11th Jan 2026: The Presence of God

Welcome to the podcast of the White Church in Adelaide, South

Australia. People would come and say

something's different there. Yeah, That was the presence of

God. You're like the teaching or the

music or whatever or the coffee, whatever your preference is

there, but they're coming a bit. No, no, no.

There's something more to it. There's something more.

What was it? It was the presence of God.

And we're saying that that closeness, that presence is what

we should be desiring. And Dan, when he was reading out

this morning from Jeremiah 29, if you seek me, you will find

me. When you seek me with all your

heart, God says, hey, if you're actually seeking my presence,

you're going to find it. You're going to find it and I

hope your desire, as I asked you at the beginning, who wants more

of the presence of God? You want to know.

You want to know and you want other people to say there's

something different about you. There's something on you that

that I don't get and I don't see anywhere else.

And maybe this whole concept of the presence of God could be a

bit foreign. Is that, well, what does that

even mean? What does that look like?

What does it look like to have the presence of God?

Psalm 1611 says that in the presence of God there is

fullness of joy and blessings forevermore.

So it looks like joyfulness. We, we were reading out in our

prayer meeting, Psalm 103. Forget not all God's benefits.

Who forgives your sins? Who heals all your diseases in

the presence of God? There's forgiveness of sins,

there's healing of our bodies. There's hope, as we were reading

in Jeremiah 2911. There's hope, there's purpose.

Isaiah, when he's in the presence of God, receives A

commissioning and a calling from God in the presence of God.

In Psalm 84, it talks about hope.

It talks about strength in the presence of God.

So what does, what does the presence of God look like when

it looks like what God is like? It's it's Jesus talked about it

like this. He said it's the Kingdom of God,

it's the Kingdom of heaven. It's where God is reigning and

ruling and he's bringing freedom.

He's bringing hope, He's bringing joy.

God can do more in one moment in his presence than any number of

hours of preaching could ever do.

You can have one encounter with him, one moment where he's so

close and it could change your entire life forever.

Do we believe that? Great.

I'll stop preaching. And then you guys just go get

your presence with God, right? So the question here that I have

from going on from this is how do we now get more of the

presence of God, right? It's a good question, right?

So if we all say, yes, I want more of the presence of God on

my life, I hope your heart is for this church.

I want more of the presence of God.

I want, I want people to walk in and say there's something in

here. There's something in this

church, there's something going on.

What is it? Well, like it's the presence of

God. What you're sensing there is the

presence of God. It actually talks about this in

the book of Corinthians. Paul's writing about prophecy

and he says if you're all prophesying and you're all

walking and moving in the Spirit and God is present, he's going,

Somebody who doesn't know Jesus is going to walk in, they're

going to be convicted. They're going to fall down and

worship the Lord and they're going to declare God is really

among you. How cool is that?

Like you can be in such a meeting where God is so tangibly

present that somebody who doesn't know anything about God

could walk in and go, whoa, God is there.

That somebody could walk into your house, your neighbor, you

invite them in for a coffee and they walk in and they're like,

whoa, God is here, God is here. How awesome would that be?

Hey, so how do we get more of the presence of God?

Well, if you've got your Bibles, I want you to turn in them to

One Chronicles, chapter 13, One Chronicles 13.

One Chronicles is in the Old Testament.

It's a historical book, so let me find it.

And this story, it's also echoed, if you're taking notes,

it's also echoed in Second Samuel Chapter 6.

2 Samuel 6 · chapter mention

So the kind of chronicles and the books of Samuel and Kings

are kind of the same, pointing to the same period in history,

just kind of 1's written about 3 or 400 years after the events

took place. So we're reading the later

version of history, but we are going to reference back to

Second Samuel 6. Does that make sense?

So one Samuel 13, one Chronicles 13, sorry, in the Old Testament,

we also have to remember that when God was present, what he,

what he talked about my presence, his presence was

represented by an ark, ARK, not like Noah's ark, right?

An ark as in like a giant box and it was covered in gold.

It had angels on the top and that represented the presence of

God. Where that was God was in the

Old in the Old Testament, right? So now we know that God lives in

us by his Holy Spirit. But in the Old Testament, God

kind of lived in a box. That makes sense.

God's outside of our box. But yeah, anyway, if we could

put that up, one Chronicles 13 one.

So David, King David, he's a king.

He's consulting with the commanders of thousands and of

hundreds and with every leader. And David said to all the

assembly of Israel, if it seems good to you and from the Lord

our God, let us send abroad to our brothers who remain in all

the lands of Israel, as well as to the priests and Levites and

the cities that have pasture lands that they may be gathered

to us. Then let us bring again the ark

of our God to us, for we did not seek it in the days of Saul.

Let us bring again his heart's desire.

Let the presence of God be in our midst.

Same desire as we've all said, Yeah, let the presence of God be

in our midst. We're going to bring the ark of

God back. I want it in my midst.

Next verse if we can. And all the assembly agreed.

We all agree, right? It's good to have the presence

of God, for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people.

And so David assembled all Israel from the Nile of Egypt to

Lebo Hamas, to bring the Ark of God, to bring the presents from

Kiriath Jerem. And David and all Israel went up

to Ballah, that is, to Kiriath Jerem, that belongs to Judah, to

bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name

of the Lord who sits enthroned above the cherubim.

And they carried the ark of God in a new cart best for our God,

right from the House of Umbinadab.

And Ooza and Ohio were driving the cart, and David and all

Israel were celebrating before God with all their might.

And his presence is fullness of joy, with song and liars and

hearts and tambourines and cymbals and trumpets.

And when they came to the threshing floor of chitin, Ooza

put out his hand to take hold of the ark, for the oxen had

stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was

kindled against Ooza, and he struck him down, because he put

out his hand to the ark, and he died there.

And that place is now called. And David was angry because the

Lord had broken out against Ouzar, and that place is now

called Perez Ouzar to this day. And David was so afraid of God

that day, and he said, How on earth can I bring the ark of God

home to me? So David did not take the ark

home into the city of David, but he took it aside to the House of

Obed Edom the Gedite. And the ark of God remained with

the household of Obed Eden in his house three months.

And the Lord blessed the household of Obed Eden and all

that he had that last sentence, really cool, right?

Like where the presence of God is, there's blessing, right?

This guy accidentally landed with the presence of God and yet

there's now blessing on his life, which is amazing.

So here's it's a bit of a tragic story where this is only half of

the story that I want to cover, but the first half seems pretty

tragic if you think about it. They started off with the best

intentions. We want the presence of God.

We want God in our midst. We want to bring God in.

We want God on our lives. David's like I want the presence

of God here with me. We can start with the best

intentions. What's tragic to me is they had

the best intentions, they had the best heart.

We want the presence of God. We need him.

They they're rejoicing, God's coming.

And yet somehow they still missed it and they got it

woefully wrong to the point that somebody unfortunately lost

their life. Isn't that that that stirs me to

kind of go, man, I want the presence of God, but I want to

do it the right way. They've they've tried, tried.

You can have the best intentions.

God, I need your presence. But then somehow we can still

miss it. But I said this is only half,

only half of the story. So if you want to flick over to

One Chronicles 15, this the ark stays in Second Samuel 6.

It says it stays there for three months.

So now we're picking up the story. 3 months later.

David built houses for himself in the city of David, and he

prepared a place for the Ark of God and pitched a tent.

We're just going to pause there for a SEC.

This first thing David's doing now is he's preparing something

to host. The presence of God requires

some change for us to say, hey, I want the presence of God.

I hope as you say, yes, I want more of the presence of God,

that your hand instantly also goes up and I'm prepared to

change for it. I'm prepared to change things so

that more of the presence of God can be evident on my life.

If you read and if you remember the first story, he's just like,

yeah, we're just going to get the presence of God in this

second story. He's going to know I'm going to

do some preparations. I'm prepared to change things so

that I can get more of the presence of God.

And so then he goes. Then David said that no one but

the Levites may carry the ark of God, for the Lord had chosen

them to carry the ark and to minister to him forever.

We're going to do some kind of compare and contrast on what

they tried to do to bring the presence of God and then what

they did the second time, right. And so we're going to do it as

we go. The first thing David said that

no one but the Levites may carry the ark of God, for the Lord had

chosen them to carry the ark and to minister to him forever.

The first thing is this. In the original time David

consulted with men, he said, hey, what do you guys think?

Hey, what do you, what do you guys reckon we should do?

Oh, we should build a cart. That's a great idea.

Some genius puts up his hand. Hey, I've got this awesome idea.

It's got four wheels. Let's put the presence of God

and we can do it. In this second one, David says,

hey, no, God has commanded the Levites to carry it.

And I want you like my first point is this.

If we want the presence of God, we must make sure that we are

committed to God before we're consulting with men.

We must make sure that we're committed to what God has said

and how God wants us to carry his presence before we go

consulting with men, before we kind of go and say, hey, what's

your great idea for how we should bring the presence of God

in? Maybe it's, maybe it's, yeah, I

don't know. Maybe it's new songs, different

songs. Maybe it's better coffee.

I don't know. I'm just using that as an

example because I like coffee and I can, I feel like I can

have a go at coffee. But we must make sure that we're

committed to what God is saying rather than consulting with men.

In the first case, David consulted with men and they had

some great ideas, but it wasn't God's way.

And we must make sure that we're committed to God's way.

We're picking this, picking this Bible up and we're saying, God,

what do you say about your presence?

What do you say about how we get more of your presence rather

than consulting with people? And then it goes on verse 3.

And David assembled all Israel at Jerusalem to bring up the ark

of the Lord to its place, which he had prepared for it.

And David gathered together the sons of Aaron and the Levites,

of the sons of Coath Urile, the chief with 120 of his brothers,

the sons of Murari, Isaiah the chief, 220 of his brothers.

And it goes on. I'm going to skip all the names

because there's a lot of names and a lot of numbers.

We're going to go verse down to verse 12.

David said to them, you are the heads of the fathers, houses of

the Levites. Consecrate yourselves, you and

your brothers, so that you may bring up the ark of the Lord the

God of Israel to the place that I've prepared for it.

So my second point is this. So firstly, we're committed to

God before we're consulting with men.

Secondly, if you go and we're going to go, if you go back and

read all those numbers, David doesn't just say I just, I just

want the Levites. He's because I want the Levites,

the heads of families, I want the priests, I want the people

of Aaron. In other words, if you Add all

those numbers up, there is 868 people now involved in carrying

this arc. In the first story, there was 3.

There was three guys. It was a few in this whole, In

this second version, it's the whole priesthood.

It's the whole priesthood. And so when if we want more of

the presence of God, we must understand that the whole

priesthood must be involved, not just a few.

If you want to see more of the presence of God in your home,

then it requires the whole priesthood in your home, not

just dad, mum or child. Does it make sense in my house,

the presence of God, Yes, I have an ability to bring that is the

head of my house. But if I want more of the

presence of God, it requires my whole priesthood, my whole

family to be involved, not just a few.

As we mentioned and Dave encouraged us in our prayer

meeting this morning that we all come participating.

We all come ready to prophecy, ready to speak, ready to

encourage, ready to pray. Why?

Because if we want more of the presence of God, it requires the

whole priesthood, not just a few.

So David says now not just do I am I committed to God, but I

need the whole priesthood. The whole priesthood must be

participating. The whole priesthood must be

involved in bringing the presence of God.

And that means when we come to our gatherings, when we come

together, we're all coming with the heart of God.

I want to be used by you. I want to participate in what

God is doing. I'm not just going to sit back

and spectate at what you are doing.

I want to be involved. I want to be on the playing

field. I want to be doing what you've

called me to do, and I want to carry the presence of God, the

whole priesthood, verse, verse 13, because you did not carry it

the first time, the Lord our God broke out against us because we

did not seek him according to the rule.

Verse 14. So the priests and the Levites

consecrated themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord, the God

of Israel. Third Point, we're committed to

God. It's carried by the whole

priesthood, and we're living consecrated, not casually.

In the first scenario, they were just casual about the presence

of God. It's yeah, we'll just throw it

on a cart. We'll just get it there.

We'll take the quickest route. We'll just put it on there.

Drive down the road or the dusty plains or whatever it is.

We'll just get it there as quick as we can.

That's all good. Doesn't really matter.

And over here, Dave's like, no, no, no, no, no.

You need to consecrate yourself. The word consecration simply

means to live set apart, set yourselves apart to live holy.

The word holy means to be set apart.

It's interesting. In the first version, they put

the ark of God on a cart. You know, that's exactly what

the Philistines, their enemies, did when we approached the

presence of God casually. We end up living exactly the

same as the world and there is no distinction.

There is no distinction. And yet the second time, David

saying, hey, no, you need to be consecrated.

You need to live set apart. You need to live in such a way

that there is a marked difference between you and

everyone else. We must approach God.

To the Philistines, when they put the ark of God on a cart,

there was no reverence. It's just the ark.

It's just this thing. And this second time, David's

like, consecrate yourselves because we're going to walk in

reverence of a holy God. Like God has commanded us to do

this. And we can't take this casually.

We must live set apart. We must take this thing

seriously. And so I would encourage you

again, we, we started with actually, if you want to host

the presence of God, it requires some change, right?

We, we require some preparation. And this is one of probably

those areas where we're like, actually, where in my life do I

need to live more consecrated? Do I need to live more set

apart, more distinct from the, the world and, and other ways of

living? Where?

Where do I actually have to align my life to what God says?

So goes on and it says and the Levites carried the ark of God

on their shoulders with the poles, as Moses had commanded

according to the word of the Lord.

My 4th point is this, that it was carried on godly shoulders,

not on worldly structures. Carried on godly shoulders, not

worldly structures. See, in the first instance, it

was just some genius who came up with an art cart.

And so let's just put it on a cart.

It's cool. It's a mechanism to carry

something. Yeah.

We, we can engineer this, right? It's basically what they're

saying. We can engineer the process to

get the presence of God. And over here he's kind of

going, no, no, no, no. The ark must be carried on godly

authority. Shoulders represent strength and

represents authority, represents order and government.

God has a way that things should be ordered.

God has a way of things being structured.

He has a structure for the home. He has a structure for church,

godly government, and it's when we honour and submit to the way

that God wants to order something.

That's where we find the presence of God.

That's where we can find the presence of God right in in our

in our homes. When the husband is loving his

wife like Jesus loves the church, laying his life down for

her and for his kids. And when she is submitted in the

same way as the bride is submitted to Christ, that's

where God says I can honor that with my presence because that

was the way that I designed it. And in the church, when where

there's elders who are ruling well, shepherding under the

great under shepherd, and they're caring and loving God's

people just like he loves them. And when the people are also

submitted to eldership, it's submitted to godly authority.

They're saying, yes, we're submitted to you as we're

submitted to Christ. God says I can be there because

that is how I designed it to work as our God has designed

this thing to be carried on godly authority.

And his presence is more evident when we're walking according to

his way of ordering things rather than just what we think

seems good or worldly ways or or other other systems of

engineering of how this thing might work.

Verse we'll go to .5. This one is actually from Second

Samuel 6. So it won't be up here, but they

where are we? Oh no, we'll jump down to verse

25. So David and the Elders in One

Chronicles 1525 S David and the elders of Israel and the

commanders of thousands went to bring up the Ark of the Covenant

of the Lord from the House of Obed Eden with rejoicing.

And because God helped the Levites who are carrying the ark

of the covenant of the Lord, they sacrifice 7 bulls and seven

Rams. In second Samuel 6, it says that

every six steps they sacrifice. Have you considered that?

That's I think I've done more than I don't know what my watch

says 2790 steps so far today. It's not very many, but 123456

sacrifice, 1, 23456 sacrifice. And they did that for the entire

journey. You know, in Second Samuel 6,

the contrast to this is that it says the two guys were driving

the cart and Ohio was out the front leading it.

The point that I want to draw your attention to is this, that

carrying the presence of God requires us to keep in step with

what God wants to do, not run ahead of what God wants to do.

So this guy Ohio thinks, yeah, I know where we're going.

I'm just presuming and assuming exactly what God wants to do.

And so I'm just, I'm just going to, I'm leading this thing now.

He's not, he's not staying in step with the presence of God

saying, OK, we're are we still going this way?

Yep, we're still going this way. Are we still going this way?

Yes, we're still going this way. He's just out the front.

He's like, no, we're going this way.

It's up to me. I'm making the decisions, right?

Keep in step with the Spirit of God.

I hope as a people, as a church, we want to be people that come

in and we just like, oh, this is just how we do church.

This is we're just presuming on God.

This is how things happen. Do some songs, we'll do a

preach. We'll have some coffee.

It's going to be good coffee. We'll have a good conversation.

We'll pray for somebody. We'll go home, which is I know

how God works. I have no idea how God works in

Galatians. It tells us to keep in step with

the Spirit. In John 3 verse 8, when Jesus is

John 3:8

talking with Nicodemus at night and he says, you know, it's like

the wind. You have no idea where the wind

comes from and you have no idea where it goes.

It says, So it is as somebody who is born of the Spirit, you

actually don't know and it requires you to actually keep in

step with the Spirit and kind of going, God, is this still the

way we're going to go? Yes, great.

Because you know, the thing with going every six steps is that

then you're able to very quickly kind of, oh, we've got to go

over there. OK, We're turning where if, if

you're just, I'm out up front, the guy's behind me.

Hey, we need to turn left. Like I'm already miles down the

track. We've got to keep in step with

what God wants to do. We've got to be seeking him

continually. God, is this, is this what you

want me to do? Is this where you want me to go?

Is this the job that you want me to be in?

Is this, is this what you're wanting me to do with my money?

Is this how you want me to leave my family?

Keep in step with him being responsive to what he wants to

do rather than just assuming and kind of go, we've got an order

sheet to our meetings. I've got a way that I do my

family and we we have routines and stuff like that, But I've

also got to remain flexible in my routine and say, God, is

this, is this still true? Is there something you want us

to do that's different to this so that I can catch more of your

presence? You're still with me, Yes.

Good. Cool.

So they're going to be committed to God, committed to his ways.

It requires the whole priesthood.

It requires us living consecrated.

It is carried on godly shoulders, requires us to keep

in step. And the last one is this in the

same verse where it talks about sacrificing 7 balls and seven

Rams. And in the second Samuel, it

talks about the oxen as well. In the original story that had

two oxen who drove the cart, who pulled the cart?

Ox, if you're reading through the Bible, actually represents

hard work. And so the original version, it

was driven by self effort. It's hard.

It's my hard work that is pulling the presence of God.

Maybe if we just do another chorus of that song, we'll get

the presence of God. Maybe if I just preach a little

louder, the presence of God will come.

Maybe if I just, maybe if I just say Amen a few more times, the

presence of God will come. Maybe if, maybe if I don't know,

I just I spend another hour in prayer and the presence of God

will come. It's driven by self effort to

pull the presence of God. You know what's interesting in

the second version is it requires more oxen, more hard

work, but this time the hard work isn't pulling the cart.

The hard work is offered on the altar.

Romans 12 verse one says in view of God's mercy, offer your

bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.

In the first version I'm trying to pull the presence of God by

my own self effort. In the second story, the one

that actually does the presence brings the presence of God.

I've offered my entire life before Him and said you can have

whatever you like. If you need me to sing the

chorus 100 times to that song, so be it.

If you need me to pray for another hour or not, I'm yours.

If you need me to give more of my money, it's yours.

If you need me to give more of my time, it's yours.

I'm offering my life as a living sacrifice.

No longer am I trying to pull the presence of God, but I'm

offering my entire life to God and saying you can have it all,

you can have it all. We're not trying to make

something happen in the original version, but we're just saying

God, whatever you would like to do, whatever you require of me,

I'm yours. Does that make sense?

To bring the presence of God requires us to sacrifice and to

offer ourselves before God. Would you mind standing,

standing with me this morning? What's what's incredible about

these two stories on the presence of God, it's that it

wasn't always immediately evident which one was going to

succeed. If you think about the first

story, there's rejoicing, the presence of God is coming.

There's dancing in the second story, it's exactly the same.

It looks exactly the same initially looks exactly the

same, but then it gets to a point where things start to

wobble in the first case and you actually find that God is more

of a hindrance than a help. In the first thing, God's anger

breaks out and it seems like God is hindering the whole process

and David gets frustrated he's getting angry.

In the second case, it says this, and God helped the

Levites. Isn't that amazing?

When you turn your attention to him, when you take these things

to heart, when we put these things in place and say, God, I

truly do want more of you in my life, more of your presence, and

I'm willing to change to get there.

God says I want to help you by the power of my spirit, I want

to help. And then the other amazing thing

about this is that in one, the presence of God is a loss, it's

sidelined. And in the other, the presence

of God lasts and is sustained with David, it stays with David.

And so I'm sure that's all of our hearts, if that, if that is

in your heart, if you're like God, I want your presence to be

sustained on my life. I want it to last.

I wonder if maybe you're willing to raise your hands and just

say, God, I want you. I want more of you.

Father, we, you see the hands that are in this place.

You see us in our hearts and say, God, we want more of you

and we're prepared to do whatever it takes.

We're prepared to change what you need us to change.

And so we also ask, Lord, we're thankful that you will help us

as these stories show that you will help your people carry your

presence. And so we thank you for the

presence that we've experienced this morning, for your

closeness. And we thank you that in your

presence there is fullness of joy.

In your presence there is hope for evermore.

In your presence there is blessing.

In your presence there is strength.

So even right now, whatever we might need, we take hold of it

in your presence. Whatever we might need, we know

that it is found in your presence.

And so, Lord, we honour you, we're going to say come be more

present in our life and teach us how to do it in Jesus name,

Amen. Awesome job man.

Let's just give Justin a clap. Thank you for what the Lord is

doing through this man. I mean, I mean that man, I do.

You're a blessing to this church.

You're a blessing to to us, our family.

And we love you, man. You know, the the white church,

The reason that you know, we will start to to call this the

white church. You know, we felt that that was

from God. But it's funny when you think

about that picture of the six steps and look, you know, like

we want to follow God. This is we want a church to be

built here that we are constantly looking and, and

saying, Lord, what do you want us to do?

Where do you want us to go? That's the church that he's

building here, but he is building, right?

And so I'm thinking about this this week.

It means that like things just can't always just stay the same.

Like if we have an idea of what God's wanting to do in US and

through us, we have to implement and implement and implement and

build upon the thing that was implemented.

Otherwise things just get lost and we go nowhere.

So this is coming into a new year.

This is going to be a season for us intentionally building and

putting things in place that we feel in God and making sure that

we're stirring one another in these things to be doing these

things and seeing these things. You know, I read, you know, that

they were devoted. They were devoted to the

apostles teaching. We've just heard, you know, the

word of God, the the apostles teaching.

Where did they get their teaching from the Lord?

It's, it's the Lord's word, right?

So they were devoted to the Lord's word.

They were devoted to the breaking of bread.

They were devoted to fellowship, and they were devoted to prayer.

This is not a checklist of the things that we need to do in

every Sunday meeting, right? But it's a pattern for us to to

build and for us to experience God's presence and for him to

build in our midst. And so as we close this meeting,

now, we're going to have a time for fellowship.

And fellowship is important because the early disciples were

devoted to fellowship, and that's important for us.

So please stick around if you can't, if you can have some

fellowship, have some coffee, have some cake.

Let's trust that God will speak in us and through us.

If you've got words for people, if you've got encouragements,

please give those to people. But we are, again, we are a

House of living stones built together.

And so we have to be together for your stone to be in our

midst. And it's not just on a Sunday

meeting. You know, let's not get

sidetracked to think that we're talking about Sunday.

We are talking about a lifestyle of being devoted to the Lord,

being together in fellowship, praying together, unpacking his

word, breaking bread together in our home.

So not just here, guys. That's the church that Jesus is

building. Amen.

Love you guys. Thank you for joining us for

today's message. For more information about The

Way Church, please visit [email protected] dot

AU. Have a blessed day.