The Power of God's Presence

This week we take a break in-between our teaching series to remind us that it is the power of God's presence that empowers us to pursue him and impact our world.

Transcript

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Well, one of my favorite days of the week when I was young was Saturday. Not just because I didn't have school and you could sleep a little later, play games, watch cartoons was kind of what I did growing up. Just generally have see friends and do things that you don't normally get to do during the week. But I also love Saturdays because typically it meant that my grandparents were coming to pick me up for some meal. Maybe it was breakfast or lunch. I remember waiting patiently for them to show up, looking out the window, getting excited anytime a car would come by and think, is that them? When they did happen to show up, they would come in and I would, of course, run out and greet them. And I'm sure I said hello, maybe, but my first question was, where are we going? Where are we going to eat this time? And it was really usually not some great place. We usually ended up honestly at McDonald's or some other fast food place or some other restaurant like that. But we would always arrive at the restaurant, we would take turns ordering, and the last one to order would always be my granddad. And usually after we all ordered, he would just simply order himself a cup of coffee and he'd reach into his pocket and pull out his wallet. Now, this wallet was huge. It had pictures of family and it had business cards. I think it had every receipt he had ever gotten in his life. I don't know how he fit it in that pocket, but it also had a little cash, and he would pull that cash out to pay for our mill. I remember one specific day as I was getting a bit older, and on the way to the restaurant, I was sharing that I had finally started to earn some of my own money, doing some chores, cutting some grass for some neighbors. And this week when we got to the counter and ordered and it came time to pay, my granddad jokingly looked at me and said, Well, I guess since you're all earning all the money now, you can pay for the mill. I put a kind of put a grin on my face and tapped the back of my pocket and replied, Ah, I have forgotten my wallet. And uh, and I, of course, he paid. And that became our running joke every Saturday. We shared a mill, and when it came time to pay, he would look at me and I'd be like, ah, I forgot my wallet. The truth is, he would probably have never let me pay. It wasn't about the money, it was about the time that we shared together. I look back on those days and see just how powerful it was to spend so much time in my grandparents' presence. We sat there for a few hours every week, talked about life, the fun I had that week, the things I was learning, the deep problems of a 10-year-old. We would laugh a lot. They would listen to my stories, and I would listen to their advice and wisdom. Just being in each other's presence was the powerful part of the moment. Not the meal, not who paid for it, but the time. The power of presence. Right now, I would pay whatever it costs today to have one more of those Saturday mornings with my grandparents. And this is what we're going to focus on today. The power you and I can experience being in God's presence. Not doing things for him, not accomplishing tasks, following a moral code. The power of the Christian life comes from simply being in the presence of God. You may not know it, but since the beginning of the year, we've been working through four themes. We've gotten halfway through. If you remember back at the beginning of January, we started a series called Discover Meaning, where we looked at six key identities of who we are in Christ. And then we just finished a series called Pursue Peace, where we talked about six key pursuits of who we are as we follow Christ. And next week we start this next one on hope, choosing hope, the victories we have in Christ, and then we'll end as we head into summer this idea of embracing pleasure and the six fruits of our life that we can have as we follow Christ. And these are all great to know, great to focus on in our lives, but I thought I would actually, in this moment, kind of halfway through these four series, be a time to stop and remind us that the power of the Christian life is not found in these lists. Right? In these six things that we can do over and over. It's checking off items. Instead, it is first and foremost about doing these things with God and in his presence. These four things also aren't just some cool ideas that I came up with. They come from an understanding of the deeper character and nature of God and the person and provision of Jesus, God in the flesh who dwelt among us. And we learn these by being in his presence. And the idea that God's presence, leading us to these four elements of meaning and hope, and peace and pleasure are beautifully illustrated in a vision from God that we can read about in the Old Testament. Ezekiel 47 is filled with a vision, a vision of restoration, renewal, and revival. What was happening in the time of Ezekiel, Israel had just spent 39 chapters, the first 39 chapters of Ezekiel hearing about judgment, sin, and destruction. But now God gives them a picture of life flowing from his presence. It talks about a river that we're going to read about in this passage that's symbolic of the Spirit of God, the life of God flowing outward to heal what is broken. And this is exactly what I have been praying and teaching that our church would embrace. Our history as a church is long and broad. We've had ups and downs, but I believe God has given us a new vision, a new dream. And this dream is about much more than what will happen in this building. It is about what will happen in our lives, in our neighbors' lives, in these streets and these towns around us. So let's jump into this picture and see how these four key expressions play out in the Christian life. As I mentioned in Ezekiel, they're going through, Israel's going through a horrible time. The people of Israel were devastated, questioning their identity, their relationship with God. They were in a bad spot. And we're going to see as we read this that this is a beautiful redemptive story. So let's look, Ezekiel 47, 1 through 12. I'm going to read it and then we're going to kind of look at it in sections. So let's start verse 1. It'll be on the screens. It says, Then he brought me, Ezekiel's talking about this vision he's having, back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the temple faced east. The water was flowing down below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. Then he brought me out by the way of the north gate and led me around on the outside of the outer gate that was facing the east. And behold, the water was trickling out onto the south side. Going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand, the man measured a thousand cubits, and then he led me through the water, and it was ankle deep. Then he measured another thousand and led me through the water, and it was knee deep. And again he measured a thousand and led me through the water, and it was waist deep. Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through. For the water had risen, it was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through. And he said to me, Son of man, have you seen this? Then he led me back to the banks of the river, and I went back, and I saw the banks of the river, very many trees on one side and on the other, and he said to me, This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah and enters the sea, and the water flows into the sea, and the water becomes fresh. And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swamp that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish, for the water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh, so everything will live where the river goes. Fishermen will stand beside the sea, from Ingaday to Ingalam, and it will be a place of the spreading of nets. Its fish will be the very many kinds, like the fish of the great sea, but its swamps and marshes will not become fresh, they are to be left for salt. And on the banks on both sides of the river there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water from them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be food, beef for food, and their leaves for healing. I don't know if you ever had a crazy dream. This is a pretty crazy dream, right? I mean, like, whoa, this guy, you know, he's dreaming that he has this vision and standing at the temple of God and water just begins to trickle out. And there's so much symbol in here that the way the river flows east is actually toward where the captivity is, where the destruction is happening. The Spirit of God is moving toward the broken places. The sea that it's talking about flowing into is actually the dead sea, the geographic. And it says, as this river flows in there, what was once dead is now going to come to life. And there'll be living things all around it, and there'll be have so much in it that there'll be trees around fishermen will throw their nets in a place that nobody fishes currently and have more fish than they know what to do with, and it'll be used to feed people. There's a whole imagery here of from death to life, from the temple to the people that we're seeing played out in this vision. And we're always looking at four truths tonight that come from this that tie into these uh elements that we've been talking about: meaning, peace, hope, and pleasure. And the first that we're gonna see in the first couple of verses is God's presence. When we're in God's presence, it actually brings meaning. These identities that we talked about. It says water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple. The vision begins at the temple, the place where God's presence dwells. This river didn't come from a government house. It did not even come from our house. It does not start with politics, army, or even human effort. Meaning and life comes from God Himself. Israel had lost everything: land, temple, identity, hope, but God shows them that life begins again where his presence is. And I want you to hear healing, identity, purpose always begin in the presence of God. When God restores, he starts at the source himself. He is the source of meaning, the direction of life, the guide, the one who created us, formed us, shaped us, and gave us a purpose. It says here the water began as a trickle, almost unnoticed. And I think if you look at times in your life, maybe where you've gone from despair to hope, from uncertainty to meaning, sometimes it wasn't these big, huge decisions in your life. It was just you look back and it was a moment where God started to change your heart a little bit, a little trickle that turned into this mighty river. And it also says that it flew, that flowed beneath the altar, reminding us that it flows from sacrifice ultimately to Christ. And I want us to remember, in the presence of God, when we find meaning, it causes us to do a couple of things. One, we stop looking at the ruins of our life backward, and we start looking at the river. We stop staring at what died and start focusing on the one who brings life. Resurrection doesn't begin with your effort, it begins with God's presence. And the key thought I want you to grab with this one is this when we lack meaning in our life, return to the source of refreshment, which is the presence of God. When you come to a point and you're like, what does my life mean? Does it have any meaning? And these times when you can turn on the news and everything that's out there seems like war is just a constant. And there's a meaningless then that creeps into our lives. Remember to go back to the source of refreshment, the presence of God. Without that river, everything dries up. And Ezekiel reminds us that meaning flows from God's presence, not from human works. Then he gets into the next verses, and he says, as we get this meaning, it starts to expand. And God's meaning then is going to bring peace in our life. And we just did this series on peace, right? These pursuits that we have going deeper into peace. And the vision here goes from, you know, a thousand cubits, ankle deep to knee deep, waist deep, so much that it's a river I can't even traverse. It's huge. It's more than I understand. And the river grows deeper and farther as he walks. And the picture is of this progressive healing and this increasing surrender. God doesn't push Ezekiel into the deep end, right? He leads him to deeper waters. And I want you to hear that when we pursue peace in our life and experience peace, God does not throw you into the deep end of the water with no help. He leads you there. And honestly, at that point, if you've ever, I went rafting one time down one of the rivers in the States, and there's this point where they let you jump out of the boat after you've gone through some areas, and you can get out and you can stand in the water, and it's not bad. And you can see rapids down at the far end, and they were like, there is a safe path through if you will just lean back, keep your feet up, and let the water take you through the rapids. I didn't believe them. I was like, I'm not gonna do that until I saw one of the guides do it. Just popped his feet up straight through, straight through the rapids. And he said, Now here's the one thing you can't do is put your feet down. Because as soon as you put your feet down, they can get caught in the rocks because you're trying to stop, and the river's gonna keep pushing you forward. Keep your feet up, trust it, and go. And when I think about that, this imagery here, it reminds me so much of that. I can start in shallow water, trust a little bit, see what God has done in my life and other lives before, and then I can have peace keep my feet up and let the waters of God take me to where he wants us to go. Peace is not in control, which we often think. Peace is actually in letting go and trusting God in the depths of the river. I don't know what's eating away your peace right now. But I want you to hear peace is not the answer, the absence of problems. Right? It is the presence of God carrying you through those problems. So don't settle for ankle deep Christianity just staying in the shallow end, showing up once we keep going deeper, deeper. The truth is, the key thought when we lack peace, we should follow God into deeper waters instead of retreating into dry land. Which is what we're often tempted to do. It's getting too hard. It's getting too is it too I'm gonna have to trust him, I'm gonna have to trust him completely, I'm gonna have to give up control. No, I'm gonna run back. Pick your feet up and let God take you where you want to where he wants to take you. I I think about this and recently in our own lives, and we're talking about going deeper. We, you know, moved here two years ago, started learning the French language, and we learned very quickly we could get by in Nice with a few phrases. You know, je voudrais un café. You know, I can I can get by with that. I I, you know, bonjour, you know, la dishon si vous plaît. I can I can get by with a few phrases. But I can never, I never got deep into a relationship with someone who was a native French speaker until I allowed myself to go deeper into the language and in the culture. And that's what this idea of taking initial step, another step, another step, this progressive healing in our life comes with peace. So when you lack peace, follow God into the deeper waters instead of retreating back to dry land. We now see in verse 6 through 9 that God's peace now will bring us hope, victories in our life. It says, everything will live where the river goes. What a beautiful picture. We went from dry, barren brokenness to now everything will live where the river grows. The Dead Sea, as I mentioned, is the saltiest, most lifeless body on earth. And it says, as this river comes into literal death, it will bring life. And I want you to hear this: God's spirit brings hope to the most hopeless places. Even in your life. Even in your life. There is no place too dead for his spirit to revive. You're not, your depression is not too deep, your addiction is not too strong, your marriage is not too broken, your past is not too painful, and your heart is not too hard for his spirit to come and bring life. Many of us have lived many, many years in this life. And we can look back, and as we look back, we can see great things, but we can also see regrets. Pain. Even as a younger person, you look back at your life and see pain and regrets. And we often let those pain and regrets be the things that we focus on in our lives. I wish I would have. I hate that I did this. I and God says, look, we can't change that, but we can change the future and bring healing. You are not defined by the dry and barrenness of what was. You are going to be defined by the depth of the hope that you can have in Christ. I was out last summer, I was out at the uh, we were out at the beach in Nice. Beautiful, you know, Mediterranean, the Côte d'Azor, the the beautiful blue water, some of the most beautiful water in the world. And up close to the wall, there is a drainage ditch that comes kind of, you know, some of the water, I guess, off the streets, drains in, and it formed a puddle in all the rocks there and was kind of brownish and nasty. And lo and behold, there was a kid playing in that water. And I it was such a picture to me of like muck, dirty, nastiness, the most beautiful water in the world, and you chose this. You chose this. You can take 10 steps and go get in some of the best water in the world, but you chose this dirty, dark water. Maybe I would have done that as a kid. I don't know. I guess you just it was a picture that's immediately brought to my mind how often we do that in our own lives. We wallow in our sin and our shame and our guilt instead of living in the beautiful freedom that God gives us through Christ. I'm too broken, I've done too much, I'm not good enough. All this mug and dirtiness that we wallow in, we go to the river, to go to the beauty that is there. The key thought is this: when you lack hope, start looking at the depths of God's faithfulness instead of the despair of the world. It's so easy to be overcome with despair right now, right? As we mentioned, what's everything's happening in our world, maybe even what's going on specifically in your life. If you turn the news off, there's still despair in your life. But when you are lacking hope, start looking at the depths of God's faithfulness, the beauty of what's out there instead of the muck and the dirt of what's around you. And finally, as we do this, God hopes, as we have the God's hope, it brings us to a point of pleasure in our life where we're seeing fruit come to life. It says, their leaves will not wither, their fruit will not fail, and their leaves will be for healing. What a beautiful picture. This final movement of this vision shows sustainable fruitfulness. Not seasonal, not occasional, but every month, every season. Why? Because the waters flow from the sanctuary, from God's presence. A life touched by God's hope becomes a source of healing and faithfulness, not just in our lives, but in the lives of others as well. Think about the part there where it talks about the fishermen spreading their nets, trees growing on both sides, fruit grows every month, leaves bring healing. This reminds us that the fishermen, as they spread their nets, abundance replaces emptiness in our lives when we have pleasure and we see fruit. Stability and strength come as these trees grow in our life. We have supernatural consistency as fruit shows up in our life every month. And then your life becomes medicine and healing for others, as it says, the leaves bring healing. This is God's vision for his people, not to be just consumers of grace, but conduits of healing. I want you to hear just a few statements. You were not saved to just survive, just to get through this life until you get to heaven. You were planted to bear fruit. You were healed to then become a healer of others. You are restored to restore others as well. And this is the ultimate vision we have that God gives us for our own church and our own lives. Imagine a church that isn't a building but a river-fed forest. With believers rooted in God's presence, overflowing with hope and producing healing in this city. And here's the key thought: when we lack pleasure, start expressing the hope that God has given us to others instead of hoarding it for ourselves. The best way when you start to lack pleasure in the fruits of your life is to start to give instead of grab. Which brings me to the question of the day. This river of meaning, peace, hope, and pleasure is rising. It is. It's coming. Will you step into it? Will you step into it? Instead of holding back, keeping part of your life separate from God, having your Christian life and your church life and your other life instead of letting it all come together. When we step into the river, it will take us from death to life, from aimlessness to true meaning, from uncertainty to true peace, from desperation to true hope, and from despair to true pleasure. And then we will take that and give it to others. I think it was my senior year in high school, and my days and my Saturdays with my grandparents weren't as frequent as they usually were. But one day after school, me and a number of my friends were at the McDonald's that I used to frequent with my grandfather. And unplanned, as we were deciding, my friends and I deciding what to order, my granddad walked in. We greeted each other, hugged, and he saw I was with my friends, and he told me, go with them not to worry about him. But the memories of those days that I had with him in that building came flooding back into my head, and I stood with him in line and told him to order something. Anything. Whatever you want, it's on me. He looked at the menu for a while and he did what he always did and ordered a cup of coffee. And as he reached for his wallet, I told him, This one is on me. And he said, What? You didn't forget your wallet today? Not this time, I said, and I was happy to pay for my meal and his coffee. But then I invited him to come and sit down with me and my friends. And for the next hour or so, my friends got to experience the laughter, wisdom, and words of my grandfather like I had for all my life. It was a day I'll never forget because I had the chance to share with my friends someone that had meant so much to me in my own life. And when you and I start to share the things that God has done in our lives with others, we will see the river of life flow into places and to people that we have never imagined. People that you think are unreachable. Places you say the gospel will never get there, the river will go. It'll make it. It'll flow as we allow it to flow into our lives. Our presence in people's lives can model the beauty of God to them. We become the image bearers of God, drawing them into his presence and into his salvation. The next time you're at a place or with someone and it seems hopeless, somebody seems like their life is aimless, or they're caught in despair or depression, I encourage you, don't just tap them on the back and say, I hope it gets better, or I'll even pray for you. Instead, just like I invited my granddad to sit down, invite God to sit down with you in that moment and allow his presence to bring meaning, peace, hope, and pleasure into that moment, into their lives, like he did to yours. Let's pray together.