On The Omnipresence Of God Series

OmnipresenceofGod 11/13/05 pm

Rev. Jeff Simms

On the Omnipresence of God

Psalm 139:7-12

Primary Purpose: On this great truth that God is ever present with us and some implications of that truth

When we talk about the attributes of God, we can divide them into two categories: the natural and the moral. The natural attributes I have decided in this series to address first and are things like: God’s omniscience (all knowing); omnipotence (all powerful); omnipresence (ever present); and then there are the moral attributes such as His holiness; righteousness; faithfulness and mercy. Some attributes we can attribute only to God and some we share to some degree with him. Another thing that we need to remember about God that is different from us is that God has always been and will always be perfect in his attributes. That means that God has always been perfect and doesn’t need to change or grow. God has all the good qualities that he has to utter perfect and always has.

When we understand better who God is it should cause our faith to enlarge. The Bible declares that “faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ” Romans 10:17. That is because when we hear the word of God we hear what God is like. When we meditate on who God is then our faith will enlarge as our vision of who God is enlarges. It is not a blind faith, but a faith based on fact from God’s Word.

In our passage today in Psalm 139:7-12, we see the Psalmist (who is probably David) declare that God is omnipresent. He declares that there is nowhere that we cannot hide from God. That even in the remotest parts of the universe God is there. It isn’t that God gets there ahead of us, but that God is there at the same time he is here with us. Just as in Jeremiah 23:23,24 it says that God fills heaven and earth. It means that we cannot outrun God like Jonah tried to do. King Solomon also affirmed this when he was dedicating his temple in Jerusalem. In 1 Kings 8:27 he said, “Bt will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built”

Remember the story of Jonah? He tried to go in the opposite direction that God wanted him to. He ran from God and got on a ship and went down below. How did that turn out for him? Everyone knows that he got thrown into the ocean and a big fish ate him up and he spent three days in solitary in the belly of a fish! But, even there in that fish God saw what he was doing and what he said. When he repented and was ready to do what God wanted him to then up he came onto the beach. Jonah learned the hard way that he couldn’t out run God. The passsage we looked at today that God is up into the heavens and in the depths of the ocean. If you could take a space craft and travel at the speed of light for 100,000 years and go into a kind of sleep till then. When your spaceship reached that point 100,000 light years away and you awoke God would be there. It isn’t that you almost outran God. God was already there before you left.

It’s one of the defining traits of our time that people say they believe in God, yet they don’t give their hearts fully to him. They say they believe in God’s Word, yet they don’t rever it. In David Well’s book “God in the Wasteland” it is written, “It is one of the defining marks of our time that God is now weightless. I means by this that he has become unimportant. He rests upon the world so inconsequently as not to be noticeable. Those who assure the pollster of their belief in God’s existence may nonetheless consider him less interesting that television, his command less authoritative than their appetitues for affluence and influence, his judgment no more awe-inspiring than the evening news, and his truth less compelling than the advertisers sweet fog of flattery and lies.” (David Wells, pg88) What does it mean to you that God is omnipresent? How does that apply to your daily life? Let’s consider some answers to that.

First, it means that we are never truly alone. God is always with you. He always nearby. We may feel forsaken sometimes or forgotten, but we never really are. In Hebrews 13:5b it says that “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake You.” That’s God truth to us. We can forsake God, but if we repent then He won’t forsake us. Again in Matthew 28:20B Jesus says that he will be with us even to the end of the age. That is God’s promise to us. He is a God who is near.