This morning, God is reminding of us and amazing honor and privilege that we too often take for granted. That is that at any place and at any time, we can enter into the Presence of God.
Psalms 31:19-20 (NLT)
19 How great is the goodness you have stored up for those who fear you.
You lavish it on those who come to you for protection, blessing them before the watching world.
20 You hide them in the shelter of your presence, safe from those who conspire against them.
You shelter them in your presence, far from accusing tongues.
What has God stored up for us? Wrath? Condemnation? Judgment?
NO, GOODNESS!
What does He do for those who request His protection?
He LAVISHES GOODNESS on us! BLESSING us before the watching world!
He HIDES and SHELTERS us with HIS PRESENCE!
God’s Presence covering us, hiding us, sheltering us, protecting us, blessing us with His goodness. I mean, that’s a good enough word that we could all just go home now! Oh, but it gets better! We have the opportunity not just to encounter the Presence of God, but to live within His Presence; to dwell in the Presence of God!
Although there is nowhere that we can go to escape God’s general presence, there is something special and unique about this face-to-face Presence of God.
David wrote about our complete inability to escape God’s general Presence:
Psalm 139:7-12
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
However, David also wrote and begged God not to cast him from God’s presence or to take the Holy Spirit away. This was in response to the prophet, Nathan, calling out his unrepentant sin.
Psalm 51:9-12
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
In both Palms, David chose the same Hebrew words for spirit and presence; rûaḥ and pānîm. Why would David ask God not to do something that David, himself, already professed cannot be done?
He said that we can’t flee God’s presence or get away from His Spirit. Then, he pleaded with God not to cast him from God’s presence or to take the Holy Spirit from him. Why?
Well, after you’ve experienced the difference between living in God’s general presence and encountering God’s face-to-face, personal, intimate, powerful, and countless other descriptive words that don’t even begin to express that encounter Presence, you know exactly what David meant!
David was far from the first to make this plea, too!
Cain was the first that we can find. After failing to heed God’s warning to him to rule over sin and choosing instead to kill Abel, God told him what the consequences were.
Genesis 4:13-14
13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
Cain could not bear to live without God’s Presence in his life. Not God’s general presence, but those walks together through the garden in the cool of the day, those personal encounters that he had the privilege of enjoying anytime that he wanted to.
Are we as aware of our own sin as David and Cain?
Do we realize what we have in God’s Presence?
Do we take advantage of this honor to dwell in God’s Presence in our everyday lives?
Next, we turn to Moses. This was not in response to his own sin, but the persistent sin of God’s people in general that he was leading. This plea was more so a cry out of Moses’s own lack and realization of his desperate need for God’s Presence to complete the task before him and the calling upon him to lead.
Exodus 33:12-23
12 Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ 13 If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”
14 The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
Finding rest in the Presence of God…
15 Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
17 And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
18 Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”
19 And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
21 Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”
Are we as aware of our own lack and weaknesses like Moses?
Are we as aware of our own desperate need for God’s Presence?
We again see a direct connection between God’s Presence and His goodness along with His rest and glory and His covering and protection.
The priests of the tabernacle and temple would minister in the Presence of God day and night. God’s people would physically draw near to God’s Presence hidden away in the Holy of Holies to worship and to bring their sacrifices and offerings. There isn’t enough time to cover all of those examples!
We now turn to Anna. Although she was a widow, she was never alone. She chose to literally live in God’s temple in His Presence day and night. In His Presence, she obviously found all that she ever needed in life.
Luke 2:36-38
36 There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38 Coming up to them (Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus) at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
Centuries before Anna were the Sons of Korah who wrote a Psalm about their hunger and longing for the Presence of God!
Psalm 84
1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
Lord Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young –
a place near your altar,
Lord Almighty, my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
they are ever praising you.
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baka (Baka translated means ‘weeping’),
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.
Even in the midst of severe trial and tribulation bad enough to bring us to tears, we can turn those places in life into places of refreshing and strengthening through God’s Presence. We’re on a pilgrimage as we are not yet home. We’re just passing through this lifetime on to our eternal home and dwelling place.
Thankfully, God has given us His Presence that makes us homesick for a place that we have never been!
8 Hear my prayer, Lord God Almighty;
listen to me, God of Jacob.
9 Look on our shield, O God;
look with favor on your anointed one.
10 Better is one day in your courts
than a thousand elsewhere;
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor;
no good thing does he withhold
from those whose walk is blameless.
12 Lord Almighty,
blessed is the one who trusts in you.
We choose to fill our lives with so many things staying so busy… However, Jesus reveals that only one thing matters, only one thing lasts, only one thing will satisfy our souls.
Luke 10:38-42
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Choose better. Don’t be busy and just have Jesus there as a part of it all. Make Him your focal point that everything else that you do is for. Why be worried and upset about many things in this life? We have JESUS! How could we want more?
The same God that met with all of these individuals, and countless others, is the same God calling and reaching out to you and I. He desires to quiet our souls washing away all of our worries and anxieties and fears with His peace and great love!
He desires to take our burdens onto Himself and replace them with His yoke that is easy and His burden that is light!
That same Presence of God that they hungered and thirsted for and were satisfied by is available right here and right now to you and I. It is here to shelter and protect and bless us with God’s goodness!
Instead of talking about it any longer, let’s encounter and experience it together.
All that we have to do is to call on the Lord and ask Him to invade and saturate our lives with His Presence. All that we have to do is ask Him to forgive us of all of our sins. All that we have to do is to surrender all that we are, JUST AS WE ARE, to Him.
What do we have to lose compared to what we have to gain?