The Manifestation of God’s Presence

You know, today we are bombarded with sort of the scientific method that would say that anything beyond the physical doesn't exist. And this makes its way into all sorts of things, but a key way that it makes it into our society is we really can't prove God's existence. We can't prove it with the scientific method. There's some discussion around how you might define that, but we're bombarded a lot with these questions of, if God exists, how do we know? And I'd like to take that question and turn it around just slightly and say, well, if God exists, where is He? It's another way of asking a question. If God exists, where is God? Where does He live? How can we be with Him? How can He be with us? And there's a couple levels to this question of how we can find God, because a lot of times you might hear that expression as well. You know, I found God. We might ask, you know, when did you come into the truth? You might ask, when did you come to the understanding that God exists and that He has a plan? There's different ways of asking that question, but there's a couple different levels to this question of where does God live or how can you find God? We might say that God is everywhere. God is omnipresent. That's kind of the way that it's described. We might say that God lives in me. If you're baptized, if you've repented, if you are moving forward in the faith, exercising His Spirit, then you could say, well, God lives in me. That's where God lives.

Or we might say, well, we come into God's presence at different times and in different ways. And so we are in God's presence, for example, here at church.

And really, all three of these are correct. And yet there could be sort of a logical fallacy in those things, because if we say that God is omnipresent, then how can we come before His presence? That would imply that we weren't in His presence before we came into His presence, and yet He's omnipresent. And if He lives in us, then we're in His presence all the time, or He's in our presence. And so there can be sort of some circular reasoning or some confusion around this.

And then there's another level to this question, and that is the heart level. That is the God-where-were-you question, or God-I-need-you question. It's the I-want-you-now to do something, to help me, to be with me. It's a comfort question.

If you turn with me to Psalm 16, in verse 11, when you start getting into this question of God's presence, or how to find God, it's everywhere, because it's definitively what we're doing here. We're seeking after God and His will, and trying to understand His purpose in our lives, and His purpose for our family, and how everything fits together. Look at Psalm 16, and we see this here expressed in the Psalms, I think, very succinctly here. It says in Psalm 16, verse 11, You will show me the path of life. Life. I want to live. You know, we've heard this expression, Not all men die, but not all men surely live. This is, I want to live. I want to have life. I want it to be cool. I want to do fun things. I want to have meaning. In your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. And you know this word, pleasure, I think we need to take this word back. This word, this word has been taken by society, and it's been turned into something illicit, like drugs or sex. We need to take that word back. God gives pleasures to His people. Good, honest, positive things. In His presence there is fullness of joy. And this verse, in fact, this whole section of Scripture, is so powerful that the Apostle Peter decided to quote in his sermon in A.D. 31 on the day of Pentecost. And you can see this quoted in Greek in Acts 2, verse 28. You don't need to turn there, but it says, when Peter quoted it to the crowd, he said, You will make me full of joy in your presence. And that's how he concluded this passage. Because Peter also wanted to share with these people, if you want to find God, well, seek after Him, and there's good things if you find Him, if you can come into His presence. And Jesus Christ came preaching good news, good stuff, joy, pleasure, life, life more abundantly. And it's really easy to fall into the end-time trouble talk. And we do need to be reminded of it. I gave a sermon two weeks ago about it. It's important. But we've also got to realize that God gives us beauty instead of ashes. That's a prophecy, too. He wants to give us good things in His presence. And we could be anywhere today. We could be anywhere today. And when we drove here, I'm sure we drove past a hundred cars of people going here or there with this project or that project. And yet, I chose, and you chose, to be here in God's presence. Today, I want to talk about where God lives and, more importantly, how we can live with Him in His presence. In a modern way, you could say, how can we hang out with God? How do we get to hang out with God? Just be with God in His presence. And we're going to address these two levels that I've talked about. The first one is sort of a theological level. It's a little bit of an academic discussion, but an important discussion, nonetheless, when we think about coming into God's presence. And the second is this heart issue that I talked about. This question of, how do we know God is there? How do we know that God is there in times of difficulties, in times of extreme trials, and that we can call on God?

The title of the message today is, The Manifestation of God's Presence. And I invite you to help me with that word, manifest. We'll talk about that. So if you want to write down a word, if you want to write down any word, write down manifest, because what we're going to talk about is a difficult concept for us as humans, I think, to understand about how God can be omnipresent, and yet we can come into His presence.

And so we're going to use this word manifest. And when we're done, you know, I really hope that we think differently about what it means to be in God's presence. Difference between being at church, or being outside, or being in our bathtub, or being in the shower. You know, there's differences in terms of what it means to be in God's presence. So let's address the first point of the omnipresence of God, and yet what it means to come into God's presence.

I'd like to ask you to turn to Matthew 27 in verse 50. Matthew 27 and verse 50. A dramatic moment. It's hard, actually, to just jump right into this moment. It almost feels like we're not giving it the gravitas, the meaning. I'm going to take the assumption that you've read the context, that as a Christian you know what this means. And so we're going to jump right to the ultimate discussion in verse here in Matthew 27, verse 50. It says, So if we think about this moment, this moment that all of creation had come to, this moment where he has expired, the life has gone out of Christ's body.

It is done. What is the first thing that Matthew tells us? He tells us that the veil in the temple was torn in two. Now, we don't know exactly the size, but there's some theories that this is, let's say, a 60-foot high curtain. Now, I don't know. What is that? Are we talking about 12 feet here? Maybe the ceiling? I don't know. Somebody's nodding. 60 feet high. This is a huge curtain. And this curtain, as we know from Exodus 26, separates the holy from the holiest of holy.

And it is through this curtain that the high priest would go on the day of atonement. A man, not a woman. Sorry, ladies. No good for you. If you're a child, sorry. Not for you either. A man, and a specific man, once a year, could go through that curtain into the holy of holies. And behind that curtain sat the Ark of the Covenant. And that lid of the Covenant, which I think... I can't remember the person who named it, but it's a specific term called the Mercy Seat. And that's kind of a created term.

To describe the place of God's presence, the high priest would go into the presence of God. And this veil, which separated the holy from the holiest of holy, is torn in two, symbolizing that at this moment, blood had been shed. The spear had pierced his side. He was now an atonement for all, with a sacrifice greater than any other sacrifice that had been given in that temple.

And now, all people had access to God the Father. We were not going through the intermediaries of a priest or a priesthood in the same way. We would now have access to God. And 50 days later, give or take, God would place his spirit, his presence, in his disciples. And that's where God would live. He would no longer live in the temple. Famously, the general Pompey, very famous Roman general, conquered Jerusalem some 60 years before, I think maybe 90 years before these events. And he wanted to go into the holy of holies. He wanted to see what's this all about? What are the Jews? What's this big thing, this holy of holies?

And so he went through the curtain. And you know what? There was nothing there. It was empty. And he's like, this is empty. Well, because at that time, there was no Ark of the Covenant. There was nothing to put in the holy of holies in the second temple. And if you look in Scripture, you don't see the same thing that you see in the first dedication. In the first dedication of the temple, there's this cloud that descends on the temple. You can read about it in 1 Chronicles 7.

But in the second, in the dedication of the second temple, you don't see that in the same way in Scripture. Was God there? Probably, but not in the same way. And so we have access to the Father and Jesus Christ, our older brother. And when Stephen the Deacon was stoned, he saw Jesus Christ standing at the right hand of God. And so we have access to God the Father and Jesus Christ. And yet we live in a skeptical world where these things are like, okay, yeah, you have your belief.

I have my belief. And yeah, we can all live together. And that's what we live in. There's a very famous quotation, you've probably heard of it, from Karl Marx. He says that religion is the opiate of the people.

It's a sort of drug that soothes the victimization and the oppression of people without means. And that's kind of how sort of modern philosophy looks at this.

And we'll get back to this question here, because despite this enormous truth, sometimes we can kind of lose sight of what this meant. This was the first thing that Matthew described at the death of Jesus Christ, is this access to the Father, this special moment. So now, with that being said, look at Psalm 139, verses 7 to 10. 139 verses 7 to 10, because now this gets to...we just sort of talked about how there was this special place where God's presence would reside above the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant.

And yet, if we go back to Psalm 139, now we're actually in a moment where that first temple was standing, where the Ark was present, where the veil was present. And at that time, we see a Psalm of David, which says this in verse 7, Psalm 139, verse 7. Where can I go from your spirit, David says, or sings to God?

And so, Jonah couldn't run. King Saul couldn't hide. Nebuchadnezzar, he was humbled. No one can escape what Proverbs 15 says is the eye of God on everything. Nobody can escape that. So, God is omnipresent right here. We just read it. He's everywhere. But then, if these things are true, how do we understand coming into God's presence? So, let's go to Hebrews 10, and let's see this described, Hebrews 10 and verse 19. Again, we're kind of circling around a lot of the same concepts here of the Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant, the veil. We're back to this same context. Hebrews 10, verse 19.

Hebrews 10, verse 19 says, Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus. This is what we just read. We literally just read it. He gave up the spirit, and the veil was torn, and now we have access to the holiest of Holies, or the holiest of Holies, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us through the veil. That is His flesh, and now the metaphor is extended, that His flesh, it is through eating of His flesh, it is through Him that we have access to God. And having a priest over the house of God, so we have this same context.

Now, given this, the writer of Hebrews goes back to the veil of separation, and he says, because of this, in verse 22, Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having a heart sprinkled from the evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

So he says, draw near. So that means we were not near? He says, come into the Holy of Holies, come into God's presence.

And practically, how do we do this? That's the question in front of us. How does this work? And as if to sort of anticipate what they might be thinking when he writes it, he continues in verse 23.

So the law, the law in Leviticus 23 says that on the Sabbath, there is a sacred assembly. You can look that up in Leviticus 23 verse 2 or 3, something like that. There's a sacred assembly. And sacred means that it is God infused. It's filled with God. God's presence is there. That's what sacred means. That's what holy means. God placed his presence in the day, the Sabbath day, and in the assembly on that Sabbath day. And when it says draw near, it means to present ourselves before God in that assembly when we come into his presence. So he's directly connecting, drawing near to something which has God's presence, both the Holy of Holies and the Sabbath day itself when we assemble together. You don't need to turn there, but Psalm 100 verse 2 says that we come before his presence with singing. What are we saying today? And if you look at the sponsor's Bible commentary, it'll tell you that the context of this verse is the context of a holy day. That's mainstream Protestant theology. It's the context of a holy day. And so when it says we come before his presence, we come before his presence on the Sabbath day, on a holy day, to sing and so forth. And that's just an example. It's not like it's the only example. Anything that has God's presence in it, that God sanctifies with his presence, that's what we need to draw near to. That's how we come into his presence, even though he's omnipresent. To distinguish the omnipresence of God from specific situations, because there are situations where God is present, there's locations. Moses came before the burning bush, and God said, take off your sandals because of the ground you're on is holy ground. So there's locations that have God's presence. There's times, we've talked about holy days and so forth, that have God's presence. There are circumstances that have God's presence. And so to distinguish the omnipresence of God from these specific situations, there's a term that some academics use called manifest presence. Manifest presence. And it describes those circumstances when God manifests his power to us as human beings.

Why don't you turn to 1 Thessalonians 5.

And like I said, I'm open to any discussions afterwards and online or whatever because it's... I think what we're attempting to do is to describe something that is difficult to describe. God is outside of time and space. So when we think about presence, I'm here. I'm not in Los Angeles. I'm here. Now you might, you know, maybe somebody in Los Angeles will see this if there's a live stream or whatever, but I'm not in Los Angeles. But God is in Los Angeles and he's here. And he's present in both places at the same time. And that's hard for us to wrap our brains around. So we're attempting with our feeble little imaginations to comprehend who God is. And that's what we're essentially trying to do here through his Scriptures. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 20, it says, Do not despise prophecies. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things and hold fast what is good.

Now the word prophecy or prophecies here in Greek is the word prophetia. We take our word right from the Greek. And Thessalonians Greek lexicon defines prophecy as discourse emanating from divine inspiration. So God inspired speaking. So God is manifesting his presence, his will, his desires through some words that somebody is saying. That's what prophecy is. That's the technical definition of prophecy. And this can be a sermon. This can be a sermonette. This could be music at church. This could be a conversation during a meal after a prayer has been given asking for God's inspiration. This can be fellowship after church. This can be a lot of things. We tend to think about prophecy and sometimes we put it in a box and say, well, prophecy is what you read in Revelation. But prophecy is just inspired speaking. God inspired speaking. And God says, don't despise God inspired speaking. That's what he's saying. Don't despise it. The NIV uses the term treat with contempt. Don't treat with contempt. Prophecy. Rather, test all things. Hold fast what is good. So God is manifesting his presence through inspiring words in a sermon for someone to give or a sermonette or a set or music and so forth. So we listen to a sermon and we say God is manifesting his presence. I better be paying attention. I better not be treating it with contempt. There's something in here that I need to hear today for me. Now, that being said, I don't think we should be naive to say every message that we hear in church represents inspired speaking. I hope nearly every message, I hope 99.9% is, but the fact is that we're human. And if you look in the verse right before, interestingly enough, in verse 19, it says, do not quench the spirit.

And so if I'm having a bad week, I'll pick on myself here. If I'm having a bad week, if I'm dealing with some unresolved anger or some sort of frustration or whatever might be, and I'm preparing a message and I haven't prayed about that message and I get up here and I give something, that may not be inspired.

And yet, you know, what it says, don't despise it, but test it. And so that's how we look at it. So this is an example of God manifesting Himself, putting His presence into something, and we come before His presence and we hear, we listen.

The book of Deuteronomy talks about God placing His name on a particular place for the Feast of Tabernacles. That's another locational presence of God. And this means that He intends to manifest His presence through divine protection, inspired speaking, guiding events in a certain way. Maybe you meet your spouse at the Feast, right? You never know, right? This is what that means. It means that God is going to be active in that place at that time. His presence is going to be active. Two weeks ago, I talked about Matthew 24, verse 20, what I call the end time prayer and our flight to safety. God is going to manifest His presence through divine protection of the church, as it says in Revelation 12. They're going to be on the wings of an eagle. They're going to be protected. They're going to be taken care of. He's going to manifest His power in that way.

When we hold hands and bow our heads in prayer over a meal, and we can ask that God's spirit be poured out, that He would inspire the conversation, that He would bless the food. And you know, if you come with me to Africa, that's important. We want to bless that food. We don't want to get sick.

We don't want to end up in the hospital. So we ask for Him to manifest His presence in some way. If there's some problem with that food, take care of that and inspire what is going to be said over that meal. Let that be encouraging to us, or change our thinking about something, or lift us up in some way.

When God says He's going to be in something, we look to the manifestation of His presence in that something, not just what we might call a passive omnipresence. And I don't like active and passive because I think God's always active. Again, this is us trying to see through a glass darkly of what is God?

How does He do this? He's everywhere, all at the same time, putting His presence in things and working out things in our lives and in other people's lives simultaneously.

And it's more than just being an omnipresence. And by extension, when God says to draw near, to come into His presence, He gives us instructions about how He wants that to work. So He says, if you're sick, call for the elders of the church and they will pray over you and anoint you. That's an instruction of how He's going to put His presence into something. He's going to manifest something and something's going to happen because that's what we do. We draw near to Him. We use this term, again, I use this term reclaiming these terms. We lean into God, right? We say, okay, God, You say that this is what I'm supposed to do when I'm sick. I'm going to do that and I'm going to count on You to follow through on what You said You're going to do, which is You're going to heal me.

He gave instructions to the priests about how everything should be working there in the temple and about what they should wear, about how they wash their hands, about how they take care of the various dishes and things in there, about how they make the veil and what the veil should look like.

People were expected to be present at the holy convocation on time, dressed for the occasion.

It's a side point I need to go into a lot of depth on, but we have to show up on time for church. We have to be addressed appropriately. We have to be prepared mentally, emotionally to receive some instruction.

We have to prepare for the Feast of Tabernacles. Mr. Shaby talked about that in his letter in the E-News this week about preparing physically and spiritually for the Feast of Tabernacles to travel, to be present.

In the past, I think we probably put too much emphasis on what we might call the form of worship.

Not enough emphasis on the substance.

We might have looked really good, but maybe the substance wasn't always there.

When we come to church, we need to respect the fact that, like in the Old Testament, we have a responsibility to come before God. It says, come before His presence with singing. Show up. Be there when you're supposed to be there.

I used to make financial presentations as part of my job.

Some of the more nerve-wracking presentations that I gave was one I would drive over to Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park.

This is really the epicenter of venture capital in the world. You can probably name any technology company, and chances are it was funded by somebody on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park.

I had to be prepared, and it was pretty nerve-wracking to be in there. You needed to have the answers. You needed to be sharp.

We would arrive an hour early, an hour and a half early, because we couldn't allow that traffic to get in the way. You can't be late. If we got there an hour early, we'd just drink coffee, and we'd just be waiting and ready to go. Then you show up in the lobby 15 minutes early, because they might be running early.

You're ready to go. If you wait 45 minutes, you wait.

When I would make those presentations, they didn't really care what I wore, but they didn't want to be distracted by what I wore.

We'd check each other. How to look. You look okay. Maybe next time, different shirt. We'd joke with one another, because we were presenting to people who had a great deal of power over our company.

The mood they were in and the decisions they would make would affect literally thousands of people in the company we worked for.

We wanted to do a good job.

Being a church is coming into God's presence.

We need to treat it the same way.

The priests wore clean clothes. They had specific things around that.

It's a side point, but it's a point that we come into God's presence.

When we do, we have to think about what that means and how that ties in.

God is omnipresent, and he lives in us. But where God imbues or fills something with his presence and makes it holy, like the ground around the burning bush or the Sabbath or our tithes, this is a tithe that's holy, then we see the manifestation of God working in that tithe, or in that area, or in that time.

I hope in the morning that we don't let a day go by where we don't ask for God's presence to be active in our lives, to pour out a spirit on us, to guide us through the day. Because that's what we're doing. We're asking for him to be active in our lives, for him to manifest his power in the day, to guide those things that happen, whether that's protection, whether that's insight, whether that's avoiding a problem, whether that's encouraging someone, whatever it might be. That's how we come before God's presence, again, even though God is omnipresent. That's how, you might have heard this term before, we walk with God.

If we walk with God, we are in his presence. And to walk with God means that we've asked him to manifest his power in our lives. And we're walking with him.

Now, the next level of understanding in the second part is a much deeper part, because what I'm talking about here so far, maybe a little academic, but hopefully very practical, too. But the second part is, frankly, a lot harder.

Because being in God's presence means that we're often in time of need, and we need to be with God in those times of need.

Being in God's presence means being in a relationship with God, in a state of mind that turns over to him whatever is weighing us down.

If you turn with me to Matthew 11, verse 28, you know, we have these, sometimes we have these conversations. What's your favorite Scripture? You know, what's the Scripture that's most meaningful to you right now? And I often go to Matthew 11, verse 28. Maybe this is a memory Scripture for you, too. We can share kind of insights and thoughts on Matthew 11, verse 28.

Matthew 11, verse 28 says, See, we use this metaphor of I'm heavy, I'm weighed down. Or maybe we say I've got some baggage I've got to get rid of. It literally is a weight. It says heavy laden. Heavy laden. What a beautiful invitation. Come to me. Come to me. Don't stand outside. Don't be alone. Don't feel isolated. Come and see me. I want to talk to you. I want you to be with me. I want to help you. That's the presence of God. That's the deeper presence of God. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. I'm here for you. Let's talk. What's going on? How are you feeling? That's what Jesus says to us. That's what he says to us. My dad died suddenly when I was 21 years old. It's so strange to think that it's been 35 years. 35 years. There's a lot of people in this room who aren't 35 years old. 35 years. Where did that time go? It feels like it was yesterday. One day he was there, and the next day he was dead. Just like that. Sunday night, watching TV. Monday morning I get a call. He's dead. No warning. Nothing. Accident. Freak accident. Sunday night I'm watching TV with him. Monday afternoon I'm at the funeral home, deciding what kind of casket I'm going to buy. That's a shock. That's a shock. I knelt in front of his casket the morning of his funeral in a room by myself, and I came into God's presence. I came into God's presence in a way that I had never been before in God's presence. I had been baptized a year, maybe. And in those moments that God's presence, his Spirit comforts us. See, God's Spirit is called the paracletus, the comforter. It's those moments when God's presence comforts us. And we're just there. We're just there. You know, I've talked with widows about their grief, I've heard their stories of God's presence. Rest for their grieving souls. There's no money. There's no fame. There's nothing that can replace God's presence. Nothing in those moments. You know, you just don't want to trade those moments for anything. You're there, and there's no place to run. There's no place to hide. You are confronted with the most awful thing you've ever been through in your life, and you just need God to be right there with you. And you just say, God, I just need you. Please be with me. And you know, an atheist, an agnostic, can't feel this because it doesn't exist for them. See, there's nothing beyond the physical that exists for them. But there's something that exists for us, for those who know that God exists, and that we live with Him. In those moments, we can go before Him, wherever that is. And we can say, God, just help me through this. Turn with me to Psalm 130. Psalm 130 verse 1. We see David sharing this sentiment. David and these Psalms, they convey this deep relational connection to God, and being in His presence, and having His Spirit comfort us. Psalm 130 verse 1. Out of the depths, I cried to you, O God, Lord, hear my voice. Lord, hear my voice! It's an exclamation point. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. Just barely a month ago, I stood in silence by the unmarked grave of the wife of Albert Olai, one of our church leaders in Ivory Coast. His wife died suddenly in April. She was in her early 50s. There was no place in the local cemetery, and he told me that it gets really weird. They dig the bodies up after 20 years, and they don't tell you, and he didn't want to do that.

So he had a piece of land, and he buried his mother and his father and his wife there. There's three mounds of dirt, and there's no plaque. There's nothing. He says, that's my wife.

We stood together, and we felt God's presence as we mourned together.

In war, in danger, in crisis of health, job, family, in depression, in hopelessness, we can come into God's presence in prayer, in meditation, in reading of Scripture, in communion with our friends. And there is comfort, and it's something that we have that nobody can take away from us. And it's something that many people don't have and they wish they could have. I've read this. Sometimes atheists say this, like, well, yeah, you know, I guess I'll give them that. They've got that. They don't want it. They don't understand it. We can understand what this means to be in God's presence in these times and receive that comfort.

God's presence should be in the blessing of little children. It should be on a couple on their wedding day. It should be when an anointing takes place. It should be at the dark and in the light and the rising up and in the going to sleep. Without being in God's presence and being in a relationship with God, our efforts to live a good life, quote-unquote, is just that. It's our effort.

It's just our effort. Benjamin Franklin did, you know, he tried to do his best on that kind of thing. It's only through God's presence, through his Spirit, that we can avoid becoming weary in well-doing. That we can make it through these difficult times. Look over with me to Galatians 6, verse 7. Galatians 6, verses 7-9.

You know, Paul was trying to get across to the Galatians that they had missed the boat. They had missed the boat. They were getting into all of these crazy things. They're going back to their old ways, you know, and they talk about it.

They're going to celebrate times and seasons and all these different things. There's all this Judaism, this mythology, and all these different practices. And so as he comes to the end of his argument, of his passionate plea to them, to not forsake the gospel that they knew, he says in verse 7 of chapter 6, Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will reap, will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the spirit and of the spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. You see, if we spend all of our time focusing on what we can do, instead of what God's Spirit can do in us, we're just going to get worn out. We're going to get worn out. This is a marathon. This is a marathon. You know, some people in this room have been baptized longer than most. We've seen things, good and bad.

And unless we are in God's presence, we're just going to wear out.

I counseled a man a long time ago. He was a longtime member in God's church at the time. And during one of those counseling sessions I remember so well, he told me that he had come to the conclusion that he couldn't prove either way whether God existed. And I said, well, you're agnostic. He said, yeah, I guess I am. He went through his argument. I don't want to take the time to go through the argument, but he went through the argument of why that was. And I listened. And then I asked him, I said, could you just... I know you told me all this and it was a very, fairly precise, rational argument in a sense. He was a logical guy. I disagreed with some of the assumptions. But I said, let me just ask you something. Do you remember a time when God worked a miracle in your life? And he thought about it. And he said, no, not really. And I asked him if he felt like he'd had a relationship with God. Was there some sort of relational connection? And he kind of thought. He said, I don't really know what that means. I don't think I... I mean, yeah, let's talk more about that. And so we talked more about that. But the point was, he was a long-time member in the church. And he couldn't think of a time where God had worked a miracle in his life. He really didn't understand what it meant that he had a relationship with God. There was a give and a take, and there was a talking, and there was a... We see Abraham. He says, well, God, if there's 30 righteous men in the city, will you destroy it? There's this sort of like, God, let's sit down. Let's have a conversation here. Let's figure out what's going on. I don't get this. That's a relation that we have with somebody.

If you turn with me to Revelation 21...

Because it's ultimately what God wants. It's the end of the book. It's the definition of God's plan.

Revelation 21 verse 3. This is the final passage here of... One of the final passages of God's holy word. Infused, right? God breathes. He says, And I heard a loud voice, Revelation 21.3, From heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, And he will dwell with them. And they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them, And be their God. The tabernacle, the dwelling place of God is with men. God wants to live with us. He wants us to find him. Here I am! Don't stand outside. I'm right here.

And sometimes, you know, we might be going through enough that we just... We just don't know if we can handle it.

One of the...strangely, one of the first counseling calls, It was early on, maybe two or three weeks after I went full-time into the ministry, I got a call from a woman. She wasn't in the church, although she had attended church growing up. I don't think it was a regular attendance, but she had come.

And she said, my father wants to kill himself.

He wants to take advantage of the California law on physician-assisted suicide. And he's in your church. Please help me. Please come and talk to him. Don't let my dad do this.

Wow. I had met him once, and he had been so ill for so long. He hadn't been to church in so long. So I drove out to see him. And...oh, he was in a bad way. He was in a bad way. He'd been in that room, you know, for so long. But he was living with his daughter and with his grandkids, and they loved him. And they didn't want to see him go. And I said, and I talked with him, and I just listened to him. And I...you know, why do you want to do this? And he explained, you know, he called the doctor, and there's...he needs two doctors, and, you know, he's going to get these pills. And, you know, we just talked. And he was in a lot of pain. He was in a lot of pain, both physically and mentally. And I said, look, I'm going to tell you, you know, you've been part of this faith for decades. You know what the church teaches on this. You know that we don't get to make those decisions. We leave those things in God's hands. And by the way, you've got some people in the other room who love you, and they don't want to lose you. I said, you know, that's all I can say. I said, you know, you make your decisions, but I have to tell you this. And I can't walk in your shoes. I can't imagine what it's like to be in this room. And I left, and I talked a little bit more to his daughter and some of the grandkids. You know, he ultimately decided not to do that. He lived another two, two and a half years. His daughter called me when he passed. You know, sometimes we can't bear just to even be with ourselves. That's where God's presence comes in. That's where we go to when we're in those situations. And we can't walk in one another's shoes that way because we each have our own individual experiences. That's why it says, take up your cross and follow me. Take up your cross and follow me. We have access to a living relationship with God through his Spirit, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1. We have a deposit. That's the word that's used. A deposit of God's Holy Spirit. And that's the cool part. That's the part that opens the door to some great things. To life, to joy, to pleasure. And that's the gift that opens the door to getting through the rough times. Because I've had some great times. I've had some great times in my life. And I'll tell you, talking to that man who wanted to take his life, he had some great times in his life, too. We talked about all those high points. We have highs and we have lows. And God's Spirit is there for us if we want to take advantage of it in both highs and lows. It chases the way of the sadness. It gives vision, and it gives light, and it gives hope. It gives strength, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, to renew our strength. To soar on wings like eagles. To run and not grow weary. To walk and not be faint. Beautiful quotation from Isaiah 40. It is power like no other. It's faith to move mountains. It is words that we cannot express. And it's logic that if we've not yet resolved in our own minds, it is God's greatness. And He's willing to share it with us if we're willing to let Him in. God's presence is in our midst, even now, at this Sabbath service. Let's dwell in God's presence.