Nothing Else

I was so tempted to get Super church nerdy with today’s sermon as I re-read my theology books to prepare. Yet as I read about contrasting views of monarchianism and the neo-classical theological approach to the understanding of the trinity, it really hits that you don’t care. Almost no one cares. In fact, the whole point of the sermon today is that what you think about me is not as important as the most important thing. It’s true even the person next to you, no matter who it is, what they think of you, doesn’t matter when it comes to your purpose in life.

Here is something people care about.

My Dad had a visit with his doctor recently. That doctor happened to be my mom’s doctor too. He told my Dad during their visit that many patients come into his practice and he doesn’t remember most of them but he will never forget my mom. He will never forget the way she handled herself in her last year of life. My Dad told his doctor, who happens to not be a Christian, that it was because of her relationship with God. Even people who don’t know God care about being in the presence of someone who shows the character of God in their life. I got to see one of my mother’s nurses just a week ago. Carey, the nurse, used that phrase, that it was special to be in my mom’s presence.

Today it’s all about presence. The impact that being with another makes on us. You don’t even have to know them that well but the time you get to spend in the presence of another has impact. It truly does matter.

Yesterday, my family got to help Kenny unpacking his new place. So excited for him and praying for this part of his life and ministry. He is moving into a new apartment complex. Everyone was moving into this brand new place. So everyone is excited. Just being in their presence, even riding on the elevator got me excited.

Here, on a Sunday, as we’ve set aside time to concentrate on and praise God, it is said by some that we enter into God’s presence. That’s where the song, that we sing, begins as it reads,

I'm caught up in Your presence / I just want to sit here at Your feet / I'm caught up in this holy moment / I never want to leave

This is one of those weird times that I want to throw a theology penalty flag. Theology is the study of God. When we study God, We know God as He has revealed himself to us directly and to all of us through the Bible, the eternal word of God.

Ok, so what’s the Theology penalty? It’s a penalty of understanding. Have you ever heard someone pray or even say in a worship service, come Holy Spirit to this place or let us enter here into his presence?

That prayer is totally wrong. The saying is wrong. Because The Holy Spirit, God himself, is with and in any who follow Jesus.

John 14:17 CSB

17 He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you.

2 Timothy 1:14 CSB

14 Guard the good deposit through the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

So, if you follow Jesus, than the Holy Spirit is in you.

If you look at someone here who you believe is a follower of Jesus, and they truly are a believer in Jesus Christ than the Holy Spirit is in them. If someone said “Holy Spirit enter here” and you were at the worship or prayer service you could answer the prayer and say, “Present.”

Whether you are getting a hot dog or you are praising the Lord with singing and shouting. The Holy Spirit’s presence is there.

Yet, now, be patient with me, I’m just getting you ready for the Super Bowl too, when the refs all gather and have a conversation for what seems like 20 minutes on a penalty.

Upon further review, our song, never says, “invite the Holy Spirit into your presence, or that the singing is where the presence of the Holy Spirit is at, the song actually says,

“I'm caught up in Your presence”

The phrase “caught up in” is an idiom, a fancy phrase, for a way we talk that uses language in an artsy way. Caught up in your presence means becoming aware of . It might be the difference between how one feels driving by Harding and California streets, where both St. Joseph’s Hospital, County mental health services, and the cemetary are. The difference one feels driving by these buildings as opposed to needing to be inside these places. At Harding and California, you are in the presence of an illness, injury, and funerals but when you are using these services, than you are “Caught up in the presence.”

Another example, My daughter and I drive to work every day together. It takes about 10 minutes. Most of the time, she is tik-toking with head phones on. I’m in her presence. But every once in a while she talks with me, she pauses the phone, and we have great conversation, then I am “Caught up in her presence.” We really become aware.

My friends the Holy Spirit is always with you. Yet often, we forget that, until we are concentrating on the relationship in worship. Remember what Jesus said,

Matthew 28:20 (CSB)

20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

God is with you, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, follow Him, beginning with baptism, yes you, Have the Lord with you but you have to realize that He is.

I remember going shopping with my friend Alicia, who might be watching, due to her health she isn’t able to be here today. Anyway, Alicia is short. Really short and we would go shopping to the grocery store or to the mall. I would be shopping with her and then I would lose her. I mean totally lose her, I would start looking every where. Really worried, until I looked down, and she was staring up at me annoyed again.

Follower of Jesus that is you with the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, you just forget. Then, bam, you realize what is always with you. The amazing love and care of God. The blessing, the calling, the purpose of your life is with you.

When you do, you can turn into the Biblical character of Mary or Isaiah realizing as the song writer does in singing the song that nothing is as precious as being fully aware of God’s presence.

I'm caught up in Your presence / I just want to sit here at Your feet / I'm caught up in this holy moment / I never want to leave

It’s right then that we have the appropriateness to really understand what worship is about. It’s about giving worth to God. The God who loves. The God who is active. The God who died for us and the God who rose again. The God who creates and restores. The God who is supreme and over all.

Being that aware we sing,

Oh, I'm not here for blessings / Jesus, You don't owe me anything / More than anything that You can do / I just want You

There is a thing we do in my house, whenever I feel like it. I call my kids into the room and we just talk. Sometimes I give them a rule even, like you get to talk about your subject, whatever you want to talk about, and we will just listen. The whole family, to what each of the family members want to talk about, for three or more minutes. I have heard riddles, jokes, stories about shows, and a lot of other things but what I really got was my kids. As they are.

To want God in this way, not as God impacts my life, but just in His presence. In His way. When we enter God’s presence in this way, everything changes.

The Bible says it this way

Philippians 3:7–8 CSB

7 But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ

This is the reason we worship, the reason we pray, the reason we meditate with Bible reading, the reason we gather to realize the presence of the Holy Spirit.

This is why when we go on a retreat or even a great Sunday, when we drop all the things that don’t matter to concentrate on what we really are created for everything feels blessed. We are like an engine that finally has everything working like it was made to do.

And yet, we can quickly forget. We can treat worship like the thing we need to get through. It’s really common, letting our minds wander to what happens later or what others are thinking, than on worship with and of God. Like my daughter in my presence but wearing headphones, we can be that way too not caught up in the presence of God but caught up in each other’s presence or distracted. It’s so common the musician wrote words about it.

I'm sorry when I've just gone through the motions / I'm sorry when I just sang another song / Take me back to where we started / I open up my heart to You

This is a real problem for followers of Jesus. Going through the motions is toxic. You’ve heard people say that following Jesus is a relationship. It is and relationships that are ignored can wilt and become weak. This is such a problem that Jesus warned was about it 1900 years ago in the Bible

Revelation 2:3–4 NLT

3 You have patiently suffered for me without quitting. 4 “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!

Like all relationships, God doesn’t deserve or want to be ignored. He is not our second fiddle, God is not our support to help us achieve the goals of our heart. He is the one that is supposed to be the top of the relationship. We are achieving the goals of God.

We even sing the same realization in the second verse.

I'm sorry when I've come with my agenda / I'm sorry when I forgot that You're enough

Jesus is enough. We say it every week, what Jesus told us,

Matthew 11:28–30 CSB

28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

In this day and age when everyone is claiming an end is coming or that “they are working to ruin everything” Jesus is telling us that following Him isn’t all on us. Christianity is not in danger at the next election. Even if the stock market collapses tomorrow Jesus will still be enough. In fact He will be and already is all that can be depended on.

The real danger is that our focus is on these things that easily can be taken away and not on the things of God which can not. Even if you are still working, then you should work hard, as the Bible tells us to work for the Lord, as if Jesus was our boss, and in your work, you should do good, what God has shown you is good. Honesty and love should come through in your work whatever it is. If you are cooking, or accounting or teaching or healing, whatever it is, even selling do it with love and rightness. Yet let your main focus, not be a promotion but in showing your love to Jesus.

Jesus is enough. He is enough so that even your love-life matters to Him.

The saying is, “if you know, you know.” I have seen those who never trusted God with their romantic needs and I have seen those who were willing to trust God, and how much the Lord has blessed.

This song is tough. The words are powerful and specific. The song points out how much we actually cheat on God. How quickly we go after feeling rather than God. How quickly we go after what we think we want, rather than a focus on the matters of God.

Why do we take our eyes off of God? Why do we people who go to church so often do that?

Is it because we actually begin to focus not on God, but on the motions of church or what we think church people should be like?

Here it is, in the middle of the song, a prayer that all of us should not only sing but believe. When we sing in this song,

Take me back to where we started / I open up my heart to You

Remember when you felt closest to God and realize today that God never left. Even if you failed, you know you have sin. You know that you forgot that the Holy Spirit called you. You were baptized and you believed Jesus than as much as you do know, that Holy Spirit never left. That Holy Spirit that you saw at the retreat, or when you said yes to Jesus. That delivered you from that crisis. That God never left.

Like my friend Alicia and me at the mall, you don’t have to run everywhere looking, God is right there waiting for you to see Him.

You might just need to repent of chasing after everything not God. Trying to make your family happy, boss happy, bank account happy, you, yourself, trying to make your desires happy. Whatever it is, the one who needs to be happy with us is God. No matter what. Jesus shows us this kind of life.

Jesus showed it when He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane,

Luke 22:42 NLT

42 “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

This is why the bridge of the song is what should be the meditations of our hearts tomorrow and every day. As we focus on God.

I just want You/ Nothing else, nothing else / Nothing else will do

Nothing else. Jesus told us

John 10:10 CSB

10 A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.

The greatest thing about God is His love. Out of his love is the fruit called forgiveness. So that now, even when we finally notice how we actually treat God, when we like I used to do with my friend Alicia and see that God is here and has been all a long. It is another opportunity for us to ask His forgiveness of our focus on everything and everyone else, and return to Him.

1 John 1:9 NLT

9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.

We can drop our agendas and spend time with God.

Will you do that? Will you remember? Will you ask forgiveness of God and recognize the Holy Spirit and His guidance. Join me in this simple prayer.

I just want you God, Nothing else, nothing else, nothing else will do. I just want you Holy Spirit. Nothing else, nothing else, nothing else will do. In Jesus name, Amen.