A Rhythm of seeking in a culture of Immediacy

[00:00:00] All right. Good morning. Um, I’m Liam, one of the elders here at Soma, and on behalf of the elders, a warm welcome to you if you are visiting us this week for Back to Church Sunday. It’s great to have you. Um, it’s a pleasure for me to be asked to bring God’s Word forward this morning. Um, as Eleanor explained, we’re in a series, Rhythms of the Day, thinking about rhythms that can help us be formed in light of Christ, as opposed to being formed by our culture, which is happening to us in so many ways that we perhaps don’t recognize or fully appreciate.

[00:00:29] So over the past four weeks or so, Toby has been very helpfully taking us on a journey of better understanding the impact of our culture on our hearts and our minds, and how it can so easily drag us away from the heart and the mind of Christ. But more importantly, what rhythms we can put in place in our lives to align or form ourselves in light of Jesus.

[00:00:50] Because we’re God’s people, and we don’t wanna just be people who our culture create us to be. We want to be formed into people who reflect Jesus, uh, and his coming kingdom. Over the past four weeks, we’ve considered a rhythm of loving relationships in a culture of performance, a rhythm of community in a culture of individualism, a rhythm of gathering in a culture of fragmentation, a rhythm of Sabbath in a culture of hurry.

[00:01:13] So today, we’re continuing this theme. It’s titled today, A Rhythm of Seeking in a Culture of Immediacy. Uh, but before we go any further, let me pray.

[00:01:23] Our Father, we are so thankful for your gospel of salvation. We ask that, uh, you would lead us deeper into an understanding of your goodness and your kindness and mercy as we open up your Word together this morning. And we ask that you would align our hearts and minds around your Son, Jesus, so we would be transformed more and more into his likeness for your glory and for our good.

[00:01:45] Amen. All right, so let’s begin by considering our culture of immediacy. What do I mean by that?

[00:01:52] Let me just tighten this for one second. There we go. Well, a culture of immediacy is a culture shaped by the expectation that our desires, our needs, our questions and problems can be and should be satisfied straight away. It’s a culture that provides us with immediate gratification, that eliminates the need for patience, tolerance, endurance.

[00:02:15] It’s a culture that rejects long-term solutions or lengthy projects, offering instead streamlines or shortcuts or quick fixes. And I think this is the environment we live in. It’s the air we breathe every day. Let me consider some examples. Instant communication. A message arrives and we feel pressure to respond immediately, or we send a message and instantly, impatiently expect a response.

[00:02:40] Seen receipts and typing indicators, they exist to satisfy our need for instant acknowledgment of our message before the recipient has even had a chance to digest the content or reply. And what about same-day everything? Groceries, online orders, postage. We increasingly expect the things we want to be on our doorstep now.

[00:02:59] Convenience isn’t a luxury. It’s an expectation, something we’re entitled to. Streaming platforms. We once waited a week for the next episode. Now an entire season drops at once and binging is totally normal. And just a few seconds of buffering can provoke irritation. Short form content. TikTok, Reels, Shorts.

[00:03:18] If something doesn’t capture us in the first few seconds, we move past it. Or we’re being trained to not merely consume information quickly, but to also expect everything worth hearing to grab our interest immediately. There’s answers without searching. At first, it was search engines providing us a filtered list of all the world’s information in a heartbeat.

[00:03:39] And now that’s not even fast enough. The rise of AI means we can ask a question and have the sum of human knowledge ordered and arranged in a neat package to our exact specifications in just a few seconds. Uh, increasingly, the experience of not knowing is a problem that can be instantly eliminated rather than a condition we sometimes need to inhabit.

[00:04:00] Of course, we could go on with so many more. GPS gives us the fastest route, predicts arrival times, reroutes around traffic, no unnecessary waiting. We receive our news in real time while it’s happening. There’s productivity culture, faster replies, faster meetings, faster decisions, faster results. I read all this described this week as the tyrannical imperative to optimize everything, which I thought was a nice summary.

[00:04:25] And with all this comes endless opportunities for distraction. Nothing needs to last long in our minds because something new is always being presented to us at every moment. Our attention is pulled this way and that, one shiny new thing to the next, never staying still for long. And I think it’s an involuntary response to our immediate stimuli that, of our environment.

[00:04:46] We just get distracted. This is our culture of immediacy. Now that might have been a bit of a bleak sounding picture, and of course, there are many great things about instant access and instant information. But we do need to consider how this culture informs or rather forms the way we seek and know God Do we perhaps expect the same instant results in our discipleship to Jesus?

[00:05:09] Does our Bible reading become a task to find immediate answers and problems to the problems we’re facing? Do we come to the gathering of the church with a passive entertainment mentality, where the mind tends to float aimlessly from one human thing to another? Do we struggle to invest ourselves in prayer?

[00:05:28] We begin by earnestly talking to God but then we begin to focus on things the things that we are praying about, and suddenly we’re not praying anymore. We’re worrying or solving problems. And so if any of this is or perhaps could be true of us, and it certainly is of me, then how can a rhythm of seeking God help us be formed in light of the Kingdom of God rather than this culture of immediacy?

[00:05:51] That’s the question before us this morning. Uh, we’re gonna think about three things together. Firstly, why to seek God, how to seek God and to remain seeking God. And through these things, we’re gonna consider how seeking God might shape us to be people not formed by this culture of immediacy, but rather formed in light of Christ So let’s start with the why of seeking God.

[00:06:16] Perhaps seeking God might sound like a strange thing to say. Isn’t God with us all the time? Uh, why would we even need to seek God? Aren’t seekers of God just people who haven’t found Him yet? No, I don’t think so. Of course, God is omnipresent and therefore always near everything and everyone. He holds everything in being.

[00:06:37] His power is ever present in sustaining and governing all things. And additionally, He’s always present with His children. He provides His covenant commitment to always stand by us and work for us and turn everything for our good. ” Behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.” But at the same time, this is not always our experience, is it?

[00:06:58] There are times when God’s manifest, conscious, trusted presence is not our felt experience. And there are seasons when we become neglectful of God, give Him no thought, and don’t put our trust in Him. And then we find He feels absent. That is, His beauty and His greatness goes unperceived in our hearts and minds And this is partially why I think God calls us to be seekers.

[00:07:23] And we see this all through the word of God. Psalm 105:4, “Look to the Lord for his strength. Seek his face always.” Or of course, Colossians 3, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” Uh, so it’s easy in our culture of immediacy not to do this. Paying attention to the apparently invisible, inaudible, intangible God when so much else is grabbing at our attention I think it can be helpful to consider seeking in light of the journey of coming to faith in God.

[00:07:52] Our sinful, fallen state has us fleeing from God until we are called by God and saved by Him through grace and faith. It is now, after that we are saved, that we become seekers. R.C. Sproul says, “To seek God is the business of the Christian. The quest begins at conversion. It doesn’t end there. Once we’ve found Him, the real search begins.”

[00:08:15] God invites us and calls us to seek Him until His coming kingdom arrives in full. This is why David starts the, the Psalm that Anita read for us, Psalm 63, in this way, ” You, God, are my God. Earnestly I seek you. I thirst for you. My whole being longs for you in a dry and parched land where there is no water.”

[00:08:38] David first acknowledges God as his God. He knows God. This is not a man unacquainted with God. There’s a relationship there already. So David’s seeking of God is not coming from a place of ignorance of who God is. Rather, he is seeking a God he already intimately knows. But David also has a need for God, a lack, a thirst.

[00:09:01] It’s not a physical thirst he’s talking about, although he may well be suffering physically in the wilderness, but a, a dryness of spirit. David is likely writing this psalm during his reign as king. But while he was in, uh, he- while he was a fugitive from his own land, he was forced to flee to the desert.

[00:09:18] His son, Absalom, had rebelled and tried to overthrow his father’s throne. 2 Samuel 15 tells us David fled in- fled the city into the wilderness. So although he might be in a dried out wilderness, his thirst is a spiritual one. And importantly, this is not primarily a thirst for any of God’s gifts. This is not the seeking of the benefits that God provides.

[00:09:42] He’s not seeking God primarily for protection or blessing or success. I think that many people can seek the benefits of God, happiness, peace of mind, meaning, and significance in life, while at the same time fleeing from God. No, David’s seeking is different. It’s a thirst for God himself. And David has a heart for God.

[00:10:04] He has a taste for fellowship with God. And now, when he can’t feel the tangible presence of God with him in his current hardship, he seeks God Christians are called to be seekers of God. Our culture puts all sorts of immediate distractions and desires before us and calls us to seek these things with immediate reward.

[00:10:23] Fellowship with God, seeking a clear perception of His glory and His goodness at the forefront of our hearts and our minds, should be a priority So if we’ve established the why for seeking God, what about the how? Uh, what does it look like to seek God? Where do we find him? I think there are lots of different ways to answer this question, and we won’t have time this morning to think about each one of them.

[00:10:47] We could spend time thinking about seeking God in corporate worship seeking God in the works of his hands as we see his power around us, uh, seeking God in the f- close fellowship of believers. Uh, but we won’t have time for any of that. Uh, as a place to start, we seek God in his word. This rhythm of seeking, uh, is what we’re gonna spend most of our time on this morning.

[00:11:10] And I want us to consider Psalm 119. Let me read a section of it I seek you with all my heart. Do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Praise be to you, Lord. Teach me your decrees. With my lips, I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.

[00:11:31] I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. I meditate on your precepts. I consider your ways. I delight in your decrees. I will not neglect your word See, we, we seek God and we find Him in His word. Seeking God with all our hearts is the job of reading. Here in Psalm 119, the psalmist seeks God by not straying from the Word of God, by hiding the Word of God in his heart, by being taught from the Word of God, by recounting, speaking the Word of God, rejoicing in the Word of God, meditating, considering, delighting, not neglecting.

[00:12:10] Just from this one small section, what a rich depiction of a life spent in and with the Word of God. To seek God with all our heart is to soak ourselves so deeply in the Word of God that it permeates our entire self. It’s in our hearts, our minds, our lips. It instructs us and guides us. We rejoice and delight in it So what would a rhythm that does that look like?

[00:12:34] Well, simply a rhythm of spending time in the Word of God, of reading the Bible regularly, daily. And I’m speaking to myself here because I find this very hard, and I’m pulled away from this task by the other urgencies of life all the time. This was very helpful for me to think and prepare. Uh, and as I, I’ve done that, I’ve been reminded of the importance of this rhythm and considered what it should look like in my life.

[00:12:56] And so I thought I’d share some of those ideas this morning. What should a rhythm of seeking God in His Word look like? Well, firstly, I think it should be planned. Uh, when are we going to seek God in His Word? Morning, evening, lunchtime? Uh, where are we doing this? At home, at the breakfast table, on a walk?

[00:13:15] What are we reading? Histories, wisdom literature, Psalms, gospel accounts, epistles. How? Study guides, audio Bibles. There are so many good resources out there. This rhythm needs to be planned. Pace. Seeking God in His Word is not about finding the entirety of the character of God in a, and a complete understanding of His being every time we open our Bibles, as we are trained in so many other ways.

[00:13:39] It’s a slow deepening of our appreciation of who God is and what He has done, one small step each day. The pace is slow, slow enough to meditate on the words, allowing them to seep into all parts of us, to consider the applications of the truths that we are reading to our hearts and our attitudes and our daily practice And I think it’s prayerful.

[00:14:02] We should let the Word of God drive us to prayer. Pray earnestly over your Bible reading. Before you read, while you read, after you read, pray that God would show you what is really there and make it real to you. And respond to what you’ve read in prayers of confession or thanksgiving or supplication.

[00:14:19] The rhythm of seeking God must be a rhythm of regular Bible reading, and it’s a rhythm that is so counter-cultural. It’s slow and deliberate and patient in a world that is fast and haphazard and impatient. And as we seek the Word of God, we are shown Jesus, for He is, of course, the centerpiece of God’s Word.

[00:14:40] He is the beginning and the end of God’s Word. We seek God, and we find Him in the person of Jesus as He is revealed in the Word. Jesus is the very image of the invisible God, the exact representation of God’s being, and we see the glory of God in the face of Christ. It is through Jesus that God has called us to Himself, uh, brought us into intimate fellowship, and so it is to Jesus we look to seek God

[00:15:08] And so what should we expect the results of our seeking to be? Well, let’s return now to Psalm 63 and see David’s seeking of the Lord. He says, “I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.

[00:15:32] I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods, and singing lips, my mouth will praise you.” We’re not told exactly how David sees God in the sanctuary, but we see the results of his seeking. A mind and a heart that overflows in worship of the God he has found. His thirst quenched, fully satisfied.

[00:15:55] A promise that those who seek God will find him. Uh, this promise is repeated time and time again in God’s word. Proverbs 8:17, “I love those who love me, and those who seek me, find me.” Or in Hebrews 11, “God rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Seeking is slow and deliberate, but ultimately successful and eternally satisfying.

[00:16:18] And so briefly our third and final consideration on seeking God is to remain seeking. Unlike the offerings from our culture of immediacy, this seeking is not something that we do just once. Uh, seeking God is not a one-off job where we receive what we need and then immediately move on to the next thing.

[00:16:36] Uh, seeking should be a rhythm. And so in Psalm 63, David returns to his morning thoughts again. “In the evening, on my bed, I remember you. I think of you through the watches of the night because you are my help.” I sing in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you. Your right hand upholds me. See, David comes back and back, seeking and seeking with patience and endurance, in the morning, in the evening, when he wakes in the night.

[00:17:05] Seeking God is not just a thing for when we are thirsty, not simply a response to a feeling of distance between us and God, but as a rhythm that forms us each and every day. It’s a rhythm we grow into. As we seek God and see Him clearer and clearer, we want that again and again and again. Recently I’ve started the rhythm of regular trail running as a form of exercise.

[00:17:29] Uh, it didn’t start out as something I particularly enjoyed, uh, but I knew it was good for me in the absence of any other form of regular exercise in this season of life. I wasn’t having the most fun, but I knew it was doing me good, so I persisted each week, and each subsequent run has become a little more enjoyable.

[00:17:47] My desire to go for a jog has slowly started to increase, and six months or so later, and now it’s one of the more enjoyable parts of my week. I think a rhythm of seeking God can follow a similar pattern. Jonathan Edwards says it like this “The more a true saint loves God with a gracious love, the more he desires to love Him.

[00:18:05] The more he hates sin, the more he desires to hate sin. The more he mourns for sin, the more he longs to mourn. The more his heart is broken, the more he desires it should be broken. The more he thirsts and longs after God and holiness, the more he longs to long and breathe out his very soul in longings after God.

[00:18:25] The kindling and raising of gracious affections is like kindling a flame. The higher it is raised, the more ardent it is, and the more it burns, and the more vehemently does it tend and seek to burn.”

[00:18:38] See, our culture is forming us to have our desires and our needs and questions and problems solved right away. Our culture pulls our attention in so many ways all the time, forming us to impatience, to shallow engagement. The Kingdom of God is calling us to a lifelong journey of seeking God as He reveals Himself in His Word and through His Son.

[00:19:02] It calls us to a rhythm of patience and deep engagement. And so let us be people formed by that rhythm.