Where Are You?

The very first thing that happened after news of the fall reached heaven was that God came straight down to look for the one who was lost. You can almost hear Him moving through the garden in the cool of the day, calling out, Adam! Adam! Where are you? It was not the voice of a prosecutor. It was the voice of grace, of mercy, and of love.

And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

Genesis 3:9

Think about how remarkable that is. Adam was the transgressor. He was the one who should have been running up and down Eden crying, My God, my God, where are You? Instead, God left heaven to search a darkening world for the rebel who had fallen, not to hurl him off the face of the earth, but to plan his rescue from the misery of his own sin. And where did God find him? Hiding among the bushes, ashamed, afraid of the very One who loved him most.

This morning, that same God comes walking toward each of us, children of Adam, asking the same tender question: Where are you? I am convinced that something deep in every heart, call it conscience, call it the Holy Spirit, keeps pressing us with it. Where am I in this life? Who am I? What is my life really about? Where is all of this taking me? If none of that has ever crossed your mind, it can only be because you are still very young or you are living carelessly.

The Only Opinion That Counts

Notice the question God asks is not, Where are you in the eyes of your friends, your family, your peers? Some of us have people back home who are sure we are doing wonderfully. After all, they say, you made it to America. But is that really the measure? It matters very little what people think of us. What matters is what God thinks of me. Where am I in His sight?

Your pastor may think you are in the right place. Your church may think so. Your children and family may be certain of it. But are you? Are you in real communion with God this very minute? Because when a person is out of communion with their Creator, there is no lasting peace, no joy, no true comfort. He is a stranger to it. But when we walk in communion with God, there is light all around our path. So do not imagine I am preaching to your neighbor. I am speaking to you, as if you were the only one here.

If God stepped into your day right now, would you be hiding? Hiding what you have been thinking about someone else? What you have been watching when no one is around? What you have been saying about a brother or a sister? What you have been doing with another person's husband or wife? Where are you? And what are you hiding from the Lord?

To the Christian: Would There Be Evidence?

Let me bring this question close to three kinds of people who may be reading. First, to those of us who are Christians. I know you were born again long ago. But today, right now, where are you? Are you out and out for Jesus in your workplace, in your business, in your dealings with others? Or would people be surprised to learn that the person they know is actually a follower of Christ?

Where are you in your Bible reading? In your quiet time? When we gather to pray, your voice may be the loudest and sweetest in the room, yet you know it has been weeks since you had any real fellowship with the Lord. Being a Christian is not a matter of saying it, or putting a sticker on your car. It is a matter of what you do.

• When was the last time you shared what you had with someone, even someone you struggle to get along with?
• When did you last visit or call a person who had not first visited or called you?
• When did you last open your mouth and tell someone about the Lord Jesus?

If you were put on trial today for being a follower of Jesus, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Christ says, You are My witnesses. He was the Light of the world, and the world rose up and tried to put that Light out. Now He says, I am leaving you down here to testify of Me. We are meant to be living letters, known and read by everyone around us. Trying to serve God and the world at the same time, standing with one foot on each side, is one of the great tragedies of Christianity in our day. It slows down the gospel more than almost anything else. Jesus said it plainly: If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.

To the Backslider: Come Home

This question is also for the one who has quietly backslidden in heart. You know yourself. You have not stopped coming to church. Now and then you still show up at fellowship. But you know you are not where you are supposed to be with the Lord. People may not see it, but in your heart and in your habits, you have drifted into a far country, like the prodigal son who left his father's house.

I remember, years ago at university, a young man who had committed to pray in the Spirit for an hour every day. One afternoon he knelt by his bed and prayed, and prayed, and prayed. A fellow in the next room kept needing something and came by every fifteen minutes, and every single time, the young man was still on his knees, still weeping, still crying out to God. When it was over, his friend said in amazement, You were praying and crying as if you were the one who killed Jesus. May God give us all a testimony like that, a life so devoted that others can see we live the way we do because we know what we owe Him.

Maybe that used to be your testimony too. Then life got hard. Perhaps other believers did not treat you well, or Christian friends abandoned you. Perhaps the sheer difficulty of surviving in a new country wore you down, and you began to cut corners you never used to cut. Sin has a deceptive way of working on us. We commit one small compromise and the sky does not fall, so we ask forgiveness and move on. Then a slightly bigger one, and again the sky holds. Before long we are quietly rationalizing things we once would never have accepted. We are still in the pews, we still know all the choruses, but our hearts are far away.

So let me ask you honestly: are you happy? Have you had one genuinely happy hour since you left the Lord to live your own way? I have been around a long time, and I have never met a happy backslider. I have never known a person truly born of God who could afterward find the world satisfying. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked. If you have ever tasted sweet fellowship with the King of heaven, this world can never fill the craving He put in you.

So come home. See today for what it is: God leaving heaven again, walking into the garden, not to destroy you but to bring you back. Do not believe the devil's lie that God hates you, that He has forsaken you, that He wants nothing to do with you. If that were true, not a single soul would ever reach heaven. The Bible is full of people who wandered and came home again: Samson, David, Abraham, Jacob, Moses. Your Father does not want you away from Him, not for one more hour. Turn back, and He will give you a warm welcome. The cry of a wandering heart, longing to be taken back to the place where it first believed, is a prayer God delights to answer.

To the One Who Has Never Known Him

Finally, this question comes to the one who has never known salvation. You may not think about it much, so let me tell you where God says you stand.

He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

John 3:18

In America there is a phrase used in the justice system: death row. It is where those who have been tried, convicted, and sentenced to die are held until their execution. Day to day, their lives can look ordinary. They eat, they read, they watch television, they receive visitors, much like any other prisoner serving six months or six years. But there is one difference that changes everything. They have already been sentenced. And one day, sometimes with little warning, the last appeal fails, and that night they are executed.

Scripture says that apart from Christ, you are on death row, condemned already. Your life may look no different from anyone else's. But any day now, whether in six days or six years, the clock runs out, and a soul unprepared is lost. Why? Not because of some final dramatic crime, but because you neglected the pardon the Governor of this world, Jesus, already secured for you on the cross. There are only three ways for a condemned person to stay condemned when someone else has already died in their place. You can neglect the pardon, doing nothing, like a person drifting toward a waterfall who only has to sit still to perish. You can refuse it, saying not today, maybe tomorrow. Or you can despise it, hating the very message that could save you. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

So, Where Are You?

Where are you this morning? Child of God, are you where you ought to be in your walk with the Lord? Would there be enough evidence to convict you of belonging to Jesus? The Lord is calling you to rise and say, Here I am; I will serve You with all my life. Backslider, will you come home today and tell Him, I have wandered, but take me back? And you who have never trusted Him, it is time to step off death row and come to Jesus while the offer still stands. When you hear His voice today, do not harden your heart. Arise, and follow Him home.