3. YHWH Shammah: I AM There

Introduction

Which names were more popular in the US in 2021?

Bonnie // Calliope

Mallory // Miriam

Bruno // Alec

Drake // Finnegan

God’s name: YHWH Shammah: I AM There

God is really present with us.

Do you believe that, not just intellectually but with your life? How many of us live as though God is with us all the time? How would I treat my wife / my kids / my coworkers if God was standing there watching?

Do we experience his presence? Better yet: How do we experience God’s presence?

Corinne and I experienced God’s presence in a powerful way in 2019 at the EFCA One National Conference.

Biblical Survey: God Is There

YHWH Shammah appears in Ezek 48:35, when God makes a promise: he will be there.

God is there…

God is there with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:8).

God is there with Moses in the burning bush (Exod 3:4-6).

God is there in the wilderness with the Israelites in the pillars of cloud and fire (Exod 13:21-22).

God is there in the desert when the Israelites had no water (Exod 17; 1 Cor 10:4).

God is there with Solomon when he built the temple (2 Chron 7:1-3).

God is there, in the flesh, through Jesus—God with us (Heb 1:1-3a).

God is there, within us, through the Holy Spirit—God in us (Acts 2:38-39).

God will be there in the new creation, in the New Jerusalem—promise kept (Rev 21:1-4).

God is there, with you, in you. He’s available to you. He cares about you. In the New Jerusalem, not only God will be there, but you will be there, too, with him—if you give your life to Jesus.

How do we experience God’s presence?

Look for God (Jer 29:12-14a).

Look for God in the ordinary—every day, everywhere, in everything.

Look for God in the usual—the places you’d expect to find him: prayer, the Word, the church.

Look for God in the quiet—the disappearing places you must intentionally create.

Practicing the Presence of God

Read Psalm 139:1-18 (The Message).

Psalm 139:1–18 The Message

God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand. I’m an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking. You know when I leave and when I get back; I’m never out of your sight. You know everything I’m going to say before I start the first sentence. I look behind me and you’re there, then up ahead and you’re there, too— your reassuring presence, coming and going. This is too much, too wonderful— I can’t take it all in! Is there any place I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight? If I climb to the sky, you’re there! If I go underground, you’re there! If I flew on morning’s wings to the far western horizon, You’d find me in a minute— you’re already there waiting! Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I’m immersed in the light!” It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you. Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day. Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful! God, I’ll never comprehend them! I couldn’t even begin to count them— any more than I could count the sand of the sea. Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!

Sit in silence.