Tcc 1342 Awareness Of God's Presence

AWARENESS OF GOD’S PRESENCE

Introduction: We’ve begun a new series on what it means to have the Lord with us, and how to live with the awareness of His presence. This series was inspired by a statement that King David of Israel made in his famous Psalm 23—Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me (Ps 23:4, ESV).

1, God’s message to His people is always: Fear not, for I am with you. You are mine, and I will help you. Nothing can come against you that is bigger than me, and I will get you through until I get you out. Isa 43:1-2; Isa 41:13-14

When we learn to live with the awareness that God is with us, we can live like David, with no fear in the face of life’s hardships.
This doesn’t mean that we never feel afraid. It means that, like David, when we are afraid, we can rest in the fact that God is with us, and that He is bigger than what we are facing, and He will get us through whatever we are facing.
When David faced men who were trying to kill him, he was able to say: When I am afraid, I put my trust in you…This I know, that God is for me…In God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me (Ps 56:3; 9; 11; ESV).
Before we get into this lesson, we need to address a question and some possible misunderstandings about God with us that may come up in connection with our topic.
Question: Doesn’t all this talk about God with us minimize the fact that God is in us? Shouldn’t we be focusing on that? Yes, God in us. However, knowing that He is with you actually makes it easier to believe that He is in you (lessons for another day).
Possible misunderstandings: God with us us does not mean that we won’t have any serious issues in our lives, no failures or disappointments, no loss. pain, or tragedies. There is no such thing as a problem free life in this sin damaged world (many lessons for another time).
To live without fear, not only do you need to know God is with you, you must see the big picture. We’re part of an eternal plan that will outlast this life, and the greater and better part of our life is after this life. We are only passing through this world in its present condition (lessons for another day). I Cor 7:31; I Pet 2:11
You must know that every loss, pain, and hardship we experience is temporary. And all will ultimately be made right, some in this life, but most in the life to come.
Last week we said that God is perfectly present with us, loving and reigning, and upholding all things by the Word of His power. What does this mean?
God is Omnipotent (All-Powerful), Omniscient (All-Knowing), and Omnipresent (Present everywhere at once. God is Eternal (no beginning and no end) and He Infinite (without limits).
Because God is Omnipotent, He is Sovereign. This means that He is the highest power and authority in the universe. Nothing is greater than Him. He is the King who reigns (rules) over everything, and nothing can come against us that is bigger or more powerful than Him.
Col 1:16-17—Everything was created by him and for him (Jesus). Before anything was created, he was already there. He holds everything together (NIRV).
Heb 1:3—(Jesus) is the very image of [God’s] nature, upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty word of power (Amp).
Because God is Omniscient (All-knowing) nothing takes Him by surprise. Nothing happens that He does not already have a plan in mind to cause it to serve His purposes—His glory and our good. Eph 1:11; Rom 8:28
Because God is Omnipresent (Present everywhere at once) He has always been with you whether or not you’ve seen Him or felt His presence, because there’s no place God is not (Ps 139:7-12; Jer 23:23-24; Eph 1:23). Since God has no limits, He is perfectly (or fully and completely) present with each of us as though we are the only person in the world.
God is Transcendent—prior to, beyond, and above material existence. But He is also Imminent, or close at hand. We think of God as up in Heaven—and He is indeed in Heaven.
But He is also right here with each of us. The references to God in Heaven emphasize His bigness, and the fact that He alone is God and above all. Deut 4:39; Josh 2:11; II Chron 20:6;
God is not only present with us, reigning as All-Power, He is with us loving and reigning. God can do nothing but love because He is love. I John 4:8.
He’s always with you because He’s Omnipresent. He’s always with you to help because He loves you. God loves the beings He created and desires their highest good.
Almighty God is relational. He created human beings for relationship with Himself. When God created Adam, He made a son and a race of sons in Adam. God brought you into being because He wanted you for a purpose of love—a loving relationship. Gen 1:26-27; Luke 3:38; Eph 1:4-5
God made human beings as much like Himself as a creature can be like His Creator so that mutual relationship is possible. Gen 1:27—So God created people in his own image; He patterned them after himself; male and female he created them (NLT).
We see hints of relationship that God wants to have with us from the beginning to the end of the Bible. In the Old Testament Abraham is called the friend of God (II Chron 20:7), and we are told that the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to a friend (Ex 33:11).
In the New Testament Jesus told men and women to go to God as their Father, and said that you are my friends if you do what I command. Matt 6:9-13; Matt 6:25-26; John 15:14; etc.
God made us in such a way that we can know Him both as our Lord and Master and as our Father and Friend. Both relationships are vital, and both must be developed. You develop a relationship with someone by getting to know them, by spending time with them.
As you get to know them relationally, you develop a consciousness or an awareness of them, their place in your life and their effect on your life.
David lived with an awareness of God with Him. It wasn’t a supernatural experience or a manifestation that he could see or feel. It was an awareness that came from spending time with God, getting to know Him, thinking about Him, talking to and about Him. This awareness affected how David thought and acted. More on this in a moment.

Far too Christians live with an awareness of God with them to the degree that David did. This brings up two questions we need to answer. Why are we unaware of God with us? How do we become aware of God with us?
Part of the answer to the first question is that we tend think of God as far away from us since He is in Heaven and we are down here on earth. That’s one reason we’re emphasizing and restating that God is Omnipresent or present everywhere at once. You’re never not in God’s presence no matter who you are or what you do.
Added to this is the fact that we can’t see or feel God. Or we equate His presence with goose bumps and a rousing church service, which then leads us to assume that God is not with us when we don’t have goose bumps and we feel bad.
In addition, many of us live with doubt about God’s presence with, interest in, and concern for us because we know our failures and shortcomings.
This is why we’re taking time to go over and over who God is and who we are in relation to Him. You will never not be God’s creation.
You will never not be a being created in the image of God. You belong to God because He created you and because He has redeemed you from sin through Jesus’ death.
Yes, we are fallen. Yes, you and I have gone into the pigpen of sin, gone astray from our Creator, and we have lost the power to come back to Him. But Jesus (Who is God Incarnate) came to seek and save His lost family.
Because of Jesus’ death on the Cross, we can be redeemed (delivered from the guilt and power of sin through faith in Him) and return to the relationship we were created for. We can be cleansed from the corruption that keeps us from living as we were created to live.

2, Note this important point. The fact that we don’t live with an awareness of God with us doesn’t mean there is something wrong with us or that our faith in God is not sincere.

God is invisible or beyond the perception of our physical senses. Unless He manifests or shows Himself to us in a visible, tangible way or opens our eyes so that we can see the unseen, we have to believe that He is with us. That’s what faith is. It’s trust in Someone we can’t see.
Heb 11:1—(Faith) is the evidence of things we cannot yet see (NLT); faith (perceives as real fact what is not revealed to the senses) (Amp).
I Pet 1:8—You love (Jesus) even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him, you trust him; and even now you are happy with a glorious, inexpressible joy (NLT).
We are made in such a way that we are naturally drawn to what we see and feel. And we receive constant input from our physical senses that stimulate thoughts and emotions.
When thoughts and emotions are constant and strong, it’s very hard to keep our mind on unseen things. We have to make an effort to develop and live with an awareness that God is with us.
Consider some things that happened to Jesus’s apostles, sincere men who left all to follow Jesus.
Mark 4:35-41—Jesus and His apostles were crossing the Sea of Galilee when a fierce storm arose and their boat began to take on water.
Jesus was asleep in the back of the boat and “frantically they woke him shouting, Teacher, don’t you even care that we are going to drown” (Mark 4:38, NLT)?
Jesus calmed the storm but rebuked them for their lack of trust (faith) in Him. God Incarnate (Jesus) was perfectly present with them loving and reigning and upholding all things by the Word of His power, yet it didn’t affect these men to the point where His presence was a comfort to them. What they could see and feel had the greater reality.
Matt 16:1-12—After a confrontation with religious leaders Jesus warned His apostles to beware of their leaven (or yeast). By leaven Jesus meant their false teachings.
As Jesus and His disciples went on their way, His men realized that they brought no bread with them. And they presumed that that was why Jesus made his comment about leaven.
When Jesus heard them, He rebuked them for worrying about where they’d get food. He said: Why won’t you ever understand? Don’t you remember the five thousand I fed with five loaves and the baskets of food that were left over? Don’t you remember the four thousand I fed with seven loaves, with baskets of food left over (Matt 16:9-10, NLT)
In each of these incidents, even though these men were committed to Jesus, saw previous miracles, and could see Him with them, in the moment they were dominated by what they see and feel.
In the moment they didn’t take into account the fact that God Incarnate was with them, perfectly present, loving and reigning, and upholding all things. They didn’t focus their attention on Him
There are many lessons in these two incidents, but note this point relevant to our discussion. Jesus said to them: Why won’t you understand and remember what I’ve already done for you?
Won’t implies that you could if you chose to. Understand means to exercise the mind to perceive, to understand. Remember means to exercise memory, to recollect, to rehearse.
In other words, they could have called to their minds what Jesus had done for them in past and remind themselves that Jesus was with them and would help them.
But at that point in their relationship with Him, they hadn’t yet developed that habit. When David was afraid, he said: What time I am afraid, I will trust in you (Ps 56:3, KJV)…I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? What can mere mortals to do me (Ps 56:11, NLT).
When we read David’s psalms, we find that he made an effort to think about the Lord and to keep his mind focused on God. Note this statement from a psalm Dave wrote when he was hiding in the desert from men looking for him to kill him.
Ps 63:6-7—(In the night watches) I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you through the night. I think how much you have helped me; I sing for joy in the shadow of your protecting wings (NLT).
In other words, David took time to think about and talk to himself about God, who He is and how He had already helped him, and then praise and thank God for it.
David did this, not just as a recounting of facts about God, but relationally. David believed that God was there with him. David talked to God and with God by faith, both out loud and mentally, and God’s presence became a reality to him.
It wasn’t a supernatural experience or a manifestation that David could see or feel. It was an awareness that came from spending time with God, getting to know Him, thinking about Him, and talking to and about Him. This awareness then affected how David thought and acted.
Remember, God is relational. He created us for relationship—to know Him and to interact with Him as both our Lord and Master and as our Father and Friend.
You develop a relationship with someone by getting to know them, by spending time with them. We get the know the Lord through the written Word of God. The Scriptures are the only fully reliable, completely trustworthy source of information about Almighty God.
But there’s more to it than knowing facts about God. The Word of God is meant to reveal a Person who is really with us and for us. There is more to relationship than quoting a verse or standing on a verse. It’s connecting with a Person relationally.
As you get to know them relationally, you develop a consciousness or an awareness of them, their place in your life and their effect on your life.
We cultivate an awareness of God with us by developing the habit of taking time to interact with Him by faith. When we acknowledge God’s presence (talk about it, think about it), it increases our awareness of the fact that He is present with us.

Conclusion: We have more to say next week, but consider this thought as we close. Ps 46 opens with a powerful statement that God is with us as an ever present, ever ready help in times of trouble
Ps 46:1-2—God is our refuge and strength…a very present and well-proved help in trouble (Amp); always ready to help in times of trouble (NLT). Therefore we will not fear (Amp).
The psalm goes on to describe all kinds of calamity that can and does affect us in this fallen, broken world. In this psalm we find a major key to becoming aware of God’s presence with us.
Ps 46:10—Be still, and know that I am God (KJV). Note these translations: Be quiet and know that I am God (NCV); Stop your striving and recognize that I am God (Harrison); Calm down and learn that I am God (CEV); Pause a while and know that I am God (Jeru).

2, What if you took five minutes a day to get quiet before God (be still) and intentionally focused on Him, by making yourself think about and say what is so: God you are with me, and you are good, and you are big. You are acknowledging His presence with you by focusing on Him by faith.

3, And then just sit in silence in His presence for a couple of minutes. His promise to us is that we will know that He is God—not just with the facts, but with an awareness than comes from pausing before Him. Much more next week!

Tcc 1342 Awareness Of God’s Presence