I once told a friend that all I wanted was to be happy in God’s presence.
And I guess what I’m saying this morning is as a result of the reply I received.
Because I was reminded, that I shouldn’t seek God for my own happiness, I should seek him for himself.
Seeking God for himself. (But what does this mean?)
My motivation for wanting to be in God’s presence should not be as a result of my wants and needs, but I should want to be in God’s presence because he is God.
Matthew 6, the Lord’s Prayer starts like this:
"’Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
It puts God first. We show him the reverence he is due, and ask for his will to be done – before we ask for anything for ourselves. And in the same chapter, Jesus says: But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
God’s Kingdom, is his presence breaking through. Seeking God’s presence will bring our hearts desires; freedom, growth, maturity, miracles, love, peace, joy, happiness. But we need to start in the right place, and that’s with God.
And the attitude we need is one that says it’s all about you.
Hosea 6:3 says:
3Oh, that we might know the LORD! Let us press on to know him! Then he will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring."
This isn’t a call to turn up to church regularly, or to have a quiet time everyday. Although I think these things are vital. This is a call to spend time in God’s presence, real time. Setting time apart where God just fills the room, whether we meet as a group, or you’re just on your own in your house. And just praising God, thanking him for who he is, asking him to have his will, spending time with him.
Psalm 27 says:
4 One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.
8 My heart says of you, "Seek his face!"
Your face, LORD, I will seek.
This passage should be our prayer. Just being in God’s presence everyday, so that it affects our hearts, our minds, our attitudes, every part of our lives.
How can we enter?
1 Corinthians 1
9God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.
We are called into fellowship with God:
And this invitation came through the blood of Jesus.
Hebrews 10 says:
19Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
We are able to enter because God has invited us. He gave us a way to him, by sending his Son to die for us, that we might live with him.
And because of this, we can enter with confidence. We don’t need to go to God with an attitude that makes us feel worthless. We are invited by God to spend time with him! Through Jesus, we can spend time with God and get to know him, learning to love him and understand his will.
We can enter Gods presence because we have accepted and we believe that Jesus died for our sins. This gives us a desire to spend time with God. Even if we don’t feel like that at times, God examines our hearts and see his Spirit in us. God responds to the cry of our hearts.
We can all find ways that enable us to enter Gods presence. There are a lot of ways God has given us. Prayer, reading the bible, being still, worshiping, meeting as a church. These are things that we can be doing all of the time.
( One way that I am able to meet with God is when I’m playing my guitar. And I love it. It leads me into his presence, just by worshipping him through my instrument. )
How should we enter God’s presence?
How can we enter the presence of God as if everything’s fine? How can we take so lightly, the fact that the almighty, all powerful God has shown up because we have called on his name, do we just go through the routine?
‘Hi God, how are you? Thanks for coming, let me tell you about my day.’
Or ‘God, glad you’re here, I’ve got this problem, and I’ve tried sorting it, but I think I’m better off leaving it up to you.’
We should enter God’s presence expecting to be changed – because God is awesome, and we are nothing without him. And because he loves us and wants us to fulfil our potential.
We should enter God’s presence wanting to go deeper. To want to have less of ourselves, and more of him, living and active inside us.
When we draw close to God, and he draws close to us, shouldn’t we want to be in the place where all we can say, just like Isaiah, is:
5 "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."
Because the thing about being in God’s presence is that we enter the Holiest place there is. And we can’t compare. The light of God shines through us and his majesty and radiance highlights what we really are. And we show to be sinful.
So this isn’t easy. By entering God’s presence, we are brought into such holiness that sin has no place there. I can’t see Isaiah being very calm when he cried out ‘Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips.’ The pain was so much that he thought he would die. He was in such anguish when he was in Gods presence, because he realised that he was so sinful, and not worthy to be near God, not worthy to be called a servant. And he was just like us.
Hebrews 10:22 says
22let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
Gods presence makes us realise our sinfulness, and gives us the desire to want to change. Because we realise that we don’t deserve to be in God’s presence in our sinful state.
Through the blood of Jesus, we are cleansed. And when we are in God’s presence, we are changed. It’s a painful process, but it makes us holy, it renews us.
And Hebrews 10:23 says:
23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
When we enter God’s presence and we are made clean, it can be painful. And we can find it difficult to focus on God when we are going through hard times.
But by holding onto the hope that we have, we can trust that by focussing on God, we are being made clean by him and by giving him our lives he is restoring us, and purifying us, and fulfilling his promises to us.
What is God’s presence?
God’s presence is a real taste of who he is. Its where, as we enter in, and offer him our lives, we experience his cleansing, his power, his love and his holiness. It is where we can give up more of ourselves, and take up more of him.
God has invited us to have a relationship with him; he wants to spend time with us because he loves us.
What are the results?
God’s presence should result in a change of our attitudes and lifestyle. It should encourage us to seek more of God and result in our lives being changed. When we meet with God, we should come out different.
There are other results as well. Acts 2:1-6 shows some:
1When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
5Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.
God’s presence brings the spiritual gifts, signs that we can see, a tangible feeling of God in the room, and interest from outside.
( In Agapé we have seen God’s presence – prophesy, healing, laughter, tears, comfort, and more. )
I want to just spend time now, inviting God to come and fill the room with his presence. If we just stand, and ask God to meet with us in a way that affects all of our lives. Just ask God to take more of you and to just do what he wants.
Then we are going to sing a couple of songs just to worship him and to spend time receiving what he has to give us.
Songs:
Lord I give you my heart
Who is there like you?
