The Immanence of God

Introduction:

What is this I have up here (answer: clock)

Now use your super duper imaginations and pretend with me this is a grandfather clock....one that does not have a battery…but has a swinging pendulum....you know what i’m talking about

The clock maker, the person who made the clock…they shape it, they design it, they put all the pieces and the parts together.....and then they start the pendulum....and they are designed to never need to be touched again. As long as that pendulum keeps swinging, the clock runs

Well, you didn’t come tonight to learn about clocks…if you did, you plugged the wrong address into your fancy smancy gps!

God is Immanent

This past Wednesday, we looked at the true story of Job, and we ended with the idea that God cares about our suffering, that He is involved, that He longs to come beside us

This is very very true

That is what it means when we say God is immanent

It means God is personable and relatable to those made in His image....ie....humans

That He is involved in your life, involved in my life

All throughout Scripture, we see God being personally involved in the lives of people:

, God walked with adam and eve

-26 - God gave Moses intricate details for the tabernacle and for the ark of the covenant so that God could come and dwell among men again

- Israel failed in their covenant, and God removed Himself

- God returned, via Immanuel (God with us)

- At the very end of history, it says that God will dwell with humanity, live with them, in perfection

See....God’s desire has always been to dwell with people, to draw near to people

Some people think of God like the clockmaker…this great deity who set the world in motion and then left it to itself

Is God distinct from His creation, is He over His creation......ABSOLUTELY

On Wed, His response to Job made that fact extremely clear

God is transcendent over His creation

, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

God’s so much higher than we are, so much bigger than we can think, so kflghsgdalfjg, it’s hard to imagine

So What

So what do we do with this

We see a God who is on both ends of the spectrum

So much bigger than everything, so distinct from His creation, transcendent over all things

And we have a God who is immanent, who wants to be in relationship with His created people

That right there should blow your mind

Put anybody in power, and what do they do?

They separate themselves don’t they?

They get armed guards

They live in a palace up on top of a hill

Or in a white house surrounded by gates, secret police and rifles

They are put on high, and the people are left down low

Not God....He is immanent

He wants to walk through life with you

He wants to be there with you as you suffer

He wants to comfort you

but

He is the King of Kings

He is the Lord of Lords

He does control all things

And you know what…He made a way to be both....through Jesus Christ, and that my friends is fantastically great news

Apart from Christ…we would be absolutely terrified and destroyed by trying to come near to the God who is above all things

But through Christ…we can approach Him as a friend

Guys....let that sink it…it’s absolutely huge

Do you know God that way?

Do you view Him as a distant God who wants nothing to do with you?

Well maybe you don’t know God like I know Him, and we’d love to introduce you!

Or, do you treat God as just a friend next door, who you talk to when you want, ignore when you want?

Well, maybe you’d do well to think about who that God is that you are treating so lightly