Some years ago there was a woman named Judith Bucknell. Judith was 38-year-old attractive, successful secretary. She lived in an upmarket area in Coconut Grove, Miami in the United States. She wasn't a social outcast, she wasn't on drugs, and she kept fit and trim by jogging regularly. She hosted parties, wore designer clothes, and lived in a luxury department that overlooked the bay. Judith's dilemma was this - she had many acquaintances but few true friends. She also had many lovers (59 in 56 months) but she had little love.

On June 9^th, 1980, Judith was strangled, and stabbed seven times. In the police records she was homicide victim No. 106. But for a diary that she left she would have simply been forgotten. Here are two entries from that diary.

In another entry she wrote:

The despair of Judy Bucknell is a despair that many thousands of people in the world have today. The questions they ask are what is the purpose of my life? Where will I find true love? What is love? And so on. The mistake many people make, is that they search for love and the meaning of love in all the wrong places. The love they find is conditional, not unconditional. The love Judy Bucknell found was simply physical - as a result she felt used up and spent.

Last Friday I bought a boat. I put a deposit on the boat earlier in the week and paid it off at the end of last week. Before buying the boat I checked the trailer and the hull, the steering mechanism, and the engine. I was sufficiently content with what I saw and therefore paid the money to purchase it, having the faith and trust it would work. On Monday, being excited about this new acquisition I took the boat out for a run. As a family we were all enjoying ourselves, until 5 minutes later the engine stopped and wouldn’t restart. The engine was dead, and I have since found out that its time is up.

Many people in life place their faith and trust in human philosophies and self help formulas. They put their faith and trust in these things, only to find out down the track that they have been on the wrong path. They climb the ladder of life, only to tragically discover, once they get to the top of that ladder, that they had placed the ladder of life against the wrong wall. I can replace the engine to my boat - but when it comes our lives, unless we discover the real purpose of life and where to discover true love, then our lives have been wasted and used up, and like Judith Bucknell, we despair in lost hope.

So where do we find purpose and love? Well, let's listen o the following verses.

Deut. 30:19-20

• The Lord is our life

• God displayed His love to us through the death of Christ

• As we love Christ, so too, the Father loves us

• There is nothing that can separate us from God's love

Last week we talked about leading God-centred and God-serving lives, not self-centred and self-serving lives. That means our purpose of life is to be in proper relationship with God. We were created to be in a love relationship with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our relationship with Him is the single most important aspect of our lives.

I want to ask you a question. How much of our lives is taken up trying to prove ourselves to God and how much is taken up simply being in relationship with God?

I have said this before - we are a 'doing' and 'achievement' orientated society. I'm a classic example. There is nothing I hate more then just sitting in a chair thinking and looking at the ceiling. If I want to rest then I must be reading a book or watching sport on TV - there has to be something happening for me. When it comes to our relationship with God, we kind of think that we must be doing things. But we don't have to prove our worth to God - He loves us. Blackaby and King write, "The Scripture leads us to understand that God is saying, 'I want you to love me above everything else. When you are in that kind of relationship to love with Me, you have everything there is.' So, to be loved by God is the highest relationship, the highest achievement, and the highest position in life." What this is saying is, 'be content in the loving relationship you have with God. When you serve Him, do it out of that love relationship, not out of a sense of proving yourself to God. Let your service for God be an expression of the love relationship you have with Him. Fulfillment comes in loving God.

1. GOD PURSUES A LOVE RELATIONSHIP

Now, I have to make a confession to you. I love those soppy movies that give the story of two people falling in love with each other, and I'm not talking about those that have extra marital affairs. But just the innocent romantic coming together of two people ending in their joining together in marriage - and sadly there aren't too many of those movies around that are wholesome.

Here's the classic picture. This guy meets this woman through some friends. As they and the friends talk together the guy begins to take special notice of the girl and hangs on every word she says. There is something special to him about the way she talks, the way she smiles, the way she laughs. Something in her personality warms to him in a special way. Over the following weeks they cross each other's path several times. The truth is, the guy has planned these so-called coincidental meetings - this is part of the pursuit to win her heart, wear her down, until she becomes smitten with him as well. That's what happened with me a Julie-Ann. We started with a friendship and over 18 months I wore her down - we haven't looked back since.

You know something? God pursues a love relationship with us.

Let's listen to Romans 3:10-12

"There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."

Now, you might be saying, 'Hang on a second, how does that show God's love?'

Well, that passage let's us know our position, so we a re clear in our minds that our relationship with God is not by our own doing. This passage makes clear to us that there is no-one righteous in their own right; no-one who understand spiritual things on their own; no-one who seek after God upon their own initiative; and no-one who do good by their own efforts.

But listen to again to John 3:16 and 1 John 3:16

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

God pursued us for a loving relationship by sending His Son for us.

But listen also to John 6:44, 45. 66

"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

So, God the Father takes the initiative. He enables us to come to Jesus - He draws us to Himself.

Also listen to Jer. 31:3 and Hosea 11:4

The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.

I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.

So again, it is God Himself who takes the initiative and displays His love to us. Other examples include Paul and the disciples.

With Paul, God came to Him which we find in Acts 9:1-19. He was busy actually opposing God and His activities, and ridiculing the name of Jesus Christ. But we find it was Jesus who came to Paul and revealed the Father's purposes of love for him. This is also true of our lives. We don’t choose God, He chooses us, loves us, and reveals His eternal purposes for our lives.

Also, with the disciples, Jesus said to them: "You did not choose me, but I have chosen you and appointed you...As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world (John 15:16, 19). When Peter answered Jesus' question in Matt. 16:13-17 as to who they thought he was, Peter said, "You are the Christ." Jesus then made a significant statement, he said, "This was not revealed to you by man, but by my father in Heaven."

In essence, Jesus was saying, "Peter, you could never have known and confessed that I am the Christ unless My Father had been working in you. He caused you to know who I am. You are responding to the Father's activity in your life."

Folks, God is determined to love you and me. He will not give up. If it had not been for God making Himself known to you and pursuing you, you would never have become a Christian. I come across so many people in the community, that as I talk with them, I clearly see how God is working and pursuing hard for them to enter into the loving relationship He desires to have with them. That reality brings to life for me Rev. 3:20 where Jesus says, Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. God pursues a love relationship.

 

 Now, the other great thing here is that the relationship isn't just for a period of time, like it is for some young lovers. The relationship is for eternity. Our time on earth provides us the opportunity to get acquainted with God. It is an opportunity for Him to develop our character into His likeness. If we just live for time - the here and now - we miss the ultimate purpose of our creation. You see, as we live for just the here and now, we allow the past and present shape our lives. But our life as God's child needs to be shaped by the future - what we will be one day. You see, God uses the present time to mold and shape our future usefulness here on earth and in eternity.

Let's look together at what Paul's view was in Phil. 3:4-14

If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

So, you see, Paul, eventhough his background was one he could be proud of, still considered all the past as lost. What was the purpose of regarding it as lost? So Christ could reign in his heart. He forgot was behind, he strained on for that which was ahead and pressed on towards the future goal of Heaven. His desire was to be the person Christ created Him to be, and the way he could discover this was by allowing Christ to reign in his heart.

You see, this relationship we have with God is real, it is personal and it is practical.

2. A REAL, PERSONAL, PRACTICAL RELATIONSHIP

From Genesis to Revelation, we see God relating to people in real, personal, intimate, and practical ways. Look at Adam and Eve. God's relationship with them was so intimate He literally walked in the Garden of Eden with them. When they sinned, it was they who were hiding, and God who sought them out to restore the love relationship they shared together.

In another situation, Hagar was used, mistreated and abused by Sarai. She fled for her life. Once reaching the end of her own resources, when she had lost hope and had nowhere to turn, God came to her. She learned that God saw her, knew her needs, and would lovingly provide for her.

Likewise, the 12 disciples had a real, personal and practical relationship with Jesus. Jesus chose them to be with Him. Can you imagine it, having such an intimate relationship with Jesus. Even when there was a very difficult task to accomplish, Jesus did give them the run down and say, "OK boys, your on your own now." Jesus gave them the authority, they never had before, over evil spirits.

John, when he was exiled on the island of Patmos, spent the Lord's day in fellowship with God. During this time the revelation of Jesus Christ came to John to "to show his servants what must soon take place" (Rev. 1:1). And so today, we can read the book of revelation and know how God revealed Himself to John, and through John, to us.

You see the message is simple, yet, it is beyond our comprehension, that God pursues a love relationship with you and me. I love what Blackaby and King write in 'Experiencing God', and I want to finish with this. They say, "Love must be real and personal. A person cannot love without another 'someone' to love. A love relationship with god takes place between two real beings. A relationship with God is real and personal. This has always been His desire. God is a person pouring His life into yours."

If, for some reason, you cannot think of a time when your relationship to God has been real, personal, and practical, then you need to spend time evaluating, your relationship to Him. That means, going before the Lord in prayer asking Him to bring you into that kind of relationship. Asking Him to bring you into the kind of relationship with Him you have never previously experienced. If in this process you realize you have never entered into this kind of saving relationship, then from your heart, commit your whole life to Christ, not just your head, but your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole life. Matthew 22:37-38 makes this clear that when Jesus commanded to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."

This sermon has been created and adapted from the book 'Experiencing God' by H.T.Blackaby and C.V.King by Pastor Scott Douglas for teaching in the Burdekin Baptist Church on 2^nd May, 1999.