SEEING THE UNSEEN CHRIST
Psalm 105:4
S: Presence of God
Th: Seeing the Unseen Christ: How His Presence Transforms Life
Pr: WE NEED TO PRACTICE GOD’S PRESENCE.
KW: Questions
TS: We will answer in our study of Scripture three questions about practicing God’s Presence.
The _____ question we will answer about practicing God’s Presence is…
I. WHY IS GOD’S PRESENCE IMPORTANT TO US?
II. WHAT IS GOD EXPECTING FROM US?
III. HOW CAN WE PRACTICE GOD’S PRESENCE?
RMBC 2/11/01 AM
INTRODUCTION:
ILL Notebook: Friendship (Letterman)
Here from David Letterman’s Top 10 Signs You Have No Friends are five of his list (sorry, I had to edit the list):
You know you have no friends when…
5. You get no calls from salespeople pushing MCI’s “Friends and Family” plan.
4. You send birthday cards to members of “The McLaughlin Group.”
3. You are one of the five best solitaire players in the world.
2. At your funeral, the entire eulogy is, “Yep, he’s dead.”
1. James Taylor sings the first bars of “You’ve Got a Friend,” notices you in the audience and stops.
It is a lonely feeling without friends, isn’t it?
None of us want to be without friends.
And there is nothing like a good friend…
Don’t you enjoy friends, who even after you are apart, you are able to pick up right where you left off?
I think Dondra and I have friends like this.
Whenever we visit them, it is just like we have never been apart.
We seem to be able to get the friendship going with barely any reorientation.
You really enjoy a friendship like that, don’t you?
If you could get together with anybody you chose, who would it be?
Would it be a high school friend or a former neighbor?
Would it be someone who was kind to you or a relative you haven’t seen in a longtime?
Would it be someone who has helped you tremendously in your spiritual growth?
TRANSITION:
What would you say if I suggested that Christ Himself be that person?
1. How about Christ?
Maybe that wasn’t the way you were thinking, this morning, but why not?
After all, close fellowship (close friendship if you will) with the Lord is the ideal.
When we look at the biblical story and go back to Eden, it is there that we find that God fellowshipped with His creatures in the cool of day.
It is a picture of true rest, contentment and joy.
But…
2. Since the Garden of Eden, experiencing God’s Presence has become elusive.
Adam and Eve enjoyed perfect friendship with God.
But when sin entered into the picture, the relationship with God suffered a serious setback.
Sin became the wall of separation between God and us.
But God was not content to leave the wall there.
He has provided a way for that wall to be torn down.
He has done this because He wants very much to be present in our lives.
3. In two weeks, we will begin the 50-day adventure called Seeing the Unseen Christ: How His Presence Transforms Life.
An adventure…do you like adventures?
When you hear the word adventure, if you are like me, it excites me because there are elements of surprise and joy.
Let me propose another thought…
Wouldn’t it be something if Christ bodily visited our services during the adventure?
Do you think it would make a difference?
I bet some of us might arrive on time…and others might even be early!
If Christ were bodily here, our singing might have greater meaning.
We might have tears of joy and gratitude as we sing.
I know that I would work even harder on my messages, and I suppose you might work on listening better.
And for many of us, our conversations would change in His Presence.
You already know where we are going at this point, don’t you?
For the truth is that the unseen Christ is with us every Sunday.
He is here right now.
Yet, admittedly, many of us have been very casual about that fact.
In fact, our hearts and minds have already treated this day rather matter-of-factly.
But perhaps now we need to rethink this and…
4. WE NEED TO PRACTICE GOD’S PRESENCE.
Yes, He is here.
We need to acknowledge it and act on it.
As we go through our adventure in coming weeks, this is going to be our goal…to act and to live in God’s Presence.
Today…
5. We will answer in our study of Scripture three questions about practicing God’s Presence.
OUR STUDY:
I. The first question we are answering about practicing God’s Presence is WHY IS GOD’S PRESENCE IMPORTANT TO US?
1. God’s Presence promises deliverance (Exodus 33:14).
The study of Exodus 33 is interesting because it is there that God threatens to abandon Israel.
He has had enough of their complaining and hard-heartedness.
But Moses intercedes for Israel and his intercession comes from a personal desire.
Moses wanted to know God as He is.
He was not satisfied with His knowledge of God.
He wanted to see more.
It was so necessary to him that he pleads that they could not go on without Him.
It is then…
The LORD replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
God expresses His heartbeat here.
God wants to be with us.
He even knows us by name.
He desires a personal relationship with us, even after we have disobeyed, because He is merciful.
He wants to deliver us from what holds us back from Him.
Also…
2. God’s Presence brings joy (Psalm 16:11).
In Psalm 16, it says…
You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
God is no killjoy.
In fact, He is the giver of joy.
It is His desire to bless us and give us the very desires of our heart.
He works for us so that we will know true rest and contentment.
Finally…
3. God’s Presence is our only hope (Matthew 1:23).
This is, of course, God’s motivation in the Incarnation.
He had not abandoned His people.
He was, in fact, fulfilling His promise made so many years prior.
“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.”
In Bethlehem, 2000 years ago, all the confinements of the Fall burst.
Jesus arrives on the scene…for us.
He is Immanuel, “God with us.”
He is the With-Us God that continues to be with us.
And as we continue to study the New Testament, we begin to see that Christ being with us today is not some hypothetical situation.
He is here.
And it is time for us to act like it.
It is time to practice His Presence.
II. The second question we are answering about practicing God’s Presence is WHAT IS GOD EXPECTING FROM US?
1. We are the residence for the Presence (I Corinthians 6:19-20).
Note these verses we mentioned last week written by the apostle Paul…
(19) Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; (20) you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
In the Old Testament, the temple was God’s dwelling place.
It becomes an even more significant concept when Paul tells us that the location of the temple has changed.
It has gone from a building to individual hearts.
We are now the temple of God.
He resides in us.
And this has certain implications to us, for now…
2. God expects us to be clean, free from defilement (John 2:12-25).
You may also remember last week that we studied the story of Jesus clearing the temple in Jerusalem.
Jesus found the temple full of corrupt moneychangers and profiteers.
And He was righteously angry because the temple was designed for worship.
Instead, though, the temple had been defiled by sin.
Jesus was very adamant about what had to be done—the sin had to be cleared out.
The sinful practices had to be removed.
Jesus and the defilement could not stay in the same place together.
A place of worship is a place where sin is to be recognized, cleansed and encouraged.
Do you see how true this is of us as well?
We are the residence of Jesus.
And when defilement enters the picture, something has to change!
ILL Notebook: Sin (This is my mother)
Schools often have the policy that a parent must call the school if the student is to be absent for the day. Kelly, deciding to sluff off and go to the mall with her friends, waited till her parents had left for work and called the school herself. This is how the actual conversation went…
Kelly: Hi, I’m calling to report that Kelly Smith is unable to make it to school today because she is ill.
Secretary: Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll note her absence. Who is this calling?
Kelly: This is my mother.
I have come to the conclusion that sin makes us do stupid things.
Even more, and what is worse, is that once sin enters into our lives, we repeat it over and over.
It becomes a part of our habitual activity.
This is why we must take it seriously and be willing to confront it.
One of the action steps in our adventure does this very thing.
It is called…
3. ACTION STEP: Reverse a Self-Destructive Pattern.
As believers, we are to embrace righteousness and renounce evil.
In doing this, we need to be aware of temptation and desire to overcome it.
Do you have a pattern of sin in your life that needs to be confronted…like arrogance, bitterness, a critical spirit, gossip, holding grudges, lust, materialism, prayerlessness, profanity, short temper, wasting time, worry…
The possible list can be very long.
But as you consider this action step, begin to pray about the matter God wants you to confront.
I am sure, as you present yourself before Him, that He will make it known to you.
Perhaps, even at this very moment He is pricking your heart, telling you what must be confronted.
If we are to practice the Presence of God in our lives, we must reverse self-destructive patterns.
They are an offense to God and they hurt us.
Now…to do that, we must develop some strategies to do so.
This brings us to…
III. The third question we are answering about practicing God’s Presence is HOW CAN WE PRACTICE GOD’S PRESENCE?
Let us state upfront that the answer to this question centers around God’s Word—the Bible.
Some of us have not been spending the time in it that we ought.
For example…
ILL Notebook: Bible (top 10)
TOP TEN SIGNS YOU MAY NOT BE READING YOUR BIBLE ENOUGH:
10) The Pastor announces the message is from Galatians...and you check the table of contents.
9) You think Abraham, Isaac & Jacob may have had a few hit songs during the 60’s.
8) You open to the Gospel of Luke and a WW II Savings Bond falls out.
7) Your favorite Old Testament Patriarch is Hercules.
6) A small family of woodchucks has taken up residence in the Psalms of your Bible.
5) You become frustrated because Charlton Heston isn’t listed in either the Concordance or the Table of Contents.
4) Catching the kids reading the Song of Solomon, you demand: “Who gave you this stuff?”
3) You think the Minor Prophets worked in the coal mines.
2) You keep falling for it every time when the Pastor tells you to turn to First Condominiums.
And the number one sign you may not be reading your Bible enough:
1) The kids keep asking too many questions about your usual bedtime story: “Jonah the Shepherd Boy and His Ark of Many Colors.”
Perhaps you just had a sigh of relief and said that at least you are not that bad.
But I wager you could be better.
Consider with me these three strategies…
1. Commit God’s Word to memory.
We are going to present to you during the adventure opportunities to memorize God’s Word.
Once again, my father copied in calligraphy selected verses by Pastor Murphy that will be run off and placed in your mailboxes (extras will be placed on the shelf opposite the mailboxes).
They are just the right size to be carried in a pocket—easy for reviewing.
We encourage you to gain strength by putting God’s Word in your heart.
This certainly was the practice of Jesus as He countered temptation by quoting Scripture.
So arm yourself for the conflict against the sin that is in your life.
Disable it by putting God’s very words in your mind and heart.
Next…
2. Study the written Word to experience the living Word.
For the adventure, we encourage you to get the adventure book because it is a tool for you to study God’s written word better.
As a result, you will find God’s words possessing new power and meaning for you.
This book will not be some distant document, but rather, a vibrant message from our living Lord.
In the adventure book, there is a study for every day except Sunday.
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the study will revolve around the message theme from the previous Sunday.
On Thursday and Friday, the study will deal with the concept of temptation and help us with the Action Step to “Reverse a Self-Destructive Pattern.”
On Saturday, the study will prepare you for Sunday’s theme and message.
So…make sure you get your journal as soon as possible—adults, teens and kids.
Start to read it over and familiarize where we are going as a church family.
ILL Notebook: Teamwork (tandem bike)
Panting and sweating, two men on a tandem bicycle finally made it to the top of a steep hill. “That was a tough climb,” said the front rider. “Sure was,” replied the second. “And if I hadn’t kept the brake on, we would have slid down backward.”
This short little story emphasizes the need of teamwork.
We need to do this together, going the same direction, which is our third strategy…
3. Do it together.
We are called individually and corporately to be right with God.
It is very powerful for a congregation to move together as one body.
We can accomplish so much more when we are together in it.
And just as one person is easier to stop than a whole bunch of people, we can become a powerful movement of God if we allow His residence to be free of defilement and we practice His presence simultaneously.
APPLICATION:
Whenever renewal has come to the church, it has always been marked by an overwhelming sense of God’s Presence.
As we mentioned earlier, many of us long for those prolonged visits with our favorite friends.
We wish it would never stop.
How much more so should it be with the Friend of friends.
As it states in Psalm 105…
God’s Presence is something to crave (Psalm 105:4).
Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.
It is right for us to seek the Lord’s Presence in our loves.
We are to pursue it and strongly desire it.
You know how you get that craving for something?
For me it is chocolate—I just have to have some.
In the same way we are to crave the Lord and practice His Presence in our lives.
He is to be our first and last love.
BENEDICTION: [Counselors are ]
God is here…practice His Presence…He is the With-Us God and He wants His Presence in us to be an experience of hope, joy and contentment.
God is here…practice His Presence…He desires our best and will clean us up as we work toward reversing self-destructive patterns.
God is here…practice His Presence…know God by knowing His Word; He will speak to you through it and give you the strength for any challenge.
Now…May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word. Amen.
