Where is God? He is Everywhere!
Psalms 139:7-12
Introduction
Slide
Have you ever been in a situation where you felt all alone, a time when you felt that there was nobody around for you?
Maybe it was a time when you moved to a new town.
Maybe it was going to college for the first time.
Maybe you have been on a business trip to another city or state.
Maybe you are at home and everyone happens to be gone for the night and nobody you know is available to hang out.
Whatever the situation, you are feeling entirely alone. Maybe you are even wondering where God is when you are having this feeling?
Well the fact of the matter is, is that you are not alone. God is present.
In fact, no matter where you are or what you are feeling, God is there, because
God is everywhere.
Slide
Last week we started this series called “Who is God” and we talked about God’s Omnipotence, the fact that He is all powerful, and we looked at the implications of God begin all powerful and how living with that knowledge could affect us in how we lived life.
Today, we are continuing this series as we discuss God’s Omnipresence, the fact that God is everywhere present all the time.
Turn with me to Psalm 139:7-12.
Slide
The book of Psalms in near the middle of the Bible. We are going to read what King David, who experienced all kinds of emotions and even loneliness and fear, records about God’s omnipresence.
Psalm 139:7-12
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
Pray
Ok, let’s take a closer look at this passage and see what David is saying then then I want to spend most of our time drawing out some implications of what we learn in this passage.
Understanding the passage
David here says that there is no direction that I can travel that I will be out of God’s presence. When he says God is in the heavens, he is saying that there is no height to which David can travel that God is not there. He says there is no depth I can fall to, for God will be there also.
It doesn’t matter which direction he travels or how far he goes. To rise on the wings of the dawn, talks about traveling so far east, where the sun rises in the morning, but still finding God there. And it would not matter if you traveled to the opposite side of the Mediterranean sea, which is to the west from Israel’s perspective, God would be there too.
No matter where David went, God would be there. He could not even be hidden from God in the darkest of night, because God is there as well.
God is everywhere all the time, 24/7, from eternity past to eternity future, in every corner of space, He is there.
Omnipresence does not equal Pantheism
Now does the fact that God is everywhere mean that He is in everything?
Does it mean God is in the trees and in the water; in the moon or in the stars?
No.
There is something that is called pantheism, which is word that means all is God, and pantheists will worship trees, or anything really, believing that God is in those things.
Now while God is everywhere and has created everything, He is distinct from His creation.
We should not worship the things God has created thinking that God is in them, but we can worship God anywhere, as long as we worship in spirit and in truth, and know that He is present wherever we are.
Transition
Now as we begin to think about and understand the truth that God is everywhere present all the time, this should greatly help us in living life more fully.
That is because knowing this about God and truly believing it so we can live in accordance with that belief, will bring about some certain effects into our life.
So what are those effects?
First,
Living in the knowledge of God’s presence will bring comfort to us
Slide
This is what David realizes in this passage.
In verse 10, he says, that no matter where David finds himself,
“even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”
The knowledge of God’s presence everywhere brings some great comfort to David and can be a source of great comfort to us.
Now even for the Christian, there are times that we may not be experiencing God’s comfort or His presence. Why is that?
I believe it is because we do not know Him well enough.
None of us has arrived yet. None of us are completely mature. But as we walk along this journey of life, growing in our relationship with the Lord, knowing Him more and more, experiencing His great love for us, the negative circumstances of life, while still affecting us, will not have the same impact on us, because we can bask in the comfort that our Lord provides through His presence and our knowledge that He is there.
Transition
So, I want to spend a little time getting practical about the comfort that we can receive in the midst of different situations that we might find ourselves in.
I began this message talking about times that we might be experiencing loneliness.
Well,
We can experience God’s comfort…
when we are lonely, because He will be with us
Slide
Not only do we see what David says in Psalm 139, but we find in Hebrews 13:5 that God says "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."
God is not only around and present, for the Christian, he promises to be with us.
Apply
Well then why do I still feel lonely?
For the same reason that you can feel lonely in a crowd of people.
If we are not in relationship with other people, then we can feel lonely even in a crowd.
We feel lonely even when God is present everywhere, because our relationship with Him is not as close as He would desire it to be. And that is because we don’t pursue that relationship with Him.
Relationships don’t just happen. All relationships require work.
Now it doesn’t require any work to receive the gift of salvation. We just come humbly and receive that gift and that relationship begins, but to grow in our fellowship with the Lord, requires us getting to know God more.
The good news is that God is not hiding from us. In fact He has made himself available to us to get to know better. He has given us his word so we can know him better. He has given us the ability to pray and He has given us the church where we can learn more about Him as well.
If you are feeling lonely, take a step to grow in relationship with the Lord.
Join a small group where you can study God’s word with others.
Set aside time to pray.
Read God’s word.
Make church a priority.
Serve in a ministry.
As you take those steps of drawing near to God, scripture tells us that He will draw near to us, and we will be able to not just know that He is present, but experience Him being with us!
We also find that we can experience God’s comfort
When we are hurting, because He will heal us
Slide
Psalm 34:18 - The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Psalm 147:3 - He heals the brokenhearted
There are times we are going to be hurting emotionally.
Perhaps it is due to broken human relationships.
Through the Holy Spirit, God can bring comfort and His presence into your life to bring healing.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says
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Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles,
God comforts us through His Spirit for those who have received Him.
God cares about you and wants to comfort and heal you.
We also can be comforted in those times
When we are afraid, because He will strengthen us
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Psalm 46:1-3
46 God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
There are a lot of scary situations that we face in life and so much uncertainty.
But when we know that God is with us, and as we grow in our knowledge of who God is and how God cares about us and loves us, we are strengthened to face whatever circumstance comes our way.
Slide
Isaiah 41:10 - So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
The Lord’s Strength vs. Stupid Strength
And the Lord’s strength that He gives is a quiet confidence and contentment to persevere through the circumstances of life without worrying, not a stupid strength.
What is stupid strength? Stupid strength gives you confidence to make rash decisions.
Stupid strength is the kind of strength that you might have when you are younger and hanging out with your buddies and trouble starts. Stupid strength would give you the confidence to let an argument escalate into a fight because you know that your buddies would have your back and jump into help you in a fight.
If your buddies weren’t with you, you would not have that type of stupid strength confidence.
Now while it is good to have friends that have your back, it is not good to rely on them so you can be an idiot.
The Lord’s confidence and strength, however, are such that He enables us to act in a godly way and trust Him with the outcome, knowing that He is with you.
Joseph
Last week, as we talked about God’s power to work out any circumstance, we talked about Joseph. God worked out Joseph’s circumstance unbelievably. It took 13 years, but we don’t see Joseph worrying or afraid. You know why that is? Because we see in a number of places that it tells us that the Lord was with Joseph. He wasn’t just present with Joseph, He was with him and able to give him strength in his circumstances.
So because God is with us, we do not need to be afraid because he will strengthen us.
Finally, We can also experience God’s comfort,
When we are confused, because He will Guide us
Slide
Psalm 32:8
8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you.
How does God do that? Through His Holy Spirit.
Now while it is a fact that God is present everywhere all the time, all of the things that we have been talking about in regards to the comfort we can experience from God, are not just because He is present, but more so that He is with us.
While God is present everywhere, He is really only with those who have trusted in Jesus and received Him as their Savior, because that is when we receive the Holy Spirit to indwell us and be with us.
It is through the Holy Spirit that God comforts us by being with us, and healing us and strengthening us and guiding us.
If you are here today and have not received Jesus as Savior, then you will not be able to experience the comfort the Lord has for you.
When Jesus left this earth, He promised his disciples that he would send his Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth would be a “Counselor to be with you forever.” (John 14:16)
How do we get the Spirit? By believing in the Son.
Ephesians 1:13
13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
When you believe in and receive Jesus as Savior, you are given the Holy Spirit to be with you forever.
That is when you can experience God with you and receive and enjoy His Comfort, His healing, His strength and His guidance.
If you don’t ever remember a time that you received Jesus by confessing your belief in Him to the Lord, then why don’t you do that this morning?
I am going to pause here and lead in a prayer of confession that confesses your belief in Jesus as the One who is God in the flesh, who died for your sins, and rose from the dead.
If you believe that, then take a moment and confess that belief to the Lord and receive the gift of Salvation and of the Holy Spirit.
Pray
If that is the first time you have truly believed and confessed to the Lord your belief, you now have the Holy Spirit living inside of you and God’s presence is with you in a very special way all of the time.
And now when you are facing Confusion, God will guide you through the Holy Spirit who indwells you.
But here is the thing about God’s guidance in our lives.
You have to follow it.
It is a great comfort to know that God will guide us and give us direction when we don’t know what to do, but if we don’t follow it, or worse yet, avoid it, then we bring our own hardship into our life and even though we have the Holy Spirit, we will not experience God’s comfort.
Instead of receiving comfort, when we are disobedient to His guidance and leading, and we are
Living in the knowledge of God’s presence, He will bring conviction to us
Slide
When we have received Jesus as Savior, and we have His Holy Spirit indwelling us, God cares too much about us to let us go in a direction that is bad for us. So He will bring conviction through His Holy Spirit and perhaps even circumstantial hardships to get us to turn around.
And because God is everywhere, there is no place to hide from Him.
Jonah learned about God’s everywhere presence when He disobeyed the Lord’s directions.
God told him to go to Nineveh and to preach against it, but Jonah did not want to do what God said, so he boarded a boat that was going in the opposite direction of Nineveh and hid in the dark hull of the boat.
But Jonah was not hidden from God traveling in the opposite direction. He was not hidden from God hiding in the dark.
Just like David said in Psalm 139:12 - even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
God was present with Jonah on the boat in his disobedience, and brought some difficult circumstances in the form of a mighty storm to the boat.
Because God is present everywhere, we cannot hide our sin and disobedience from Him either. And for those who have trusted the Lord, He will bring conviction and discipline into our lives to help us turn from our sin, because sin is bad for us and God cares about us.
If you think you can hide your sin or disobedience from the Lord, you cannot.
He is everywhere and will bring conviction into your life. He will bring internal conviction and external hardship into your life to lead you back in the direction of obedience because He cares about you.
He loves you enough not to leave you, even when you want to go your own way.
Conclusion
God is present everywhere in all the universe for everyone.
But God is present uniquely in those who trust Jesus and by faith, receive Him as their Savior.
But we need to recognize His presence and focus on living in the knowledge of God’s presence.
The Practice of the Presence of God
There is a little book called “The Practice of the Presence of God” by Brother Lawrence, who was a monk in the 1600’s.
Listen to what he says about how he learned to practice the presence of God and the effects it had on him, even in the mundane.
He was assigned to work in the kitchen. It says that
Slide
“Although he had a great dislike for kitchen work, he developed quite a facility for doing it over the fifteen years he was there. He attributed this to his doing everything for the love of God, asking as often as possible for the grace to do his work…
When he was troubled by something, he seldom consulted anyone about it. Knowing only that God was present, he walked in the light of faith and was content just to lose himself in God’s love no matter what happened. There, in God’s love, he would find himself again.” Brother Lawrence – The Practice of the Presence of God. P16-17
We can only truly find ourselves when we are living in the knowledge of God’s presence. Realize that God is everywhere and that for those who have trusted Jesus, God is not only everywhere, He is in you. He is present with you in a special way!
As we strive to live in that knowledge and practice living in His presence, we can trust Him to bring Conviction to us to draw us back to him and to experience the comfort of the Lord, no matter if we are lonely, hurting, afraid or confused.
He will come and meet our needs and be with us for all eternity.
Let’s pray.
