Dr. David Jeremiah | 1/9/2018. Knowing an Ever-Present God

even knowing God bookmark completely free when you contact turning-point today now here is dr. Jeremiah with his message knowing an ever-present boy located in the southwestern region of the United States is a tourist attraction that draws thousands of visitors every year it's one of the strangest tourist attractions you will ever hear about it's a six hour drive from the nearest airport and 33 miles from the nearest town resting in unremarkable landscape its focal point is nothing more than a small brass disc roughly three inches in diameter it's a government survey marker designating the point at which four different state boundaries meet Arizona Utah Colorado and New Mexico tourists posed for photographs on all fours with one knee in each state in one hand in each state and they send cards to their friends saying they were in four states at the same time on this particular day and it's a big deal the tourist fascination is with the place called the four corners monument it reveals something about human beings and that is that we cannot be in more than one place at one time we can move from one place to the next but we cannot occupy two places simultaneously yet God who is spirit is able to be everywhere fully present God is unbound by a body is not limited to one place he's not merely big he is uncontainable able to be fully present everywhere at the same time Francis Schaeffer who was a great theologian wrote a book that became the touchstone of his ministry it's called the God who is there and in this message I want to tell you today about the God who was there who was here and who is everywhere his presence is unlimited he's everywhere present at the same time God is present in every part of space with his whole being and yet God is uniquely present in different places it sounds like a contradiction because we think of things in terms of space and time but God is not bound by time or space he is the creator of time and space he is everywhere at the same time and yet he shows up personally at special times and in special places for instance in the Old Testament God was just as omnipresent as he always has been or always will be yet there was an occasion when he came down and dwelt among his people in the Holy of Holies of the tabernacle in a special way he took up occupancy among his people and we need to know that God sometimes comes down to us today in a similar fashion Deitrick ritual told of an experience he had in a German city that was bombed back in 1944 he said thousands of people were killed in that bombing and after the bombing he was lying in the railroad station looking up through the partially destroyed roof at all the fires that were burning all over the city and he said as he looked up through that hole in the roof he caught a glimpse of an inscription atop one of the remaining sections of the ceiling and this is the inscription in German here it is in English beyond the stars there must live a gracious father ritual thought about that for a moment and then he said I do not want such a God I do not want a God who was beyond the stars I want a God who is here God who is present a God who's available a God who knows and understands my situation and all of us feel that way all of us want a God who was not afar off but one who was close at hand and while we're on by the reality of God's universal presence in all the quadrants of the world what we most need in our lives is a God who dwells with us and understands us and what it's like to live as we live and according to the Bible that's just the kind of God we have here is Isaiah the prophet in one of the great statements about the on the presence of God for thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity whose name is holy i dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones isaiah said god sits on the throne in heaven but he dwells with the humble and contrite on this earth he's the high and holy god who fills the whole earth with his whole presence and yet the god who ministers to your heart and to mine i love hanging out with charles and michael and i have something on both of them and here it is I've been around long enough I know more songs than they do I know a lot of songs they don't know and sometimes I'll think of a song in sync to them do you know that one and they'll kind of look at me with a stare we can learn it the other day I asked them if they knew this song it's written by a gospel cowboy who wrote songs for the Billy Graham crusade years ago his name was Stuart Hamblin that's the name out of the past and one of the great songs that he wrote has these words in the first verse how big is God how big and wide his vast domain to try and tell these lips can only start he's big enough to rule the mighty universe yet small enough to live within my heart that's the message of the arm the presence of God one of the most vivid stories about God's presence concerns King Solomon and King Solomon was one who built one of the great temples in Jerusalem the Solomonic temple is well still viewed as one of the one of the world if you had seen it you would have been awestruck with its beauty at the time that it was built it was the most beautiful building on the face of God's earth when he prepared to dedicate this temple according to first Kings 8:27 he had second thoughts about dedicating a building to God and here's what he said but will God indeed dwell on the earth behold heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain you how much less this temple which I have built Lord God I built this beautiful ornate temple a temple unto God but it's kind of silly when I think about it can God fit into my beautiful temple the God who fills the heaven in the heavens he understood something critical about God that no matter how magnificent is the temple it was totally inadequate to contain the presence of a God who fills the heaven and the earth with himself but when Solomon dedicated the temple here's what the Bible says fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices and the glory of the Lord filled the temple and the priests could not enter the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord's house what a day that must have been on the one hand heaven and earth cannot contain God yet his manifest glory came down and dwelt within the temple that Solomon built to bless his people Solomon had undoubtedly learned about God's reality from his father because King David who wrote one of the most beautiful passages on God always being everywhere president taught him this truth here from Psalm 139 I can never escape from your spirit I can never get away from your presence if I go up to heaven you are there if I go down to the grave you are there if I ride the wings of the morning if I dwell by the farthest oceans even there your hand will guide me and your strength will support me I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night but even in darkness I cannot hide from you to you the night shines as bright as the day God darkness and light are exactly the same to you and Jeremiah added later in the Old Testament am i a God near at hand says the Lord and not a god far off can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I shall not see him says the Lord do not I feel the heaven and the earth says the Lord like all of the other truths about God this is mind-boggling that someone some person could be everywhere at the same time how can one being be everywhere at the same time and how can we feel that somehow God is more present with us at one moment than he is at another have you ever thought about that I mean we might have a great worship experience at church and we might leave that service and say wow the presence of God was really with us today but was the presence of God with us that night more than he's always with us and every time if he fills the whole earth with his full presence then God can never be more present with us at one time than he is at another and yet here we have in the scripture and in our own experience this radical thought that God was present with us in a special way now the scripture teaches that when we worship God something uniquely different happens psalm 22:3 says it this way God you are holy you God are enthroned in the praises of Israel God you inhabit the praises of your people there is something that happens when we gather and we worship and we kind of get lost in the worship of God all of a sudden we walk away and we think to ourselves God was here today this was a service where God was present CS Lewis theologically captures it for us he says it is in the presence of being worshipped that God communicates his presence to men even in Old Testament the essence of the sacrifice was not really that man gave bulls and goats to God but by their doing so God gave himself to man when we worship God he draws near to us maybe you've experienced the wonderful presence of God during a special time of worship as you were singing or praying or praising or worshiping the Lord you felt his presence closer to you than ever before or maybe you go through a crisis and afterward when the crisis is over you say to your friend that was a really hard place in my life but I really felt the presence of God during that difficulty yet there are moments when God seems to manifest his presence to us more vividly than at other times he's always present everywhere but he's very present here let me tell you something from my own life that will help you understand how that works when I got sick with cancer some years ago as I was getting better and preaching some more I started getting letters from people all over the country saying doctor Jeremiah since you were sick you are preaching much better now that's kind of a mixed metaphor complement the first thing a guy like me thinks about was I wonder how bad I was before I got sick you know but I got these letters from all over the country and I never thought much about him until one day it dawned on me what they were listening to on the radio were sermons that I had preached before I got sick that were recorded and played after I got better I wasn't preaching any different than I had before unfortunately what was going on they were listening different isn't it true that when you know somebody's gone through something you listen different than you would if you didn't know that and that's what happens to us when we're in the midst of worship and we're worshiping God it's almost like God has come down to be with us well we go through a problem and we see God's supernatural help it's like God is more with us than he has ever been but is that true theologically it's not true God cannot be more with us at one time than he is at another because he's always completely holy present with us all the time but boy when we go through stuff do we connect with God don't we we sense God's presence and that's why the scripture speaks of it the way that it does when God's presence is known in our hearts and in our lives there's something unique happens at certain times now I've been trying to be very strategic with this series and not theological I've given you all the theology you're gonna get this morning now we're going to be strategic from the principles of the word of God how can I use this truth that God is always present with me to help me live my life more productively for God here's the first thing meditate on God's presence when you are tempted let me mention these differences there's no greater way to combat sin and temptation in your life than by meditating on God's presence and reminding yourself of how close he is to you Methodist pastor Charles Allen in one of his books that I read some years ago had a golfing buddy who was according to others who worked out with him and played golf with him easily frustrated on the golf course and after bad shots he would use very bad language but pastor Allen never heard this man utter a profane word in his whole life and he'd known him for years and one day Alan asked the man about it and the man simply said well when I'm with my preacher I control myself and that reminded me of a story of something that happened to me when I first started in the ministry back in Indiana I had a barber who had been going through through some time and I wasn't his only client and some of his other clients were rather unsavory characters and on more than one occasion I would go in and sit down in the barber chair and he would forget that there's a mirror in front of you so you can see what's going on behind you and one of his unsavory customers would come in and sit down in the next chair and I would see the barber trying to tell him past the the man of God is in the house because this man would often get into stories that my friend the barber didn't think were appropriate for my ears to hear sometimes he would hit and hit and the story would continue and finally out of frustration he would just say well pastor Jeremiah how is church on Sunday that pretty much shut it all down right there suppose you realized that whatever you're doing the man of God is in the house the god of man is in the house I don't want to be frivolous by this but he's sitting in the next chair suppose you are in the process of doing something you should not do something you knew was dead wrong suppose God suddenly appeared beside you suppose you turn around and there's two Jesus watching you do you think the literal presence of the Lord would inhibit your sinful tendency well he is here he is just as near as he would be if you could see him wouldn't it be interesting to train ourselves to meditate for a few moments when tempted on the nearness and presence of God what a sanctifying exercise that would be when it comes to God's ever-present nearness you just can't have it one way you just can't have him near for comfort and not near for conviction when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden God was coming down to commune with them do you remember the story in Genesis 3 and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden now this has got to be one of the most humorous passages in all the Bible and we're not out of a third chapter yet here was the god of the universe in his manifested presence coming down and walking in the garden that he made he knew every blade of grass every flower every cloud of dirt and hiding from God in his own garden was impossible you can hide from God in his own garden and yet they said we will hide from God and the Lord found them immediately and kicked him out of the garden and the story well not quite we're still playing that story out aren't we and there's another story just like it in the Old Testament a guy by the name of Jonah God commanded him to go and preach to the people of Nineveh the capital city of Assyria and Jonah hated the Ninevites as you read the story carefully you discover he didn't want to go preach to them he was afraid some of them and be converted and he wanted all of them to go to hell that's exactly what you get from the scripture he hated the Ninevites they were a mean-spirited people who had done great damage to his friends and God called him to go down there and perhaps some of them would get saved and you have to spend heaven with him no thank you he wanted them all cursed and damned not spared not converted he didn't want to have anything to do with the Ninevites and this is what the Bible said he did Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord he went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish so he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord twice in one verse we're told Jonah was trying to flee from the presence of the Lord and the messages repeated a third time in verse 10 where the sailors knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord because Jonah told them Jonah didn't get very far God sent a violent storm that engulfed the ship and guess who went overboard did God find Jonah he knew where Jonah was and sent his own vessel to pick him up you cannot hide from God you cannot run from God it's impossible he's everywhere and when we better comprehend the presence of God will realize the futility of hiding from him Hebrews says there is no creature hidden from his sight but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account just remember my friends wherever you go God is already there whatever you do he is with you so if you're planning some thing that you know is taking you away from God's plan for your life just sit down and think soberly about this you're taking God with you into that and you don't really need to take him cuz he's already there you cannot hide it from him you may say I'm not gonna go to church Sunday maybe God won't no no that doesn't work so here's what we ought to do here's how we shore that up inside this is a really good strategic thought for all of us who or a planning strategy for our own spiritual lives the bible says in psalm 119 verse 11 your word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you the Bible says if we hide God's Word in our hearts we will not sin against him why is that true because the Word of God in our hearts is the presence of God within us it fleshes out God's presence the more you understand the presence of God is with you and around you the more apt you are to obey his word he is everywhere and when we are tempted we shouldn't flee from him we should flee to him so meditate on God's presence when you're tempted that's a little bit of a in-your-face lesson this morning but let's file it in our mental notebooks and take it into this week with us number two meditate on God's presence when you're troubled we must also meditate on God's abiding presence when we're troubled by difficulty in life what do you do when you're facing tough times want to give you a scripture that's been a great encouragement to me throughout all my adult life I say a43 one through five but now thus says the Lord who created you Jacob and who formed you Israel fear not for I have redeemed you I have called you by your name you are mine when you pass through the waters I will be with you and through the rivers you shall not overflow you when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned nor shall the flame scorch you for I am the Lord your God the Holy One of Israel your Saviour fear not for I am with you do you know when I am most likely to meditate on the ever-present God when I'm going through stuff like deep waters or difficult times hard experiences I find tremendous strength in recalling the Lord's promise I am with you the Bible tells us God's presence is always available but it is manifest at certain times listen to psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble God shows up in our trouble that he shows off by showing us what to do notice each of these words a very present help in trouble nothing hard to get about that not nebulus is not in generalities it's in very specific language God shows up in trouble have you ever gone through a time that's been devastating and you find yourself saying you know this is the most difficult thing I have ever experienced but I have to tell you something about this experience has made me feel God's nearness as I have never known it before what is that that's the manifest presence of God the very present help in trouble he is more present with you in trouble than at any other time no that's not true but his manifest presence is there to help you and comfort you and guide you and direct you and when we come to the end of our lives his presence is even sweeter yet yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me in July of 2013 a young woman in Maryland discovered firsthand God's presence that summer Morgan Lake of Dunkirk Maryland 22 year old college student majoring in communications was driving along the Chesapeake Bay Bridge when calamity struck as she slowed her car to pay a toll she glanced in her rearview mirror and saw a large trailer tractor truck approaching and in the seconds that passed she hoped it would slow down but it hit her car without any reduction in speed and the tractor trailer crashed into her car the momentum of the truck pushed her car toward the barrier plunging her and her car over the wall and 27 feet into the water below before the tractor-trailer hit her car Morgan's thoughts were filled with prayers for her car to stop at the bridge but her fears of dying became real as her cars submerged beneath the water's surface at that moment she started to panic she struggled to release herself but her seatbelt would not open and as the car and her mouth began filling with water Morgan began to believe that she was going to drown at that moment she declared I am NOT dying she reached out for God's help she said I just felt like God touched my shoulder and pushed me back against my car seat to relax me that divine intervention allowed me to unlock my seatbelt pull myself out of the driver's side window and swim to the surface and a place of safety where she was ultimately rescued speaking of this experience which hit the major news outlets she said as long as you have God with you he will be there to support you through everything even going over a bridge this story was covered by many news organizations at the time but every one of them left out Morgan's testimony of God's presence and deliverance except for Kelly right at Fox News and she included it as the rest of the story and I thought as I read that all of us have something in our life that has addendum to it that's the rest of the story what God did that we've never told anybody what God did that we don't even know for sure if we believe it ourselves but God was there and he manifested himself for us just when we needed him because he cares for us and he loves us and he's always available we don't have to wait till he gets there we don't have to wait until he shows up he's there and he becomes present with us quite often when we're going through times of trouble one last practical thought meditate on the presence of God when you're facing temptation meditate on the presence of God when you're going through trouble and meditate on God's presence when you're tasked with a hard assignment this is one of the most important ones and this is as much for me as it is for all of us so I'm going to preach to myself for a little bit just you can listen we have to train ourselves to meditate on God's presence when we're tempted in troubled but when we have been asked by God to do something that's very hard there's a very personal perspective about God's presence that I want to share with you as we close I don't know about you but sometimes God asks me to do something I never thought of doing and I didn't really want to do it in the first place and I'm like you there are times when I know this is what God wants me to do and I'm overwhelmed by it and I try to wiggle out from under it I'm the wrong guy God you got the wrong person and when I do that I often meditate on the servants of God within the pages of the Bible and I take great comfort in the fact that I'm not any different than they were back when they were dealing with God as I'm dealing with him now I think of Moses who in the latter years of his life felt the entire nation of Israel fall on his shoulders like a bunch of barbells and all of a sudden he's standing before the burning bush and he learns of his new assignment and he argues and tries to escape the burden and the Lord says to him Moses Exodus 3:12 I will certainly be with you he didn't say Moses I'll be with you he said Moses I will certainly be with you God didn't intend to shove Moses into this role and walk away from him he promises Moses of his certain and constant and abiding presence Moses devoted the next 40 years to the task and if you read the story you know God kept his bargain he was with Moses in every step every mile every minute and when it was time for Moses to check out and for the next leader to come on board what advice did Moses give to Joshua listen to his words from Deuteronomy 31 and the Lord he is the one who goes before you he will be with you and after the death of Moses the Lord himself told Joshua as I was with Moses so I will be with you after the death of Joshua a number of leaders arose and you read about him in the book of Judges one of these leaders was a guy named Gideon Gideon is this marvelous illustration of God's presence he wasn't the robust hero leader that you might think and when God came to find him to be the leader of his people against the Midianites he was threshing wheat trying to be unnoticed so nobody would know him nobody would know where he was he was cowardly away from everybody and the Lord found him once again you can't hide from God and the Lord said to him I always love this is one of those another funny moments in the Bible what's he doing he's hiding into the threshing floor because he didn't want anybody to find him right God speaks to him the Lord is with you you mighty man of Valor just looking around well who's that I love it's about God God often calls us out as he knows we will be instead of as we really are he knew that one day Gideon would be a mighty man of Valor and of course he was you go through the Bible you trace this pattern throughout the scripture he called Jeremiah and Jeremiah was overwhelmed he was young he didn't feel like he had the maturity to do what God wanted him to do like Moses he tried to back his way out of the assignment and the Lord said Jeremiah don't you be afraid of their faces for I am with you to deliver you I can't trace all the times God reassured his servants of his presence but I can tell you one that's good for us to be reminded of right now when the Lord God sent us into all the world to preach the gospel and baptize those who believe it's a tough assignment and the assignment ends with these words and lo I am with you always even to the end of the age I don't know what's going on in your life today maybe God's calling you to be a pastor or maybe go to Brazil or Africa or China or do something really outside the box for the Lord and you're daunted and you feel like Jonah or Moses and you want to find a way out of the assignment I don't want to hear all the reasons you feel you can't do what God wants you to do I just want to remind you what he said to you he said I will be with you I vividly recall when God called me to take on the pastoral duties of this church for six weeks I was terrified in my heart you know if you're pastoring a church you got something to do every day but I took six weeks off between churches and it wasn't a good thing for me emotionally I was driving all over the country and all I could think about was what have I done I've pulled the stakes up from the place I started where I felt comfortable and I'm going to this wild and woolly place called San Diego what am I gonna do for six weeks I could think of many reasons to refuse the invitation and all I could hear God saying to me was David I'm not gonna ask you to go out there and do that by yourself I will be with you and I'm looking back over my shoulder now at all all these years and as your pastor I can tell you this has not always been easy but the pastor of a church never is an easy task but how wonderful to know that we don't bear our burdens alone we don't preach our sermons alone we don't teach the children alone we don't raise our families alone in every assignment and for every God ordained task God is with us he is with you if you're wrestling right now with something God has asked you to do remember the secret is not your capability but God's availability God does not call the equipped God equips the called he doesn't go around looking for all high and mighty people say oh that guy looks like he's really got it together I can use him know God goes and find somebody who wants to serve Him and after he calls him then he equips him to do this service to which he's been called I want you to say this with me today so you won't forget it I want you to say with me God is with me say it out loud God is with me one more time like you really mean it God is with me whatever you got going on this week whatever you're doing whatever God's put you in the middle of whatever problem you face you do not face it alone God is always present he is always with you dl Moody who was a great man of God a hundred years ago one time was asked about his tremendously intimate relationship with Christ these words are a hundred years old but they speak to me as if they were written today here's what he said I have come to him as the best friend I have ever found and I can trust him I have believed he is my Savior I have believed his God I have believed he went to the cross for me and I have come to him and submitted myself on my knees and surrendered everything to him and got up and stood by his side as my friend and there isn't any problem in my life and there isn't any uncertainty in my work that cannot speak to him as naturally as to someone in the same room and I have been doing this for all these years because he's the best friend I ever had do you know Jesus like that you know God like that that's how he wants to be known not the God that you looked through the through the hole in the trashed out ceiling who's way above he's the God who's with you every day he woke up with you this morning he's with you in this service he'll go with you when you leave throughout the afternoon God is always there the difference is you have to be aware of his presence and when you become aware of his presence everything changes this isn't just you alone this is you and God and you are always the majority when God is on your side I want you to take that truth with you this week and know God loves you so much he's not gonna leave you to yourself he wants to be with you and the Bible says he wants to live in you you may be here today and you're hearing all this wonderful stuff about God which you don't experience any of that listen before God can be with you he has to be in you he has to come and live within your heart through His Son Jesus Christ and if you've never allowed him to do that if you've never invited him to come and live within your heart what a great day for you to do this just open your heart and say Lord God I don't want you to be on the outside I want you to be on the inside come and live with in my life forgive me of my sin give me your righteousness so that I can walk in fellowship with you and God will do that he's never ever turned anybody away who's asked him simply for his presence in their life hi Frank we don't know how you get through life these days without the presence of God I have no idea how it would be like I don't have any desire to try and find out what I do know is this life is hard it's not going to get much easier but nothing is impossible with God and when you carry God with you in your heart and he's a part of your life he makes everything different dr. Jeremiah will return to close today's program right after this this month on Turning Point dr. Jeremiah would like to offer you the God you may not know take the journey from knowing about God to knowing God inside which dr. Jeremiah shares the powerful characteristics that God Himself wants you to understand dr. Jeremiah's new book will be sent to you as a thank you for a gift of any amount in support of this program or with a generous gift of $60 or more you'll receive the got you may not know set containing dr. Jeremiah's new book study guide online leaders guide and the knowing God book learn plus dr. Jeremiah's newest teaching series on DVD which will arrive at the conclusion of the series order the God you may not know book or set when you support the Ministry of turning-point today [Music] and now with one last word for today's program here is dr. Jeremiah I trust you have a greater understanding about God's presence being with us after having heard today's message not only is he everywhere but when he comes into your life through faith in Christ God is with you personally as your Shepherd your comforter your friend your Lord and your Savior if you haven't trusted Christ as your Lord and Savior I pray you will and to help you take that step please allow me to send you two free gifts from turning-point one is our booklet called your greatest turning point and the other is our monthly devotional magazine called turning points we will gladly send both these resources to you free of charge if you will contact us here at Turning Point today in addition to these free study resources nothing is as profound as the Word of God and now dr. Jeremiah has a Bible for every member of the family there are numerous versions of the Jeremiah Study Bible perfect for adults and teens and the airship Genesis kids Study Bible will bring the truth of God's Word to the young ones in your life contact turning-point for more information or to order today that's week on Turning Point the wages of sin is death and somebody has to die and if it's not Jesus it's us he took our place willingly because his father loved us so much he gave up heavens best thank you for being with us today join dr. Jeremiah next week for his message knowing a loving God

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Length: 39min 54sec (2394 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 01 2018