Phases of the Lord's Second Coming--Definite Convictions Series

            Planning a vacation with your grown-up siblings or extended family can be an interesting process. You quickly find out that even though you’re family, you probably disagree about all kinds of vacation details.

            Some people want to hit all of the tourist hotspots. The larger the crowds, the better, because crowds mean energy and liveliness. Other people want to get away from it all. They’d rather find a cabin out in Montana and spend a week with no Internet and no cell phone reception.

            Some people like to pinch every penny when they’re on vacation. It’s like a personal challenge for them to beat the system! They want to take all their own food, and they know that if everyone gets 2 ½ pieces of bread each day, they can stretch three loaves over the entire trip. Other people like to live it up when they’re on vacation. They want to see what it feels like to be Warren Buffet, so their credit card never leaves their hand.

            But despite these differences, you realize that at the end of the day, you’re still family. You can live with differences like this because they’re not the core of what really makes you a family, anyway.

            Today, as we continue through our church’s Statement of Faith, we come to an issue on which there is some disagreement within the Christian family. It’s disagreement we can live with—we don’t need to denounce other churches over this issue, but there is value to taking a clear position within our own church.

            All Christians believe that Jesus is going to return to this world someday because he said he would. There is disagreement, though, about how he will return and when he will return. The specific question is this – will the events that we call the Rapture and the Second Coming happen at the same time in one event, or will they happen at different times and thus be two separate events?

            Our church believes and teaches that the Rapture and the Second Coming will be two separate events. Thus, our Statement of Faith refers to phases (plural) of the Lord’s Second Coming. It says:

We believe in the Blessed Hope (Titus 2:13), the personal, imminent, pre-tribulation and pre-millennial, bodily coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for His Church; and in His subsequent return to Earth with His saints to establish His Millennial kingdom. (John 14:3; Acts 1:11; 1 Thess 1:10; 1 Thess 4:13-18; 2 Thess 1:7-9; Rev 3:10; 19:11-16; Zech 14:4-11)

You see a long list of verses there, and I’d like to read just a few of them – two of the main passages on the Rapture, and one of the main passages on the Second Coming [READ John 14:1-3; 1 Thess 4:13-18; Rev 19:11-16].

Why Do We Believe That The Rapture and The Second Coming Will Be Separate Events?

            All of these passages describe Jesus returning to this earth. Why do we believe that they refer to two separate events instead of just one? I’ll focus today on just three reasons.

1. The stated purpose for Christ’s return is different in different passages

            In John 14, Jesus said that he was leaving to prepare a place for his disciples and that he would come back for them so they could all live in that place together. That is a rather different purpose from Revelation 19, which describes Jesus coming to strike down the nations and to tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God.

            Now, this point all by itself does not make a slam-dunk case for the idea of separate events. After all, one event can certainly serve several purposes. Think of a wedding, for example. A wedding serves as a time for celebration, an opportunity for spiritual dedication as a couple takes vows before the Lord, and it marks the beginning of a legal contract between a husband and wife that is acknowledged by the government. So one event can fulfill several purposes, but recognizing different purposes in different passages at least opens the door to the idea that there could be different phases to Christ’s return.

2. Christ’s return is said to be imminent, yet many events are described that must happen before Christ returns

            Passages like James 5:7-9 teach us that Christ’s return could take place at any moment [READ James 5:7-9]. This passage pictures Jesus as being ready to step into our world right now. And yet, the Book of Revelation describes seven years’ worth of events that must take place before Christ can return. How can both of these ideas be true?

            That question is a real conundrum for Christians who believe that the Rapture and Second Coming are one event. The tension is resolved, however, when we view these happenings as two separate events. In this point of view, the Rapture is imminent, with the Second Coming then taking place seven years later.

            So the Rapture could happen at any moment, wherein the Lord will descend into the skies to take us out of the world to live with him in heaven. Then, seven years later, Jesus will return to the world with all of us in tow in order to establish his kingdom of peace on this planet.

3. The Apostle Paul calls the transformation of living Christians a “mystery”

            1 Thessalonians 4 spoke of living Christians being caught up into the clouds to meet the Lord and thus being instantly transformed in that moment. In 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul referred to that truth as a “mystery” [READ 1 Cor 15:51-52].

            Paul uses that word “mystery” a few times in his writings, and when he does, he uses it to refer to truths that had not previously been revealed to mankind. In other words, he’s saying, “I’m going to let you in on a secret,” or “I’m going to tell you something you’ve never heard before.”

            That’s significant for this discussion because Christ’s coming to defeat his enemies and establish his kingdom was clearly foretold in the Old Testament. What we read about in Revelation 19 had already been clearly predicted in passages like Zechariah 14.

            The point is that Paul could not have referred to the Second Coming as a mystery since it had already been revealed. So, when he talks about living believers being instantly transformed and meeting the Lord in the air, he must be referring to a different event than what had already been foretold in the Old Testament.

Monday Matters

            So what difference does it make for you in your daily life to know that there will be two phases to Christ’s return – the Rapture and then the Second Coming? It means that you can live with this confidence and assurance:

God has not destined you to taste his wrath.

            Why will Jesus rapture us out of this world seven years prior to his Second Coming? Because the period of time between those two events will be a time of anguish unlike anything this world has yet seen. Jesus said in Matthew 24 that it will be a time of great trouble and tribulation, and that if God did not limit that period to just a few years, no one at all would survive it.

            But God will take us out of the world prior to that time in order to spare us from it. God has a history of protecting his people in moments when he expresses his appropriate anger toward sin. He did it for Noah and his family when he flooded the earth; he did it for Lot when he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; he did it for the children of Israel when the plagues ravaged Egypt but left them unscathed. Apparently, he is going to do it for us before he sends judgments upon the world for our rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

            So God has not destined you to taste his wrath. I think that truth should also influence the way that we interpret the normal sufferings of life that we face here in a fallen world. When we face hard, painful times, it is very common for us to wonder, “Is God angry at me? Is that why this is happening? Am I facing his anger for something?”

            This truth about the Rapture should remind us of the glorious deliverance and salvation that we have through Jesus Christ. We are saved from the wrath of God through him, so when we face the trials of life, we don’t need to jump to the conclusion that God is angry with us. Since you are God’s child, his fundamental outlook toward you is one of acceptance and love and mercy. The gaze that looks down on you from heaven is always tender and compassionate, never angry and stern.

            We are saved from the wrath of God, both now and in the future when God will express his wrath toward mankind in the Tribulation. And so we look forward with great anticipation to the moment when Jesus will come to take his children out of the world to be with him in the place that he is preparing. And we will rejoice greatly on the day when we come back from heaven with him to enjoy the kingdom of peace that he will establish in this world.

The Resurrection and Ascension--Definite Convictions Series

            As a fan of Kansas City sports, I like to listen to a sports talk radio station out of Kansas City from time to time. There’s a jewelry store in Kansas City that runs a lot of commercials on that station, and their advertising slogan is, “Now you have a friend in the jewelry business.”

            That’s a pretty smart slogan if you ask me, because it makes us feel good to think that we have friends in strategic places. If you’re ever in a jam, it feels good to be able to say, “Don’t worry – I’ve got a friend who can get us out of this!”

            Today we’re going to be reminded that we have a friend in the most powerful place of all. We have an advocate in heaven – someone who is representing us and defending us. This friend is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

            Jesus assumed this role for us after his death when he was raised to life and then ascended to heaven 40 days later. Section 5 of our Statement of Faith contains brief statements about Jesus’ resurrection and ascension before describing his present ministry for us. This section states:

We believe in the bodily resurrection and Lordship of Jesus Christ, his ascension into heaven and his present advocacy and priesthood in the presence of God for us (Acts 2:32; 1 Cor. 15:20, 23; Acts 1:9; 1 John 2:1; Heb 7:25; 8:1-2).

Let’s take a closer look at these claims.

The Bodily Resurrection

            As you can see, our Statement emphasizes that Jesus’ body truly did come back to life after it had been entombed. This emphasis is meant to counter the tendency among some people to try to accommodate Christian teaching to the challenges of skeptics. The Resurrection was obviously an unusual event; it was out of the ordinary, and so many people over the years have said that there is no way that it could’ve happened.

            Some people who have desired to uphold the Christian faith have responded to these challenges by saying, “Well, we certainly believe that Jesus spoke to the disciples after he died, but perhaps he just spoke to them in a vision. Maybe it’s true that his body didn’t really come back to life, but the disciples just thought it did.”

            That idea flies in the face of so much of what the Bible records. What happened to his body if it did not come back to life? The Bible says that three women first found his tomb to be empty when they went to visit it on the first day of the week. They reported it to the disciples, and Peter and John found the tomb to be empty when they went to check it out. Even the Roman soldiers who were supposed to guard the tomb reported that it was empty.

            The Bible also states that when Jesus appeared to the disciples they touched his body and he ate food in their presence. The Bible clearly means to tell us that his body did come back to life, and that is the only explanation that makes sense of the facts.

The Lordship of Jesus Christ

            Our Statement then mentions the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This phrase refers to the truth that Jesus himself announced in Matthew 28:18 as part of the Great Commission: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Obviously, as the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God had always been ruling over all things. But after his resurrection, Jesus as the God-man was exalted into authority over all things. That fact will be on full display one day after Jesus returns to establish his kingdom in this world.

            The Lordship of Jesus is also highlighted in the rather familiar passage in Philippians 2:9-11 [READ Phil 2:9-11]. This detail is easy to misunderstand, but we should note that the title “Lord” is actually the “name above all names” that was bestowed on Jesus. It is not Christ’s human name of Jesus, but his new title of Lord that is the name above all names. He was given that title as an honor because of his willingness to carry out God the Father’s plan of salvation. And again, we will see his Lordship on full display when he comes to reign over this world.

His Present Advocacy and Priesthood

            It’s very natural for us to ask, “What is Jesus up to these days?” We know what he did in the past because we have read about it in the Bible. We know he’s going to return in the future and that we will be with him forever. But what is he up to right now? For many Christians, that remains a great mystery. Our Statement sums up the Bible’s teaching about this when it mentions his present advocacy and priesthood.

            As our advocate, Jesus acts like something of a defense attorney for us in the courtroom of God the Father. 1 John 2:1 puts it like this – “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” That’s Plan A for all of us, right? We don’t want to fall to temptation, but if we do, we don’t need to fall into despair.

            Why is that? Notice the rest of the verse – “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Jesus is right now in the presence of God the Father to plead our cause for us when we sin.

            Now we must understand that Christ’s advocacy is not for God’s benefit, but for the sake of our confidence and reassurance. God the Father is not some angry man looking for a fight who has to be restrained by Jesus. Remember the truth of John 3:16 – for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.

            The Father loves us and he doesn’t have to be constantly convinced to continue to love us. But that fact is so easy to forget when we sin, isn’t it? We think, “How could God still love me after what I’ve done? How could he still accept me after this?” So for our sake, whenever we are tempted to doubt God’s love for us, we have this reassurance that Christ is on our side – ready to take up our cause and defend us. What grace and mercy!

            Closely related to all of this is the work of Christ’s priesthood for us. Just as the priests in the Old Testament offered sacrifices for the sins of the people, Jesus has offered a sacrifice for our sins to God the Father. The author of Hebrews spilled a lot of ink in his letter as he emphasized that Christ’s priesthood is far superior to that of the Old Testament priests:

·         Jesus only had to offer his sacrifice once, whereas the Old Testament priests had to do it over and over again;

·         Jesus’ own blood was far more precious than the blood of animals that they offered;

·         Jesus never had to offer sacrifices for his own sins like they did, because he was perfect;

·         Jesus can now remain a priest for us forever – he never has to be replaced like they did when they died.

            So through his own death, Jesus offered once for all time the only sacrifice that was needed for us to receive complete and total forgiveness from God. As Hebrews 7:25 puts it, “he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

Monday Matters

            As always, we want to find a very practical application of these truths to our daily lives. With these ideas, such an application is not hard to find:

Jesus’ advocacy and priesthood give me all the confidence I need to pray to God about every temptation and to confess my every sin.

            Since Jesus sits right now at the right hand of God the Father, I never have to wonder if I’m going to get a friendly reception from God when I pray. I have an advocate pleading my cause and a priest representing me in the presence of God.

            With these reassurances, God has made such a gracious accommodation to our weakness. We are so quick to lose our confidence in the promises that God has already given us. Sometimes it is lost through sin, sometimes it is lost through cynicism. We are told in life that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and when we read in the Bible about God’s magnificent love for us, it sounds too good to be true! So even we, as God’s children, might say, “How can it be? Can I always count on him to be loving?”

            So that no lingering doubts about his love will keep us from him, God tells us that we have an advocate and a priest in his presence so that we are always doubly assured of a friendly reception. Here’s what the author of Hebrews has to say about this [READ Heb. 10:19-23].

            So that we will never wonder if God can truly understand what we need, we are reminded that our advocate and priest can sympathize with us through and through [Heb. 4:14-16].

            Isn’t that just what we need? Mercy! Grace! And they are ours for the taking whenever we go to the Lord in prayer. And we can do so with every confidence, knowing that our pleas are amplified by our great high priest!

The Trinity--Definite Convictions Series

            There are many things in life that we don’t totally understand and can’t totally explain, but we know they’re very important—things like:

·         What your health insurance covers

·         How your retirement plan works

            For most Christians, the doctrine of the Trinity falls into a category like this. We barely have the foggiest idea of how to explain it, but we know it’s very important, and we know we’re supposed to believe it, so we do. Today, I hope I can take a bit of the mystery out of this doctrine for you as we look at the second section of our statement of faith, which says this:

We believe in the eternal Triune God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each Person being equal, yet there not being three gods, but One. (Gen 1:26a; John 10:30; John 1:1,2; John 14:16; Deut 6:4; John 15:26; 2 Cor 13:14; Acts 5:3,4)

            Before we look at a couple of the specific words of this statement, let’s make sure we have a basic idea of what we’re actually claiming when we say that God is a Trinity. One of the best ways to clarify this claim is by comparison. For example, consider me—I am one being with one mind. I am not two beings or three beings—there is only one of me (even when I wish I could be in two places at one time!). Also, there is only one thinking part to me, not multiple thinking parts.

            In contrast to this, when we say God is a Trinity, we’re saying that God is one being with three minds. God is only one existing thing, but within that one existing thing there are three minds—or three persons we could say, these three persons who refer to themselves as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

            As Christians, we make this claim because it’s the only way to make sense of everything that the Bible says about God. The Bible is quite clear that there is only one God—not many gods or several gods, but one God. In Deuteronomy 6:4, Moses states, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” God Himself declared this in Isaiah 44:6 and 8: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god… Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.”

            And yet the Bible also assigns the same divine powers and honor to three distinct Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each of them is called “God” in different passages, and they are consistently given the same honor, yet we know they’re distinct because we also read about them communicating with each other and performing different actions at the same moment in time.

            So when we put all of this together, we come up with the doctrine of the Trinity—that God is only one being, within which there are three distinct minds. Now some people have said that this claim is just a bunch of nonsense. Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses have all said that its impossible for God to be one being with three minds because that statement is self-contradictory, they say.

            But in reality, that accusation simply is not true. A truly self-contradictory statement would be something like, “George is a married bachelor.” That’s a contradiction because a bachelor, by definition, is not married.

            But you can probably see that the claim that God is one being with three minds simply is not like that statement about George. It’s true that we can’t understand completely what God must be like, but that’s no reason to say that it’s impossible for God to be one being with three minds.

“eternal”

            Let’s take a closer look now at just a couple of the words in our statement of faith. First, our statement correctly says that the Trinity is eternal. Each of the three divine Persons has always existed. There was never a time when only the Father existed, then the Son came along later on, then the Holy Spirit after that. No—each of them has always existed.

“each Person being equal”

            Next, notice how our statement says, “each Person being equal.” There is a true equality between the three divine Persons even though they have played different roles in their interactions with Creation. For example, it wasn’t the Holy Spirit who was born into the world as Jesus, it was the Son. And it wasn’t the Father who then came to live within us, it was the Holy Spirit. But nevertheless, they all have the same traits and abilities, and they are all equally worthy of our worship.

Monday Matters

            Once again now in this series, we need to talk about how this doctrine relates to the matters that concern us in daily life. It can be very tempting for us to think that the doctrine of the Trinity has very little relevance to our daily troubles. Sure, we understand that faith in God and obedience to Christ are very important, but why does it matter if we know that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all equally divine? Let me briefly point out two ways in which this doctrine is important and relevant for us.

1. The Savior who died for me was nothing less than fully divine.

            The doctrine of the Trinity teaches us that Jesus – God the Son in human flesh – was equally divine with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. He was not on some kind of lower-level – he was fully divine, and so we don’t need to doubt if his sacrifice is truly able to save us.

            This truth is highly relevant to our daily lives. Once we come to acknowledge that we have sinned against God, all of life becomes burdensome and meaningless until we come to know that we have found forgiveness. If Jesus were on some lower level than God, then there might always be some room for us to doubt whether his sacrifice was truly enough to save us. But since he was fully divine, that fact should silence any concerns that we might have about whether his sacrifice was truly enough. The knowledge that Jesus is God is part of the knowledge that can put to rest our troubled consciences and satisfy the intense longing that we have to know we are forgiven.

2. The Holy Spirit who now lives within me is fully divine.

            The New Testament teaches this great truth that the Holy Spirit now lives within every child of God. He does so much to teach us and guide us and comfort us and reassure our hearts, and the doctrine of the Trinity reminds us that all of these things are done for us by someone who is no less than fully divine.

            And so, as we learn more about all that the Holy Spirit does for us, we don’t have to have any doubts about his ability to actually accomplish those things. Can he truly transform me from the inside out? Yes he can! Can he help me so that I no longer fulfill the sinful desires inside my heart? Yes he can! He has nothing less than divine power to transform our lives, so we can have total confidence in his abilities.

            Though the doctrine of the Trinity will always remain a bit mysterious to us, the basic claim of this doctrine is not difficult to understand, and this doctrine also gives us great confidence in the things that God has and will accomplish for us. This doctrine reminds us that God is truly unique – He is unlike any other being that we know. He truly is in a class by himself – God in three persons, the blessed Trinity!

The Bible--God's Message to Mankind ("Definite Convictions in a Do-Whatever World" Series)

Note: This sermon is the beginning of a new, occasional series on my church's Statement of Faith. I will be preaching from our Statement of Faith on the Sundays that we celebrate The Lord's Supper together.      

     

Section 1 of our Statement of Faith is entitled, “Verbal Inspiration,” and it states: “We believe that all Scripture of the Old and New Testament is God-Breathed, is inerrant in the original writings and is the supreme and final authority in all matters of life, faith, and practice (2 Tim. 3:16, Matt 4:4, 2 Peter 1:20-21, Rom 15:4).”

            This title, “Verbal Inspiration,” simply means that God’s involvement with the writing of Scripture extended all the way to the very words that the human authors chose to use to express their message. In other words, God didn’t just give the human authors of the Bible some grand and lofty ideas and then leave them on their own to put those ideas down in writing. That would’ve left the writing process vulnerable to all the imperfections of human beings.

            For example, we’ve all experienced the frustration of having an idea in our minds but not being able to find just the right words to express it. In the end, we sometimes have to settle with an imprecise or incomplete expression of what we truly had on our minds.

            So is that what we have with the Bible? Is it just the best attempt of the human authors to communicate all that God had placed in their minds? No – not at all! God’s involvement in the writing led the entire process from beginning to end, so that even the very words the authors chose to use were the words that God desired for them to use.

            The first statement of this section says, “We believe that all Scripture of the Old and New Testament is God-Breathed.” What does this term “God-Breathed” mean? Well, it comes from 2 Timothy 3:16-17 [READ 2 Tim 3:16-17]. This picture of God breathing out the Scriptures tells us that he is the ultimate source and origin of the Scriptures. Even though it was actually human beings who put pen to paper in order to write the Bible, its message ultimately came from God.

            Think of it like a musician playing a beautiful piece of music on an instrument. Yes, the musician uses the instrument to produce the sound, but the music is ultimately coming from the musician, not the instrument. So it is with the Bible – God used human authors to produce the documents, but the message is ultimately from him.

            The second statement declares that the Scripture “is inerrant in the original writings.” This declaration means that the documents produced by the original authors were free of any mistakes or errors. Therefore, the Bible tells us the truth and nothing but the truth.

            In this statement, though, why do we only focus on the original writings as being free of errors? The reason is that we know mistakes have been made in the copying process that has taken place from that time until now. For example, in 1631, a new edition of the King James Bible was printed in England that became known as "The Wicked Bible" because the printers accidently left out the word "not" in the commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery!” Thus, their Bible made it sound like God was commanding everyone to commit adultery!

            Now how do we know that this was an error? It’s because we have thousands upon thousands of other copies of the Bible that say, “thou shalt not commit adultery.” By comparing all of these copies together, we can spot locations in individual copies where mistakes have been made – such as in The Wicked Bible. By this process of comparison, then, we can eliminate those mistakes and know that we have an accurate copy of what the original authors wrote.

            The final statement of this section says that the Bible, “is the supreme and final authority in all matters of life, faith, and practice.” Notice how comprehensive that statement is – the Bible is the final authority for how I live, what I believe, and for how we do things in the church. This respect toward the Bible is simply the logical response to the fact that the Bible is ultimately a message from God. He is our Creator, our Lord, our Savior, and our Master, so whatever he has declared for us is the standard by which we must measure all things.

Monday Matters

            Now at this point you may be thinking, “This is wonderful information, Pastor Tim, and if I ever end up on Jeopardy it may help me to know what verbal inspiration means. But what difference does this make for my life?”

            That is a fair – and very important – question! When we wake up tomorrow morning, we will have to deal with Monday matters all over again. We’ll have to get the kids out the door and get them to school, and perhaps little Johnny is falling behind in a certain subject and will have to wrestle with some complicated decisions about what to do. And perhaps you’ll head off to another day at a job that you don’t really enjoy, and you’ll put in one more day just so you can pay those bills that are breathing down your neck.

            When you have to deal with those realities, what difference does it make that you know these truths about the Bible? In each sermon in this series, we’ll deal with this question, because it is very important to know how doctrine does connect with daily life.

            In today’s case, the great comfort and help we receive can be summarized like this:

In the Bible, we have a source of divine wisdom and food for the soul.

            In life, we have to deal with so many different decisions that can feel so complicated. Sometimes it’s hard just to form your own opinion, and then on top of that, you may have to sort through all kinds of advice from other people. It can all be so confusing, but in the midst of that confusion, we have a source of light, piercing through the fog, showing us the direction to take.

            The Bible gives us a framework for thinking that is not based on the limited understanding and perspective of men. It comes from above the fray, from a vantage point of unlimited knowledge and wisdom, untainted by sinfulness, and unfazed by the passage of time. The Bible helps us to align our priorities in the proper order so that we can accurately weigh the various options that may be available to us in any situation.

            So as we deal with the complexities of life, we don’t have to simply lean on our own understanding, which is so limited and filled with blind spots because of our own sinfulness. Instead, we can have the confidence that we are following a path that has been laid out by divine wisdom and infinite love. Our Statement of Faith references Romans 15:4, which says, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” Remember that hope is the biblical optimism that we have through the instruction and promises of God. It is a biblical optimism, which remembers – as the Apostle Paul stated – that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God, but hope is optimistic nonetheless because it is confident in God’s ability to fulfill his promises.

            So we can see how this divine wisdom is also food for our souls. The Bible nourishes us and sustains us spiritually when we grow so weary because of life in this world. Each one of us knows that even after we have fed our bodies, we can still be malnourished if we have not fed our souls. You can feast on the finest cuts of meat and the most delectable desserts and yet still be empty inside because your soul is fatigued and underfed.

            But the Bible provides the nourishment and sustenance for our souls to give us spiritual energy so that we don’t have to feel beat down and worn out as we go through life. As Jesus himself said in Matthew 4:4, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” We find these precious words in his holy book, the Bible, and drinking them in will quench the thirst of even the driest soul.           

           

Outdo One Another in Showing Honor--Romans 12:10 (Being the Body Series)

            Sometimes in life, you can have so much of a good thing that you fail to appreciate any one individual part of it. I think that’s what it can feel like sometimes to read Romans 12. Romans 12 contains so many profound lessons for the Christian life, and it gives us these lessons at a nearly break-neck speed. In verses nine through 21 in particular, the Apostle Paul peppers us with one brief yet profound command after another.

            It can be difficult to appreciate them all, so today I want to hit the pause button and focus on just one, which we find in the second half of verse 10 – “Outdo one another in showing honor.” Now perhaps you’re thinking, “Where did you just read from, Pastor Tim?” If you were following along in a different translation as I read, then you surely noticed that your translation may have used rather different words than mine. Notice the differences between these common translations:

·         ESV: “Outdo one another in showing honor.”

·         NKJV: “…in honor giving preference to one another.”

·         NASB: “give preference to one another in honor.”

·         NIV: “Honor one another above yourselves.”

·         NLT: “…take delight in honoring each other.”

            If you ponder the meaning of those phrases – like “giving preference” or honoring one another “above yourselves” – you end up with a very similar picture. But I’d like to unpack this wording from the English Standard Version: “Outdo one another in showing honor.”

            At first, it probably sounds funny to think of “outdoing” each other in something like showing honor, as though we’re actually competing with each other as to how well we’re living out biblical commands. But rest assured, we are not talking about some strange competition here.

            The idea of the Greek verb is that of taking the lead in something; being out front. If we think of honor as showing appreciation and esteem, I think we have a pretty good paraphrase for this command – “take the lead in showing appreciation and esteem.” Now how exactly would you take the lead in something like showing appreciation to others? I think we could apply this thought in a couple of ways.

1. Don’t lag behind!

            We don’t want to pass up opportunities to show appreciation to each other when those opportunities present themselves. The opposite of showing appreciation is probably being ungrateful, and that’s a character trait that we certainly don’t want to embody in our lives. When you express appreciation, you’re letting someone know how much they mean to you or how thankful you are for something that they did for you. We don’t want to pass up opportunities like that because it’s the right thing to do – not to mention that such gestures can go a long way in building a great friendship with someone.

            We certainly don’t want to have the reputation of being ungrateful. It’s my understanding that in the service industry, Christians have a reputation of being very stingy in giving tips. I have no idea where that stereotype came from, and I have no idea how true to life it is, but I think we all agree that we want to have the reputation of being generous people – people who show appreciation when acts of service are performed for us.

            I believe this thought also sheds some helpful light on the Christian concept of duty. When I think about serving God or even serving you, it’s appropriate for me to think to a certain degree about fulfilling a duty. I think ultimately we want our motivation for service to go beyond duty to delight (in other words, I serve God and others because I delight to do so) but nevertheless, the reality of our duty to God is there to push us along even when we don’t delight to do what we should.

            But when someone else serves me, I shouldn’t think just in terms of that person doing their duty. In other words, I don’t want to camp out on the thought that says, “I expect other people to serve me – after all, that’s their duty as a Christian!” Let them worry about their duty to God – on your part, you should view their service as a gift and thus be thankful for it and express that appreciation.

            I hope we do a good job of this as a church toward all of you who volunteer in various ways, but if we’ve never made our appreciation known to you, please accept my apologies and know that your contributions are not overlooked. We consider your service to be a gracious gift to us all. Please pray for the leadership of our church that we, too, would be faithful to carry out this command and express appreciation when it is due.

A second way that we could apply this command would be to…

2. Take the initiative – don’t simply respond to the initiative of others.

            One of the hallmarks of Christian behavior is that it is proactive, not reactive. In other words, I am not supposed to treat you merely in the same way that you treat me, so that if you treat me poorly, I will treat you poorly in return. Rather – and we all know this from the Golden Rule – I am supposed to treat you the way that I would want you to treat me – whether you actually treat me that way or not!

            So if a person has never shown appropriate appreciation to you, you don’t have to let that fact stop you from showing appreciation and esteem to them. Now of course, I’m not talking about flattery here. I’m not talking about twisting or exaggerating the truth – I’m talking about situations when appreciation and esteem are actually deserved. When they are, express that! Don’t let a good thing go unsaid when it should be said.

            We so often miss out on the life-giving power of encouraging words because we leave them unsaid. You might often think about how much you appreciate someone and you might often think very highly of them, but how often do you express that to them? Again, I’m not talking about flattery, I’m really just talking about faithfulness – faithfulness to obey the command just like this one here in Romans 12:10. Faithfulness to take the lead in showing appreciation – not simply to return such expressions when they are given to you, but to be the one who will plant life-giving seeds for the soul through words of appreciation, gratitude, and thankfulness.

            We of all people should be known as a grateful people because we know that every good thing we have is a gift from God. We know to give our appreciation and esteem to him – let’s make sure we don’t fail to give the same to the people who bring God’s good gifts to us through their service.

Pray for One Another--Ephesians 6:18--Being the Body Series

            Her heart must have been pounding inside her chest as she stepped into that room—that room where no one was welcome without an invitation, that room where coming uninvited could get a person killed. But as the king heard her footsteps and lifted his eyes to see who had dared to come into that room, his heart was filled with compassion. When he saw the face of the one he loved, he raised his scepter to indicate that she was welcome.

            The story of Esther reminds us how difficult it has always been to get an audience with people in positions of high authority. Just imagine if you wanted to have a conversation with the President. For the average person, it would be practically impossible.

            And yet, as Christians, we have free and ready access to the highest authority of all—God himself! At any moment we choose, no matter where we are, we can simply turn our thoughts toward God and express our thoughts to Him, and He will hear us. Isn’t that amazing?

            With such an amazing privilege at our disposal, we should ask ourselves, “How am I using this opportunity?” Am I making the most of this incredible gift? Am I perhaps using it in a merely selfish way? I heard a great question recently that I think really helps put things in perspective—if all of my prayers were answered tomorrow, would only my life be different, or would the whole world be different?

            Today, we’re going to take a look at a scriptural command for us to pray for one another. It is no hollow cliché to say that the best thing we can do for each other is pray for each other. We’ll find out a bit more about how to do that in Ephesians 6:18.

            Beginning in Ephesians 6:10, the Apostle Paul uses the metaphor of warfare to discuss the battles that we face against the schemes of the devil. He makes a vital point in v. 12 when he writes, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” The titles “rulers” and “authorities” refer to the spiritual beings—the demonic beings—who are working with Satan to do battle against us.

            So our struggle is against spiritual beings and their powers, and as the old saying goes, you have to fight fire with fire. You’re not going to win a modern-day war with bows and arrows, and likewise, you’re not going to win a struggle against spiritual beings with merely human resources. This is one reason why prayer is such a vital tool in our spiritual arsenal, and it is why we need to employ it on behalf of others.

            In vv. 13-17, then, Paul calls upon us to embrace certain attitudes and behaviors, and he memorably compares them to different pieces of armor that were worn by Roman soldiers at that time. Then in v. 18, he ties it all together with this instruction about prayer—“praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.”

Let’s dig deeper into this verse with a few simple questions.

When Should We Pray?

            According to this verse, we should pray “at all times.” If we were to ask the Bible whether we should pray in the morning, the afternoon, or the evening, it would simply say, “Yes!” Every time of day is a good time for prayer!

            Recall that in John 15, Jesus said (and I paraphrase), “I am like a vine, and you are like the branches coming out of the vine. Apart from me, you can do nothing!” He meant, of course, nothing of spiritual value. We can do plenty of sinning on our own, but to do anything good, the guidance and strength of Christ are absolutely essential.

            If that’s true, then as people who need Jesus like a branch needs its vine, we should never be very far removed from our last prayer, and we should never be very far away from our next prayer. Texting conversations provide a great illustration of what that might look like. You can carry on a texting conversation with someone all day if you want, and yet at the same time, you can take care of the business you need to attend to that day. But that conversation is always in the back of your mind, and every so often you fire off another text to that person.

            That’s a great model for what it might look like to pray at all times. In the back of our minds, we should have an ongoing conversation with God about our day, and then every little bit, we bring that conversation to the front of our minds, and we pray a prayer to God.

            So think about your typical day and ask yourself, “Do I have some pretty long stretches of prayerlessness?” Or ask yourself this—“If I ate only as often as I pray, what would my physical health be like? Would I be well-fed or malnourished?” Well, if you endure long stretches without prayer, don’t you think your spiritual health suffers? So, we must pray at all times.

How Should We Pray?

1. In the Spirit

            When you hear this phrase, don’t picture yourself going into a trance or some kind of altered state of mind. The idea is to pray with the resources that the Holy Spirit provides. What kind of resources does He provide for our prayers?

            The first resource we should mention is confidence. The Holy Spirit reminds us that we are children of God, and as such, we have the right to come to God in prayer. Romans 8:16 says, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” Thus, we don’t have to wonder, like Esther did, whether the king is going to lower His scepter to us when we approach his throne. We can thus pray with confidence.

            That same chapter—Romans 8—mentions another activity of the Spirit to help us in prayer. Verses 26-27 state, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

            Notice how the Holy Spirit steps in for us. We don’t always know the right thing to pray for, do we? Sometimes, life is so complicated, we don’t even know what the best thing to ask for is. So as we wrestle with what to even say, the Holy Spirit assists us in the process. It may not be far off to think of Him acting like a translator—as I’m stumbling over my words, He can step in and say, “Father, what Tim really meant to say was…” And so, the Holy Spirit can give us great confidence for prayer.

            Second, He can also give us content for our prayers. Notice that Ephesians 6:17 says that the sword of the Spirit is the word of God. God’s Word is a powerful tool that the Holy Spirit uses to shape our lives—to give us teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16). As the Spirit teaches us the promises of God, we can use them to inform our prayers. As He convicts us of sin, we can find the remedy in Scripture, and pray over it. A Scripture-saturated prayer is a powerful prayer indeed, and the Holy Spirit can impress those Scriptures upon our hearts.

2. With all prayer and supplication

            Think of this directive as a goal to make your prayers a “well-balanced diet.” The word “prayer” is a more general term that could encompass anything you might say to God—whether you’re thanking Him or praising Him or confessing sin. The word “supplication” is a more specific term that refers to making requests.

            Taken together, these terms describe a well-rounded prayer life. If anything, I’ll bet we’re tempted to go heavy on making requests, and perhaps go a bit light on everything else. Or maybe your prayers are like a form letter—you always end up saying the same things, and the only section that ever gets an update is the request section.

            This statement from Paul instructs us not to neglect any aspect of prayer. Reflecting on The Lord’s Prayer is a good way to find some balance in your prayer life, because Jesus uttered that prayer in order to teach the disciples how to pray. It can teach us, too, if we’ll reflect on it a bit and learn what the Lord was saying.

3. With alertness and perseverance

            This phrase may surprise us a bit, because I think it paints prayer in a different light than the light in which we’re used to seeing it. Paul’s language here is perfectly suited to the context, since he’s been using this metaphor of warfare. A soldier in battle must always remain alert and must persevere through difficulty.

            And remember—a soldier in battle is precisely how Paul envisions you and me in this passage. That observation puts the practice of prayer into an important context. I believe we are often tempted to think of prayer as being like a perk or a fringe benefit of being a Christian—kind of like a bonus that God tossed into the gift of salvation.

            But prayer is no fringe benefit in the Christian life—it is much more like the communication that occurs in a time of battle. If you’re a soldier, communicating with your commander isn’t a bonus or something optional—it is absolutely crucial to the success of the mission and to your own safety and well-being.

            In his book Desiring God, John Piper suggested that many of our problems in prayer and much of our weakness in prayer come from the fact that we have taken a wartime walkie-talkie and turned it in to a civilian intercom. Rather than use prayer to go on active duty for God, he says, we use it to try to call the servants to bring another cushion into the den. We’ve turned it into something like a call button for an airline stewardess—something we can just use to call for another Coke whenever we’re thirsty.

            We must never forget that we are constantly under attack by the schemes of Satan. It is in that light that we must pray—as if our very survival depended on it. We must not let Satan catch us during a season of drought in our prayer lives. If we truly are at war with the Evil One, why would we cut our own line of communication with our commander by not praying? Or why would we render it moot and useless by trying to use it for the wrong purpose?

For Whom Should We Pray?

            At the end of this verse, Paul states that we should make supplication for all the saints. At a minimum, I’m sure Paul was telling these Christians in Ephesus to pray for all the other Christians there in their local church. To that, we could add other believers with whom they had personal contact, like the Apostle Paul, and then beyond that, we could add other Christians as they came to hear about them.

            Here is where we really get to the heart of the command to pray for one another. Our prayers should not be all about ourselves and our own concerns. Other people should have the starring role in our prayers—then, we can just bring ourselves in for a cameo appearance!

            That balance may ebb and flow with different prayers. A prayer to confess sin will, of course, be intensely personal, and it will focus on yourself. In other prayers, you may have a very urgent personal need that receives most of the focus. But in the bulk of your prayers overall, other people should be blessed by being the focus of your prayers.

            I would encourage you not to simply rely on your memory to help you pray for others and their needs. Use other tools to help faithfully pray for others. We supply several different tools through our own church—our recurring prayer list that we now print once a month, our urgent prayer list that we print in the bulletin, the selected family to pray for each week. If you will make use of these tools, they will provide you with a systematic way to pray for all of your brothers and sisters in this church.

            Praying for each other is a great privilege and a necessary tool in our battle against Satan. It also reminds us of the unity that we have as a result of our Lord’s sacrifice for our sins. Whenever we celebrate The Lord’s Supper together, we are reminded that we all have a stake in the sacrificial death of Christ; we all have been washed clean by His shed blood. May we partake of it today with our unity in the forefront of our minds!

The Harmony Between God's Greatness and Goodness--Attributes of God Series

            Perhaps you remember this common meal-time prayer from your childhood: “God is great, God is good, thank you Lord for this food.” A very simple prayer, but with very profound truth. In fact, you may not have realized it, but a number of the psalms in the Bible follow that same pattern of emphasizing God’s greatness and His goodness. These two truths aren’t just arbitrarily thrown together; they balance each other out and give us a well-rounded picture of just who God is. Each of these concepts serves to heighten the other and keep them in their proper context.

            Psalm 113 is a psalm that follows this pattern. Psalm 113 draws both of these ideas together and reminds us that while God dwells in majestic splendor above the heights of heaven, He is still concerned with the plight of man and involves Himself in our lives. For this reason, God is richly deserving of our praise!

I. Praise God for His greatness  vv. 1–4

            The psalmist begins with a call to worship or praise [READ v. 1–3]. And by the time the psalmist is done with v. 3 we’re thinking, “Okay, we get the point. We’re supposed to praise the Lord.” The repetition here, of course, is for the rhetorical effect of emphasis—we are supposed to react to this call, and in a very specific way. The psalmist is calling us to praise. But what does it mean to praise?

            You’ve probably heard of a person called an appraiser. I think virtually every county has an appraiser, and a lot of cities do, too. The appraiser’s job is to declare how much your property is worth so the government can collect personal property taxes. He “ap-PRAISES” your property; he states how much is it worth. So when we praise God, we are declaring how valuable he is to us.

            Now you may have noticed in these verses that several times the psalmist mentions praising God’s name. This may strike you as a little strange because we don’t think of names the way Old Testament Jews did. We use names mainly just to tell people apart, but Jews had a different concept of what a name meant. To them, a person’s name represented their character, their personality. It stood for who the person was. That’s why we see some Old Testament characters having their names changed after significant events that shaped their lives. For example, Abraham’s names originally was Abram, but after God gave the promise that He would have many children, God changed his name to Abraham, which means “father of a multitude.” This name was better suited to what Abram would become.

            So we see that what the psalmist is pointing to here is God’s essence, His character. He is calling us to praise God for the things that make Him God.

                       

            But a big question remains unanswered in the psalm thus far: “Why is God worthy of such praise?” The psalmist is going to give us two answers, the first of which we find in v. 4. The first reason for praise is God’s greatness [READ v. 4] A common religious idea in Old Testament times was that deities were localized. In other words, each nation had its own god and his power was confined to that nation. The psalmist of course flatly rejects any such notion about Yahweh, the God of Israel, because He is high above all nations. His power is not limited in any way and He shares His throne with no one, especially not some carved image of stone like these other nations worshiped. God is to be praised from every nation of the Earth because He is truly the God of every nation of the Earth, whether men bow the knee to Him or not.

            But not only is He above the nations, but in fact the world and the universe itself cannot contain His glory. Solomon touched on this idea in 1 Kings 8 during his prayer of dedication for the temple. He said in 1 Kings 8:27, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house which I have built?”

            Herein lies the first reason for the psalmist’s call to praise, because God is so great. Mankind is dwarfed by the majesty and power of God, and such a being who cannot even be contained by the universe should strike fear into our hearts and wonder into our souls.

II. Praise God for His goodness  vv. 5–9

            But there is another reason why we should praise God, and it is an important balance to the first. We should praise God not only for His greatness, but also for His goodness, which is His care and concern for mankind, and this is the key point of the psalm. The psalmist dwells on this for five verses. Not only is God great, but He is also good, and this is important because if God were only great, He would be no better than all of the other so-called “gods” out there.

            Many other religions believe in a “god” who is great, but no other religion has a god who is good. Islam certainly preaches about a god who is great and mighty and powerful, but he is not good—certainly not in the way that the Bible describes goodness. In Islam, the will of Allah reigns supreme, and there are no restrictions on it. He doesn’t have to be fair to you—he can literally choose to do whatever he wants. You could serve him faithfully your whole life, and he could still condemn you Hell simply because he chooses to do it. That’s why martyrdom is so attractive to those who are engaged in terrorism—they feel like that sacrifice gives them a guarantee of going to Paradise.

            The psalmist mentions God’s greatness again in verse 5 to set up a contrast with v. 6 [READ vv. 5–6]. Though God cannot even be contained by the universe, the psalmist here says that God stoops down to see what is taking place. God is concerned about what is going on and from other passages we know that He is working out a plan for His glory.

            Now this is not a normal thing for rulers to do. Think about all the dictators you know from history; how many of them have been concerned about the day to day affairs of their people? Even leaders in a system of government like ours. You may find them at a hospital when the cameras are rolling, but when the TV lights go off, where are they? There are some exceptions, but most rulers lose touch with and lose concern for the individuals they rule.

            Not God though! He is concerned with people and what goes on in their lives. You know I started out this sermon talking about the prayers of little children. Do you know that we can learn this lesson from their prayers as well? Sometimes adults don’t pray about certain things because we feel like they are trivial matters to burden God with. But when a child prays, what do they pray for? Their dog who is sick, the doll that they lost. Kids pray for every little thing you can imagine because they believe that God cares, and you know what? He does! God is great, but He stoops down to see our lives because He cares.

            But not only does He care, He gets actively involved. In vv. 7–9, we see that He raises the lowly up. God doesn’t just care about the rich and powerful, He cares about the lowest members of society. [READ 7–9] In ancient Israel, the two groups that the psalmist mentions, the poor and barren women, were looked down upon. They were stigmatized by society simply because of their condition, and the status of the poor that the psalmist mentions here was one of destitution. He makes reference here to the ash heap, which was essentially the town dump. Every good sized town would have a landfill outside the walls of the city where they would burn their trash and their human waste. People who had nowhere else to turn would live at these landfills, begging for the scraps of food that people brought out and huddling into the ash at night to stay warm. You can imagine that these people were not highly esteemed.

            But look at God’s actions! God, who is so great, looks down from above the heavens, sees people in absolute destitution, and is moved with compassion to raise them to a position of prominence. He sees the barren woman in her grief and is moved to grant her children. Now these examples should be taken as proverbial. In other words, they express a general truth of life. God doesn’t take every poor person out of their poverty, and He doesn’t give children to every barren woman. He has his own plans which ultimate are good and perfect, even though we don’t understand them. But this is God’s character—to be moved with compassion by the needs of people. And we clearly see from this the goodness of God.

            God’s goodness stands with His greatness to make Him the God that He is. These two aspects of God’s nature are not contradictory, they are complimentary. If God were only great, He would not be concerned about mankind, but if He were only good, He would not have the power to act on His concerns. These truths should draw out a complimentary response from us. His greatness makes Him worthy of our worship and adoration, while His goodness makes Him worthy of our love and devotion. We can see clearly now why the psalmist calls for such a response of praise, and our hearts can respond appropriately.

God's Pervasive Presence--Attributes of God Series

            1 Kings 20 records the details of a war between the people of Israel and their northern neighbors, the Syrians. The children of Israel were victorious in the first battle, much to the dismay of the Syrians, and later on, as the Syrian leaders gathered for coffee at the local café, they tried to figure out why they had lost. One of the leaders said, “Aha! Why didn’t we think of this before? They beat us because they had home-field advantage! Their god must be a god of the hills, so next time let’s fight them down in the plains, and our gods will give us the victory.”

            After that conversation, the Lord sent a prophet to the king of Israel, who said, “Because the Syrians think I’m only the god of the hills and not the god of the plains, I’m going to give them all into your hand.” In that moment, God wanted to make a crystal-clear distinction between himself and the so-called “gods” of the other nations—the God of Israel, the God of the Bible, cannot be assigned to one location as if His power were only operative there. Rather, the testimony of Scripture is that our God—the true God—is in all places. He is king in all places and every place at the same time.

            In other words, God’s presence is pervasive—He is in all places at once. This characteristic of God is often called His “omnipresence,” and today, I want to look at this idea so that we can understand our God in better detail, and think about some implications of God’s pervasive presence in His creation.

Where is this idea found in Scripture?

            The clearest expression of this idea is also the most moving and memorable. It is found in Psalm 139:7-12. In this psalm, David had just stated how thoroughly God knows him, and now we read that part of the reason for that knowledge is that God is everywhere. I know in years past, I have read these verses as if David was trying to run away and hide from God—probably because of the word “flee” in v. 7—but upon a closer look, these verses don’t have to be understood that way. In fact, it seems that just the opposite is the case—David sees God’s presence as comforting and reassuring [READ Ps. 139:7-12]. Notice how David considers various factors like distance, speed, and even a condition like darkness and concludes that none of these things can separate us from God. He is with us!

            But how can God be with you in your house and also with me in my house at the same time? It’s important for us to remember that God does not have the limitation of a physical body like we do. John 4:24 states that God is spirit, which means that He doesn’t have flesh and bones like we do. My body can only be in one place at one time, but since God doesn’t have the limitation of a physical body, that is one reason that he can be omnipresent.

“You’ve got some ‘splainin to do!”

            We should clarify at this point just what we are claiming when we say that God is “omnipresent.” As much as it pains me to say this, since I love these movies, the Star Wars movies have popularized some ideas that some people have wrongly associated with God. People have been tempted to draw parallels between God and “The Force” in the Star Wars movies, but we really don’t want to make that connection.

            In Star Wars, The Force is a kind of power that flows through humans and rocks and trees and spaceships and everything that exists. That idea is actually based on a religious belief called “pantheism,” which comes from religions like Buddhism and Hinduism. But when we say that God is omnipresent, we should not be thinking that God is somehow inside the wood that makes up my pulpit, or that He is somehow inside the pew that you’re sitting on.

            What we are actually claiming is that God is aware of all that is happening in every corner of creation and that He is active in every corner of creation—all at the same time. When we say that God is omnipresent, that should be the idea that we have in mind, rather than some notion that God is inside the carpet or the drywall or the lightbulbs.

Unique Reminders of God’s Presence

            Now, God does, at times, give unique reminders of His presence to specific people in specific places. One familiar example of this kind of act of God is the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that accompanied the people of Israel during the Exodus, when they fled from their slavery in Egypt. That pillar wasn’t visible from every place on the planet! It was in a specific location, and from time to time it would move to a new location to show the people where to go.

            In such moments, when God offers a unique reminder of His presence, He does so to teach people important lessons. Think about what the children of Israel should have learned from that pillar of cloud and fire. God wanted to teach them lessons like:

·         “I am here to guide you”

·         “I am here to protect you” (like when Pharaoh chased after them)

·         “I am here to provide for you” (giving them light and warmth by night).

            Of course, the greatest example of God making His presence known in order to teach us was the Incarnation, when Jesus added a human nature to His person. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known (NET Bible).”

Some Implications of God’s Omnipresence

1. His knowledge about me is first-hand knowledge

            I am repeating this thought from my sermon on God’s omniscience, but I think it bears repeating here. Since God is personally aware of everything that is going on in creation, then He personally knows everything that is going on with me. I think this observation is comforting, because so many of our problems with each other are either created or exaggerated by misinformation—for example, someone hears a piece of gossip about you and they start to act differently around you. Perhaps they’re less friendly or less open with you—all because they heard something about you that didn’t reflect the truth.

            But we don’t have to worry about any such issues with God! He doesn’t have to seek information about us from some other source—He sees us, so He has direct knowledge about us. This thought is also the second implication.

2. God always sees what is happening to us and what we are up to

            Many situations in life can move us to think, “God, where are you?” Though it may not feel like God is always with us, that is only an appearance; it is not the reality. God sees all that is happening to us. He sees when people sin against us; He sees when people are kind to us. He sees it all!

            He also sees what we are up to, and this thought should be a powerful reminder for us as we make choices in life. The temptations we face always look more appealing when we think that no one will see what we’re doing and no one will find out about what we’ve done. We can hide things from each other, can’t we? And when we’re only thinking on that level, our temptations look far more appealing. But when we remember that God is always with us and He sees us at all times, we are reminded that we can’t hide anything from Him.

            You may remember a children’s song that tried to teach us this lesson when we were young. It goes like this: “Oh be careful little eyes what you see, oh be careful little eyes what you see, for the Father up above is looking down in love, so be careful little eyes what you see.” That little song reminds us that God is watching us, and it contains such an important reminder when it says that God is “looking down in love.” God is watching, yes, but He’s watching in love! He is not like some grumpy piano teacher who’s waiting to slap you on the hand any time you play a wrong note. Remembering that God watches us in love will help us think accurate thoughts about God, and it still leaves us with the awesome realization that we will one day answer to God for everything that He has seen us do.

3. I am never alone—God is always with me!

            When God asked His people to carry out some task in Scripture, He always reminded them that they would not be alone—He would be with them. When Moses was preparing to lead the people of Israel toward their first attempt to conquer the Promised Land, God said to him, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest (Exodus 33:14).”

            When the people rebelled before their first attempt, and God prepared Joshua to lead the second attempt, the Lord told him to remember what he had been promised, to remember God’s commands, and he wrapped it all up by saying this: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9).”

            When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, and He told His disciples on the night before He died that He would be going away, He said, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you (John 14:18).” And when He gave those men the Great Commission to make disciples of all the nations, He said, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).”

            We are not alone as we seek to carry out the tasks that God has for us. When you’re going around town and you see that person that you know you should forgive, you are not alone. When you walk into the office to co-workers who do not share your faith, you are not alone. When you are facing down the temptation that has tripped you up a hundred times, you are not alone. The Lord your God is with you wherever you go!