Bring Back His Presence

2 Samuel 6:12–15 NIV

Now King David was told, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God.” So David went to bring up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing. When those who were carrying the ark of the Lord had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, while he and all Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets.

2 Samuel 6:17 (NIV)

They brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the Lord.

Introduction

Have you ever been in a room, but you weren’t really in the room? Like your body was there, but you weren’t really present.

Don’t you look at me and tell me, “Every Sunday Pastor Josh!” I will lay hands on you…

We see this a lot don’t we? Especially in the way that people treat their phones. They’ll be looking at you, but their mind is on the fact that they just got a text and they REALLY want to see who text them so they are looking at you but they aren’t really there.

Come on, how many of you know what I am talking about?

I’m willing to stop and say, “hey, you can go ahead and check that.”

Why? Because I see you squirming over there and I’d rather you get it out of your system so you and I can have an adult conversation.

I’m like saying this to someone who is in his sixties...

Transition

And I said that because I want to use that as an analogy throughout this sermon as we kick off this new series that we are calling Dwell.

Everybody say Dwell with me.

The Ark

In this passage of scripture we read about King David’s experience bringing the Ark back to Jerusalem a second time.

I say second time because he was unsuccessful the first time, and we’re going to get into that.

But before I do, let me explain to you first what the Ark was all about.

I know you watched Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, and so you think you got it all figured out. Some of you are looking at me completely lost becuase you weren’t even born yet when that movie was released. Just stop bragging OK. Go play with your Nintendo Switch and let the grown ups talk.

In the wilderness; someone say “wilderness”. In the wilderness, God gave Moses a command to build the Ark of Covenant. God entered into a Covenant relationship with Moses and Israel, and the Ark became a physical representation of that relationship. Inside the Ark were the 10 Commandments engraved in stone, as well as other relics that Moses accumulated in the wilderness.

Can I just stop right here and give you a mini sermon on the wilderness...

God meets you differently in the wilderness.

God encounters you differently in the wilderness.

God teaches you in the wilderness

The unfortunate truth is, you don’t seek God like you do when you are in the wilderness, therefore you don’t hear from God like you do in the wilderness.

When it’s your season, many times you forget WHY it is your season.

You think your grit got you there.

You think your Christian maturity got you there.

You think your personal convictions got you there.

So what happens is you start living like you don’t need God. You start making decisions without consulting with God. You start worshipping God like he’s an accessory and not a necessity.

So God will let you walk right into a situation that you had no business being in just to remind you that you can do it HIS way, or you can do it the HARD WAY.

This is the wilderness for many of you. And in these moments, you cry out to God and he hears you. Why? Because he’s a good God. He’s too good to let you remain in the wilderness. He’s too good to let you be consumed with your bad decisions. He’s too good to leave you out there forever.

And so you meet him in a powerful way, and he says to you like he said to the woman, “Now go and sin no more.”

[TRANSITION]

And so the Ark is the ever present reminder of God’s promises to them in the wilderness. It was supposed to be seen, and taught, generation after generation.

The Ark Was A Problem!

Before David was King, and before Saul was King, the Ark of the Covenant was taken by the Philistines in battle. When it was in the hands of the Philistines the Ark proved to be very troublesome to the Philistines.

Here’s what happened, let me tell you the story...

The Philistines took the Ark and they placed it in their temple. They knew the Ark represented the presence of Israel’s God, and so they thought that it would be a good idea to set it right next to their god, Dagon.

So what had happened was… when God said, “you will have no other gods before me,” he meant it. That wasn’t figuratively speaking, but literally speaking.

The next morning they came into the temple and there was Dagon, laying on his face right in front of the Ark.

The people kinda freaked out, but thought, “hm, that’s weird, let’s get Dagon back to his spot once again.”

So the next morning, when they came back into the temple, there was Dagon once again laying before the Ark. I mean, if they had the internet back then Dagon could have been a meme. They could have set him up, and then someone gets on the camera and says “24 hours later” and there’s Dagon on the floor again.

But here is the deal. This time his hands and his head were separated from his statue body.

So the Philistines were like, OK we’re not going to do this again. Let’s get this Ark out of here and somewhere else so Dagon doesn’t get hurt again.

But God began to afflict the Philistines, and the Bible says that devastation and tumors came over that region.

That’s when they knew, “we got to get this Ark out of here!”

APPLICATION

The presence of God is to be feared.

The presence of God is not to be played with.

Proverbs 9:10 (NIV)

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Growing up in the old church we had a fear of the Lord that we need to make sure that we pass down to the next generation.

All these contemporary songs got us singing, “You’re a good, good father… that’s who you are.” And that’s true. But there’s another side of God that is jealous. He is jealous for your attention. And he’s not going to be placed alongside some other god in your life.

You might be wondering, what is Pastor Josh talking about? I don’t have no other gods.

Well let’s inspect, shall we?

Money could be your god. You don’t live your life through the filter of God’s word, but through the filter of money. You work more hours than you should work, you sacrifice your family on an altar called career ambition, and you are never generous with the church, or with people in need. You don’t have your money, your money has you. And because it has you, it is a god in your life that you worship.

Some of you worship the god of other people’s approval. You don’t have a sense of identity for yourself because you are shaped by the approval of others. You are constantly making decisions based off of what others think about your decision. Some of you have Apps on your phones that will let you know when someone stops following you, because you worship the god of other people’s approval!

That one stung a little bit, didn’t it? Do you know what I call that App? The insecurity App. You are so insecure that you give away too much authority and you let other people control you. That’s the god of other people’s approval.

And here’s the deal - God won’t live with that!

The Lord will not co-exist with the other gods of your life.

You can’t have a radical encounter with God and park him next to your other gods and tell him to be nice and co-exist. He can’t do that. He won’t do that. He is God alone, and he will not share His glory with anyone or anything else.

He will frustrate you and he will make your life so uncomfortable until you get to the place that you acknowledge that He alone is God, and beside him there is no one.

And that’s what God’s presence in your life will do.

When God’s presence isn’t with you, you can continue to live your life any old way. But once the presence of God get’s on you, he will shine a light on all of these other gods and tell you, make a choice. You can’t serve both. Who is it going to be?

Everyone wants the presence of God on their life until he reveals to them the things that got to go.

His Way Ain’t Always Easy

So when the Philistines had enough, they sent the Ark back to Israel. They knew that it was time for that thing to go, and so they sent it over to the house of a man named Abinadab, where it stayed for 20 years.

Someone say 20 years…

When David is finally the King of Israel he makes it a priority to bring the Ark back to Jerusalem, so that it can once again become the center of the lives of the Israelites. During his first attempt, David moved the Ark on a cart. It seemed like the most efficient thing to do. However, this was not the way that the Lord had designed for the Ark to be moved. Tragically in the process a man involved in the move by the name of Uzzah was killed as he touched the Ark.

Like, this story keeps getting interesting…

David wants to bring the Ark back, but he goes about it the wrong way.

How many of you know that the way matters? The way, matters.

God had given his people a method of moving his presence, but they just decided to be efficient. They thought that they could do it a bit more productively than how God told them how to do it.

And who dies? Uzzah.

And Uzzah was just trying to help. The Bible says the cart hit a bump, and the Ark was about to fall off the cart, and Uzzah stretches out his hand to stop the Ark from falling, and God’s like, “Yea, no.”

That seems harsh, doesn’t it?

What’s the lesson?

Uzzah had been around the Ark for the 20 years that it was in Aminadab’s house. He had played around the Ark. Maybe he hid behind the Ark during a game of hide and seek. He had become familiar with the Ark.

The Ark was on the move now, meaning the Presence of God was moving now.

You can’t approach a “now” move of God with yesterday’s methods.

What worked in your last season, won’t always work in your next season.

I don’t have time to deep dive into this, but in the New Testament Jesus said you can’t fill an old wine skin with new wine. It will burst.

In the same way, when God starts to move, and he does move… you need to be more committed to the future than you are to the past.

Your past doesn’t get to go with you into your future, so you need to let it go.

Your old friends, your old habits, and your old way of thinking doesn’t get to go with you to where God is taking you. He’s doing a new thing in your life and if you keep hanging on to what is past you will miss what is present.

I’m trying to help some of you right now. You are here at Lighthouse, and you still have this expectation that God will recycle your old experiences, but he’s more interested in doing something new through you.

You want the familiar, but God wants the fresh.

Why?

Because the fresh requires you to keep coming back to him, again, and again, and again, and again...

Are you tracking with me?

That’s why in the wilderness he gave them manna every morning. And, he said don’t save today’s bread for tomorrow, becuase when tomorrow comes it’s going to be rotten.

He did that to teach Israel the importance of receiving from God daily.

In 2022, I call that daily devotion.

You need a fresh, daily word from God to deal with the fresh, daily dose of crazy that is coming your way. You can’t solve tomorrow’s problems with today’s solutions. You got to go to God and get your daily bread.

Follow The Pattern

I got to go… we need to wrap this message up…

Uzzah dies, and they park the Ark once again.

After 3 months of discovering what went wrong, David returned to the house where the Ark was and moved the Ark according to the command of the Lord. This required the Ark to be carried by the Levites, and continual sacrifices offered as they carried the Ark to Jerusalem.

Now you might be wondering how this compliments what we just finished talking about… “But Pastor Josh, you said God was doing a new thing!”

I want you to get this...

The principles of God are unchanging; but the methods do change.

David realized that when it came to moving the Ark, there was a principle behind that and it needed to be followed to the letter. Yes God wanted it to move, but it had to be moved in a very specific way. There was no mutable principle with that. Then there are other times, when we have got to evaluate our methods and ensure that they adapt to our environment so that we can continue to reach the people God has called us to reach.

Does that make sense Lighthouse?

Some parts of God are unchanging. Then there are things we do in the name of God that need to be examined in accordance with the scriptures.

That’s what David needed to do, and that’s what allowed him to bring the Ark to its final dwelling place.

Someone say Dwell.

David was bringing the Ark to a place where it would dwell. The Ark was placed inside of a tent; David’s Tent.

It wasn’t just that the Ark had come back to Jerusalem, but more importantly it symbolized that worship had come back to Jerusalem. Sacrifice had come back to Jerusalem. There was a fear and reverence to the Lord that had come back to Jerusalem.

Conclusion

I’m closing, and this is what I need for you to get. I said ALL of that, and I know I said a lot, to bring us to this very important point...

Without the Ark sacrifices were still being offered to the Lord. We read all about it in reign of King Saul. They offered sacrifices. There were Prophets, religious leaders, and they carried on as if the Ark was there. But it wasn’t.

You can be religious and not have God’s presence.

They got really good at carrying on without the Ark. They got away with being religious without having the presence of God with them.

David steps in and says, if the presence of the Lord does not dwell here, I don’t want any part of it.

I am hoping that there will be a shift at Lighthouse that will cause you to say, “unless the presence of God is in this, I don’t want any part of it.”

Lighthouse, I believe we have stepped into a move of God.

I’ve been told that there have been many people praying for a church like ours in Vista. I was told that around this very block, families did prayer walks and they interceded for a church like ours on Vista.

Its become more and more clear to me that we are the answer to other people’s prayer.

Sometimes, before God answers our prayers, he needs us to be the answer to someone else’s prayer.

Now this week, we are going to the City with our first plan for a permit. Then on the last Saturday or July, we begin pre-construction. Church, it’s happening now…

But right here, right now, let’s make a covenant together that we aren’t doing this without his presence.