1. Growing For Life (Practice #5) Aug. 8 th Practicing God s Presence Live In the Presence

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1 1. Growing For Life (Practice #5) Aug. 8 th Practicing God s Presence Live In the Presence Psalm 139:1-24; Text Verse 7. I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! (NLT) Well here we are on the fifth Spiritual Practice. Who remembers what the four we have done are called? (1) Simplicity, (2) Engaging the Bible, (3) Prayer, and (4) Hospitality. Practicing God s Presence is not one of the most obvious Christian practices is it? I don t think it would be on peoples most top ten list of Spiritual Practices, yet it really is there for a reason, because it is the longing of every one of us that we were created for God s presence. We are never more alive, we are never more purposeful than when we are living in the Presence of God. Many of you know the story of brother Lawrence, 17 th century French monk, who lived in a monastery, and was basically the chief cook and bottle washer, he was a glorified buss-boy, for the other brothers in there, yet brother Lawrence lived with a daily determination to be sensitized to the presence of God all around him in performing the most menial tasks, even amid the clank of dirty dishes and soapy greasy water, and he lived his life that way, and his classic book The Practice of the Presence of God has become a classic over these centuries. These Pebbles, have a beautiful inscription on them, a constant reminder that we all live in the Presence of God all the time. A. Our text is Psalm 139, Wherever we are, what ever we are doing in life and even in death, we cannot be far from God s presence, verse 7 says I can never get away from your presence. You see friends God is every where, we have a fancy theological term for that called OMNIPRESENCE 1. God is OMNIPRESENT (a). He is everywhere, that means that He exists beyond the created order, but that He fills all creation with His prevailing presence, that even the heaven s declare the glory of God, even the heavens declare the presence of God, you see God is ubiquitous (Omni-present), that means that there is no place where God is not fully invested. When I contemplate the OMNIPRESENCE of God I tend to think of God occupying the distant space all around, it s like Bette Midler s song you know that From a Distance God is watching God is watching us, but not necessarily me, from a distance God is everywhere, it s hard to take that in, 1

2 there s not a sense of intimacy and connectedness with my life, God is every where, but for many, God s not everywhere, Gods somewhere, for some of us God is not everywhere, God is somewhere, He has favorite haunts to hang out in. (b). So many might buy into the notion that God s presence transcends and fills the cosmos, but we can only expect to encounter the divine presence in sacred places at sacred times, like here in church and more particularly in the sanctuary, because there is little chance of running into God s presence in the rest room, heaven knows, God s likely in His sanctuary. The word sanctuary today has a really interesting meaning, sanctuary has come to mean a place of refuge, a retreat, so we talk about refugees, illegal refugees who take sanctuary in a building, a church, or we talk about wild life sanctuaries, protected places. But the real word sanctuary of course has its roots in the concept of Holy or Sanctified space, space that is set apart for the worship for the presence of God, it s part of the carry over from the ancient concept of the Ark of the Covenant, God in a box, God is somewhere for the Jews as they journey across the wilderness, God s in a box, and then the tabernacle around it, and then finally the Temple, God s in His temple, we spaceally locate God to specific sacred spaces. Now for the Jews Sacred Spaces for them were mountain tops, read through the Old and New Testaments you ll see significant things happen on mountain tops, Moses meets God, Moses receives the Ten Commandments, Jesus gives a sermon on the mount, He stands on the mount of transfiguration to reveal His full glory to His bewildered disciples, mountain tops are sacred places, they are places of revelation, and epiphany s, remember the discussion Jesus had with the Samaritan woman at the well, and when Jesus got too close to what was going on in her life she switched the subject, and talked about where do you worship God, you Jews say you worship God in Jerusalem, but we say us Samaritans you worship God on Mount Garrison here. You know Hell is not only a final destination after we pass from this world, Hell is really the state of being and the absolute absence of God s presence, Hell is where Jesus hung on the cross, and said Why have you forsaken me We say that some people live a Hellish life or they live Hell on earth lives, which means to me they live in a perpetual sense of the absence of God s Spirit and Presence. God is nowhere for these people, and maybe some of you are there, or have been there, (c). Here s what the Psalmist says It says WOW! GOD IS HERE LIVE IN THE PRESENCE Now there is an ancient Latin Phrase, CORUM DEO, and it means IN THE FACE OF GOD, before the face of God, In the Presence of God The Psalmist says You know when I sit down, You know my thoughts even when I am far away, You see me when I travel or I rest at home, You know everything I do, I can never escape from Your Spirit, I can never get away from Your Presence, Sure God knows everything, God sees everything, but what gets to the Psalmist is that GOD You are ever Present here, I can never get away from it. Wouldn t it be awesome to have that same awareness always like 2

3 brother Lawrence? Or brother Jesus? Our elder brother Jesus, you see Jesus when He walked the earth was the Presence of God in body, and where was Jesus when He was Living the Presence of God, Jesus was present in every day activities of every day people. (d). How can we develop sensitivity to the Presence of God? How can we live in the Presence of God in the world and jangle of everyday activities in our lives? I want to give you three words to remember. Remember as a child you learned about traffic safety? You remember how you learned how to cross the road? Do you remember the three words you were to speak before you moved? What were they? STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN. I want to give you these three words. First. STOP. In the midst of daily activities STOP. A few weeks ago I spoke on the passage of Martha and Mary in Luke 10. and again I thought of that story in the context of these three points, and we see this, STOP! Mary STOPPED in the midst of the activity of getting dinner ready, to be with Jesus, Martha missed Jesus in the midst of her activity, Jesus said You are distracted by too many things, distraction, there is no doubt Mary had been helping her frazzled sister before Jesus came, but when the guest of honour arrived she stopped to celebrate and focus on His presence. Mark Buchanan in his book The Rest of God says the devil distracts, God interrupts, and for some reason we fall prey to the one and grow oblivious to the other. Isn t that an amazing quote? How aware are you right now of God s Presence with you? That Jesus Christ is here with you, we want to STOP, and brother Lawrence would say all you have to say is HELLO, you can say it audibly or silently. We are going to take a moment and I want you to close your eyes, no distractions, and greet Him, simply notice Him and be with Him now and say HELLO. HELLO God, HELLO Jesus, you are here, He sent You, You only wait for us to recognize the Presence and say HELLO, You are welcome. Thank You. We can set our alarms on our watches we can take time out, one minute. These pebbles are a great way of reminding ourselves constantly of God s presence and they are a prompt for us to say hello, I know you are here. WOW God is here Live in the Presence. STOP Second. LOOK. The second thing we learn before crossing the street is to LOOK, Pay Attention, I said before, Jesus excelled in being attentive, He saw that God is embedded in people carrying out every day activities, and He Practiced the Presence of God, like brother Lawrence, like Mary. Too many of us walk through the days with eyes wide shut, as the movie said. There s no longing, there s no sense of expectancy, to be vigilant and looking for, no urgency of our hearts to see God, and be with God, we need to pay special attention nowadays, especially we need to pay special attention I believe to the people who cross our paths, because every human encounter I have learned to see is a divine encounter, every coincident meeting can be a God incident in my life. Jim Palmer wrote the book called Divine Nobody s sub titled 3

4 Shedding Religion to find God and Likely People who help you. Jim Palmer was a pastor whose star was rising rapidly in a mega church, the largest church in America at one time, and his life fell apart, marriage dissolved, all kinds of personal problems, you can read the book, it s amazing. And in the course of that experience, Palmer abandoned the church, just like that, and he was about to jettison his Christian Faith altogether, but then out there in everyday places he met everyday people, divine nobody s, some of them he says like people you would expect to meet going down a rabbit hole, bizarre people, who began to show him, people that didn t go to church necessarily, people who knew God, and people who began to help him understand what faith was about, like Wanda in the Waffle House, Mr. Adams the Mechanic, Rick the Tire salesman, all out of the church, but all themselves connected to the reality of God s Presence, and all who helped him connect with that reality for the first time in his life. LOOK Pay Attention And finally LISTEN In the story of Martha and Mary, Mary s sitting listening it says, listening to Jesus, Martha s doing all the talking. Someone has said that we are created as living tuning forks of God, we are imperfect for sure, but we are set to God s frequency to receive the vibrations that God s always sending our way, too many of us brothers and sisters become like Martha s not Mary, we like to talk a lot, we use a lot of words, I m using them now. Illustration A husband was reading the paper one day and he came upon a study, and it said Women use more words in the course of a day than men, is that a surprise to anybody? He was excited to prove to his wife that he was right all along when he accused her of talking too much, so he showed her the study results very excitedly, that men use about 15,000 words a day, and women use about 30,000, and the wife just looked at him and she said Don t be stupid, of course we use twice as many words because we have to repeat ourselves all the time. And he said What! You know we all use a lot of words during an average day, I would say we use too many words because we spend too much time talking, How about LISTENING, you know the story of Samuel, the young boy, a gift to Hannah, in later years. She promised if she had a son she would consecrate him to God s service, and so Samuel s born and she takes him to the House of the Lord in Shiloh, and she gives him to Eli the ageing priest, and he mentors the young boy in all the priestly ways accept one, he never teaches him to listen to the voice of God, and one night while Samuel s sleeping God shows up, (it s not a thing they are expecting God showing up outside the Lord s House.) He speaks to Samuel, there s only two people in the house Him and Eli, so he runs to Eli Did you call my name and Eli says no go back to bed still groggy from waking up, this happens three times, the third time it happens he goes to Eli hearing his name spoken Eli catches on, God actually did show up in his house and He says okay! The next time you hear that voice you say 4

5 Speak Lord for your servant is listening and he does, God speaks and Samuel says I am listening And God talks and talks and talks, and at the end of it all it says that Samuel s word went through out all Israel. We speak from that which we hear, what we listen to, we speak out of that, speak Lord your servant is listening. Jesus wasn t welcomed into the somewhere places, He wasn t anybody with the somebody s of the day, so He walked in everyday circumstances, with everyday people, He was an itinerant preacher, teacher healer, walking with the ordinary folk, in ordinary towns and neighbourhoods in the course of the ordinary days, and He spoke and performed miracles in the most humdrum of locations friends, neighborhoods, docks, homes with noisy kids and every day chores to show that God s Presence in our everydayness, in our everyday activities, He spoke of the Kingdom s Presence in common terms, in terms that had everything to do with situations that everybody would be familiar with in their everyday lives, The Kingdom, God s Reality, God s Glory, God s Presence. CONCLUSION He gave us sacraments like Baptism (water), Lord s Supper, (Bread and Wine). You now what He was doing with that? He is helping us to connect the sacred, the Presence of God with the mundane things that keep us alive, like eating and drinking. Every time you eat the bread and drink the wine you remember that Christ died for you and His Presence is with you. We wash our faces and we shower in the morning, you are renewing your baptismal vows, you say God you are present with me washing all over me. So, A. In conclusion remember God is OMNIPRESENT, He is everywhere so let us STOP, LOOK and LISTEN, and Practice the Presence of God. Verse 7 says I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! (NLT) AMEN 5