The Reality of God's Presence

Good morning. I'll be reading from Genesis 26.

There was another famine in the land in addition to the one that

had occurred in Abraham's time, and Isaac went to a abimelech,

king of the Philistines, at Girar.

The Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt,

Live in the land that I tell you about.

Stay in this land as an alien, and I will be with you and bless

you. For I will give you all these

lands to you and your offspring, and I will affirm the oath that

I swore to your father Abraham. I will make your offspring as

numerous as the stars of the sky.

I will give your offspring all these lands, and all the nations

of the earth will be blessed by your offspring, because Abraham

listened to me and kept my mandate, my commands, my

statutes, and my instructions. From there he went up to

Beersheba, and the Lord appeared to him the night and said, I am

the God of your father, Abraham, do not be afraid, for I am with

you. I will bless you and multiply

your offspring because of my servant Abraham.

So he built an altar there, caught on the name of the Lord,

and pitched his tent there. Isaac's servants also dug a well

there. They replied, We have clearly

seen how the Lord has been with you.

We think there should be an oath between two parties, between US

and you. Let us make a covenant with you,

the word of the Lord. What's going on Port City family

and friends, how are we doing? Good.

My name is Tanner and I'm excited to be with you.

I'm really excited for what guys got in store for us this

morning. Y'all at Port City we are trying

and we love to worship together, like sing together, to look each

other in the eyes, to DAP each other up, hug each other, eat

some food together. Y'all, we're trying to live an

embodied life together. We put the Bibles under the seat

because we need God's word. We're trying to communicate

through everything we do on a Sunday morning.

We leave the lights on for a purpose.

We put the music at a level where we can hear each other

because we need each other. We need God's word.

This is a place for needy people.

We're trying to communicate. This is a place you can come to

if you need God. So if you don't have a church

family and you're looking for one, you are invited to need God

with us. That's what it means to be a

member of Port City. It doesn't mean you have

arrived. It means you acknowledge you

need God and you need other people and you need his word.

So that's what we're trying to do as a as a church here.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pray for our time

because we need God. We need his word.

And then we will dive in here with Genesis 26.

Our Father, we love you. Thank you so much that you want

to give yourself to us. God, thank you that we can need

you. Thank you that when you save us,

that just brings us into a relationship with you.

Got to pray for my friends who are yet to take that step.

God would you just open their eyes and for those of us who

follow you, God help us to be reminded that to need you is

good and you want to meet us. You see all you know all you are

with us. So Holy Spirit, breathe upon

your word. We pray in the mighty name of

Jesus, Amen. You ever been in a situation

where you're like, get to the point.

Some of you are like, I feel that every Sunday at about

10:55. I remember one time I was in a

group project in college and like my group just didn't want

to get together and like work on this thing like a presentation.

And I'm like, you know, I'm the type A.

I'm like anxious texting everybody, ha ha, can't wait to

get together. We don't, we show up for the

presentation. My man was winging it.

I mean, we had like 15 minutes as a group.

He went like 20. I mean, he was just letting it

RIP. And everybody, it's like you're

saying a lot of things and you're saying nothing.

Like you're just talking like get to the point, break it down

for me, you know, like break it down all the way down.

So here's what I want to do. If you could break the Bible all

the way down to 3 words. OK, these are I think the three

words that break it down. You ready?

God with us, God with us. In Matthew chapter 1, Jesus is

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

referred to as Emmanuel. God with us, the Bible ends.

Revelation chapter 21 verse 3 says this.

Revelation 21:3

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the

dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God

himself will be with them as their God.

And notice is not us with God, is God with us.

Order matters. There's so much theology.

We could preach so many sermons on that phrase.

So my hope for us today is through this story with Isaac in

Genesis 26. We're going to talk about, think

about, set our hearts and minds upon the God who is with us and

wants to be with you. So we're going to look at this

in five turns. We're going to talk about God's

presence in Isaac, God's presence in life, experiencing

God's presence, the effect God's presence has on us, and then

lastly, how we respond to God's presence.

If you are ready, let me hear you say I'm ready.

OK, let's start with God's presence in Isaac.

You also, as we've mentioned, every year we're going to go

through a different patriarch. Last year was Abraham.

The next longest chunk belongs to Jacob.

There's a lot of genesis on Jacob.

There's only a little bit on Isaac.

OK, so today's story is really the only Isaac story where he is

the protagonist for a long period of time.

A lot of them mention him being involved, but he's a very

passive character with a very short amount of time in Genesis

as it transitions from Abraham to Jacob.

So this is a big story which we will return to in a couple of

weeks to talk about some other dynamics involved.

But today what I want you to pay attention to is just three

statements about God's presence towards Isaac.

Are you with me? OK, so there are three

statements that I'm going to walk through again just to make

sure we understand. The first one comes in verses

one through 5. It says this.

Now there was a famine in the land besides the former famine

that was in the days of Abraham. Because this story kind of

mirrors something that happened with, or very much so mirrors.

Something happened in Genesis 20 with Abraham.

And the Lord appeared to him and said, do not go down to Egypt,

Dwell in the land of which I shall tell you.

Sojourn in this land and I will be with you.

Somebody say we'll be again. I'm no English professor, but

that to me is a future tense. He's trying to say something is

happening. Famine.

Your actions should be determined by my presence and in

parentheses, not by your fear, right?

Like there is a temptation you're going to feel to do one

thing. And I'm letting you know before

it happens. I will be with you.

Now, for those of us who know the story that we'll go through

in a couple of weeks, Isaac very much responds in fear.

He kind of puts his wife in a vulnerable position, and then

the people of the land push him around a little bit.

Now we're going to jump forward to verses 23 to 25.

Check those out with me. Same chapter, Big 26, little 23.

From there he went up to Beersheba and the Lord appeared

to him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham your

father. Fear not for I am with you.

Somebody say with you. Now again, y'all correct me if

I'm wrong. I am with you past, present,

future. I think that is present.

OK. So he says, I am with you and

will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant

Abraham's sake. And this time it says in verse

25. So we built an altar there and

called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there.

And there are Isaac's servants dug a well.

All right, so that statement #2 OK, this time he seems to

respond in some sort of trust, right?

The altar, the calling upon his name, the, the digging of the

well, which all that didn't really happen the first time.

God says it all. He kind of doesn't really trust

him. He's scared.

This time God reappears, says I'm with you.

He responds. And then one more statement I

want you all to see comes to verse 28.

So now and again, you don't really know the story yet.

That's OK. We're focused on the statements

the people involved in the story who've been pushing him around.

They come to him in the vulnerable position and say hey,

it is clear. Look at verse 28.

They said we see plainly that the Lord has been with you.

Somebody say has been with you like passed into the like our

operating with you right now is on the fact that God's been with

you like we've watched it. God has been with you.

So Isaac has been blind, but they can see.

Are you tracking? So the idea is he's been with

you, he is with you, he will be with you.

OK, so we got past, present, future, he was he is it is to

come that kind of idea. Are y'all tracking with those

three statements, the three tenses, the is was will be.

OK, now let's talk about God's presence in life.

So that's that's Isaac's story. Y'all what this concept of past,

present, future presence of God is known as is called God is

omnipresent. I'm gonna let y'all try and say

that Y'all with me say omnipresent.

Yeah. Omni.

Omni. It's a word that means all, all

present. It means God is everywhere

present. God is not bound by space and

time the way we are. We are literally bound.

You can only be and one chair. Some of y'all sometimes sit on 2

chairs. I do that sometimes on Sunday.

I'm like sending a message like just give me some space people,

OK. But y'all we are bound.

We are one spot one time. That's how we are.

God is not. God is not limited in that way.

He's also not divided up like a percentage like 1% of him is in

Afghanistan and 1% in the United.

No, it don't work like that. God is omnipresent.

He is everywhere. He is, He is fully himself.

He's also not in this podium, He's not in things.

That is a pantheism that God is like in the things he makes.

The Bible is very clear that God is distinct from his creation.

He creates, He's separate from it, but He is everywhere

present. OK, David, in Psalm 139 verse 6,

Psalms 139:6

this is kind of how he describes this reality.

He says such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

It is high, I cannot attain it. You being everywhere present, I

can't get away from you no matter where I go.

It is just so wonderful. It blows my mind into those in

relationship with God. That is a comforting mind blown

position. Like it it comforts him that he

can't get away from the Lord. I would argue we know this is

true. Like subconsciously from the

time you're born, I would argue we know this is true.

You ever been in a situation you're totally by yourself and

you could like, I'll give you all one.

I'm thinking of one right now. OK, Halloween.

The sign says take one and you by yourself and you're like, you

look around and you have a guarantee.

Nobody's watching. They don't have a ring camera,

which is rare. And you're like, I can take 1.

Now. Either society has put in you

that you're not supposed to steal and that is some kind of

social agreement we've all made to help us survive, or part of

you knows I can't steal that thing.

You know, I've heard it said that integrity is what you do

when when nobody is watching, right?

I would say the right phrasing of that is integrity is what you

do when only one is watching because you know, 1 is watching.

You know that. Have you ever tasted something

so good by yourself? You're like, oh, like you just

want to say thank you. Or you walk upon a site like a,

a Grand Canyon or a waterfall and you're like, like you just

there's this screaming. You want to do like, or like

when you're a little kid and you make an amazing play on your

own, you're playing in the backyard.

You're like, did you see that? Your instant reaction is to look

for somebody and say, did you see that?

And you know, somebody is watching, Like part of you knows

that this is the case. You know, God is omnipresent,

even though you might not ever learn what the word Omni means,

which leads to the question, is God with you?

And when I ask it that way, I mean, like, we know he's

omnipresent, but is he personally automatically present

to every person? No, in the way David talks about

it in Psalm 139, in relationship with him is not true of

everybody. That is not their experience

with his presence. The Bible teaches that.

Y'all, in our sin we turn our back on God.

That's what we do. These realities we know to be

true. We suppress them, we ignore

them. We are unconvinced or

unimpressed. We learned this truth from the

Bible that God is always present everywhere and we're like

unconvinced or unimpressed. That is what rebels do.

You know, we can leverage it from the I don't care

standpoint, or we can argue that it's true and use our minds and

come up with arguments, but the reality is we are rebels.

We don't want it to be true. We don't want his omnipresence.

We're like, eh, I'm out unimpressed, unconvinced.

Yo, we live like we the ones who are omnipresent.

Technology gives us that feeling a little bit, right?

Like we can learn anything at any time.

Google can go with me wherever I go as long as it's in my pocket.

And so in our rebellion, y'all, we don't even want God to be

with us. So is God omnipresent?

Yes. Is he personally present with

every human being? No.

The Bible teaches that God is with those who have been made

right through Jesus Christ. Y'all it's interesting if you go

read Psalm 139 tonight, which I recommend you to do.

The first verse says you have searched me and known me and the

last verse David asks him search me and know me.

So he opens it with you have done it and he ends it with keep

doing it. OK.

Now, when you are a rebel against God, which all of us are

born into, the thought of the omnipresence of God actually

isn't originally a comforting thought.

That means he was there when you said that.

That means he was there when you did that.

That means he was there when you didn't do that.

That you should have done it. Means he was there when you said

what you said. And you said I was just playing,

but you weren't playing. He was there when you gossiped

and then you covered your tracks and you texted that person back

to cover what you did say and meant it.

He was there when you did it. He was there when you didn't do

it. Y'all, God's omnipresence is

comforting to those God loves and is in relationship with.

It is very discomforting if we don't know him and if we default

into not knowing him. It would be like being told,

hey, the sun, like the sun is visiting you tomorrow going to

be right next to you. It would be like I'm going to

burn, you know, like I can't even look at that thing.

What you mean is coming to me. That is sort of like when you

hear the omnipresent God is everywhere present, including in

this room right now. That's kind of what it does to

us because it's like, I can't even like squint at the sun.

It is so pure. So God's omnipresence is

included with all his, his other attributes like His Holiness,

his righteousness, his goodness, his moral purity, his beauty,

his love, his wrath, his judgment.

All that God is, is omnipresent always.

So it's not initially comforting, which leaves us a

little bit being like, how do we go from if we're defaulted into

rebels who want nothing to do with this God to being told he

is visiting? Like, how does that work?

How do we get the Psalm 139 experience?

And the answer is Jesus Christ. Jesus is God with us.

He is the God man. He is truly God in his

omniscience, and when he took on humanity like us, the

omnipresent God became bound. Isn't that crazy?

God allowed himself to only be able to sit in two chairs at a

time, you know what I mean? He allowed himself to be

confined. And for those of y'all who study

the Trinity, which all of us do at some level, Father, Son, Holy

Spirit, y'all, the Trinity doesn't diminish God's godness.

It's adding to the Trinity by him taking on flesh, not taking

away from it. But Jesus is the God man who

came to live such a life under God's omnipresence as a human

being and live it perfectly at all times.

And then at the end of his life, what he did is he took on the

death of those who he came to save.

He came to take on the death of those who did the gospeling, did

all the things that we were talking about.

And in His resurrection, He gives us the opportunity to be

accredited as if we lived perfectly under God's watching

eyes all our days. That is the gospel.

So that's the omnipresent God. Let's talk about the experience

of God's presence. Let's talk about the experience

of God's presence. It says this in verse 2, and

then I'll read verse 24 as well. It says, And the Lord appeared

to him, and the Lord appeared to him verse 2 and said, do not go

down to Egypt, dwell in the land of which I shall tell you.

And then in verse 24 And the Lord appeared to him the same

night and said, I am the God of your father, Abraham your

father. Fear not, for I am with you.

So this idea of appearing, appearing.

So I want to ask the question, what can a follower of Jesus who

now God is with you in a personal way?

Jesus Christ is yours by faith, right?

By grace through faith, Holy Spirit indwells you.

That's what the Bible teaches. The omnipresent God takes up

residence in those who trust in him.

OK so if you are a follower of Jesus, can you expect God to

appear to you? Right y'all?

I want to start by just saying there's a difference between God

being omnipresent and us experiencing his manifest

presence in an ongoing way. OK, He is omnipresent.

Your experience of his manifest presence will vary.

Presence is constant, feeling varies.

Presence is constant, feeling varies.

We see in the, the kind of secular world right now that we

live in, like there is a rise in spirituality, There's a rise in

religions like Wicca, witchcraft, like these type

religions are on the rise because people want an

experience of the transcendent. That's what they want.

They want something bigger than themselves.

They want spirituality. And it's you're going to see

more and more of this the more a secular, more secular a place

gets. Religion doesn't go away.

It just becomes personalized. And I make it my own and, and,

and I have these experiences and it gets a little weird,

honestly, because people want experience.

They just don't want authority. So what we tend to do is we want

we want experience without the context of submission.

And what we've got to see in this instance with Isaac is he

was already in covenant relationship with God when the

appearances occurred. Are y'all tracking?

So the experience of God's presence comes in the context of

covenant. It doesn't.

Lead to in this case are y'all tracking.

So like yes, Isaac had a very vibrant, robust relationship

where God is manifesting his presence in some kind of way,

but he was already submitted to God, trusting him, trying to

follow him as best he could, obeying him.

Isaac was in and then the appearance came.

So I just want to see the way the Bible thinks about it is

that the Word of God shines a light upon Jesus Christ.

It makes us aware that we're rebels.

It gives us the news of how to be made right with God and how

to live in agreement with God in alignment with God.

The Spirit of God showcases the Word of God, which showcases the

Son of God, and we submit to him and follow him.

That's what we do. The New Testament seems really

interested in love God, love neighbor, OK.

And experience of God's love fits within that context.

They're not kind of like separated, like the goal is love

God, love neighbor, as Christ says, love you and trust God for

when you're going to feel that experience.

It was explained to me early in my Christian walk.

Like you imagine a father and a son walking down the beach.

OK, the kid is in front, let's give him 3-4 years old.

Just run it kind of that awkward run, you know that kids be

doing. And the dad is behind the dad is

the dad behind the kid, next to the kid from the kid doesn't

matter. The position of the father does

not change the status of their relationship.

Now, every once in a while, what's the dad going to do?

He's going to pick up the kid. He's going to swing them around,

helicopter, all those things, hold the hand, dip them in the

water, splash them, play in the sand, right.

The child's felt experience of the love can vary, but the

status of the child does not change.

We all tracking and that's a helpful thing for us to keep in

mind as we follow the Lord is that experience is a gift and

hopeful expectation, but it's not a demand or a frantic chase.

It's not AI will follow you. If you give me some new

experience. It's I trust you.

You have saved me. I was a rebel, I did not care.

You've made me new. You brought me close to you and

I love you. David says in Psalm 139 verse

five, he says you hem me in behind and before this idea of

like you almost enclose me and then you lay your hand upon me.

So let's be clear, David is very pro intimate nearness with God.

Please read the Psalms please. We open almost every service

with the Psalm because that I hope, is your normative

experience of how near God feels to you when you're mad at how

you're allowed to talk to God when you're high, how you're

allowed to talk to God when you're low, when you're

everywhere in between. That's what the Psalms are.

And for David, God was extremely near, but he did not approach

the Almighty. God was some kind of like demand

posture. It was a humble, mysterious

trust in God. So y'all, the way this works is

you have to anchor in your soul that God is with you.

Take the omnipresent truth. It's true.

God is with you right now. He's with you when you do the

dishes. He's with you when you clean

teeth. He is with you when you get hard

phone calls. He is with you all the time.

That's what it means that He is omnipresent.

The great irony is that if we relegate His presence to when we

feel the experience of His presence, we make Him not

omnipresent. You see how that works?

He's only present when I feel him means he ain't everywhere.

And then we are chasing that experience to prove his

presence. Do you see the great irony?

And then what we do is we flip it and now we don't actually

believe He's anywhere. Then we make certain spaces

sacred in certain environments and certain moods you have to

recreate. And again, I want to experience

it just as much as David does in Psalm 139, and I believe I will,

but it's not it. The order matters.

We can't relegate His presence to our experience of His

presence. He is omnipresent and He wants

you to experience that. OK, let's talk about the effect

that God's presence has on us. Again verse 24, that's what he

said or what the text said it said.

And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said I am the God

of Abraham your father fear not for I'm with you and will bless

you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake.

Somebody say fear not y'all like us.

Isaac's main problem was fear. The first time he didn't say

fear not. He just said don't go down to

Egypt. I mean it was implied right?

Like hey act this way in light of my presence.

This time God had to say fear not.

OK, I've heard it said there are 366 forms of do not fear in the

Bible. OK?

The way it was explained to me is that's one for every day of

the year and one for when you're extra afraid.

OK, the basic idea is you always afraid.

We are so living in survival, so afraid.

The first 3 instances of Fear Not in the Bible are first to

Abraham in chapter 14 to Hagar chapter 21, and then here to

Isaac in chapter 26. God says fear not and I highly

encourage you if you did not listen to Pastor John's sermon

on Hagar last year, go check that out Y'all.

This is this is an example of God's omnipresence in a really

hard situation. I would encourage you to go go

listen to that sermon. So y'all, he comes to Isaac and

he's reassuring him after he walked in some fear and he's

saying, Hey, fear not, I am with you.

Yo, God's omnipresence can become the basis of your life.

You can build your life on this. He's basically saying, let's try

this again, buddy, I told you once now let's, let's let's live

like what I'm saying is true, right?

Fear not like let's, let's, let's do this y'all.

The omnipresence of God can make every moment matter because God

is there. It can make everything you do be

filled with purpose. And we can trust God in a broken

world because y'all, the reality is this world is broken.

And at some level fear is logical because it is not as it

should be. Things go wrong, bad things

happen. So God's command of fear not is

not a demand. You are broken because you're

fearing. It's an invitation in your fear

to come to him. Are y'all with that?

I've heard it said recently that we live in a love story but we

live in a savage land. So God is after you seeking you

down to his love. But it is like a war-torn

environment we're in. Even though it looks comfortable

and has lots of technology like it is a busted place.

It is a broken place in need of redemption.

So when fear feels logical, don't hear God saying you better

stop fearing, hear God inviting you a new way.

Hey, you're afraid, come to me Psalm 56 When I am afraid, I put

my trust in you and God whose word I praise, I shall not be

afraid. What can man do to me?

Because I know how y'all handle fear right now because you do it

like I do it. Which is we, we suppress fearful

thought, shoot it down, OK in our flesh.

The best we can do is suppress that it that is the best we

could do. And you know what neuroscience

is showing us it don't work. You know, I love neuroscience

because what it does is just tell us things we already knew.

And it just gives us great language for it.

OK, It's very helpful. What what what is basically

showing us what we do is your brain is told what to look for,

to suppress. And it gets a basically think

like a bodyguard standing around waiting for it.

And it creates a hyper vigilance within yourself that you're now

looking for the thing that you're not supposed to do in

that vigilance, brings it back up so it can shoot it.

Are you tracking with me? So it's like your brain is wired

more into the thing you're trying to suppress, if that

makes sense. And that's why we keep thinking

about it. So if you fear that conversation

with your boss or with your parent or whatever it is that's

coming, it ain't going away just by you even.

Here's what's crazy, reciting a verse just because it's a verse

doesn't just give you extra suppressed power.

And the goal of the verse isn't to give you more suppressed

power. The goal of truth in the midst

of fear is presence, not suppression.

Presence is the goal, not suppression.

When your kid is afraid, logic does not help them.

You know this parent well. Don't worry.

You'll be fine. Oh, thanks.

That's good. Don't worry.

Got it, yo, what we need is presents.

So even behind the words do not fear or Philippians 46 don't be

anxious about anything is not a suppression memory tactic.

It is a presence invitation. So what we do is we face our

fear with God. That's what we do.

We go into it with God. His presence re narrates the

moment. That's what it does.

This situation hasn't changed. Your awareness of His nearness

has. He feels closer, therefore you

feel stronger. Does that make sense?

We can face it now because he's with me.

Notice in the Bible when people are afraid, God reassures them

and says, now go do it. Moses says, I can't go there.

I can't talk to him. I can't speak.

And he goes, here's Aaron, now go Abraham.

I can't do it. I don't even have a kid here.

She's it's going to be 25 years. She's barren.

Now let's go. Jeremiah, I'm too young.

I can't go. Ain't nobody going to touch you.

You're going to be an impenetrable wall.

Now get up and let's go. He never says, oh, you're right,

let's change the circumstance. He reassures them of who he is

and what that makes them. He says, now let's go.

So how do we respond to God's presence?

Verse 24 What Isaac does is he builds an altar.

I'm sorry. Verse 25 So he built an altar

there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent

there. And there Isaac's servants dug a

well. Y'all, Isaac built an altar.

Worship is a response to what God has done.

Worship does not conjure more of God's activity, it responds to

God's activity. True worship isn't to get God to

do something, it's a response to what He's done.

We don't come here and worship God to get Him to bless us.

We come and worship Him because he has blessed us, because in

Christ he has given us everything.

So worship is not a responsive duty from those who tolerate

God. It is a spontaneous booming of

those who love God. That makes sense.

Worship is a response to what God has done.

And notice he built an altar, so he probably got a thousands year

old version of a hammer and something in rocks and he was

doing his thing. We live in a day and age where

we know that Christ indwells us by the Spirit.

You are the temple believer. God does not live in places

built by hands. He is omnipresent.

He has chosen to manifest His presence through those who have

the Spirit indwelling them. So that's an amazing thing.

We don't have to go anywhere if we want to find the Lord.

The path is repentance, not walking.

Are you with me like the path is trust and faith?

However, your body still matters.

Somebody say my body matters. You are an embodied being, so

your body needs to believe God's omnipresence.

Are you with me? There's 1 practical way this

week Challenge for you. Every single day this week, I

want the first thing we do. Wake up and bow.

Wake up and bow. As comfortable as your body will

let you do that. Get on your knees, which you'll

face to the ground. Recite the Lord's Prayer.

You need your body to believe in God's omnipresence.

Wake up on your knees and say God, you are God and I'm not.

I think that's that's one thing from this text that we sometimes

can miss in our modernity. What a gift it is that the

Spirit indwells us. But there's so many practices in

the Bible that are assumed corporate embody things that we

need. So I'll give you that one.

Get on your knees first thing every day this week.

Our bodies need omnipresent belief #2 Isaac called on the

name of the Lord. Y'all calling on the name of the

Lord just means in our vernacular prayer.

It is trust filled prayer. Prayer is how you vocalize

trust. Prayer is not a wish to a genie

somewhere. It is the vocalization of trust

based on who you know God to be, right?

Like my kids don't ask me things they don't think they'll get.

They keep pleading for things they know have the power to give

them. They're not like, take me to

Montana, you know, I'm like, get out of here, man.

Like put on the game, you know? Put it on, put it on.

It's within your power and you love me.

You will do it. So prayer is calling upon the

name of the Lord. It is vocalizing our trust.

As the book of Hebrews tells us, when you know Jesus, you're

sprinkled by his blood. You're cleansed.

What it does is increase your confidence in nearness and

intimacy with God. You move closer to God.

As you know Jesus, you're more aware of your sin, but you get

closer to him and you're more aware of your need for Him.

So guess what happens? The better you think God is and

the more needy you are, the bigger the gap is that you think

He can fill. I'm more aware of my need and

more aware of your goodness. That's growth and maturity in

Christ. And then you ask and you call,

and you call, and you call upon the name of the Lord.

Another application. Pray out loud more.

Pray out loud more. You'll feel a little silly

because you need embodied belief that God hears you.

You need embodied belief. Not just mentally praying, but

say them out loud. Read scripture even in your time

in the morning, read it out loud.

So bow, pray out loud more. Call upon His name, y'all.

Some of y'all today are afraid. I got things I'm afraid of.

While in some of you God is inviting you through those

circumstances to trust Him for the first time, to call upon His

name in repentance and faith. To trust Him to turn from your

sin, to agree with God that you are a Sinner, that you've been

in rebellion, and that you need to follow Him.

If that is you, I invite you to call upon His name for the first

time and trust, knowing God, this is who you are.

I am not worthy, but you have saved me.

You've done it. This is the cross I'm in.

I believe it. I'm sorry.

Forgive me. You've done it all.

I trust you. And if that's you, we want to

hear from you. We want to talk to you.

For others of us who follow Jesus, y'all fear can be just

such an accepted part of our lives.

Fear has helped you survive, but it's not going to help you

thrive. That's the truth.

What's helped you survive in the past will not help you thrive in

the future. So part of your future is

learning to embody the presence of God and trust and believe it

in such a way that it shapes how you live.

I was reminded this week of the story.

We've got this book in the back called The Insanity of God.

There's a story in there about a dude named Dimitri.

OK, this story took place and I'm, I'm, I'm doing a Tanner

summarization here of this story, but go check out that

book and read it. It's amazing.

Y'all back in the Communist Russia, back in the day, they

were snuffing out pastors in this particular region.

Anybody teaching about Jesus who had public ministry, where

people were gathering in any way, they were catching them and

saying, you got to stop this now.

OK, So they were monitoring Dimitri and eventually they find

this guy and they're like, you got to be quiet.

He says, I'm not going to be quiet.

So they come back one day, they grab them, they take him to

prison, OK? He ends up spending 17 years in

jail for loving the Lord and teaching the word.

He wasn't even like a trained pastor or something like that.

He literally just was like a Bible reading loving person and

they were like, you're a leader, get them, you know, they grab

him and take him to jail. Well, Dimitri goes to jail and

every day he started his day, he would wake up, he would turn his

body towards the east and he would sing.

He would write down every verse he knew on a piece of paper that

he could find and he would sing out loud.

There's 1500 other prisoners present and day after day

they're mocking him. The guards are mocking him,

they're beating him, asking him, just sign the document and you

get to go see your kids and your wife begging and pleading,

begging, pleading. Just sign the document that you

won't talk about this Lord no more recant that you follow him

and all will be well. Day after day after day he

stands, sings, worships vows. Day after day after day.

Years are going by. So finally, like we got to get

to this dude. So they make up a lie, they go

in and they pull them out one day and they say, hey, we just

want you to know we just went back to your house.

We roughed up your family. They're gone.

It's over. You ain't even waiting on

nothing no more. So you can stay here as long as

you want. So he's broken.

He's just like, man, what's the point?

He's weeping. He goes to bed, he's like, y'all

bring it back tomorrow, I'll sign it.

He's like he's lost hope in the night, the Lord as he's just

weeping and like praying the Lord audibly lets him hear his

family praying for him like they he hears his kids and his wife

praying for him and he immediately knows a they're

still alive and they still love Jesus.

They were lying to me. They come back into the cell the

next morning. He's he's, he went from laying

down crying to like, I ain't signing nothing.

They're like what you mean? He said, I know they're alive.

I know you lied to me. I know they're still there and I

know they still love Jesus. And literally they were just

like, who are you, man? Like, how what is going on?

OK, They get so fed up with Dimitri.

They're like, all right, that's it.

Then what we're going to do is we're just going to kill you.

So they drag him out of the prison cell.

And as they drag him out, the next thing that happens blew

Nick Rifkin, who wrote this story down after hearing it from

Dimitri. All the prisoners in unison at

their they're hearing that they're doing this to this guy

who they've been mocking for years.

They all stand up and in unison turn their bodies towards the

east and start singing the song he is saying every day.

And the guards were just freaked out.

There's like, this is crazy. Like this is wild.

They just let him go. He goes back to a cell and

within a not too long amount of time they let him go home.

I read recently an update that his son went and served at that

jail. Like his job is to work at that

jail where his dad was held for a long time.

Y'all, why do I tell you that story?

We can trust the Lord. He knows when we need a really

embodied, manifest experience of His nearness.

We can trust Him. There are some long, hard, dark

days, but we can trust Him. The Lord knows what you need and

when you worship in a way that nobody can deny, trusting His

omnipresence. That He was with me every day.

I stood and said those things. He was with me every day.

I sang those songs when we let that truth shape our life, When

who God is dictates my circumstances and my

circumstances don't dictate who I think God is.

When we get the order right, y'all other people will notice,

they will see and things will change.

Shadow of the Almighty before me and behind me.

Whom shall I fear? I know who goes before me.

I know who stands behind. The God of Angel armies is

always by my side. The one who reigns forever.

He is a friend of mine. The God of Angel armies is

always by my side. Let's pray.

Our Father, we love you, God, We declare that you are here.

God, you are omnipresent. You're always.

No matter what happens this week, you are there and God, You

are with some of us, You are with us.

You are with those who know you through Christ by the Spirit

God, I pray for those of us who are not in relationship with you

today that your omnipresence would make them.

Think about their life. Think about their their need for

a Savior. Think about their desire to know

you. And God, for those of us who are

in fellowship with you, may we trust you, may we obey you love

our neighbor. And God give us a Psalm 139

experience. Let us be able to set you, him,

me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon us.

God bless this church. Fill us with the Holy Spirit.

We pray in Jesus name, Amen.