Experiencing God's Presence

The Transformative Power of His Presence

Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God (Chapter 1 Living in the Gap)

The 1983 film Tender Mercies won Academy Awards for screenwriter Horton Foote and lead actor Robert Duvall. Duvall plays a once-famous but now washed-up country music singer-songwriter named Mac Sledge, who is stringing dead-end jobs together and battling the bottle.

A young widow named Rosa Lee, and her little boy, Sonny, befriend Mac. Late in the movie, Mac and the boy both get baptized at the local church and are driving home in a pickup truck.

Sonny: “Well, we’ve done it, Mac. We’re baptized.”Mac: “Yeah, we are.”Sonny: “Everybody said I was going to feel like a changed person. I guess I do feel a little different. But I don’t feel a whole lot different. Do you?”

Mac: “Not yet.”Sonny: “You don’t look any different.” (Sonny sits up to look at himself in the rearview mirror.) “Do you think I look any different?”Mac: “Not yet.”

‘Not yet....’

Responding to the call of Jesus to follow Him is not the end or even the goal. When those four men left everything to follow Jesus little did they know how costly it would be, and how transformative it would be.

As Jesus calls for followers, He promises a transformation, a radical change, a new orientation for our life.

I Will Make...

Matthew 4:19 (HCSB)

“Follow Me,” He told them, “and I will make you fish for people!”

As people respond to Jesus’ invitation notice that He makes a promise as well.

I Will Make You...

The earliest followers of Jesus had a specific set of skills. The first four we know to be fishermen. Matthew we know to have been a tax-collector. We don’t have much information on the others, but we can say they had a set of skills necessary to provide a living for themselves and their families.

The invitation to follow Jesus is an invitation to a new pattern of life, a pattern that requires a new set of skills, a new way of going about life.

The invitation contains the promise...

Follow me…I will make you...

The Presence of Jesus

Those early followers had the opportunity to ‘be’ with Jesus day in and day out for three years.

After His death, resurrection, and ascension He was no longer ‘physically’ present as He had been.

Yet, His physical absence is no negation of His invitation to follow, nor does it negate His promise of transformation.

By following Jesus these men (and others) observed Jesus and His habits up close and personally. They listened to His message - which in essence was the same one over and over:

Mark 1:15 HCSB

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the good news!”

The Kingdom of God has come near - in the presence of Jesus Christ!

As we consider what it means to ‘follow Jesus’ let’s turn to a crucial passage, explaining how Jesus understood His call:

Mark 3:14–15 HCSB

He also appointed 12—He also named them apostles —to be with Him, to send them out to preach, and to have authority to drive out demons.

These 12 men - all who had heard Jesus call to follow Him are now given a new name, a new assignment, and a new authority.

He Appointed...

In the call recorded in Matthew 4, Jesus called Peter and Andrew to ‘come after Him, to pursue Him.’ He promised to ‘make them into fishers of people’ as they followed Him.

Now, here we hear Jesus ‘appointing’ them ‘apostles.’ The interesting link between the two passages is that the same word in the original language is used to translate ‘make’ and ‘appoint.’

Even more significantly, when the OT was translated into Greek prior to the life of Jesus, the same word is used to translate Genesis 1:1

Genesis 1:1 HCSB

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

As one scholar noted:

...to make means to bring into existence. Mark’s verb (epoiēsen) is the same as that of Gen 1:1 (LXX).

Although this is a common verb, it is very conceivable that Mark intends to recall the opening line of Genesis, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” signifying that the Twelve are a new creation.

James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2002), 112..

As Jesus ‘calls’ people to follow Him He promises to ‘make’ them into something they were not! He promises a transformation into a new person, a new community.

He Named Them ‘Apostles’

Naming rights are a huge commercial market. For example a number of years ago the facility once known as the Rose Garden was re-named the Moda Center when naming rights were purchased by a company related to the late Paul Allen.

Or if you are a baseball fan, remember Safeco Field where the Mariner’s play? It’s now called T-Mobile Park - because the telecommunications firm T-Mobile purchased naming rights.

As Jesus called these men to ‘follow Him’ He promised to transform their lives. He also designates them as ‘Apostles.’

We mis-understand Jesus if we try and limit the term ‘apostle’ to only some super-spiritual men.

The word in the original language simply means one who is sent, one who is given a message to declare and a purpose to fulfill.

To Have Authority

Here we should turn to Matthew’s account of the same incident:

Matthew 10:1–8 HCSB

Summoning His 12 disciples, He gave them authority over unclean spirits, to drive them out and to heal every disease and sickness. These are the names of the 12 apostles: First, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him. Jesus sent out these 12 after giving them instructions: “Don’t take the road leading to other nations, and don’t enter any Samaritan town. Instead, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, announce this: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with skin diseases, drive out demons. You have received free of charge; give free of charge.

An ‘apostle’ is one with God’s authority, one who is to declare God’s message, and one who is to exercise God’s power over disease and all forms of evil.

Later developments in Paul’s letters will reveal that all who follow Jesus are commissioned with the same message, and yes, the same authority as those first twelve.

TO BE WITH HIM...

Here we come full circle back to the primary purpose of the call of Jesus. More significant than any task, any assignment is simply to ‘BE’ with Jesus.

As I mentioned last week we have often re-defined what it means to be a Jesus follower as a church attender, as one who is involved in religious activities on Sunday’s and perhaps other days of the week.

We often redefine being a follower of Jesus as a set of activities that we ask everyone to measure.

Jesus called these followers first and foremost that they might be with Him.

Obviously we can’t ‘be’ with Jesus in the same physical way as those earliest followers.

What might it look like today to ‘be’ with Jesus?

There must be hundreds, if not thousands, of books trying to define and describe what it might mean to ‘be with’ Jesus.

Instead of a list of book reviews and reports, let me offer a few gleanings of what I am learning about ‘being’ before ‘doing.’

A. Time Alone With Jesus

I know, here goes the pastor again about having a ‘Quiet Time.’

Not today. Rather, let me challenge you to re-think the idea of a ‘Quiet Time.’

A Quiet Time is not simply praying through a list of requests, reading a Bible passage, and checking off another item on our To-Do List.

Yes, those activities can be - and should be part - of our ‘being’ with Jesus.

However, truly ‘being’ with Jesus is much more than checking off a task.

First, make a habit of silence. We are often bombarded with noise - radio, TV, social media and so on.

A number of years ago I was challenged to set aside 6 (six) hours of silence.

No music. No TV. No cell phone. No social media.No sleeping!

Rather I was asked to have an open Bible and a blank notebook or blank paper of some kind.

The assignment: be silent before God.

We could read the Bible, We could stand, walk, and so on, but it was something we were asked to do all alone.

How might your day look different if you scheduled 15 minutes of silence?

B. Communing With Jesus

In a recent book I came across the following sentence:

…the goal of spending time alone [with God] is not to devote that time to prayer but to become a person who prays always.

Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation (Grand Rapids, MI.: Zondervan Reflective, 2021) 56.

A person who prays all the time is one who is conscious of the presence of God at every moment of their lives.

Are we a people who spends time in prayer, or are we people consciously aware of Jesus’ presence in our lives every moment?

C. Living With Authority

In both Mark and Matthew we are told that Jesus’ commissioned these followers with authority.

It was a derived authority. Jesus would remind them - and all His followers - prior to His ascension to the right hand of the Father:

Matthew 28:18 HCSB

Then Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

Our authority is specific:

to proclaim the good news of the gospel; and

to confront the enemy with power.

Don’t miss the order of things:

be with Him

sent out to preach

have authority...

I Will Make...

Thomas Aquinas was a well respected scholar of the Roman Catholic Church several centuries ago. The story is told of he and an acquaintance walking among the splendors of Rome. His friend noted, “We Christians certainly no longer have to say to the world, ‘Silver and gold have we none.’” To this St. Thomas replied, “But neither can we reply to the lame man, ‘In the name of Jesus of Nazareth rise up and walk.

(Recounted in Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: ‘s Understanding How God Changes Lives (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1988), 36.

If Aquinas and his friend were to visit churches in America today they would marvel at the money tied up in buildings and property. They would likely conclude the same about our lack of power.

The power which Peter called on as he responded to the lame man at the entrance to the Temple was not a power Peter generated on his own.

Rather it was a power derived from

being with Jesus

Acts 1:14 HCSB

All these were continually united in prayer, along with the women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brothers.

proclaiming the gospel with power

Acts 2:36–38 HCSB

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah!” When they heard this, they came under deep conviction and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles: “Brothers, what must we do?” “Repent,” Peter said to them, “and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Let the transformation begin...

We have heard the invitation of Jesus: Come, Follow Me.

Listen again to His promise:

I will make you become…

conformed to the image of Christ

shining like stars in a crooked and perverted generation

those who live allowing God’s authority to prevail over the enemy