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Here, There, and Everywhere

March13, 2005                                                                                                Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson

What is the difference between Christianity and all other faiths? You should recognize that question by now, because I’ve asked it several times, especially over the last few weeks. And the answer, as given by C.S. Lewis a long time ago, is very easy, the word is grace. In almost every other religion, it is about how we, as human beings, please the deity. How do we come to God? For some, it is how you pray, for some it is what you do, how good you are. For others, particularly right now, it’s how many people you kill when you put a bomb on your chest and blow yourself up…all kinds of things. But the story of the Bible is very different, the direction of the Bible is very different. The direction is not from us to God as much as it is from God to us. It is about God restoring a relationship. Yes, it’s true. We are estranged from God because of our sins, that is very clear, at the very beginning. But then God begins a program, if you will, a plan, which culminates at the end of history of restoring that relationship, of God, instead of being separated from us, being with us. We see it at the very beginning. We see Noah, minding his own business. And God comes to him and says, “Guess what, you’ve got to build a boat.” Abraham is minding his own business, living in Mesopotamia, has lived a good bit of his life already. God comes to him and says, “Get up, you’ve got to move, time to go.” And he does. And the story of the Israelites, God chooses them, mainly because of the promise He made earlier, but He chooses them. And then we see the story of how God has them build this tent-like structure called a tabernacle and in that tabernacle, in the symbol of that place, is where God is, in the midst of His people. And later it is replaced by the temple. And we all know the story of Jesus. And who is Jesus? Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. But it doesn’t stop there. Jesus, of course, is crucified, is raised from the dead, but as he says himself, he does not leave us as orphans. He sends the Spirit to live among us. And at the end, it culminates in a vision of the new Jerusalem and we find that that is a place where God is.

As we read in the Scripture today, it says, now the dwelling of God is with men or with human beings. God has this thing about living with us, present with us. I’m going to read to you three scriptures as I continue my series of sermons today that I’ve been preaching on the titles, or names, of God. And today it is taken from one verse, the very last verse of the prophet Ezekiel. It is Yahweh Shamma, which means the Lord is there. Just a little background, especially for you Bible guys and BSF’ers, people who study the Bible. Ezekiel is a very odd book for modern ears, especially if you read it, it’s difficult. It has visions of battles and monsters, a very strange sort of book. But at the very end you have a vision of what seems like Jerusalem. When you read it, you go, “Oh, this is Jerusalem.” But it’s not Jerusalem because he begins giving the dimensions and it’s not just a town, it’s this huge area. It’s Jerusalem but it’s not. And often prophecy in the Bible is like an onion; it’s given and then over time, it’s peeled back and given again so that you have a deeper view. And that’s what happens here. You have this picture of the new Jerusalem and it’s very interesting. He says at the very end that the name of this place is Yahweh Shamma, the Lord is there. And then we get another picture of it in Revelation, much more detailed, but the same idea. Now the dwelling of God is with men. So let us hear the word of God, see the progression of God’s presence in the midst of us.

One verse from Ezekiel:

The distance all around will be 18,000 cubits [a very large area]. And the name of the city from that time on will be: “THE LORD IS THERE.”

Later Paul will say, in 1 Corinthians 3:

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

And I’ve changed the scripture in Revelation to chapter 21, beginning at verse 1:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

This is the word of the Lord. We’ll join together in a Hymn #425, In the Garden.

An old farmer and his wife are in their truck, driving down a country road. You’ve seen the scene yourself, I’m sure, kind of just driving along pretty slow. And they’re talking with one another and she says to him, “You know, we’ve been married a long time, but do you remember when we were young, how I used to sit next to you and we were so much in love and we would just be enjoying our ride down the road? I wonder why we can’t do that anymore, I miss that. Why don’t we do that anymore?” The farmer looked at his wife and said, “Well, I’m still here.”

The presence of God…if you’re like me, you often don’t feel it. And yet, in the Scriptures we are promised that God not only is around us, but God is here in us through the Holy Spirit. And yet so often in our lives, we go through our lives not experiencing that. My question is: Why? I believe a big part of the issue has to do with us. God is still there but often we’re over here. And this morning I actually just want to be very practical with you. I want to talk about what we need to be and do in order for God’s presence to be felt more in our lives. And I believe it starts with belief, just simply believing what the Bible says, that God is with us. But you know, I find, very often, even in my own life, that we go through our lives and some kind of coincidence happens or we actually might feel God’s presence and our first reaction is, “Ooh, isn’t that spooky? Ooh, that was weird, wasn’t it?” You know even when God’s presence was with us, we think it’s strange and actually it should be normal. But I think in our modern minds we have a sort of scientific problem with this idea of believing in something we don’t see. We need to see it and actually most of us are eye-learners anyway and a lot of us really need something tangible in order to believe it. But I would simply say that there are so many things in the real world that we don’t see that are there. Take light for example, we don’t see light. Now wait a minute, isn’t that light up there? Isn’t when I go outside and look at the sun light? Well, no, it really isn’t. What we see are reflections, we see light reflected off things. And scientifically, it’s actually a chemical reaction with this, there’s a certain chemical reaction that makes us see brown or black or blue or purple or white. We see colors, we don’t see light but yet, we are bathed in it. And of course, the example of the air, we don’t see that. We might see smoke or clouds, but we don’t see the air. Of course, atoms or molecules, we don’t see all sorts of things. Why do we have trouble believing in God who is all around us? But we do.

And then the next thing we have trouble with is another step in belief; it’s called trust. Belief and trust are two different things; we might believe that God exists but trusting Him is a whole different matter. You know, I’ve shared with many of you that I am basically an introvert, you may not think that, but I’ve learned how to be extroverted in being a pastor. But an introvert has a couple of things about them. They need time alone but there’s also something about going into a crowd of people you don’t know especially. I know how to do this, I’ve done it for 20 years. I go into a crowd of people I don’t know, I still have the same emotions: How do I get out of this? How do I leave? Why am I here? But then, something switches in my brain and I know what I’m supposed to do and I go and introduce myself and shake hands and say hello. But the same feeling is still there and it’s all because I want to hide, I feel uncomfortable with people. I admit it, I don’t want them to know who I am half the time. We all wear masks. But are extroverts any different? Well, I don’t really think so. Now extroverts, they’re turned on by a group of people, they walk in, “Hi, how are you doing” and that kind of stuff and they get energized by that. But extroverts don’t let people inside either. I think for extroverts it’s more like a good offense is the best defense. We all wear masks, we all don’t want people to really know who we are. And it’s really true with God as well.

I remember a woman I was ministering to after she lost her husband, a really neat lady, I liked her so much. And we were just chatting and I asked her, “What do you miss the most?” And she said, “You know, I just really miss having someone with whom I can let my hair down.” That was what she missed. And we do that with God. We’re afraid of God, deep down inside, and part of it is that we are afraid of what He might do to us because we really do know deep inside of us that we are sinners. So we are nervous about going into the presence of God and naturally so. But the Bible says that’s the whole point, what we could not do for ourselves, God did for us in Jesus Christ. While we were yet sinners, He died for us. The writer to the Hebrews says that because of all of this, because of what God has done for us, “go into the throne of grace with courage.” Not with pride, but with courage because we know that God loves us and forgives us.

But there’s still this issue, we’re afraid not only of what God might do to us, we’re afraid of what He might make us do. That’s when it gets kind of touchy for us. We’re afraid that if we get too close, that He might tell us what we’re actually supposed to be doing. And that’s when the pride raises up. We don’t really want God telling us what to do. He might make us go teach a Sunday school class or something. He might make us go on a mission trip. He might make us go work on a Habitat house. He might make us go ask forgiveness of that person we’ve harmed. And worse, horror of horrors, He might ask us to pray out loud! He might ask us to do all kinds of uncomfortable things. And it’s true that as we get closer to God, God tends to say “Go here” or “Go there” more often. We’re afraid of what He might make us feel. I know people who won’t go on a retreat because they’re afraid they might cry…if they come into God’s presence something might happen to them. We’re afraid of being ashamed or of being embarrassed. You know that’s one of the biggest impediments to people serving God is they’re afraid that God might embarrass them. I really believe that. We’re afraid of what God would work in our lives but it really boils down to trust.

I read a story about a woman who had to get on an airplane ride to Cleveland and she was afraid of flying. As she got on this airplane, she looked out one window and there was a beautiful sunset, just gorgeous blue azure sky. But on the other side of the plane there was a huge storm brewing and it made her afraid and she was praying to God and she felt an answer in her mind. And here’s what the voice said: “You have noticed the windows” the voice said. “Your life too will contain some happy beautiful times but also some dark moments. Here’s a lesson I want to teach you to save you much heartache and allow you to abide with me with continual peace and joy. You see it doesn’t matter which window you look out from, this plane is still going to Cleveland. So it is in your life. You have a choice; you can dwell on the gloomy picture or you can focus on the bright things and leave the dark ominous situations to me. I can handle them alone anyway. And the final destination is not influenced by what you see or feel along the way. Learn this, act on it and you will be released, able to experience the peace that passes understanding.” God is asking us to trust and until we trust more, and it is a process, we don’t experience God’s presence as we wish.

Another area is worship. And I’m going to tell you something you’ve heard many times. Worship is not about us. Now we may know that in our heads, but we act very differently. We think very differently, you know it’s like when we hear the words ‘worship service’ we think that it’s us who are to be served. I mean, after all, we’re thinking, “How good was that sermon anyway? Did it really mean something to me?” Or, “I didn’t like that type of music Tim chose. Tim ought to do better.” Or, “Those worship times, man I tell you, I can hardly get up at 8:30.” Now I’m being a little bit facetious, but it really is true. We think in those terms…as though when we come in here, it’s about us. It influences the decisions we make. “Is it better to spend my time going to church or sleeping in? Or reading the paper? Finishing up my work for the week coming up? Watching the football game?” Now these questions are all good in themselves, to some degree, but they betray our basic outlook on worship. And until we learn that worship is not about us, that God is our audience when we come on Sunday morning, that it’s service to God. Until we learn that, it’s not the presence of God that’s not present for us, we just have closed Him off. Until we learn that, we won’t experience His presence as we should.

Now I have been talking about corporate worship, but there’s this element of private worship as well. We ought to worship privately and I think we have a lot of trouble there as well. I think that modern life just kind of militates against us finding God and our times with God. We are just living our lives. There’s just so much clutter out there. There’s so much noise, I mean there’s the radio on, the computer, the TV, so much happening here and there, we’re so busy here and there. And I really believe that the main thing we need to do is get rid of some of the clutter. Turn the radio off and the TV for a little while. Get off the computer. Schedule some time in with God in your day-timer if you have to do it. I will give you a little something that was given to me many, many years ago. It’s a book written by a man named John Redhead, he was a famous Southern Presbyterian preacher. And I ran into him in my first two or three years, he was the preacher after the pastor left in my first church. And he shared this book with me and in the book he talks about busy people trying to connect with Christ. And he said, “You know, try something. Sit down in your study or your room alone and put a chair in front of you and imagine that Jesus is there and just talk with Him.” You know sometimes we need something tangible. “And after you get done talking, listen.” And his book was called Letting God Help You, very appropriate. We have to let God help us do these things.

A fourth area, very quickly, is fellowship. You know, in our American culture we have glorified individualism and to some degree, that’s okay. We celebrate the ability of the individual to do this, that, and the other. But it’s still true that two can accomplish four times what one can accomplish. And in the Bible, God is with you and me as individuals but there’s something about being with other people that magnifies it. Jesus says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of you” for a good reason because there’s something more about having others. You know I realize that being with other people is a messy experience. People ask me all the time, “How can those people act that way in church?” We all hear about churches are full of hypocrites; those people are this, they do that. And my answer is: once you get a hundred sinners together, what do you expect? And I’m not being nasty about it, it’s just that when you get people together, there’s always disagreements, there’s always this, that, and the other. And yet, God in His grace says these are my people, warts and all, messiness and all, and I bless them when they get together. And until we buy into that, again, we miss out on God’s presence in a way.

I just love the theology of it. God at the very beginning of the Bible begins this process of restoring His relationship with us, an amazing thought. We see it again and again, God being present with His people. And this promise that Yahweh Shamma – that He’s going to be there in the midst of His city. But the expansion of the prophecy in Revelation is this: that not only is the new Jerusalem a city, it’s also somehow a symbol for the bride of Christ, that’s us. And it says that now the dwelling of God is with human beings, He’s in the midst of us. And that prophecy has begun to be fulfilled now as well as later. It’s there. We have to believe it but we also have to act on it. It is for good reasons that Jesus says “behold, I stand at the door and knock, if anyone opens for me, I will come and eat with him.” He’s not really talking about those who don’t believe, He’s talking about Christians. He’s talking about people who are already in His presence. And yet somehow, in our lives, we shut the door and He knocks. And so in faith and in belief and trust and in repentance, we have to open that door and let Him in. Let Him in so that we can experience Him as we should. And that’s my challenge, that’s my hope, that’s my encouragement for you and for me. We’re all in the same boat, we all do the same things. Let’s open the door to Christ who is Jesus or Yahweh Saves is also Yahweh Shamma, the God who is there, the presence of God in our lives. He knocks on your door, won’t you open it?

Let us pray together.