God, Where Are You? (2)

God, Where Are You?

Good morning, children of God! During this season of Advent, as we remember the arrival of Jesus Christ, and as we look forward to our King’s return, we can rest in His hope, peace, joy, and love.

Every believer at some point is shaken to their core, has doubts, and will ask the question “God, where are you?”

I was asked why I would have a topic like “God, where are you” during Advent. What better time? There are a lot of people struggling this Christmas season. Some of us are struggling with the death of loved ones, loss of finances, sickness, and family problems.

Are we supposed to pretend that these things don’t exist because it is the Christmas season? This is the very question asked by so many before Christ was born and at times, by many of us today. I have asked “God, where are you” multiple times over the last several years, and to be honest, recently. I do not have to look very far, because He is always there.

God has big shoulders and he can handle our thoughts, questions, and doubts. Brothers and sisters, this is where we are supposed to come together to be open and honest, to help each other heal, to pray for one-another, and to bring everything before our heavenly Father together.

Heartache, frustration, depression, grief, anxiety, and death are not foreign to any of us. We live in a broken world that, through free-will and self-will, humans make mistakes, people hurt us, and we hurt others. People will fail us. We will fail others. God does not fail. Our hope is not in people, our hope is in Christ Jesus alone!

Some people have developed the wrong picture of God in their minds. They have developed this thought that God has a job, and His job is to make us happy. God is not some kind of genie whose job it is to grant our wishes.

Some of us will demand that God perform for us and do our bidding. When God does not what we want, we start to think He has abandoned us or that He is absent.

Sadly, a lot of people base their faith on this misconception of God. Many of us have said “I don’t feel God,” “I don’t feel the Spirit,” I am here to tell you this morning that how you or I “feel” has no impact on the truth that is God.

Our feelings certainly do not change that Christ left his rightful place in the Kingdom, was born in humility, died at the cross for our sake, ascended to the Father, sent the Holy Spirit, and will one day himself return. God is for us and God is with us.

If you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, I am obligated to tell you that God is right in front of you, inviting you, offering you the love, mercy, and grace that He so desperately wants to give you.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, God is with you, beside you, above you, and in you. God’s presence and care never leave you.

We ask God where He is at times. We need to turn that around and answer the same question when God asks us “Where are you?” Where are you this morning?

“Where are you?”

This is the very question that God asked Adam in the garden after Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree.

Genesis 3:9 NIV

9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

God knew exactly where Adam was hiding—and it’s a question the Lord continues to ask you and me today.

God knows exactly where you and I are! He wasn’t looking for a missing person when He asked Adam and Eve where they were hiding—He wanted them to understand what they had done. God wanted them to experience the realization that they had turned away from Him. That they had separated themselves from Him. That they had walked away from Him.

Even with that, in Genesis 3:21, God showed His great love by clothing Adam and Eve in animal skin. That was the first sacrifice in scripture. A sacrifice not made to God, but a sacrifice God performed for Adam and Eve. A foreshadowing of the coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The perfect sacrifice made not by man’s hand, but by God’s hand.

Just like He asked Adam and Eve, the Lord is asking you and me today, “Where are you?” How are you going to answer Him?

Are you walking right beside Him or are you trying to hide from Him?

Have you chosen a path that excludes God or one that glorifies the Father this morning?

Sometimes we will act like little kids “bolting” ahead of God. Grasping at the things of this world. He does not punish us for that, but like a little kid, we will end up getting hurt when we are not in step with Him and walking with Him.

There is another question we must ask ourselves.

“What am I Willing to Do?”

God wants the very best for His children. To know God is to have a personal relationship with Him, through Christ. That personal relationship comes through prayer, reading His Word, and through fellowship with one another. When we do those things, the Father’s will becomes our will. We begin to fully experience the peace and the hope that is found only in the LORD.

We have to discipline ourselves and be obedient in our pursuit. We cannot make excuses, we have to want it. We must put the effort in. When we do, we find that His hope, peace, joy, and love are right in front of us for the taking.

Let’s look at an example:

In John 5, there was a man who had been paralyzed for thirty eight years. There was this pool called the “Pool at Bethesda.” The people at the time believed that if you got in the pool at a certain time during the year, you would be healed. Jesus finds this paralyzed man near the pool and said this:

John 5:6 NLT

6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”

Jesus asked him a very direct question, and he asks each of us the same question this morning. “Do you want to get well?” To get well, we must want to get well and be willing to do what it takes. In counseling, we have two questions we sometimes ask: “What do you want?” “What are you willing to do to make it happen?”

For those who do not know Christ, this is His question to you. “Do you want to be well?” “Do you want to be healed?” “Do you want forgiveness and to be made new?” People can have knowledge of Christ, but still not know Him intimately. If you are in that place this morning, please come speak with Pastor Paul or myself after service today.

For those of us who are already believers, There is a question we must ask ourselves. “Do we really want to be healed?” This is a two-fold question. Are we willing to give up the things of this world that many of us still cling to?

There are thoughts, philosophies, and beliefs that we at times try to impose on the Word and the Truth of God. We try to change the Word and Truth of God to match our lifestyle. It is the Word and the Truth of God that is to remove worldly philosophies, thoughts, and behaviors from our lives.

Something else we tend to do is to carry bitterness, unresolved conflict, and things we hide away within us. We cover them up and push them down. and we do our best to bury them. Eventually, those things we have buried take a toll on us. It is like poison that will eventually bubble over and poison our soul. Jesus asks you this morning, as he asked the paralyzed man, “Do you want to be healed.”

Jesus comes to each of us, personally, like he did with this man, but we have to say “Yes” if we want Him to help clean up those things in us. We all have them. As we allow the Holy Spirit to work in us, He provides the inner healing that we need. We have to be willing to put the work in that he requires of us.

What is our mindset and attitude when we go into the presence of God? Is He the God of “I can’t” or is He the Great “I AM?” Look at what the paralyzed man says to Jesus.

John 5:7 NLT

7 “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”

This is a picture of so many believers, including myself at times. You figure this man would have been enthusiastically saying “YES! I want to get well, I want to be healed!” Instead, he begins to give Jesus excuses as to why he cant be healed. He had been in this condition for so long that his “will” was as paralyzed as his body.

There are times when we will give every reason why we cannot when God has already told us that all things are possible for those who believe in Him. The problem is that we want to fix ourselves, but most of the time, spiritual and emotional healing are not going to happen our way. Just like this man, we know we cannot do it alone. We need Jesus Christ to help us with it. Are you willing to allow the LORD to provide inner healing?

Look what happens next:

John 5:8 NLT

8 Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”

Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk. The man had to put forth the effort, he had to believe. He had to be obedient. He had to put the effort in to “get up.” Are we willing to “get up” and do what the LORD commands?

This man did get up and walk. Not because of some “mystical pool” but because of his obedience at the command of God. This man had to get out of his own head so that the LORD could do His work in him.

There are times we will get so lost in our thoughts and feelings that we become paralyzed by them. We have to make room for the Holy Spirit to do His work in us. We have to be willing participants and willing to do what He calls us to do.

God is the perfect Father. He is right there when your “will” is paralyzed. Those times when you are afraid, when you feel like you can’t take another step, when you are overwhelmed, and in those times when you may be feeling utter hopelessness. God is saying to you: “Stand up my child, I am with you.” “Walk, I will guide you.”

You are not alone this morning. You have the indwelling of the very Spirit of God, Holy Spirit, and you have a cloud of witnesses in the body of Christ surrounding you in this moment. You are not alone.

Jesus is right there with us. When we seek Him in the darkest nights and on the brightest days, we see His hand in and on everything.

God does not create the fires we walk through, but Jesus walks through those fires with each of us. That is His promise brothers and sisters. That is hope. That is what brings true peace to the human heart.

Now, there may be somebody thinking “This teaching does not apply to me.” If you do not experience what we are talking about today or you have not experienced any of it, praise God! Your job then is to come up beside someone who is experiencing these things. We are all called to be the imago Christi, the image of Christ to others.

If you have suffered or are suffering with depression, anxiety, crushing grief, or emotional trauma, Jesus Christ gets it. Christ knows how you feel.

Mark 14:34 NLT

34 He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

Jesus is talking to the three disciples he was closest with. His inner circle., Peter, James and John. They ended up falling asleep. This takes place hours before Jesus is arrested at the Garden at Gethsemane. Notice it does not say “Spirit,” there is no crushing the Holy Spirit. It says “soul.” The Greek word for “soul” is psuchē (soo-kay), meaning “heart and life.“ Jesus’ heart is crushed.

The sorrow that Jesus feels here is so extreme, the grief is so intense, Jesus’ heart is so strained, that it becomes life threatening. Jesus is experiencing acute anxiety, major depression, and thoughts about dying all at once. Jesus felt like he was dying inside. Many of us have been there. So has Jesus Christ, our High Priest.

So intense where these emotions that Luke records this:

Luke 22:44 NLT

44 He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.

Jesus knows how we feel. His suffering had been revealed to Him. The cup of suffering that he would endure. A cup he willingly took even though he did not deserve it. Knowing that he would suffer a horrible and painful death. Knowing that for the first time in his earthly life, on the cross, he would be separated from His Father as he carried the sin of the world. My sin, your sin, becoming the atoning sacrifice for you and for me. So that we could be counted as children of God.

Worship Team to Stage

Yet, in that garden, Jesus prayed, he prayed this prayer three times. He drew close to God through the anguish. Emotionally and physically exhausted, Jesus got up so he could go. Jesus did not find comfort in the disciples who kept falling asleep. He found his comfort in God.

In this season of Advent, grab on to His hope, peace, joy, and love. Remember that Abba Daddy loves you. He sent His only son to prove it to you. Our God is bigger than anything that we face in this life. Are you walking with Him this morning, because He is right there with you whether you sense Him or not.

Alter Call/Prayer