Dwelling with God

Introduction

(opening story, TBD)

Over the last couple of Sundays, we’ve focused on the events leading up to Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. Last week, we discussed some of the evidences confirming the resurrection and it’s implication. Today, we’re going to look at the last several verses in the book of Matthew as we consider what’s next.

Now, I recognize that these verses - especially 18-20 are very familiar. The Great Commission - ...

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

English Standard Version Chapter 28

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

… is a very familiar passage.

But for today, I want to focus on the last sentence in the book of Matthew…

“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

As I think through this sentence, I wonder what the disciples must have sensed, what they were feeling. Most likely, several days or even a few weeks have passed since the resurrection. If we look at John’s account - we can even assume that Jesus has been telling His disciples that he will be leaving, but that the Holy Spirit will be with them (). And yet, Jesus clearly states that he is with them - to the completion of time.

What did this mean for the disciples? What does this mean for us? What does it look like for us to be with or remain or abide with Jesus?

Today, as we consider this verse, and several other verses, we’re going to reflect on the what and the why of dwelling or being with God.

Barry D. Jones, a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, wrote a book entitled “Dwell: Life with God for the World.” In his book, he relates being with God to breathing. Inhale is being filled with the presence of God, exhale is being on mission for God. Put another way, we could say that...

The mission of God is fueled by the presence of God in us.

One thing we have to realize is that there is...

Nothing New Under the Sun

For just a moment, let’s zoom out and consider the fact that that God has always worked this way. Throughout the Old Testament, we can see instances where God’s presence and is mission worked together.

At Creation...

In the Garden of Eden, God formed Adam out of the dust of the earth and breathed life into him. In both Hebrew and Greek - the word for breath is the same word for spirit (Jones, 41). In some ways, God filling Adam’s lungs with breath is a foreshadow of God filling us with His Spirit. Beyond just filling Adam with His Spirit - or life, He gave Adam a mandate -

English Standard Version Chapter 1

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

In addition to this, unlike all of the other creatures of the Earth, humans are the only ones created in the image of God. Jones states:

“Adam and Eve are created to bear the image of God by representing his reign over creation and exercising dominion on his behalf. They are commissioned as vice regents on behalf of the rightful king of creation. Their task is to ensure that God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Barry D. Jones, 41).

At creation, we see that God’s presence gave fuel for his mission.

In the Exodus...

Years later, as Moses is leading the people of Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness, God’s presence travelled with them - symbolized by the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. In , God tells Moses that His presence will be with them and Moses replies, if your presence won’t go with us then we won’t leave this place. Moses desperately wanted God’s presence so that the mission could be fulfilled.

God had Moses create a Tabernacle or a tent in which his presence would dwell. This became synonymous with the presence of God. As the people would wander in the wilderness, this tabernacle would be assembled and disassembled at each location, and the symbol of God’s presence would rest there.

In the Conquest of Canaan...

Just before the people of Israel cross over the Jordan river, an Angel of the Lord visits Joshua, symbolizing the God’s presence with them. Time and again, Joshua seeks the Lord for wisdom and guidance. In the opening battle - if you would like to call it that, God tells Joshua to have the people march around the city of Jericho for several days, and then multiple times on the last day. God toppled the walls of Jericho by His hand and sent the people of Israel to complete the destruction.

We even see throughout the book of Joshua and other books, the presence of the Ark of the Covenant - a gold-plated box that contained the commandments of God and other artifacts. Again, symbolizing the presence of God as the people of God fulfill the mission of God.

We can also see God’s presence...

In the life of David...

Finally, we can see the presence of God throughout the life of David as he sought the Lord’s direction before entering into battle. David did not want to move without the blessing and direction of God.

So, in the great commission, Jesus is acting consistently with how He operated from the beginning of time.

So let’s consider how God’s presence and His mission work together in our lives. Dr. Jones illustrates this simply with the metaphor of breathing - inhaling receives the presence of God, exhaling fulfills the mission of God. He states:

“The breathing in is our participation in the divine life. The breathing out, our participation in the divine mission.” (p. 12)

Breathing in - Experiencing God’s Presence

I think for many Christians this is the fun part. This is the part where we get to bask in the presence and in the blessing of God. This is where we get to enjoy Him through His Word, through prayer, through times of worship, through listening to teaching, through retreats, and Bible studies. This makes us feel good, except when we get convicted by the Spirit on something.

Just as breathing in is a regular part of life, so spiritually speaking, we need to breathe in. We need to be filled before we can fulfill.

I think there is a “me” and a “we” aspect to our spiritual lives. There is the breathing in that we do individually through our personal times of fellowship with God (quite times, Bible reading, meditation, fasting, prayer, etc.) and then there is the breathing in that we do corporately in worship, corporate prayer, Bible Study, etc. I think this is why the writer of Hebrews states that we should not neglect meeting together (). We are urged to live in community, not isolated from one another, but sharpening one another.

It is in this time of breathing in that we learn more about God, that we seek to understand His commands for us, that we seek to understand how he works.

In , we get a very detailed glimpse into the last instructions that Jesus left with His disciples. It’s believed that these words were spoken by Him on the night that He was arrested. Over the course of these four chapters, Jesus talks about the fact that he would send the Holy Spirit to be both a comforter and an instructor. He talked about how his followers can remain or abide in him - through obeying his commandments - especially to love.

So how do we “breathe in” spiritually speaking? Here are some thoughts that I’ve gleaned from scripture, from Jones’ book, and from Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God. In , Jesus uses the word “abide” or “remain” as a means of challenging is disciples to stay in him. He uses the metaphor of a vine and branches to illustrate this. The Greek word for abide or remain can also be translated, “stay.” Let’s consider how we practice the presence of God and breathe in as we S.T.A.Y. -

Slow Down

Tune In

Ask

Yield

Slow Down - so much of our lives are filled with fast paced activity. We like to fill our schedules and every moment with stuff. We go from event to event, taking little time to breathe. I know I am so guilty of this. Unfortunately, this fast paced life permeates into our relationship with God. We, or should I say, I, want God to meet me, speak to me, instruct me on my time frame, in short bits. What would happen if, as we enter into our time of personal devotion or Bible reading, if we would simply pause for even a minute, to clear our minds of the clutter so that we can be fully present with God. If we think back to Jesus’ metaphor of the vine and the branches, branches can’t do much unless they are connected to the vine. It takes time for the nutrients to go from the roots to the fruit. Slow down and be patient. Brother Lawrence was not known to be someone who did things very quickly, instead he plodded along in faithful obedience of his assignment, being careful to complete the task, mindful of the One that he was service. In addition to slowing down, I think we need to...

Slow Down - so much of our lives are filled with fast paced activity. We like to fill our schedules and every moment with stuff. We go from event to event, taking little time to breathe. I know I am so guilty of this. Unfortunately, this fast paced life permeates into our relationship with God. We, or should I say, I, want God to meet me, speak to me, instruct me on my time frame, in short bits. What would happen if, as we enter into our time of personal devotion or Bible reading, if we would simply pause for even a minute, to clear our minds of the clutter so that we can be fully present with God. If we think back to Jesus’ metaphor of the vine and the branches, branches can’t do much unless they are connected to the vine. It takes time for the nutrients to go from the roots to the fruit. Slow down and be patient. Brother Lawrence was not known to be someone who did things very quickly, instead he plodded along in faithful obedience of his assignment, being careful to complete the task, mindful of the One that he was service. In addition to slowing down, I think we need to...

Tune In - Have you ever paused to consider how radio waves and WiFi signals work? Right now, in this space, there are a multitude of frequencies buzzing about us, and yet we are unaware. In part because we may not have the right equipment to tune in. Now Brother Lawrence didn’t have radio or television, but he did seek to be mindful of God’s presence during every moment possible and every activity in which he was engaged - whether that was a mundane kitchen task or a meaningful spiritual task - he was constantly seeking to to tune in to an awareness of God’s presence. God is always present, are we aware of that? Are we tuned in and paying attention to all that God is doing and communicating through his still small voice? A third aspect of staying is to...

Ask for the Holy Spirit to Instruct - Jones writes,

“Life with God for the world is life lived in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the triune God. Bu sadly, many Christians today are functional binitarians rather than true trinitarians in their understanding of and relation to God” (p. 67-68).

We fail to grasp the active role that the Holy Spirit plays in our lives. Francis Chan even refers to the Holy Spirit as the “Forgotten God.” In , Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will be with us an in us and that He will teach us all things, bringing to remembrance then things that Jesus has said. I think part of tuning in, is to ask for the Holy Spirit to do what scripture has said He will do. By asking, we acknowledge that we have a need, that we desire Him or desire to know God or is will even more. This desire is consistent with the nature of Kingdom people who are “poor in spirit” - in need (). Asking for the Holy Spirit to teach not only acknowledges His presence and working in our lives, but it prepares us for the final element of staying - the need that we have to...

Yield to God’s will - by its very nature, a branch yields its outcome and direction to the resources it receives from the vine and the pruning it receives from the vine dresser. In in the Message Translation states:

“I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.

4  “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.

Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), .

Natural branches have no will of their own.

In thinking through this vine/branches analogy, I reached out to the folks over at the Rocklands Farm Vineyard. Shawn Eubank - one of the founders of the vineyard, shared with me that not only can branches or shoots not live apart from the vine, but they produce fruit closest to the vine. They don’t produce bunches of grapes out on the ends of the branches, but close to the core vine, where there is strength and proximity to the full nutrients of the vine.

God designed vines and branches to naturally work this way. The vines are forced to go where there is nutrition and they are guided and pruned by the vinedresser. For us, however, as people made in the image of God, we have a free will and must willingly yield to His leading and his pruning. We must willing engage with God, responding to how His Spirit is prompting us and then allowing Him to do the difficult work of pruning as the Spirit convicts us of “sin, righteousness, and judgment.” ()

For us, however, as people made in the image of God, we have a free will and must willingly yield to His leading and his pruning.

So this breathing in process, inhaling the presence of God in our lives requires that we STAY - slow down, tune in, ask, and yield.

There is a part of this that is a risk that we can take in our breathing in. It’s natural for us to breathe in and breathe out - and yet spiritually speaking - our culture has become so spiritually narcissistic that we want all that God can give us. We make what we learn and experience about us, about our feelings, about our growth - and fail to exhale putting the presence of God into practice as we breathe out.

I suppose another analogy that might fit here is the idea of a smorgasbord or an all you can eat buffet. Our American-Christian culture has become so saturated with books, resources, conferences that we can tend to gorge ourselves so much and fail to exercise enough to put it into practice. Which brings us to our final point...

Breathing out - Fulfilling God’s Mission

While God’s presence should be enough in our lives, His presence is designed to be reflected through us as we proclaim His glory throughout the world. When God told Adam and Even to be fruitful and multiply - He was challenging His only image bearers on the planet to extend His image more and more. Here in - Jesus communicates His commission assuming that they will be going! Where many English translations state simply “Go” - the literal rendering would be “as you go” or “Having travelled (NA27).” I think part of the implication of this is an assumption that we will not stay, but will go out. It’s not enough for us to remain in a holy huddle and not make a difference in the world. We need to exhale. We need to breathe life to this lost and dying world.

In the commission Jesus gives out to his disciples and to us, he shares a single charge that has two elements.

This simple charge: Make Disciples. Now I know, outside of church circles, we don’t use that term very often, unless it’s used in a derogatory manner.

So what, biblically speaking, is a disciple?

According to Francis Chan, a...

“disciple refers to a student or apprentice. Disciples in Jesus’ day would follow their rabbi wherever he went, learning from the rabbi’s teaching and being trained to do as the rabbi did.” *(Chan, Multiply, p. 16).

Mark Dever, in his book Discipling uses this as a working definition of discipling: “helping others to follow Jesus.” He expands this by stating: “discipling is deliberately doing spiritual good do someone so that he or she will be more like Christ.” (p. 13)

Another preacher has been known to describe disciples as people who follow so closely that they would be covered in the dust of their rabbi (Rob Bell).

David Stern, the translator of the Complete Jewish Bible and author of the Jewish New Testament Commentary describes disciples or “talmidim” as very close followers or even imitators of their teachers. He states.

“not only did the talmid [disciple] learn facts, reasoning processes and how to perform religious practices from his rabbi, but he regarded him as an example to be imitated in conduct and character. The rabbi, in turn, was considered responsible for his talmidim [disciples].” (The Complete Jewish Bible, Glossary, p. 1595).

In commenting on - Stern writes that Jesus command to make disciples or “talmidim” from all nations “must have shocked his hearers, who surely thought that the Messiah was only, or at least primarily , for the Jews.” (Jewish New Testament Commentary, p. 85).

The charge to go has been discussed at length over the years. I don’t think it’s hard for us to see that we’ve been commanded to do so. The challenge that we need to come to grips with is that we need to be disciple makers. Paul told his readers to follow him as he follows Christ (1. Cor. 1:11).

Are we worth following? What would it look like if you and I poured ourselves into other peoples lives in such a way as they saw who we are - for real?

Jesus made disciples by being available. They saw Him when he was teaching crowds and doing great miracles. They saw Him when He was grieving over the death of Lazarus. They watched has he dealt with the religious leaders. They were immersed into Jesus’ way of life.

states:

“Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Dever states the “struggling” can also be translated “agony” -

“Agony rather than ecstasy is the way to spiritual power. Do you want to know the power of God and a faith that works? Then give yourself over to the struggle of working for the good of others, even as Christ himself worked and struggled for our good.” (Dever, Discipling, p. 30-31)

Discipling won’t necessarily be easy or convenient, but it will be worth it. As Jesus poured Himself relationally into the the disciples, their lives were transformed. As these men in turn proclaimed the message of the gospel and poured their lives into others, more lives were transformed. Today, we stand on the shoulders of those who have discipled us - people who have inhaled the presence of God and exhaled or expressed the mission of God into our lives.

What would happen if we made ourselves available to others in the way that Jesus did? Are there people that God might be laying on your heart to disciple?

Closing Thoughts

Jesus challenged His disciples with this grand commission to make disciples. In , Jesus tells His disciples that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on them. The presence of God fuels our fulfillment of His mission.

Dever notes the discipleship is wrapped up in the two greatest commandments - this meshes nicely with Jones’ premise:

Love the Lord your God - breathe in

Love the Lord your God - breathe in

Love your neighbor - breathe out

Jesus challenged His disciples with this grand commission to make disciples. In , Jesus tells His disciples that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on them.

Love your neighbor - breathe out

Breathe in - read scripture slowly

Breathe out - pour into other people

Breathe in - meditate

Breathe out - invite people to follow you as you follow Christ

Breathe in - pray

Breathe out - live life in view of others to see

Breathe in - fast, deny yourself

Breathe out - pour into others

Breathe in - worship

Breathe out - live life in view of others to see - impacted by what you breathe in from God.

Breathe in

Breathe out

Breathe out - pour into others

If you’ve not yet made the step to become one of Jesus’ disciples, to participate fully in His presence - then take that step today. Repent of your sin, turn to follow Him, join in this glorious journey of making disciples. Let me encourage you to talk to one of us at the door or the person who invited you. Maybe even ask if you could follow them as they follow Christ.

Believers, are you breathing in the full presence of God? Are you engaging in spiritual disciplines and then allowing those to impact how you live? Who are you pouring your life into? Who am I pouring my life into?

The apostle Peter in his second epistle challenged the believers who had been scattered in this way (2 Peter 1:3-11):

The Message Chapter 1

Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.

5–9  So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.

10–11  So, friends, confirm God’s invitation to you, his choice of you. Don’t put it off; do it now. Do this, and you’ll have your life on a firm footing, the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Let’s pray.