YHWH (Exodus 3) 3- God is Omnipresent

When Pastor Brandon asked me to speak, I was like, absolutely.

Be happy to do it.

I love to do it.

It's always a challenge.

And then he told me, Oh, yeah, by the way, I'm going to get pied in the face before.

I'm like, how do I follow that up?

That's not fair at all.

How many in here have had a survivor week?

Anyone?

Just surviving the week.

How many have had a thrive week?

So one person had a thrive week, one person had a survival week.

The rest of you just had a week.

Well, I have had a survive week this week.

As many of you know, I have a restaurant and my executive chef was on vacation, so it created some challenges.

I've got a couple of burn marks to show for it.

I'm not meant to be in there full time.

That was clearly obvious.

But to give you a descriptor of my week, I printed out my sermon notes.

Yep, they're backwards.

So that's my week in a nutshell.

But it's exciting to be here to continue on with this series.

And for those that don't know, as Derek mentioned, my name's Eric Leach, part of the teaching team here.

And I'm so excited to have the opportunity.

If this is your first time at RLC, Inside Your Worship Guide is a connect card.

We encourage you to fill that out.

Some basic information, your name, address, so I know where to go to dinner tomorrow night.

I'm kidding.

We just want to connect with you and really get you plugged into RLC and the incredible community that we have here.

Most of the time, I just kind of talk.

Today I'm going to be reading a lot from my notes because I don't want to miss some of the details that we get to go through.

Two weeks ago, we started the new series, Yahweh, I am.

And Pastor Brandon talked about God's holiness and God's impotent omnipotence.

See, there we go.

And the fact that God is all powerful.

Today we look at another attribute, and that's one that is the most comforting, but at the same time, one of the hardest for our minds to fully understand.

And today we're going to look at God's omnipresence.

Omnipresence.

God, where are you?

Where are you?

And this overall series about the attributes of God has been important because I think for a lot of us, when we talk about these attributes, our first reaction is, yeah, I know that.

God is holy, I know that.

God is all-knowing.

I know that.

God is all-powerful, I know that.

God is everywhere, yes, I know that.

But let's be honest, sometimes there's a big difference between knowing something and actually living it as we believe it.

Because when life gets hard, when prayers go unanswered, when the diagnosis comes, when relationships fall apart, when things are overwhelmed, suddenly we find ourselves asking, God, where are you?

Where are you?

But he's here.

And that's hard sometimes for us to grasp and really to comprehend.

That when we're going through stuff, he's there.

At the ends of the earth, he is there.

At the edges of the galaxies, he is there.

Now I want you to turn to the person next to you and say, He's always here.

As we go through life, sometimes we develop and realize that we have unique abilities that we didn't realize that we had.

Anyone ever experienced that?

We discover new abilities.

Spider-Man discovered new abilities.

He didn't know he was going to be bit by a cryogenically engineered spider and develop new abilities.

I finally discovered that I have a unique ability.

Believe it or not, I am the world's largest ninja.

I can drive in my driveway, open the garage, unlock the door, walk inside, and go, Hi Sunshine.

She's like, ah, I didn't hear you.

It happened yesterday at work twice.

Ask Randall.

I walked up beside him and he looks and he goes, Oh, I didn't see you.

And I'm like, I am the world's biggest ninja.

A unique ability.

Pastor Brandon has a unique ability.

His love of cats.

He's the pie piper of cats.

He likes to act like he doesn't like cats.

He says jokes about cats.

It's all a cover because secretly he loves cats.

One last unique ability.

My wife has a unique ability of losing her phone.

You guys probably know somebody very, very similar to that, that they're constantly losing their phone.

And it creates an emergency amongst the household.

Everybody gets involved, you look, check the purse, turn the cushions over, run room to room looking for the phone, but you can't seem to find it.

Well, Sunshine has discovered her ability to lose the phone, but now she has an Apple Watch.

So she just hits that and ding ding ding ding.

Then you are able to find it.

And that works really, really well.

Unless what happens?

You lose your iPhone or your iWatch, the battery dies on that, you're out of reception, and you're walking around going, I can't get a signal.

Nothing seems to connect.

But there's good news.

God never loses his signal.

Amen.

No lost connections, no coverage gaps.

God is always there for us.

There is nowhere you can go where God says, I lost connection.

There's no place where you can go where God says, You're outside my coverage area.

There is nowhere his presence doesn't reach.

His love does not disconnect.

His grace does not drop signal.

His presence never fails.

Yet in the world, we continually feel disconnected more and more.

Sometimes I wonder why that is.

Disconnected from others, disconnected from purpose, disconnected from peace.

And sometimes we're even disconnected from God.

God, where are you?

Have you forgotten me?

Have I gone too far away from you?

Did I mess up too much that I'm no longer salvageable?

And Psalms 139 answers those questions.

If you brought your Bible today, please open it up.

We're going to be in Psalms 139, chapter 7, or 139, verses 7 through 12.

139, 7 through 12.

David writes, Where can I go from your spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there.

If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me.

Your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you.

The night will shine like the day, for the darkness is as light to you.

The question, where is God, is one of the biggest questions humanity has ever asked.

The skeptics ask, Where is God?

The person who is seeking truth says, Where can I find God?

The person who is hurting says, Where was God when I needed him?

The person who is running asks, Where can I get away from God?

139 answers all of them.

God is omnipotent.

Omnipotent means the Merriam-Webster definition is being present in all places at all times.

Being present in all places at all times.

The Greek word most associated with it is melo, meaning fullness, that which fills abundance or multitude, that he fills everything.

Not partially present, not spread thin, not divided up, not paying attention to one person while ignoring another.

God is fully present everywhere.

And that's difficult for us because we have nothing to compare it to, right?

We can only be in one place at one time.

Even somebody like Shaquille O'Neal, who every time you turn on the TV, he's pitching a commercial or doing something in that.

Seems like he's everywhere, but he is just one man in one spot.

There's nothing that we can correlate to in being multiple spots.

Sometimes I'll joke, they're like, hey, are you gonna hire somebody else?

And I'm like, no, I'm just gonna duplicate myself so that I can be twice a person.

Doesn't work, does it?

But God is all present everywhere.

So let's look at the three points that David gives us in this scripture about the truth, the truth about God's presence.

God's presence is everywhere, is point one.

David says, Where shall I go from your spirit, or where shall I flee from your presence?

David asks it as a question, but he's not asking because he doesn't know.

He's asking because the answer is obvious.

There is nowhere that God won't be.

And David talks about the two extremes.

He's in the highest of heavens, the lowest of depths.

God is there.

If I ascend to heaven, you are there, the highest imaginable place.

Of course, God's going to be in heaven, right?

That seems natural that he's going to be there.

But he's also in the lowest of depths.

What David is talking about when he says, uh, shalo, you are there, that's the lowest imaginable place.

That was the Old Testament reference to when you die and you go into your grave in the depths of hell.

It's hard to even imagine that yes, his presence is still there.

Darkness has overtaken it, but he is there.

There's no place high or low that God's presence doesn't exist.

You can go as high as possible, God is there.

There is no location outside of God's reach.

Sometimes people imagine God is far away.

Like he's sitting up somewhere in a distant heaven, occasionally checking in.

Like every once in a while he looks down and says, Hmm, maybe I should get involved.

But scripture tells us differently.

God is not distant, God is near.

Jeremiah 23, 24.

Can a man hide himself in a secret place so that I cannot see him?

declares the Lord.

Do I not fill heaven and earth?

There's no place that we go without his presence.

And he's always there.

Hebrews 4.13 says, Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.

Nothing in creation is hidden from God's sight.

It's just continuing to re-emphasize that God is all-present in everything.

A lot of times uh we like to fill our lives with different things, right?

I'm so guilty of all of these.

I want to fill my life with success.

What do others think about me?

I want to fill my life with busyness.

Even this week I found myself going, oh, I just need to get to Sunday at one o'clock, then everything's gonna be alright.

I fill myself with relationships, money, entertainment, sin.

Paul talks about in the scriptures why do I continually do the things I don't want to do, but do don't do the things that I want to do?

Right?

We often fill our lives with everything, attempting anything to keep us distracted.

But our God never loses our address.

Peter denied Jesus how many times?

Three times.

Here's an apostle who denied Jesus, walked away, was fully restored.

God's presence was there the entire time.

God found him.

The prodigal son left.

God was with him, even in the pig slope, and he returned home.

The Father is always waiting.

You may be feeling distant from God, but he's not distant from you.

And here is the truth: distance changes our awareness of God, but it never changes the presence of God, does it?

Distance changes our awareness of God, but not our presence.

So when you question, is God here, the answer is yes.

Am I aware of the God who is already here?

Am I aware of the God who is already here?

Distance changes our awareness of God.

So when we're in the scriptures, when we're studying the word, you often feel his presence, right?

When you're in prayer, you can feel his presence surrounding you.

When you're in sin, you're hoping that he doesn't see you.

But his presence is there.

And here's the beauty is the entire time God is always looking to restore us.

His presence isn't there to condemn us, his presence is there to say, I'm here.

Turn back to me.

Go ahead and turn to your neighbor and say, He's always here.

So point number two that David talks about is that we can't outrun God.

David here moves from location more to relationship.

He moves from location to relationship.

God isn't merely everywhere, he is actively present.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even here, there, your hand will lead me and your right hand will hold me fast.

We currently live in a world that is obsessed with escaping.

I'm guilty of it too.

How many of you guys have this little thing, right?

When I come home from work, a lot of times I'll say hi to sunshine, hi to the boys, and then I'll go chill in the basement.

I pull up my phone, and it's called doom scrolling, right?

We're all looking for an escape from reality.

We might escape into gaming or social media, we escape into filters to make us look good.

We do this because life can weigh us down, becomes heavy, and then we want to disappear.

Sometimes it's just to get a fresh start.

We change jobs, we change cities, we have a midlife crisis and decide to open a restaurant.

We see the phone ring and it's a friend, but we don't want to answer it, so we just dismiss that call.

We delete an app, but then we add three more.

It's running and constantly trying to escape.

Last month we just studied some guy who tried to escape named Jonah, right?

He had God's command.

He ignored it.

He jumped on a boat, went the opposite way.

I'm gonna get as far away as possible.

What happened?

Swallowed by the whale.

God sent that to happen, not to condemn him, but what?

To restore him and get him back to his true purpose.

The descriptor that David uses in this, if I take the wings of the morning, that's a reference to the morning sunrise or to dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea.

But he's articulating how far away we can be from God.

And I started to do a little research about the rising sun, and I'm not that smart, so it's hard to kind of kind of comprehend this.

But the sun sits 93 million miles away from Earth.

It's a little bit, but it only takes eight minutes and ten seconds for the light to get from the sun to the earth.

Traveling at 186,000 miles per hour.

God is there at the sun.

The depth of the sea, David talks about the Earth's oceans comprise 361 million square kilometers of Earth.

The deepest part is the Meridian Trench, which is 35,846 feet below sea level.

That's almost 2,000 feet deeper than Mount Everest is tall.

David is using these to illustrate God's presence from the sun to the depths of the ocean.

One cool thing that I started looking at was God's presence is everywhere.

And to try and wrap my head around that and even comprehend, in 1977, U.S.

NASA launched Voyager 1 and 2.

How many remember that?

A few of our older folks.

I was still too young for that.

But here's what's cool about this.

In 2012, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were still traveling.

Voyager 1 crossed out into the Hellosphere.

147 aerod or astronomical units past Earth.

Now, they do that, they change it into astronomical units because it's so many million miles.

But to correlate it so that you guys can understand it, that's 13,644,503,668 miles from Earth.

And who knows how far it stretches.

And it's just trying to articulate David's saying at that time, from the morning sunrise to the depths of the ocean, God is certainly there.

It's immense the fact that no matter how small or vast, we can't outrun God.

Even then, David says, Even there, your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me.

Now it's important here for the word hold to understand what that word hold means.

The word hold is to grasp in the positive sense of the word, not in the negative of seizing or arresting.

God is helping sustain us in the process.

So he is holding us close and steadfast in a positive sense and helping.

The second part is that the right hand shall hold me.

Why does David say the right hand?

It has significance because the Bible mentions the right hand over fifty times in reference to God's right hand.

We see it here in Isaiah 41:10.

Isaiah 41:10

Fear not, for I am with you.

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Exodus 15.

That he worked in Christ, Ephesians 1.20, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand of heavenly Jesus.

The right hand is significant and it's important, and David wouldn't use it otherwise.

Jesus is seated at the right hand, and God uses his right hand to protect us.

It was there each time.

His presence.

His presence changes everything about our relationship, does it not?

That is vastly, vastly important.

You see it played out through scriptures time and time again.

Moses in the wilderness, God's presence was there.

He provided manna to continually sustain them.

Daniel in the lion's den, God's presence was there.

Paul in prisons, God's presence was there.

These verses have two actionable items, leading and holding.

God's presence will lead us and will hold us.

These are great examples.

He leads us, providing us direction, providing us wisdom, providing us guidance.

He holds us the strength, the security, the stability.

And those are attributes that we need to completely understand so that we can walk through our daily journeys.

When times get hard, when times get stuff, tough, we're able to look back and go, God's presence is there with us constantly, continuously.

God doesn't just observe your life from a distance, he enters into it.

Some of us are going through something that nobody knows about.

Ever hear that saying?

Personal battle that nobody knows about.

But God does.

He's there with you, going through it.

Some of us are carrying grief, facing uncertainty, making difficult decisions.

And later today, we're going to pray over Chris and Katie Durham and send them to Florida to plant a church.

Do you think that was a difficult decision?

God's presence was there, and God's presence is going to continue on with both of them.

His presence means that you do not walk alone.

God's presence doesn't always remove the valley, but he will walk through it with us.

God's presence doesn't always remove the valley, but he walks through it with us.

That is an incredible picture.

Nowhere in the scriptures does it say once you become a Christian, right, you're going to live easy.

We talk about that consistently here.

But he never abandons us during the storm.

Turn to the person next to you and say, He's always here.

Point three is God's presence reaches us even in darkness.

Psalms 139, 11 through 12 says, If I say, Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you.

The night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

Now David moves from relationship to reach, from relationship to reach.

First he says, If I go as high as heaven, God is there.

If I go as far away as the sea, God is there.

But now David asks a deeper question.

What about the places no one sees?

What about the hidden places?

What about the places I think I'm alone and no one sees me?

What about the moments when it's not just far away physically, but I feel far away spiritually?

I think the saying's been said many times.

You can tell the true heart of a man by what he does when nobody's watching.

That's a struggle, is it not?

The times that you think nobody's watching, and sin starts to creep in, creeps into your mind, it creeps into your actions, it creeps into everything.

God is there with you in those moments, and we need to turn to him and ask for him.

Because if we're honest, those moments are the ones that we typically struggle with the most.

It's not always geography that makes us feel distanced from God.

Sometimes it's grief, sometimes it's disappointment, sometimes it's guilt, sometimes it's fear, sometimes it's the things we don't talk about with anybody else.

So one of the reasons why here at real life we talk about small groups so much is so that you can develop relationships with others.

So in those moments, you have somebody to turn to.

But God's with you in those moments.

You confess to him and ask him to help remove them.

But sometimes we need encouragement from brothers and sisters.

David says, Surely the darkness will cover me.

The word cover here means overwhelmed or concealed.

David is saying that I'm hidden.

I'm overwhelmed.

I am covered.

I'm concealed.

I need to know that you're there.

He is surrounded by darkness.

And every single one of us understands darkness, right?

We all understand darkness.

There's moments that darkness just kind of overwhelms us.

Darkness is a relationship that fell apart.

It may be a mistake that you could can't undo.

Maybe it's anxiety that nobody knows about.

Maybe it's smiling on Sunday morning when barely, you know, when you're barely holding things together.

Maybe it's a prayer that you prayed for so many years that hasn't gone answered.

David even says, there, God is present.

Now, how many in here have ever walked through your house in complete darkness?

You know where everything's at, right?

You can traverse that anytime, any day, no worries.

But every once in a while, something will jump out and grab you, right?

That ottoman moves.

Many of you can't see this, probably, and you can come look later, but I have a wonderful black eye.

It's not sunshine.

Please understand that.

But what it was, and I had actually written this before it happened, so maybe I spoke it into existence.

The kitchen sink, how many have a mat in front of the kitchen sink?

We have a thick foam one, and I'm walking through.

The boys are in the room, sunshine's out of town, all the lights are off, and that mat decided to jump up and grab my flip-flop.

And I'm a big guy, I'm not that graceful.

Arm goes into the uh counter, and my face goes into the cabinet that has the oven.

Darkness got me.

Now that's a physical thing, but many of you have children.

How many times have your children come into your room and been like there's something in the closet or a storm comes like yesterday and they want comfort, right?

And so you go, hey, I'm here.

Everything's gonna be okay.

You don't have to worry.

Everything's fine.

There's nothing under your bed, there's nothing in the closet, there's nothing that's changed about the room.

But your kids will calm down, won't they?

Once you show up.

What changed?

Darkness affected our ability to see clearly, but it doesn't change our ability to be connected with Him spiritually.

Everybody has a personal battle that nobody knows about.

But the dark season affects how we see.

We start thinking, but as we go through life, the darkness doesn't disappear, but fear loses its authority.

What changed about the room was you.

Fear loses its authority with the presence of God in our personal lives.

We say, God left me, God forgot me, God isn't working.

But David reminds us, just as much as we can see God clearly, that doesn't mean he can't see you.

Verse 12 says, even the darkness is not dark to you, the night is as bright as day.

That is powerful because David doesn't say God removes all the darkness.

He says darkness is not dark to God.

There is a big difference.

God doesn't remove the darkness, rather, darkness isn't dark to God.

So when we're in those dark moments, he's there.

He can shine a light into our lives because his presence is consistent.

Sometimes we want God to immediately turn on lights.

That's the easy thing to do, right?

If you walk into your kid's room, you flip on the light and go, look, look around.

Everything's the same.

We want God to turn on that light.

We want him to fix the problem.

We want him to remove the struggle.

We want the answer to prayer immediately.

But sometimes God doesn't remove the darkness.

Sometimes he reminds us, I'm here with you in it.

It's hard to learn a lesson when you're in the midst of a storm.

It's extremely difficult.

Sometimes it's painful.

But God's there with us.

We don't like darkness because it's scary.

Quick story about uh sunshine and I when we were dating, we were on our second date, and it wasn't in Bowen Green, it was in Lexington, and I parked illegally.

I didn't know I parked illegally.

They had that little sign that says violators will be towed, and we're having coffee.

Uh towing's a big subject matter sometimes in Bowen Green, especially downtown vehicles get towed.

So it's 9:30 at night.

We're leaving the coffee shop.

I go out, my truck's not there, and I'm like, oh.

And then I finally see the sign.

So we decide to make the walk, right?

This is a long time ago, uh, about 19 years ago.

And we're in Lexington, it's downtown.

We decide to make the walk all the way to get to the towing shop before Ubers and all that stuff.

And so we're walking past Rupp Arena.

If you've been in Lexington, after Rupp becomes a warehouse district, most tow yards are not in the great part of town.

And she goes, Wow, it's really dark.

I say, Don't worry.

And I grab her hand thinking I'm, you know, being all smooth.

It worked out in case she didn't know.

But what changed about that darkness is me saying, Hey, everything's gonna be alright, right?

Sometimes when you're going through darkness, you want somebody to come alongside you and say, everything's gonna be alright.

There was nothing special about me.

It was about letting her know things are gonna be okay.

It's the same thing with our kids, it's the same thing with our friends, it's the same thing as we go through life, we want that comfort.

And we need to know that God is there consistently providing that comfort.

If you're like me, you just forget about it.

Or you're choose just go through life and go, but when we need to stop and say, Lord, I know you're here with me.

Can you help me walk me through this?

Isaiah 50, 10 says, Let him who walks in darkness and has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.

When you're in the darkness and you have no light, right there, trust in the name of the Lord.

He is there with us.

Notice the verse doesn't say if you follow God, you'll never walk through darkness.

It says there will be moments when people who love God find themselves walking in darkness.

But when we cannot see the way forward, we can trust the one walking with us.

The darkness doesn't disappear, but it loses its authority.

Right?

Presence changes everything.

His presence changes everything about our situation.

The darkness is still there, but the fear loses its authority when we rely upon God.

When we say you're here with us, your presence is consistent.

It's not some of the time, it's not part of the time, it's not, but it is all the time.

Nowhere do we see this more clearly than with Jesus.

Jesus entered our darkness so we don't have to face darkness alone.

Because Jesus did not look at our darkness from a distance.

He entered into it.

The God of the universe stepped into human pain.

He experienced the rejection, he experienced suffering, he experienced the betrayal, he experienced the cross so that we can have a relationship with him and God and be in the presence of God forever.

Jesus entered into our darkness so we would never have to face darkness without him.

So today, maybe you're walking through something that nobody else knows about.

Maybe there's a battle that nobody sees.

Maybe there's a hurt you haven't shared with anybody.

Maybe there's a fear that you're carrying.

Remember this.

God sees the tears, nobody else does.

God hears the prayers, nobody hears.

God knows the battles, everybody has.

God is present, and nobody else can that nobody else can reach.

The darkness of night is still daylight to God.

You may not see him, but he sees you.

You may not feel close to him, but he feels close to you.

Because there's nowhere that you can go to hide from God.

He's already there.

So as we start to close today, Deeva teaches us something incredibly powerful about who God is.

God is not a God who occasionally checks in.

God is not a God who watches from a distance.

God is a God who is present in our lives and everywhere that we go.

And not just our lives, everybody's lives, not just the depths of the sea, not just the universe, not just the helisphere.

He is everywhere and all present and constantly wants to be part of our lives.

And he walks with us through this journey.

Psalms 139 reminds us God is always present.

And today we can see these three truths.

God's presence is everywhere.

It cannot be escaped.

There's nowhere too far, not heaven alone, not the depths below, not your past, not your mistakes, not anything that you're going through that God doesn't know about and isn't present with us.

We can't outrun God's presence.

His presence leads us and sustains us.

David says, Your right hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me.

God is simply not watching your life from a distance.

He's involved in it.

When you're confused, he leads.

When you're weak, he holds with his right hand.

When you feel like you cannot take another step, he sustains.

You're not walking alone.

And the third, God's presence reaches us even in darkness.

And to me, I hold that very, very dear because we all have those moments that we struggle.

And oftentimes it's the last thing that I think about to turn into the Word, to acknowledge His presence, to lean into that, and to have Him help me.

The places that we think are hidden, the struggles nobody else sees, the battle nobody knows about, because darkness may limit our vision, but darkness never limits God's presence.

Right?

He is that light in that darkness.

And I think this is where many of us struggle because we often question and ask, where is God?

Where was God when I got that phone call?

Where was God when the relationship ended?

Where was God when I was hurting?

Where was God when I wasn't healed the way I wanted to be?

But Psalms 129 challenges us with a different question.

Maybe the question isn't where is God?

Maybe the question is, Am I aware of the God who has been here the entire time?

Maybe I need to be aware of the God who has been here the entire time.

Because what's incredible is when you have a relationship with Him, His presence is there.

We're able to lean into it and not forget about it, but rely upon it.

Because God's presence is not based on my ability to feel Him, God's presence is based on His promise.

And He's given us that promise that He will always be there.

That doesn't change.

God's promise is real, and you are never too far, you are never alone.

You think back to the beginning when I talked about sunshine, has the ability to lose her phone and lose the connection, and she hits that button on the watch.

And as long as there's a connection, she's able to find it.

So today the challenge for me and the challenge for you is are you staying connected with God?

He is there, he wants to restore you, just like he did Jonah.

But we have to be active participants with him.

He's gonna walk through the journey, he's gonna be the light and the darkness, but we need to be there.

God never loses a signal, he never looks at your life and says, I can't reach that area.

There's no dead zone with God.

Not your fear, not your grief, not anything that you're going through, not your shame, not your past.

We carry those around as burdens, and we need to let them off and know that God's presence can heal.

Here in a minute, the band's gonna come up and lead us in a final worship song.

But I encourage you, today, if you're going through something, if you need somebody to talk to, we have a prayer team in the back.

But most importantly, if you've lost your connection with God, or if you never even established one, maybe today's the day that you have a relationship with him and walk with him.

Let him be your light and your darkness.

Because life is difficult, is it not?

Let's let go of some of those burdens.

Maybe to the day, today's the day that you say, Hey, my past is no longer going to dictate my future.

That I can lay that stuff down.

Maybe not forget, but allow our God to start to heal us, heal our wounds, and go through all that.

His presence is consistent, his presence is ever never gonna change.

He will be with us always.

Because wherever you go, wherever life takes you, whatever season you're in, he is gonna be here with us.

Psalms 139 is an incredible promise that his presence is consistent.

Let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, I just thank you so much for the opportunity to be in your house today.

And Lord, I just lay these struggles down at your feet.

The struggles that I have, the struggles that others have, the struggles all around us.

Allow us to step aside and allow you to work in our lives, but let's make sure that we have that connection with you, God.

Your presence is here, not just in this church, your presence is with us wherever we go.

And too often we forget that we rely on our own abilities.

We want you just to take them away.

Make it easy for us.

But sometimes that's not the answer.

And laying our burdens down, sometimes it's hard.

Sometimes we hold on to them and just say, I want this, I want this crutch.

Even though I want to get rid of it, I allow it to become me.

And it's not about me, it's about you, Lord.

And allow us to lay our lives down.

You sacrificed your son so that we could have a relationship with you.

And my prayer today is that everybody in this room knows that and establishes a relationship with you.

So as we go through those dark times, we lean into you and know that your right hand is there to protect us and to guide us and to lead us through whatever through whatever we're going through.

And I pray these things in your holy name.

Amen.

Will you stand?