True Worshipers Encounter - Worship and the Presence of God

For the last two weeks we have been looking at singing and why we should sing in our worship gatherings. This week we shift the focus to how we engage with God’s presence.

Let’s look at this passage from Deuteronomy 4:32-40 as we think about these things:

Deuteronomy 4:32–40 ESV

32 “For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of. 33 Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live? 34 Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him. 36 Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire. 37 And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power, 38 driving out before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day, 39 know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. 40 Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”

I have recently gotten into reading biographies. In the last year or so, I have read several, including ones about: Bono (of U2), Paul McCartney (of the Beatles), Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington. One of the fascinating things about reading a biography is how you get to know the subject. In particular, the biographies on Hamilton and Washington are so thorough, by the end of them, I felt like I knew them. I felt like I was at Valley Forge. I felt like I was in the room when independence was declared. On the battlefield at Monmouth or Yorktown.

Now, as much as I feel like I know these guys, I don’t expect to run into one of them at Kroger. I’m not going to bump into George Washington at the gas station. Because these guys died like 200 years ago. The only way I can encounter them is via a lifeless page.

Kauflin notes that for many of us, this is exactly how we approach God. He states, we treat “Him like the main character of a biography. We learn what He did in the past but don’t expect Him to break into the present. We sing about God but don’t expect to actually engage with Him. We hear and read His Word, but it’s no more than history, principles, commands, and promises in a book. A unique book, to be sure. But just a book…(but) The Bible isn’t the biography of a distant, absent, or dead deity. Alexander Hamilton is dead; Jesus Christ is alive.” (p128)

We can never consider this often enough: Scripture is sufficient. It is sufficient to provide all we need for a godly life.

But God isn’t confined to it. God is near, He is active. God does indeed break into the present. God is personal, and we can and should engage with Him. We can experience God mentally, emotionally, and even physically at times.

Now, when we say ‘experiencing God physically,’ we’re not referring to “shaking, strange coincidences, or emotional excesses.” (p128) We are talking about how God is seeking true worshipers to worship Him in spirit and truth. Truth about who He is. True worshipers that not only believe things about Him, but also know Him. Worshipers that know Him as a living, active, and present God. God isn’t a construct. He isn’t abstract. Jesus is alive and wants us to know Him personally.

See, our worship isn’t just about God, it involves Him.We don’t just throw our praise at Him, it is how we encounter and engage with God. And this engagement happens through God in the person of the Holy Spirit. (p129)

The Holy Spirit is the one who initially opens our eyes to see ourselves as we truly are: sinners. The Holy Spirit causes our hearts to trust in Christ our Savior for complete forgiveness. We see this born out in John 3:5

John 3:5 ESV

5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

John 16:7–9 ESV

7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me;

And Romans 8:15

Romans 8:15 ESV

15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

And, honestly, the whole doctrine of the Holy Spirit is a weak spot in much of our theology because we just forget Him, or take Him for granted. But just as we cannot worship the Father apart from the Son, we cannot worship Him apart from the Spirt either. Robert Rayburn said this, “If worshipers are not consciously dependent upon the Holy Spirit, their worship is not truly Christian.” (p129)

Think about the job of the Holy Spirit. What is the Spirit supposed to do?

John 15:26 ESV

26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.

John 16:14 ESV

14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV

18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit’s primary aim is to glorify Jesus by making us more like Him. The Spirit applies the gospel to our lives so that we might become more like the Savior who redeemed us and know the Father’s love. (p129)

In fact, the Spirit is seeking to inform us of and conform us to Christ, making us aware of both God’s presence and His power.

J.I. Packer said this: “The distinctive, constant, basic ministry of the Holy Spirit under the new covenant is … to mediate Christ’s presence to believers.”

Wayne Grudem echoes that idea of the role of the Holy Spirit “in the new covenant age is to make manifest the presence of God, to give indications that make the presence of God known.” (p130)

But let us really be honest. We hear that, we know that. But how many of us treat the Holy Spirit like our appendix? Like, we know He’s there for something, but we don’t really know what, and if we somehow lost Him, our life wouldn’t look much different. We struggle to understand how God can be present, because He doesn’t really feel present. (p130)

Or maybe you are the other side of the coin. Maybe you and the Holy Spirit are besties. Like, you constantly have conversations with the Spirit, and He tells you what you should be doing, where you should be going, who you should talk to, where you should park your car, what you should order for lunch. Some folks seem so plugged in, because their whole lives are ruled on these “impressions” of the Spirit. (p131)

Now, look, I don’t think either of these positions is healthy. If you can live without the Spirit and it wouldn’t change your life, you’ve never lived with the Spirit in the first place. But if you think the Holy Spirit is ordering your lunch for you, you might be putting too much emphasis on the “impressions” of your own mind.

What we must understand is that God’s presence has always been a defining and distinguishing characteristic of His people. God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden. God spoke to the nation of Israel out of the fire as we saw from our passage in Deuteronomy. God’s visible presence literally sat itself on the tabernacle in the wilderness. Moses talks about God’s presence being a distinguishing mark on His people (Ex 33:14-16). Ezekiel prophesied that when the temple was restored, the name of the place would be called “The Lord is there” Ezekiel 48:35

Ezekiel 48:35 ESV

35 The circumference of the city shall be 18,000 cubits. And the name of the city from that time on shall be, The Lord Is There.”

Jesus was named Emmanuel, meaning God with us.

It isn’t a stretch to say that our response to God’s presence uniquely defines us as God’s people. (p131)

But when we think of God’s presence, what should we look for? What kind of encounters should we expect? How do we seek those encounters without minimizing the sufficiency of God’s Word?

1. Acknowledge God’s Omnipresence

Omnipresence is the presence of God everywhere at the same time. God sees all, He knows all, and He is everywhere at all times. God is present in every situation. When we understand this (as best we can in our finite minds), it helps us to see how we should engage with God. Because God is near.

2. Expect God’s Promised Presence

Ephesians 2:22 promises that God will be near to His church. In fact, if we look at that passage, there is a great picture of how God’s presence is laid out by Paul.

Ephesians 2:18–22 ESV

18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

We see that Christ is the one that gives us access via the Spirit to the Father. Christ allows for us to engage with God’s presence. As Paul is writing to the church there, he reminds them of the importance of Christ as the cornerstone, and then tells them that they (the church) is being built into the dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

And sometimes, it is easier to be aware of God’s presence than other times. But He is still present, because He has promised He would be. And because He is God, he cannot not be there.

Sometimes it is very evident that God is near. A wave of peace. Conviction so sharp it takes our breath. Joy. Sometimes these things feel as if we have walked into the presence of the Lord, or that He has “come down to us.” But in reality, He has always been there, we have just become more aware.

D.A. Carson writes: “Objectively, what brings us into the presence of God is the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus…we may feel encouraged or edified…[but] we are renewed in our awareness of God’s love and God’s truth.” (p133)

This may seem like nuance or semantics, but it is important, because when we feel God’s presence in our worship, we may wrongly associate our actions with summoning God into our presence. In that sense, we (a) misunderstand our relationship to God, because we don’t make him do anything, and (b) we run the risk of worshiping our worship experience and not God.

We have to understand that our worship is a response to who God is, not a way to lead Him into our presence. God is here, right now. Just like He is on Sunday morning when we are singing that song that grips your heart every time we sing it. We didn’t summon Him here. He is no less present in a Bible Study on a Wednesday night than He is in a time of musical worship on Sunday.

The biggest challenge, then, is understanding the difference between actually experiencing and engaging with God’s promised presence versus being moved by a creative arrangement, vocal performance, or sweet melody. To do this, we have to examine both what we are focusing on and the fruit of it. A good rule of thumb: If all we can remember about an experience is the creative aspects, we’re most likely being emotionally moved, without really being spiritually changed. Usually an encounter with God will leave you with a hunger for more. A deeper love of Jesus, a hunger for His Word, a passion to live a holy life.

3. Pursue God’s Experienced Presence

OK, so we know we can’t coax God into being present, because He is already everywhere and He reveals His presence wherever He pleases. Should we then ask Him to reveal Himself to us? Should we pursue a greater manifestation of His presence?

Yes.

Again, even though He is omnipresent, He sometimes chooses to make His presence known. The burning bush, the pillars of cloud and fire, the shaken upper room, the tongues of fire at pentecost.

And look, we all want to see that sort of manifestation of God’s presence. We should pray for God to manifest His presence, while also being very aware of how sinful we are. We cannot orchestrate the activity of God’s Spirit, but we can yearn for it, expect it, and be ready for it. (p136)

Think about the recent revival at Asbury. What started as a regular chapel service turned into an outpouring of God’s Spirit, not because they prayed the right prayer or invoked the magic words, but because God chose that moment to visit His people with His power and presence. We rightly should seek for Him to do the same in our lives. Three attitudes that will help us in this pursuit are: desperate dependence, eager expectation, and humble responsiveness.

-Desperate Dependence

Kauflin bears out a line in the hymn “Jesus Paid It All.” - I hear the Savior say, thy strength indeed is small.

Oh, man, what a picture of who I am before God. My strength is woefully inadequate. The next line helps us to understand what we should do with this plight: Child of weakness, watch and pray. Find in Me thine all in all.

Jesus is our strength. Christ is all and in all (Col 3:11). We are weak, He is strong. We are desperately dependent.

But God has given us His Spirit. And the Spirit has given us God’s Word. His Word is where we find His promises. His plan for us to be free.

And we must remember that dependence doesn’t imply inactivity or waiting around idly. In fact, anyone with a dependence on substances will tell you it isn’t simply waiting on the next fix. You actively pursue it. You seek it out. In the same way, we should be actively seeking God’s presence. We should be actively studying God’s word, growing in knowledge of Him, seeking His will.

-Eager Expectation

How many of you have this thing where, when you know company is coming, you wait by the door, hoping to catch a glimpse of them? Maybe it is family coming in for the holidays. Maybe it is a friend coming over for dinner. Maybe you are waiting for guests to arrive for a party.

We long to have those people we hold dear close, and when they are on their way, we have this anticipation that builds and builds. Do you have that with God?

Some of us want to encounter God. At least, that is what we say. But we don’t really expect Him to show up.

I am reminded of one of those “preacher stories.” Where there was a severe drought in the area, and the locals decided to get together and pray for God to send rain. They set the time, and everyone shows up. But this one older gentleman elicited laughs. Because he came in a rain coat holding an umbrella. Some of the attendees asked him why he did that, as it hadn’t rained in weeks.

“We’re praying for rain, right?”

“Well, yes!”

“So I brought my umbrella. God answers prayer.”

We so often don’t experience God’s presence because we don’t expect God’s presence. We show up, we do the things we are supposed to do, whether it is sing the songs, or give out bulletins, or prepare the Lord’s Supper, or whatever, but we never really expect God to make His presence felt.

But what if we truly expected God to show Himself in our prayers? What if we expected Him to show up when we’re running the soundboard, or taking the offering? Would we be shocked? Or would we be grateful?

If we don’t expect God to move, we most likely will miss what He is already doing. We can and should expect great things from Him.

-Humble Responsiveness

I said this on Sunday, but the gospel requires a response. If we don’t respond, we miss out on ways God wants to use us.

But how God chooses to use most of us isn’t in the flashy pentecost way, but in the mundane. That was the problem at Corinth, and it is a problem for us today. We want to be the spiritual poster-child for God, not the one who hands out bulletins or helps in nursery for God’s glory.

Humble responsiveness means speaking up or acting whenever I think God might want to work through me. Those urges to pray for someone. That snippet of scripture that suddenly hits your brain when you see someone in the hallway. Humble responsiveness is sharing that prayer, that “impression” with that person in the short term.

When I was in seminary, one of my professors had a policy that whenever someone asked him to pray about something, he would do it immediately. His thought was that Christians say we pray for people, but we rarely actually do. We mean too, we just get busy and forget. But when someone says, “pray for my aunt, she’s having surgery,” and you stop what you are doing and pray for them right there, you show this humble responsiveness. You illustrate to the person asking for prayer that you believe in the power and practice of prayer, and you demonstrate your faith in a tangible way.

The Spirit prompts us, but we must be listening. We must be in God’s word, as well, because that is the only way to test these “impressions” to see if they are genuinely of the Spirit or if they are from our own mind. D.A. Carson says it this way:

“We must desire to know more of God’s presence in our lives, and pray for a display of unleashed, reforming, revivifying power among us, dreading all steps that aim to domesticate God. But such prayer and hunger must always be tempered with joyful submission to the constraints of biblical discipline.”

4. Long for God’s Unveiled Presence

One final way to think about God’s presence is in its purest form: heaven. In heaven we will be with God continually. Revelation 21:22 reminds us of this:

Revelation 21:22 ESV

22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.

On this side of heaven, through Christ and His raising us up with Christ, we are seated with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:6). Our gatherings together should be a foretaste, a picture of what heaven will be like as we gather together to sing and worship our God. It should both give us joy for one another and whet our appetite for that future when we will be fully united with Christ in Glory, in the presence of God the Father, not looking as through a glass darkly, but beholding Him face to face.

The best is still to come.