The Presence Of God Series

“THE PRESENCE OF GOD” Various Psalms

FBCF – 6/22/25

Jon Daniels

INTRO – (Open Bible to Psalm 51) Last week’s sermon on holiness in “Life Songs” series had 3 points:

- Living in holiness starts w/ our salvation – grows as we desire the presence of God in our lives – impacts others around us

Next sermon in series was going to be “The Perfect Law of the Lord” – Ps. 19. Normal process of sermon prep each week:

- Monday: Email my “Email Prayer Warriors” to let them know how to start praying for me

- Begin reading over the passage early in the week, Start looking for words that I need to look up in the Greek & Hebrew – See if any patterns emerge in the passage that may lead to my sermon points – Start checking out some commentaries & other resources to keep building my thoughts & ideas about how to preach the passage. Try to come up w/ the basic outline, the skeleton of the sermon by Wed. Then Thu is my “get out of the office, go to a coffee shop to hide & pound out the sermon” day. Try to have it finished by late Thursday afternoon. Even then, still thinking about it, looking at it, tweaking it, all the way up to Sunday morning in my study before I come to you.

Started doing that w/ Ps. 19 this wk. A great Psalm that I was excited about expounding for us.

But even as I was actually preaching the point on the presence of God last Sunday, I sensed something in my spirit – that I needed to focus on that more, that we needed to revisit what the presence of God means in our personal lives & in the life of our church. Then this happened: Gina Bozeman has been reading Forgotten God by Francis Chan – Few wks ago, encouraged me to read the chapter on “Supernatural Church.” I had read the book several yrs ago. Got it off shelf. Reading it in my office Wed AM. Read statements like:

- “I deeply desire that the Spirit of God would do things that I know are not of me & that cannot be faked or accounted for by human reasoning.”

- “…we’ve created a whole brand of churches that do not depend on the Spirit.”

- “What disturbs me the most is when we’re not really bothered that God living IN us has not made much of a noticeable difference.”

- “God delights in showing up when His people are in desperate need of Him…”

- “The church is intended to be a beautiful place of community. A place where wealth is shared & when one suffers, everyone suffers…when one rejoices, everyone rejoices…where everyone experiences real love & acceptance in the midst of great honesty about our brokenness. Yet most of the time this is not even close to how we would describe our churches.”

- “I don’t want to merely talk anymore. Life is too short! I don’t want to speak about Jesus; I want to know Jesus. I want to be Jesus to people. I don’t want to just write about the Holy Spirit; I want to experience His presence in my life in a profound way.”

- “The church [in Acts] was powerful & spreading like wildfire, not b/c of clever planning, but by a movement of the Spirit.”

- “Churches we build only by our own efforts & not in the strength of the Spirit will quickly collapse when we don’t push & prod them along.”

- “Let’s pray that God would build His church, an unstoppable force, empowered & sustained by the Holy Spirit.”

Something – SomeONE began stirring in me. Reached over & picked up Bill Elliff’s book, The Presence-Centered Church, & read statements like:

- “What kind of person do you want to be & what kind of church do you want? More importantly, what do you think GOD wants? Are you content w/ a business-as-usual church? Church that can be explained?...that is accomplishing only what human hands can build?...that has to entertain?...that relies on the next slick marketing tool to attract a lost world? Or do you long for “far more abundantly beyond” [“immeasurably more”]? The “much more” of God? A movement that comes from His presence?...Let the constant, ruthless evaluation be, ‘Is God here?’”

- “Without a divine invasion of His manifest presence, every life, every local church, & the Church in our nation is doomed to meager impact & overall decline.”

Began rallying prayer support as I sensed the need to change my sermon for today & preach on the presence of God – Email Prayer Warriors – Texted a bunch of folks to ask them to pray as sensed the need to preach on the presence of God today.