The God Who is Here
Notes
Transcript
Here when you need us!
If you google this slogan, you will find that it is used by lawyers, banks, and healthcare providers.
Today I want to talk to about the God who is here when you need Him. Emmanuel, God with us.
21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.”
22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
23 See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name Him Immanuel, which is translated “God is with us.”
He’s here when things are good
He’s here when things are good
17 Every generous act and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights; with Him there is no variation or shadow cast by turning.
We’ve just had Thanksgiving. There are so many good things in my life and if you stop to think, the same thing is true in your life.
If we are not careful good things and success can be a breeding ground for forgetfulness of God. We forget that all the good things that have come our way are the result of God’s goodness and ongoing favor on our lives.
Immanuel, God with us, makes so many tangible blessings a reality, but there is something deeper going on with this.
God is with us, doing something about our sin problem. As I mentioned last week, Jesus came to be God with us, but He is also called Jesus, because He saves His people from their sins.
You talk about things being good? This is the Gospel, the ultimate good news. God saves us through our faith in Jesus, and then He is in us, and goes through life with us.
That’s good within itself. Ask yourself this question, which is more important to you, to have God in your life, or the “Stuff” that you enjoy from Him being in your life.
He’s here when things are bad
He’s here when things are bad
1 Lord, You have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I stand up; You understand my thoughts from far away.
3 You observe my travels and my rest; You are aware of all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue, You know all about it, Lord.
5 You have encircled me; You have placed Your hand on me.
6 This extraordinary knowledge is beyond me. It is lofty; I am unable to reach it.
7 Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?
8 If I go up to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there.
9 If I live at the eastern horizon or settle at the western limits,
10 even there Your hand will lead me; Your right hand will hold on to me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light around me will be night” —
12 even the darkness is not dark to You. The night shines like the day; darkness and light are alike to You.
I want to remind you that God is not a God out there somewhere. The fact that He is God means He is everywhere, and when Jesus came to earth, He was localized. God in the flesh in a certain place and time. And now, the Holy Spirit lives in us who are born again.
God is timeless. He exists in everytime all at the same time.
So when your hardest days show up, and they will show up, and they usually show up without warning, GOD IS THERE.
You will never be any place where God is not.
You will never be in any time where God was not already there.
If you keep reading through Psalm 139 you find the wrestling and wrangling of “why?”
I said earlier that tangible blessings and success can lead to a forgetfulness about God.
But bad days can cause you to have a flawed view of God.
Bad days come because we live in a sin flawed world.
God is always good, and He goes with us through the worse days.
All of our “good days,” Jerry reasons, even our very best days, still need God’s grace, because God’s standard of judgment is his glory — a standard to which we all fall short. Even the Spirit-filled fruit of our faith in Christ is still tainted with mixed motives and woefully incomplete compared with his righteousness.
As for our “bad days,” even our very worst days in Christ don’t alienate us from God’s favor, cause him to love us less, or diminish our Father’s ultimate delight in us. Our worst days don’t put us in the doghouse of shame and penance but in our Father’s house of grace and redemption through faith. Even when God disciplines us, though it is painful, he does so in great love (Hebrews 12:11). Jerry Bridges
He’s here when things are uncertain
He’s here when things are uncertain
I am not normally a gray person, things are usually black and white, good or bad, right or wrong for me.
But if I’m honest, there are several issues circling around my world right now that I’m just uncertain about.
I’ve spent my life shepherding a church. Trying to get people to be real and remove their masks. (Go figure). I’ve pushed, pulled, and pleaded with God’s people in two local churches to reach one more for Jesus, and to be a part of building His church and His Kingdom. It’s what I do, full bore, 100%.
So it is a struggle to encourage people to put on a mask. It is a goes against more core to think about not gathering together with brothers and sisters. It’s confusing to know how to get people saved and keep them SAFE at the same time.
That’s uncertainty.
I found over a dozen times in the Bible where someone was asking “How Long Lord?”
I know many of you feel that pressure to.
Others may be facing uncertainty about family issues.
Others about finances.
Others about jobs.
2020 seems to have bred a special uncertainty and I hate to share this, but uncertain times don’t follow the calendar. There is no reason to believe that 2021 will start on January 1 with a certainty that carries the world through the whole year.
But the God who is with us is UNCHANGING
6 “Because I, Yahweh, have not changed, you descendants of Jacob have not been destroyed.
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
17 Every generous act and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights; with Him there is no variation or shadow cast by turning.
So how do we respond? I love the words of the Tommy Walker song that says
When I don’t know what to do, I’ll lift my hands
When I don’t know what to say, I’ll speak your name
When I don’t know where to go, I’ll run to your throne
When I don’t know what to think, I’ll stand on your Truth
When I don’t know what to do