It's just all generic at this point. So we see this illustrated in the scriptures, this heightened degree of presence. We see it in some of the, I call them giants of the faith, but what first comes to mind, right? Moses. Moses gets this incredible experience with the presence of God. First at the burning bush, but even heightened more is that time when He says, God, I want to see you. I want to know you. And God puts him in the cleft of the rock and pulls away his hand and lets him see his backside. You guys know that story, right? There's this heightened degree of his knowledge, his sense, his yearning for the presence of God. We see it also in the life of Jacob. You remember that illustration with Jacob where he falls into this deep sleep and he has this dream or this vision and he sees angels going up and down on this ladder or this gate, ascending and descending from heaven. And that we know is a theophany because wherever the angels are, God is, but it's this picture of God coming down and Jacob being in his presence. And God speaks to Jacob and says, what does he say to him? Well, not so much about what God said to Jacob, but think about how Jacob responded after that encounter. Jacob says, how awesome is this place? This is the very gate of heaven. This is Bethel, the house of God. He names this place Bethel. And it becomes a very special physical place for him. Why? Because he was in the presence of God. He sensed his nearness. So much so that it changed him. But friends, if we were to go to Bethel today, would we guarantee an encounter with God? Is that where God is physically located? It's rhetorical. No, we wouldn't, right? But there's something special about how God decided to reveal himself to certain individuals in the Old Testament. These individuals that he would single out and reveal Himself to them in a very special way. It's as if in some way there was mediation between His holiness and their incredible sin. How do we know that? Because even we have that picture of Moses encountering God's backside, there's this weird exchange about, I'm going to let you see my backside, but you can't see my face. Why is that? No one can see my face and live. Or when Jacob is wrestling with God in the wilderness there and the sun's coming up and God's got to get away because he can't let the sun come up and let Jacob see his face because he's holy. Man in his sin can't look upon the perfect presence of God. There's this weird dynamic. There's this otherness about God. We see it also at Mount Sinai when the Israelites are there and God is giving the law to Moses. And he gives them this command. Well, first of all, there's all this stuff going around Mount Sinai. There's smoke and fire and thunder and lightning coming down. And they're instructed, don't even touch the mountain. If you touch the mountain, what's gonna happen? You're gonna die. Why is that? Because they are so near God, so in His presence, that His power, His majesty, His holiness is so real that they in their sin without a mediator can't touch that mountain. So we have that picture in the Old Testament about this otherness of God, His presence is unique, and yet from time to time, He sporadically, almost, through the scriptures in the Old Testament, encounters man in some special way. But something changes, right? Something changes in the New Testament. In such a way that that power, that presence, that reality is no longer unique in that sporadic way, but we're told we can continually experience this special presence of God, that we ought to yearn for it and long for it. We have that because of the work of Christ. We're going to talk about that again here in a minute, but that's just the preview. So here's some pictures of Jesus in the New Testament that I want you to recall, and think about how they point back to Jacob and his story. You remember when Jesus encounters Nathanael, one of his followers, and he tells him he saw him under a fig tree. And we're thinking, so what? We don't know the rest of that narrative. We don't know what Nathanael was doing under the fig tree. Maybe he was doing something bad and he got caught. Maybe he had some profound experience. And he's just overwhelmed that somebody else knew about it besides him. But we can tell by his reaction, he was alone and he thought nobody else was around. Because when Jesus tells him that, he suddenly realizes he's in the presence of somebody special. Nathaniel responds, Rabbi, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel. But listen to how Jesus responds. He says something almost seems out of context and strange. He says, you believe because I told you I saw you under a fig tree, but you will see greater things than that. I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Again, this picture pointing back to Jacob's encounter with God and his presence. I mean, he's basically saying, okay, you saw a miracle, big deal. Wait till you see what's coming next. I'm going to really reveal myself. You'll see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Then again, we have this picture in the narrative with Nicodemus, that born-again illustration in John 3. And he says something similar to Nicodemus. He says, you must believe me because I'm the only one who both descended and ascended into heaven. Again, this picture of I'm the gate, I'm the bridge. This is how man comes into God's presence. The reason you can be born again is I'm the stairway. Through me, the presence of God that made Mount Sinai smoke and tremble, that killed people and cattle, can come into your life, transforming you. You can know it continually, he's telling Nicodemus. Maybe most powerful, we see this unpacked in Hebrews chapter 12. If you got your Bibles and wanna flip there with me, we're gonna read a few verses. Hebrews 12, 18 through 24. incredible passage that expounds on this, and I hope we can see it here together. But the writer of Hebrews says, for you have not come to what may be touched, again, it's this reference of the mountain, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. Again, he's going back to that picture at Mount Sinai when the Israelites are overwhelmed by God's holy presence. They were fearful, scared. Make it stop, Moses. For they could not endure the order that was given. If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear. But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than even the blood of Abel. So Jesus is unpacking God's presence in the new covenant. We now have a mediator. Because of the cross, if you remember what happened, that incredible imagery at the cross when Jesus dies, we're told that the veil of the temple was torn. It separated the holy of holies from the rest of the sanctuary. And this imagery that we can now come before God, we can come into His presence because of what Jesus has done on the cross. Because if we are covered in His blood, we no longer have to fear. We can now face our very God. We can come before Him. What else here? God's presence for those who are in Jesus is no longer a terrible thing. because we're covered by the blood. Because of His mediation, we can come right into the presence of God, and that is the very glory of the gospel. Our relationship with Him is totally different. Instead of this sporadic thing that we see with the Old Testament saints, we can now, and are encouraged, to continually come before God. We don't have to wait one day a year for the the great high priest to go in in perfect white linen after sacrifices have been made and our sins have been atoned, we can come to him every day. And he calls us to that. To be in the presence of God is to always, what is this, be in his presence means always There's an element of his power that is so real that we're not intimidated by anything else. I'm transitioning here, that was a terrible transition. But we come into his presence, we're always encountered with power and grace. Why is that? Because when he becomes real to us, When we sense that His reality, that He is not only spirit but person and can be known and we know Him, His power overwhelms us to the extent that we don't fear other people, right? If we really in our heart of hearts know that God is real and that we belong to Him and we're in His presence, why would we fear anything else? You see, that's the picture of the New Testament church in Acts. How in the world is it that these people who were scared to death at Jesus' crucifixion, only a few months later, are now incredibly bold, not afraid of anybody, willing to go to jail, be beaten, put to death, do anything. They've been overwhelmed by the presence of God. His power has been made real to them. Certainly, an element of that is the Spirit and His presence, but they know the power of God and it changes them, changes their cowardice to boldness. Now who in the room did along for that, right? How many of us don't want that so much so that We're not worried about some crazy election in a few weeks because we're in the presence of a powerful God. It's not that that stuff doesn't matter, but it doesn't really matter, right? The grand scheme of things is He's on His throne and He's in control. So, if you see God's power, if it's real to you, We'll stop being cowardice about a lot of things. We'll stop being afraid. We'll have that boldness of the New Testament church. We'll have to ask ourselves, what in the world am I afraid of? I would also yield to you when we see God's power, when His presence is that real to us, we sense His power, it takes away a lot of our cynicism. Now, I think cynicism is right there with greed. It's one of those sins nobody confesses. You ever hear anybody talk about their own greed? We talk about greed of other people, but nobody thinks they're greedy. I don't remember ever hearing anybody confess their sin or greed. But I would tell you it's the same way with cynicism. It's real easy for me to see it in other people. But it's incredibly hard to see it in my own heart. It's just masked and covered and disguised. But we are so cynical. Cynical of God's power. We really don't think He can do the things we read about in the scriptures today, right? We don't think He can really change that person that we care about, who we know needs to know the Lord. We don't really think He can take care of these bad habits that I have that so need to be taken away. I would submit to you as we think about God's presence, as we reflect on this and get our hearts around it, we gotta repent of our cynicism. So that's one takeaway for you. See if there's anything else here I wanted to say about his power. Any thoughts while I'm reading? All right. Richard, when you say cynicism, cynical of God's power, his ability, which is really just doubt, is that what you mean? It is, yes. It's really cynicism about the reality of God's presence. It's the same as, it's really just unbelief, you're absolutely right. We don't really acknowledge that He's there. It shows forth in the way we do things contrary to His will and His word, but I would say even in our coming to Him, you know, we don't come to Him with prayers that we just doubt that He's going to do anything about it. And we'll talk a little bit about that further here in a second as we talk about some of the practical applications. Man, I think we're doing okay on time. Any other thoughts or questions before I keep rolling? All right. I can't really see with these glasses on anyway. The other thing that is always a result of being in the presence of God, besides his great power, is his great grace. There is certainly a hardness and a toughness that comes from seeing God, but there's also an intimacy, because to be in His presence means His love washes over us. Because of what Christ has done for us on the cross, and His great love for us, and as we grasp that and get a hold of His grace, His love washes over us. It changes us. Again, go back to the New Testament church in Acts. There's a reason why they became so generous. They knew the love of God. It washed over them. It changed them. The very presence of God made them think differently about their possessions. They couldn't help but think, I am so unworthy. I've been given so much. How in the world can I hold on to my stuff when I see other people in need? It changed them. His presence brought about a reality of His grace in their heart and life. It makes us generous. So, we should long for more of His presence. I mean, as you talk about those things, as you think about having a sense of the reality of God's power and His grace. Who in the world doesn't want more of that, right? Isn't that what we hunger and thirst for? And as His followers, His disciples, we want to be like Jesus. We want to walk in His footsteps, imitate Him, do the things that He did. And so we really do want to open our eyes to His presence. We want to see more and more of Him. So, what does that look like? How do we do it? I wanted to save enough time to talk about practical stuff. I felt like the last few weeks we're just cramming this stuff in and this is really what is important. I hope to inspire you a little bit about God's presence, but I do want to talk about how do we go, what are the practices we can undertake? How do we get ourselves more before him? Jonathan Edwards said this, you cannot expect to have the presence of God any other way than in a way of walking with him. Does that sound familiar to being a disciple? If we're going to be in his presence, we have to walk with him. Got to get so close to him that we're stepping in his footprints in the sand. So how do we do this? I feel like I missed, I did miss a quote from Edwards here, but maybe we'll come back to it. No, we got to go back to it. While we're on Jonathan Edwards, let me read this to you. because I think this is powerful about God's presence. He once had this statement, he said, this was in his prayer diary. He says, once as I rode out into the woods for my health, I had a view that was for me extraordinary. The inward eyes of my heart were opened and I saw the glory of the Son of God and his wonderful, great, pure, and sweet grace and love. You hear power and grace? The person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent, and with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought and conception, which continued as near as I could judge for about an hour, which kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears and weeping aloud. I felt an ardency of soul to be full of Christ alone, to love Him with a holy and pure love, to trust in Him, to live upon Him, and to serve Him. Now listen, I read some of these saints of old like that. I read Jonathan Edwards, and your reaction's probably like mine. Okay, that's great, but he's a superhero. He's like, you know, in the major leagues, playing in the World Series, and I'm over here in Little League. But friends, that is not the story. Yes, Jonathan Edwards is a superhero. This is the experience God has for us. The scriptures would tell us our expectation of His presence is far too low. We should have a longing for His presence. We should have a thirsting for feeling and sensing the power and grace of God. So again, how do we do that? I did want to come back to that. Whitney here in his book gives four or five suggestions for us. These are practices. You're going to get a little tired of this because these all sound the same every week, alright? Just a little warning. But the first one says, go often to the place where God has revealed himself most clearly. We already talked about that. Go to the Scriptures, to the Word, to the Bible. Martin Lloyd-Jones said, the more we know it and read it, the more it will take us into the presence of God. So if you want to set the Lord always before you, spend much of your time in regularly daily reading of the Bible. There is nothing novel about that quote from Martin Lloyd-Jones or the suggestion by Dr. Whitney. But if we want to sense God's presence, we have to go to the place where He is most clearly and explicitly revealed who He is. Not the edge of the Grand Canyon, although there's nothing wrong with that. But His Word is where He's revealed to us who He is. Now, we've said this in prior weeks. Not only to make reading of the word a priority in our lives, but to take it in, to let it sink in, to absorb it, to reflect on it, meditate upon it. Read the scriptures in such a way that you're looking for how God might change who you are. Look for passages where he's speaking directly into your heart. I couldn't help this word picture, this imagery of Adam and Eve. walking in the cool of the day in the Garden of Eden with the very Lord Himself. Do you think they hung on every word? Or do they treat His word like we do often where we read through it quickly and it never sinks in? It's hard to imagine that they weren't just sitting on every word that came from the Father, right? Can you imagine how special that is? We need to hang on every word like that. He is speaking to us in the cool of the day, in the garden, in the very same way, through his word. Second thing Whitney gives us is to acknowledge his presence with you by talking with him. Prayer. This is so important. I have certainly found this in my own devotional life. I can get into these Patterns and rhythms where I'm studying the word and I'm reflecting on it and thinking about it But I'm not letting that flow into prayer with my maker Not spending communion with him And I love this illustration that Whitney gave he said well, I'll give you my own illustration. It's similar to his but There are many times many nights what? I shouldn't say many. There are times when I too often give in to the lure of what my father called the idiot box and Michelle and I can sit and watch TV for hours and I can let time go by and never speak a word to her. We're in the same room. Our presence is obvious. But there's no intimacy in that, right? communication, back and forth, engaging with one another. That is where real intimacy is found. It's the same with our Father. He speaks to us through His Word. We engage with Him through prayer. And as we do that, our intimacy with Him builds. Our sense of His nearness grows. His presence becomes more real to us. Go back to that illustration we've used in past weeks Praying through Scripture. If you're struggling with this, go find one of the Psalms. Psalm 63 is a great one. And pray through that Psalm. Let the words of God be your communication back to Him. And you're gonna find yourself sensing His nearness more and more as you do that. Really a powerful encouragement. A discipline we all need to take into our lives. And again, I go back to that imagery of Adam and Eve in the garden. They're walking in the cool of the day with Him. He's speaking to them, but you know they're talking back to Him. Right? That's why that's so intimate. That's really why we can, why that seems so real to us and why we would say, why can't I walk in the cool of the garden? You can. Engage with Him. Pray with Him. Spend time with Him. Third thing, seek him in the manifestations of his presence, given only in congregational worship. I love how Whitney pointed this out. We often talk about this revelation in the New Testament that the body of each Christian is the temple of the spirit, that God's spirit dwells in us. But do you realize that more times than not where that reference is brought up in the New Testament, It's actually in the context of congregational gathering. It's really talking about, there is one instance where it's talking about an individual, but the other ones are corporate. There is a real sense that as we gather corporately, the spirit indwells his temple, his body of Christ corporately. It's powerful imagery. Jesus tells us in, I think it's Matthew 18 or 21, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I'm among them. There's a sense in which going to worship with the people of God is going to the Lord's temple, where his presence especially abides. It's in the church where God's word is preached. His son is presented in the Lord's supper. His spirit ministers through many and diverse gifts and other means. On our own, we have certain unique experiences with the presence of God, but there are also unique experiences corporately. Bottom line is we need both. Don't neglect either one. And we have a tendency to put an emphasis on one or the other. We feel like if we're regularly disciplined in corporate gathering that we don't need individual or we think if Long as I'm spending time with God alone by myself. I don't need corporate God's Word says we need both Because he works uniquely through both of those to show us his presence and we feel his nearness in Some way differently corporately than we do individuals So I really encourage you with that, it's so important. Let's not neglect it. And then finally, the point he gives is that we need to continually reaffirm the truth that God is omnipresent. These others we've already talked about, right? We're gonna say each week you need to read the Bible, you need to pray, you need to get together with other Christians. But this last practical point of Really getting your hands around his omnipresence. Again, not in this Eastern religious sort of a way, but that the God that we serve, the three persons in one, is everywhere. That Jesus himself reminds us in the Great Commission, I am with you always. He is with us even when we don't sense his presence. So even when we don't feel His nearness, we need to preach into our own hearts that He is here, that He is with us, that we might sense His nearness. We're often tempted to think that He is so far away, especially when we don't sense His presence or we don't feel like He's responding to our prayers. But faith responds in a different way. It says he is truly here even if I emotionally am not feeling that I Know objectively that he is present and it holds on to that truth and claims his promise that he won't forsake us I will believe and hold on to that truth. Yes, sir Mm-hmm When he said, I am with you, that does connect back to all the other Old Testament stories that you described where the burning bush, God calls himself, I am, and he says, I am with you, is part of that name. The angel that went before Israelites. That's powerful, yeah. He said that my angel will be with you and lead you through this. And then even Moses later said, I don't want to leave this people unless you're with me. And he said, I am with you. And here he is reminding them again. Yeah, there's definitely a connection between that first church, so to speak, the second church. Jesus was there with Moses in the angel form, I believe, but he was there in the Great Commission. And it's part of who he is. It's part of his name, actually. The Jehovah, the Yahweh, I am with you. His name always kind of comes with the with you part. It's weird. And like you said, the presence of God was with them. That's powerful. Yeah, even here, as he's giving them this mission, he's reminding them, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Right. Beautiful imagery. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, I got a maybe almost wrap up long. I think that means we got ten more minutes. Thank you. Yeah, in that same vein, right, like if you are walking with the Lord Jesus as his disciple, they couldn't take that he was going away, right? Like they had his presence physically, but he said, I'm gonna go, but I'm gonna leave something better. And so the Holy Spirit is God in three person, you know, like that's part of it. And I think what Brock is talking about and the omnipresence, that's how we can't, we can't experience that in our human flesh. We need that. We need that. We need His Spirit to speak to our spirit. Reveal that we are sons of God. Absolutely. I would say this too. I want you to think about this in really practical terms. That we need to look for the evidence of God all around us all the time. I mean, even in the most mundane of things. If I'm in the kitchen washing dishes, If I'm with my grandson playing with toys, if I'm outside cutting the grass, if I'm in front of my computer at work, God is everywhere. He is ever-present. I love this quote from Charles Spurgeon. He says, he fed the multitude, speaking of Jesus, but it was with the father's bread. And he healed the sick, but the father did the works. Other men remarked that the ravens were fed, but Jesus said, your heavenly father feeds them. Other men noticed the lilies were fair to look upon, but Jesus discerned that God so clothes the grass of the field. The heavenly father was in every place and in everything to Jesus. Refused to see anything without seeing God in it. Beautiful imagery. Imitate Jesus. I know He's God. I can't do that. He calls us to walk in His steps. He wants us to see God is everywhere. So even in the most mundane, look for evidence of God. Look for things to remind you that He is present and He is near. I'll close with this, make it your prayer, Lord open my eyes that I may see my Savior present with me. Man, that's like 10 words. Just help me to see my Savior present with me no matter how mundane the activity I'm in. So anyway, I know these lessons are challenging if you're like me. Very convicting to think about how little time I'm investing in pursuing the presence of God. But friends, He's given us His means. He said, come to me and see what I've said about myself and my word. Engage with me through prayer. Spend time with your brothers and sisters in Christ with me. And then this last point of looking for evidence of His presence all around us. And as we do that, as we come to sense His presence, as we know Him more intimately, we will know more of His power and grace and be able to do what we want to do, be like Jesus. Okay, I'm going to pray for us and we'll go to worship. Let's pray together. Great Father, we thank You for Your Word. And Lord, how quickly we take it for granted, how little priority we place on it. Father, I know in my own heart, I long for special experiences that aren't even described in your word. I want things that will just zap and change me. But you've made it clear in your word that that is how you've revealed yourself. May we put a priority upon it. May we hunger and thirst for it. May we long to have more of you, O Christ. And as we do, may we engage with you. May we long for intimacy with you. May we share our hearts with you. Would you strengthen our unbelief and help us to hold fast to the promise that you will always be with us. Lord Jesus, we pray that this morning as we go to worship, you would be before us. We would sense your nearness, we would see the evidence of your presence in our midst, and that we would long to have more of you. May you be our pearl of great price. We pray all of this in the great name of Jesus, amen. Thank you.