hour long devotional every morning with three commentaries and a journal and your Greek text and a candle lit to remind you of God's presence. If that's you, that's awesome. But you know this, spending time with God in scripture and in prayer, it's available in those seven quiet minutes before your little ones get up and start creating chaos. It's available to you in your car as you drive to work. It's available to you students as you're walking across campus.
And if at Tech, that sometimes is a pretty long walk across campus, it's available to you when you're lying awake at 2 o' clock in the morning wondering, searching God's presence, His availability. It's right there. And so the question we might be asking ourselves is not did we have an amazing devotional time today? But am I learning to live my actual life with God? Am I putting that into practice?
One of the ways we're trying to do that, church, is to spend time reading God's word, spending time talking to him each day because Jesus invites us, remain in me. And if you remain in me, I'll remain in you. Well, the second practice we do is we faithfully gather in worship, just like we are right now. Now, we do this for a couple of reasons, right? Because number one, we get to encounter God right here.
We get to lift praises to his name, we get to honor Him. But it also helps strengthen and build a resilient faith and hopefulness in us. You see, pursuing God, it's personal. It was never intended to be private. Jesus doesn't have just one branch, he has many.
He has a full vine of them. And throughout Scripture, God's people gather together, right? And they sang and they pray and they listen and they celebrate the table and they remember together. You know, sometimes we misunderstand worship, and I know nobody in here does, but just invite you to imagine that sometimes people misunderstand worship and they ask questions like, did I like the songs today? How are.
I don't know, Gary. Did I? I know nobody asked that question here, but just imagine for the sake of argument, was the sermon any good? Did it move me? Now again, I know it always does.
But just for the sake of argument, imagine those kind of questions being. I get that, I understand, I ask those questions sometimes. But what we're trying to remind ourselves is that worship isn't primarily a product that we consume. James K.A. smith, who's a writer, a teacher, a theologian, he says it like this.
He says, in worship, we don't just come to show God our devotion and give him our praise. We are called to worship because in this encounter, God remakes and molds us. Top down, worship is the arena in which God recalibrates our hearts. He reforms our desires and he rehabituates our loves. Worship isn't just something we do, but it's where God does something to us.
You see church. Cause sometimes I show up and my faith is weak. I need to hear you. I need to see you. I need to spend time with you.
I need to be reminded I'm not alone. There are weeks when maybe your hope feels really fragile and you need to stand beside someone who's anchored in God's presence and just hold fast to them. I remember in college, one of the great influences on my life was a guy who was serving in ministry at the church that I attended to. And I remember how his presence was so important that in college, as in many of our college students, there are so many questions and things happening. It just.
You feel kind of discombobulated. And I remember I just wanted to be in the same room where Lee was. Wherever Lee was, I wanted to be there. Why? Because he was anchored in his faith.
And I needed that. I needed someone to be present there for me. That we gather on Sundays even when we don't quite believe the words yet, but we sing them together. Great is thy faithfulness. Eventually your soul begins to believe it or believe it again.
You see, resilient faith is rarely formed in isolation. It's almost always formed in connection, in relationship. And so if you're new here and you're checking Broadway out and wondering, can this be your church home? I just want you to know we don't expect you to walk through these doors with everything figured out. In fact, we invite you to come with your questions and come with your doubts and come exhausted or come unsure.
Worship isn't a gathering of people who've mastered it all. Instead, it's people who keep turning their attention back to God. God, what might you have to say about this? What might you have to say to me in this? We're trusting that in worship it's not just something we do, but God is doing something to us.
And so we gather each week, trusting and believing God, would you do for me what I can't do for myself? And so we committed to being present together each week in worship to honor God, but also to build this resilient and hopeful faith. God builds it in us. The third commitment that we're making is that we want to practice intentional spiritual disciplines. Now, we do this to help be formed into people who are wise and who persevere and who are full of joy, because those aren't things we can manufacture on our own.
We can't just wake up one morning and say, all right, self, be joyful today. Ready? Go. For 2,000 years, Christians have been practicing these habits, these behaviors to help form and become increasingly attentive to God's presence in them and in their lives, to make themselves available to God's presence. We've talked about a few so far.
Prayer and scripture reading and worship. But there are countless others, things like silence and solitude, fasting, Sabbath generosity, confession, service. These practices don't change God's posture to us. They change our posture toward God. And so we commit to practicing them.
I mean, think again about Jesus image here in John 15. A gardener doesn't make the vine grow, right? That's God's job. A gardener simply cultivates the soil. It cultivates and prepares the soil around it that God's growth might take place.
And so these spiritual practices make us increasingly available to the work of the Holy Spirit. And here's why that matters again. Because every day you're becoming somebody. You're being formed into somebody. And right now, your habits are shaping the person that you're becoming.
What you repeatedly give your attention to, it's shaping you.
What you repeatedly consume, it is shaping me, right? What we. The pace at which we live, it's shaping you. The way we use technology, the way that we spend our money, the way that we respond when we're angry, those things are all shaping us. Those habits are shaping, informing us.
And so one of the things we've tried to do is say, God, help me through learning, through this practice, to be more attentive. So that when it comes to decisions about how I spend my time and how I spend my money, that God, you'll change my heart, you'll change how I think. And the way I see you see, the question we have to wrestle with is, who are you being formed into? Jesus says, as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, so remain in my love. Stay connected.
As we remain in Jesus, his life increasingly becomes our life. Jesus says, my wisdom will become your wisdom, and my perseverance will become your perseverance. And I love. Here in John 15, he reminds them, I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy would be complete. Jesus isn't inviting us into a joyless life.
Sometimes we think of the spiritual disciplines that's got a negative connotation with it and just kind of imagine, well, it's hard, so it must be godly. And Jesus is going, no, what I want you to do is to remain, stay connected into me. You see, at the end of that is this joy. A deep and resilient faith is built and rooted in a life in the love and presence of God. Well, the last practice that we've been talking about is we place everything under Christ's authority.
Now this means we steward our time and our resources, our influence and our power. And we steward those things under Christ's authority so that our lives would begin to reflect the kingdom of God and not the world's ambition. You see, eventually pursuing God, it touches everything, every aspect, every part of our life. It can't just be that little 5, 10, 15, 20 minute, 30 minute devo that we have the morning. You see, if Jesus is Lord, then he gets to be lord of everything.
Our calendar and our money, our sexuality, our relationships, our politics, our ambitions, our possessions, our influence, our power, our future, everything.
In Matthew 6, one of Jesus most famous sermons, he tells his followers this. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. You see, all of us are pursuing something. And what we pursue will eventually organize the life that we live, right? If we want success the most, then we're gonna organize our lives around how we spend and become successful.
And if we want money the most, then we're going to organize our life. Money will tell us what sacrifices are and are not worth making. If we want approval, then other people's opinions will shape how we live. If we want comfort, then we'll arrange our life to avoid anything that costs us much. You see, whatever becomes our ultimate treasure eventually becomes our master.
Jesus said it like this. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And out of the overflow of your heart, your mouth will speak. See, that's why Jesus said, seek first the kingdom. Let God's reality become this organizing center of your life.
And in John 15, where he tells us, and again, Richard pointed to this before, so challenging. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Nothing that matters or has eternal consequence. Our world says the opposite. You can do anything.
You just need to work hard, you need to try hard, you need to control, you need to accumulate, you need to engineer, you need to put all these things in play, you need to do all this stuff and then you can have the life you want. Jesus offers a very different way to be human. He says, you don't have to spend your life proving yourself.
Just think about this for a moment. You don't have to spend your life protecting yourself. You don't have to spend your life promoting yourself.
You don't have to spend your life securing yourself. He says, abide in me. Seek first the kingdom. Trust the Father.
See your time and your influence and your money and your power as we learn to live that way, they become things that are entrusted to us, not things we've earned and we deserve and we get and we hoard. Instead, we. Instead of asking, what can I get out of this life? We might ask God, what would it look like for my life to come under your authority? What would it look like for my finances?
What would it look like for my relationships? What would it look like for my work or my school? I mean, that's pursuing God. It's learning to live our ordinary lives in the presence of Jesus, remaining connected to Jesus. Now, I want to be clear at Broadway, I'm not saying we got this down.
These four, boom, done. Zo. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying this is the kind of life that we're trying to become, to live. This is the kind of church we want to be.
A church that seeks God daily in prayer and in His Word. We want to be the kind of church that gathers faithfully every week because we recognize in worship God reorients our hearts and our minds back to Him. We want to be the kind of church that practices the ways of Jesus, those disciplines, until wisdom and perseverance and joy just become as natural as breathing. And we want to be a church where our time and our money and our influence and our power, all of those are reflective of God's kingdom rather than the world around us. Why?
Because we want to make God's restoring love visible. We want people who interact with us to see and experience God's love. And we can't manufacture that, that kind of fruit. It's only borne out in our lives. It's borne out in a life that's remained close to Jesus.
So as we finish this morning, I just leave you with this question. What is helping you remain connected to Jesus? What's helping you pursue God? Or maybe it's what's disconnecting you from him. And maybe pursuing God means I need to take another run at this daily reading God's Word and spending time in prayer.
Or maybe for you, it's recovering worship as something I want to commit, to be a part of, not just Whenever it fits into my already busy schedule. Or maybe it's recovering prayer as something more than just an emergency response, but it becomes just a daily rhythm. Or maybe there's another practice that Jesus is inviting you to partake in. Maybe there's a part of your life that you've kept outside of his authority. God will let you have control of almost everything.
And maybe the spirit is saying, no, no, no, that too. Him too. Her too, you too. See, Jesus is saying, remain in me. Trust me, bring it to me.
Because here at Broadway, pursuing God is not just something we add to an already overcrowded and busy life. Instead, it's the relationship that we're trying to to organize our entire life around. We believe discipleship is more about, or rather less about, what we do and more about who we stay connected to. That's why at Broadway, we're pursuers. God, may that be true of us this week as we go about what you have ahead of us, whether it's school or work, whether it's family relationships, all kinds of challenges we're going to face.
But God, would you do in us what only you can do? Would you help us? Would you remind us of the power of your presence and staying connected to you and that it's only in that connection that we will be fruitful? So, God, whatever way that needs to take place in us and each one here today, but also God in this church, would you help us to remain in you this week, draw us into your presence, invite us to spend time with you, even if it's just in a couple of minutes before the kiddos get up and start rustling around. Maybe it's on the way to work or on the way back home afterwards.
Maybe it's as we're crossing campus or we get a moment just to take a breath in our dorm room. Maybe it's in the lunch cafeteria area where we just see somebody lonely. God, wherever it may be, would you invite us to pursue you once again that we might be your people, your hands and feet, God, so that we can make your love visible here in our community, in our city and around the world? Oh, God, may it be true. We pray in Christ's name.
Amen.