What does it mean to find God?

Nicodemus took the first step, and the right step, when that night he came to Jesus — impelled, no doubt, by desires to know something more about Him, desires that nothing but Christ could gratify. It was the expression of the inward craving of the heart, that man, unknown to himself, has after God. Why is man seeking after God? Because he has lost Him — he knows that Wherever you find men trying to reach after God, it is only a confession, — a tacit confession possibly — that they have lost God, they know Him not Where will they find Him? They can only find Him, where, thank God, Nicodemus found Him, in the person of the Man who died on the cross for sinners. There only is the place where man can fully find God. You cannot so find Him, in creation. You there find His handiwork, not Himself. "The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament shows his handiwork" (Ps. 19:1). But that is not Himself. You may have seen a fine piece of sculpture, and admired it greatly; and you have also been shown a magnificent picture, and you have, in your rapture, said, What a wonderful genius, what a hand that man has! Look at the skill of his chisel, and the power of his brush — what a wonderful man! Stop, I will tell you something about him. He is utterly selfish, beats his wife, and starves his children. Seeing his handiwork does not declare to you his nature — you do not learn his heart. If I turn to nature, and study creation, I see the "eternal power," and almightiness of the Lord there, but that does not bring out His heart. No, you never get the heart of God brought fully out until you come to that which this scripture brings before us. Here you have the Son of the living God standing before a man dead in sins, and telling him that His Father has so loved a ruined guilty world as to give His Son to die for it. God is Love.

But providential disposal of the nations was far from all His care. He felt graciously for every soul of man, who in losing Him had lost the only and the necessary centre for the heart, and the basis for all true morality, of which known relationship to Him must be the corner-stone. This is touched in verse 27 as His great aim for them individually — "to seek God,* if haply they might feel after and find him, though he is not far from each one of us." For man was fallen from God, and sin reigned in death; and thus death passed upon all men, for that all sinned. The sad fact is patent and undeniable. But God remained the God of goodness and mercy, ready to hear and forgive. But man must seek Him, conscious of sin, misery, and darkness. Hence God from the garden of Eden held out to guilty man, even before he was expelled as an inexcusable rebel, the hope of a Deliverer from the power of Satan, and, O what grace! to be born of woman, though the woman drew the man into her disobedience.

We have all experienced drawing near to God in our need as sinners, but we could not have drawn near to God had He not first moved towards us in grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. God has drawn near to us, and He has spoken to us in wonderful compassion, having in mind that we should reciprocate His love and know the blessedness of drawing near to Him.

“Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest, and causest to approach unto Thee.” It is not that we wanted to be in His presence; He wanted to have us in His presence. It is not that we wanted those new and eternal relationships. We only wanted to be saved from hell, but He had something better than that for us. His salvation included being brought to Himself, and being set in the person of His Son before His face, so that we might be in the end with Him and like Him to the satisfaction of the heart of the Father and the Son throughout eternity. So the Spirit of God has something more to say about our blessedness besides that we are forgiven, and that God will never look on us in any other way than as righteous before Him. “Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest, and causest to approach unto Thee.” That is a very happy man. It is God who has advanced towards me. He has come out towards me, as the shepherd sought the sheep, as the woman sought the piece of silver, and as the father came out to the son. He wanted me. It is true of all the people of God, whether they have learned it or not. Perhaps we are long on the way of learning it, and perhaps some never learn it at all, and think that the movement was on their side first. God was dealing with us before we were dealing with Him. “Everyone that has heard and learned of the Father, comes unto Me.” We stayed away from Him as long as ever we were able, and did not want to have anything to do with Him, but as the hymn puts it— “And when was come the moment, Thou, calling by Thy grace, Didst gently, firmly lead us, Each from his hiding place.”

The gospel comes to men as they are in their afar-off natural, sinful condition, and tells them that the mind of God toward them is perfect grace. There is no change needed in them to fit them for this grace on the part of God. Many think that if a change could only take place in them toward God, a change would then take place in God toward them. But the gospel lets them hear that as they are, guilty, godless, and undone, the mind of God toward them is forgiveness. And this when it breaks as precious light upon the heart turns it to God through Christ, in whose name it is announced. Men feel there is no reason for remaining at a distance. God is revealed to them in perfect grace and stands no more before the soul as an austere judge, and the revelation is attractive to the heart that receives it. Their eyes are opened and they turn to God.

It was a blessed thing for young King Josiah to "seek after the God of David his father." God is readily found by those who want Him; but the full revelation of Who and What He is could not be until the Only Begotten Son Who is in the bosom of the Father came from heaven to declare Him. Before His coming the faithful in Israel knew and trusted God as the covenant-keeping Jehovah. We who live on the resurrection side of the Cross, and who have received the anointing of the Holy Spirit know God as Father, and we have the assurance that we are His children, sons, and heirs. The Father loves us as He loves His Son. We have learnt this sweet truth from the lips of the Son Himself (John 17:23).

There are the poor infidels beating out their brains to find out about God, but I have met Him. He had nothing but kind and gracious words, though He knew all my sins. His whole ways and words and works are perfect love to me, and the love of one come to seek me as a sinner. The Father seeketh worshippers. You have not to go to this mountain or that. He sent the Saviour seeking. How many does He find? Does He find hearts here that would pass by the Lord Jesus - that have read hundreds of passages in which His grace was manifested, and gone away untouched, unmoved, though God was spending His heart on you?

This world has its powerful attractions, and the cunning enemy of mankind has designed it for the ruin of his victim, but the attraction God has for man is Himself, revealed in love, and in the apprehension of this lies the endless blessing of His poor fallen creature. And that men might be attracted to Him He left not Himself at any time without witness, even in the darkest places of the earth: doing good, and giving rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14); desiring that they might feel after Him and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us (Acts 17). Man in his wanderings had got a long way from God, but God in His marvellous grace pursued him closely, even into the darkest corners of the earth, and in unwearying patience kept continually before his eyes the evidences of His goodness and tender consideration for His creature, that he might be induced to return to Him.

There are also evidences of His goodness in the fact that He gives sunshine, rain, and fruitful seasons, “filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14). The object of it all is that men might feel after Him and find Him, for He is not far from any one of us (Acts 17). Man has gone far from God, and his great desire is always to increase the distance, but God has not gone far from man. The distance lies in alienation of heart and mind, and therefore man being a God-hating sinner, the distance to which he has gone is immeasurable; but God pursues him in the grace and love of His heart, ready to fall on his neck and cover him with kisses (Luke 15) the moment he, in the sorrow of his soul, turns round and begins to feel after his Creator, whom he has so heartlessly abandoned.

There are also evidences of His goodness in the fact that He gives sunshine, rain, and fruitful seasons, "filling our hearts with food and gladness" (Acts 14). The object of it all is that men might feel after Him and find Him, for He is not far from any one of us (Acts 17). Man has gone far from God, and his great desire is always to increase the distance, but God has not gone far from man. The distance lies in alienation of heart and mind, and therefore man being a God-hating sinner, the distance to which he has gone is immeasurable; but God pursues him in the grace and love of His heart, ready to fall on his neck and cover him with kisses (Luke 15) the moment he, in the sorrow of his soul, turns round and begins to feel after his Creator, whom he has so heartlessly abandoned.