Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

An atheist and a Christian were debating the value of prayer, and the atheist said, "I never pray."

The Christian said, "But you must have prayed at sometime in your life."

"Yes," he admitted.

"I did pray once.

I was on a hunting trip in the Yukon and got separated from my party.

A blizzard came up, and I became snow blind as I wondered about, and then I was also starving and cold.

I finally fell on my knees and asked God for help."

"Well," said the Christian, "it looks like you got it."

"Got it nothing" he responded, "if an Indian guide hadn't come along just then I would have died."

Here was a man who was experiencing the absence of God in the very presence of God's grace and loving kindness.

Unfortunately, this is an experience not limited to atheist and unbelievers.

Even God's own people can have all kinds of misconceptions that blind them to the presence of God.

The Jewish leaders had their own ideas about what the Messiah would be like, and so, even in the presence of the Messiah they experienced His absence, and they rejected Him.

Christ was objectively there in their presence, but they were not subjectively aware of His presence.

How often does Christ come unto His own, and His own receive Him not?

Multiplied millions of times, I am sure.

Theologically Jesus is always present with us, but practically we experience His absence because we are not aware of that presence.

He promised He would never leave us nor forsake us, but we need to become aware of His being ever present.

This is what Paul was doing on Mars Hill as he tried to make the Athenians aware of the presence of God.

They worshipped an unknown god.

A god that seemed far away, and they only had an obscure awareness of this absent god.

Paul's message was to help them become aware that God is not far away at all, but very near, and that in fact, they lived and moved and had their being in Him.

We are not unlike these Athenians, and part of our problem is that we need to be up a tree and out on a limb like Zaccheaus before we become aware of the presence of Christ.

We get conditioned by dramatic stories to think that the only time to seek Christ's presence is in a crisis.

We read of Daniel in the lion's den; the three friends in the fiery furnace, and Paul and Silas in the dungeon, all experiencing the presence of Christ in great power, and we think this will come in handy if I ever get stuck in a hopeless situation.

But what we really need is an awareness of His presence in the common place every day events of life.

The crisis is rare, and if we only want to be aware of Christ in a crisis, we put Him in the same category as an insurance policy.

We only need to think of Him when something goes radically wrong.

This is a very superficial concept of who Jesus is as Savior and Lord, and it eliminates Him altogether from the role of companion, guide, and friend.

Paul is seeking to convince the Athenians that the God who sent His Son into the world is the God of the commonplace.

He is the God of the every day, the marketplace, and the home, as well as the God of the Temple.

This unknown God does not need to remain unknown, for it is His desire that men know Him and experience His presence.

In verses 27 and 28 Paul makes two things clear: There is an objective and subjective presence of God.

In other words, there is the actuality Of God's Presence, and the awareness of God's presence.

There is the fact of God's presence, but only the feeling of God's presence makes the fact a vital part of every day life.

Paul says God wants us to seek for Him.

He wants man to reach out and touch someone, and He wants that someone to be Him.

He is not far from each one of us, but we can miss Him completely if we do not strive to reach Him.

Fact and feeling must become one; the actuality and the awareness must be united.

Let's look first at-

I. THE ACTUALITY OF GOD'S PRESENCE.

The Bible makes it clear that God is everywhere because of the very nature of His being.

Matter cannot be at two places at the same time, but this law does not apply to spirit.

Spirit does not have the limitations of matter, and since God is spirit He has no limit of place.

Our bodies are stuck to being in one place at a time, but our minds can be in many places at the same time.

My mind is just as aware of the clock in the back as it is of the pulpit in the front, and of the windows on the side.

My mind is present everywhere in this room even though my body is present only in one spot.

My body is in the front, but my mind is everywhere in the room.

If I had a mind that transcended the limits of these walls I could be aware of more yet.

God has a mind that is universal, and thus, He is aware of all that is a part of His creation, and thus, He is everywhere present in His universe, just I can with my mind be everywhere present in this room.

There is no where to go to be out of the presence of God.

This is David's point in Ps. 139 where he writes, "Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where I can flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens you are there; if I make my bed in the depths you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me."

You can't go where God is not, anymore than you can go to another pew and be out of my awareness.

As long as you are in the sphere of my awareness you are in my presence.

God's awareness takes in all the universe, and therefore, there is no place to go out of His presence.

God does not have to work at being present everywhere anymore than we have to work at being aware of how many fingers we have, or of how many people are sitting at the table with us.

We can all easily be aware of what is part of our immediate environment.

So God, because He is everywhere present, is easily aware of all that is.

As President Lundquist of Bethel once said, "God knows the number of hairs on our heads, not because He makes a count each time I comb it, but because He is present at every point.

He knows that number as easily as we know the number of people riding in a car with us.

The implications of God's omnipresence are enormous.

One of them is that He is always available whether we are aware of Him or not.

Tennyson wrote,

Speak to Him for He hears,

And Spirit with spirit can meet.

Closer is He than breathing,

And nearer than hands and feet.

The actuality of God's presence is a theological truth, but to experience this reality we need to move on to the second point which is-

II.

THE AWARENESS OF GOD'S PRESENCE.

We need to understand that much that is real, true, and actual does not have an impact on our lives until we become aware of it.

Candid Camera is a great example.

People do things they would never do if they were aware they were on camera.

When they become aware they immediately cease to do the foolish things they were doing.

We do the same thing everyday in our homes.

We do things that hurt and hinder rather than help and heal.

They are foolish things we do and say to those we love for any number of reasons, but primarily because we let the circumstances of life control us.

We let the frustrations of life outside the home affect how we treat those inside the home.

Just imagine how becoming aware that the Candid Camera crew had set up your home to film how you treat your family after a miserable day at work.

You would by the power of that awareness suppress all anger and unkind cutting remarks, and you would be curteous and thoughtful and reasonable in all your requests.

You would be a model of love.

But since you know the chances are several billion to one that your reactions to life behind your own doors is going on tape, you feel free to be sub-Christian without the fear of discovery.

Our awareness that our behavior would be exposed to the public would greatly modify our behavior.

We can only justify sub-Christian behavior because we are unaware of the presence of Christ.

We practice the absence of Christ because it is the only way we can be comfortable on a sub-Christian level.

It would be extremely embarrassing to come rushing into your living room screaming at your mate or children, and discover Jesus sitting on the couch visiting with the one you are blasting verbally.

You'd give anything to have the chance to go back and come in dealing with the issue in a civil and polite manner.

The point is, if we could be aware of the presence of Christ we could control all of the sub-Christian impulses that all of us feel at times.

Teilhard de Chardin said something that could change our lives if we would take it seriously.

He said, "Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God."

If we were aware of the presence of God and of Jesus in our lives, we would have a taste of heaven, and joy would be a dominant characteristic of our lives.

Only in heaven will all tears be wiped away, and so there will always be tears in this life, but an awareness of the presence of Christ will enable us to handle the negatives of life in a more positive way.

Angela Morgan may seem too ivory towered in her poem, but the fact is, the more we can reach out to the level of her awareness, the more we can experience the glory of the commonplace.

She writes,

I am aware

As I go commonly sweeping the stair,