Mt. Zion Church of the Holy Spirit - Sermons
Prayer and God’s Presence
Luke 18:8 — "I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?"
In Luke 18:8, Jesus is teaching on prayer and faith. The two go hand in hand. A man that has no faith is a prayerless man and a man that has faith is a prayerful man. It is not too hard to understand nor is it too difficult to see this simple Truth at work in our own lives. Also it is not hard to understand that he who prays will be a man of faith, and he who does not pray will not know the wonderful rest of faith but instead he will feel trapped in a world of unbelief and despair. Why? Prayer is the place where the soul comes into vital contact with God. It is where the soul is lifted from the place of darkness into the place of light. It is where the soul breathes and lives.
We are united to Christ and joined to Him so completely and fully every moment of the day. There is nothing that can separate us from that union because of the work of Christ on the cross. This benefit can be known by every believer whether carnal or spiritual. This union is not enjoyed and fully expressed in a life of prayerlessness. Prayer lifts us into the place where this union can be enjoyed and made manifestly known to the mind and heart of the believer.
Prayer lifts us from the polluted and stale earthen air of Adam’s fallen race and places us into a celestial realm, where the air is heavenly and filled with life and vitality, because it is supercharged with God’s presence. Here on earth impossibilities are more common than not, but there, when the soul has been united with God in faith-filled prayer, nothing is impossible and nothing is too big for God. Oh, the heights of joy my soul has known in prayer, in sweet unhindered communion with the Creator and Master of my life. It is here in sweet fellowship and union with God that I am fulfilling part of the purpose for which I was made, to know God. I was made for Him and Him alone. I was fashioned most intricately and formed most fearfully that I might walk with my God and Creator.
To this purpose we were born. All circumstances and events in my past and what they produced in my life whether good or bad is inconsequential. I was created for the purpose of being in fellowship with God regardless of my past experience. Every person has the capacity for walking with God; for we were created to do so. Adam was created with this unique privilege and capacity, and the fall did not destroy this capacity, it only thwarted it until a remedy was provided.
The soul, although it is in need of resurrection life, has the potential of knowing God and experiencing Him. Though the spirit of man died to God through sin, God raises it again in the glorious new birth, and we can experience His manifest presence. This manifest presence is the believer’s right and privilege. This knowledge that God is there the Rabbis called the “Shekinah” presence of God. We know that God cannot be contained in one place and His presence is everywhere, but yet He manifests Himself supremely in Heaven and in individual believers. Read what God spoke to Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 57:15, “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” What glorious possibilities lie before us, to think that He who inhabits eternity and beyond, desires and promises to make His home in us.
The believer can have the knowledge of God’s immediate presence. This is wonderful, exciting and inspiring. How much of God’s immediate presence do we actually enjoy? We were created to experience His presence; we were born again and washed in His blood to be made ready to be indwelt by Him. Life gets complicated with circumstances and situations beyond our control, stress mounts and worries increase. All of these things steal our attraction and rob our attention from Him. He is the supreme thing, the supreme one. Prayer clears away all the hindrances and brings us back into the living reality of God’s presence, or it should.
When our souls are apart from this manifested presence of God in our lives, we wither and die. Not that we die and become unsaved, but the source of our life is not frequented enough to sustain spiritual life. We were created to be dependent upon relationship with God. We, in ourselves, are not a source of life; we are in need of God’s life to sustain us. Oh, the heights of joy when the soul has met with God, but oh, the depths of darkness when that soul has been missing from His immediate tangible presence. There is a vast difference in knowing that God is with you and knowing that you are in the presence of the Almighty God. One is a mental notion that remembers a Truth that may bring a source of small comfort, the other is a living reality that God is present, which brings a torrent of life and hope beyond containment. The one is a mental postcard, a nice thought of a place once visited, but the other is a swelling tide of life that bears the soul up in abounding joy and peace.
It is this presence that worn-out, religious duties and requirements cannot provide, only a faith in the living Christ can bring us into His presence. Great heights of joy are known in His presence. The psalmist penned it with perfection, “In thy presence is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11). God’s presence is the supreme delight of a man’s soul when it is born again. There is nothing in this world that can compare to God’s presence; all other relationships are dimly lit candles lit against the blazing rays of the noonday sun in comparison to His presence. There is nothing like it.
This is one reason why God describes Himself as Holy or separate, something wholly other than anything man has ever experienced or known. When God’s presence is partaken of and tasted of then you can begin to understand the joy side of the angels’ decree in Isaiah 6, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.” This outbreak of worship was not given out of reverential fear alone. No, those strange beings had encountered God, and they knew nothing else was like unto Him. You ask how I know this; I have been in His presence. There is nothing like the presence of God. There is no one like Him. To this we search uselessly for words to describe the effect of His presence upon our minds and hearts and so we must too bow in reverential worship and cry out, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.”
The Presence of the Lord is the Believer’s Right
This wonderful presence of God is meant for every believer to enjoy on a regular basis. When Christ died on the cross it was not to establish a religious institution filled with religious ceremonies that leave people empty and pale. Christ’s death on the cross rent the veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the common worshipper, thus showing us that God wanted man to have more than a ceremonial relationship with Him. His desire was to saturate men’s hearts with His glory, something that was foreign to the everyday temple gatherer and worshipper under the law of Moses. Under the Old Testament, only the High Priest could enter into God’s tangible presence, and that only once a year. The old covenant sacrifices were limited in that they only provided a place for God in the midst of His people, dwelling in a tent or a temple in one central location. The new covenant sacrifice of Jesus’ blood was so powerful that it made us fit habitations for the presence of God.
When a person is born again they are not merely joining a religion that offers ceremonies and rituals that provide them with access to God. Those days are finished and put away in the cross. When someone is born again they are immediately introduced to the reality of God. The born again experience is when the soul and spirit are made alive to God and becomes a habitation for His divine presence in the person of the Holy Spirit. It is the believer’s right to experience and know God’s presence in the person of the Holy Spirit for themselves.
This presence is not to be enjoyed only once a week or on special holy days; it is for us now at this moment in time to reach out by faith and know His presence in reality. This is our God-given right and privilege! The blood of Christ was such a powerful offering that it removed everything that could hinder us from experiencing God. To not experience God’s manifest presence in reality is to forfeit one of the greatest benefits of the cross of Christ. I am not speaking here of mental assent or some religious mystical experience but a very real knowledge of God’s presence. It is more than feeling, but yet you can feel His presence. It is a definite witness that at times bears witness in your physical body. It is an undeniable knowing that God is with you that no devil or man can make you question. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. How? He does this by manifesting His divine presence in our hearts and minds.
This is to be common place among God’s children. Some people are of the opinion that God’s presence is simply received by faith at the new birth and Christians are not to expect anything special or supernatural. I ask you what father would visit the delivery room when their children were born and not pick that child up and hold them and let them know immediately he is there for them? I know of no loving father that would sit by as if nothing special has happened showing no emotion whatsoever and not giving their newborn babe a warm embrace. If the angels in heaven rejoice over one person that is born again and they had no hand in their redemption, then how much more the one that has begotten that child, and that has birthed that special seed through His Spirit.
No, there is a fatal error that has taken place in Christian theology. We have made the born again experience too sterile, too common, and too legal. The birth of a saint is more than the clearing of a guilty soul, and a deliverance from judgment. If this is all that salvation entails, a dry exchange of legalities, then we are bound not to expect anything more than deliverance from Hell and entrance to Heaven. That is not all that being born again is about. The very term “born again” carries with it life and relationship. To be born again means that we have new life and that we have a father. Therefore, we are alive to our Father in relationship with Him.
Many Christians never come into the realization of this glorious life and presence of God, because to them they are merely a cleared and forgiven criminal in the annals of God’s hall of justice. Though this is true, justification is only one of the many things that God has done for us through the Blood of Christ. We are far more than another guilty party pardoned by God; we are His offspring, which emphatically means that we are tied to Him in a very real and dynamic way. His life blood is within us; we have His Spirit. What blood is to the body, bearing all the marks of a person’s forefathers, the Spirit of God is to the believer. He is our life spiritually. We therefore can know God more than a judge or deliverer; we can know Him as intimately as a child would know their own parent and as a man would know his wife.
Religion sterilizes this reality and makes it something dead and formal. We must break free from the confines of merely being legal Christians into being relational beings in loving relationship with God. The analytical minds of men have sought to break apart the works of God by putting the Word of God under a microscope, dissecting the Greek and the Hebrew until they in their own minds have God pegged, tagged and stored away in a nice institutional container called the church. God will not be held back by the carnal mind of man just as the oceans cannot be contained in a glass. God does not want to be figured out and sterilized; He wants to be known and experienced.
The price paid by Calvary’s Lamb was too great to live in anything less than the fullness of God’s presence. This is not to say that Christians will always know and sense God’s presence as if there were no need of faith. There are definite times in the Christian’s life where there is no sense of God’s presence but this is not the whole of the Christian experience. God did not save us to languish in a world filled with devils’ and limitless perils without His presence. No, the presence of the Lord is a tower and stronghold for the Christian. We are to resort to His presence when we are weary and battle worn. We are to resort to His presence when we are physically afflicted. We are to resort to His presence in all of life’s ups and downs; it is our safe haven from the storms that batter our soul. It is a constant source of strength and help in our deepest need, and it is our right and should be a consistent component with our walk with God.
Cultivating Life in His Presence
Having established that the believer is not always going to know and experience the presence of the Lord by saying that God does call us to walk by faith regardless if we feel something, we must also balance this by saying that it is God’s desire for us to experience His presence more than we realize. Could it possibly be that God wants to manifest Himself to His people more than we are aware? If so, why have the Christians and the corporate Body of Christ not understood this truth, and why is it a foreign thought to some that you can actually know and experience the presence of God?
From the very beginning of the church, the presence of God was known and felt by those that were born again. On the day of Pentecost, believers felt and experienced the divine presence of God with the outpouring of the Spirit. After that day the church enjoyed God’s presence among them, healing them, directing them, and teaching them. It was commonplace for people to be filled with God’s Spirit and have physical evidence of God’s presence among them. They were dependent upon this life within them and it showed in the manner of the overcoming life that they lived. They cultivated the life of God by the manner of life that they lived. Their lifestyle became conducive to the visitation of God’s continued manifested presence. There are characteristics that can be seen in the lives of the early church that allowed them to experience the presence of the Lord in a very real way. The same two aspects are seen in every person that knows and experiences the presence of the Lord today. They are ageless and timeless characteristics that can be known and established in the life of anyone that is hungry for more of God’s presence.
1. Simplicity of Pursuit
At first glance, the New Testament saints would not appear to be any different than anyone else and indeed they were not. In fact, they were noted as being ignorant and unlearned by the spiritually elite of their day. What a contrast lay before us in the fishermen of Galilee and the scholars from Jerusalem. On the one hand you have the bright and complex basking in the praises of man, sitting on the high seat of religious authority and power. On the other hand you have the simple and the dull, radiating the glory of God and displaying through their own personal lives the power and presence of the risen Christ.
In this brilliant and startling contrast there lies a lesson for all who desire to experience the presence of Christ in a real and tangible way. One word could describe these men and their walk with God, “simple.” I do not mean to sound as if these men were simple-minded and cast my lot in with those who were spiritually undiscerning by dismissing them as ignorant. On the contrary, the simplicity that I speak of here is the God-given kind. It comes to those whose eyes have been opened to the reality of God in Christ. It is the simplicity of a life surrendered to the glory of God. It is the kind of reality that comes to a person when they suddenly realize that there is more to this life than living for self satisfaction. There is a world beyond this world, a life beyond this life and a God that is much bigger and grander than man can ever know. To meet with God in reality brings simplicity into your life. You suddenly see the emptiness of a life apart from God, and you see through the superficial facade of life without His presence.
It is this seeing that helps simplify things. To know that you exist for the sole purpose of loving and serving God and to proclaim the wonderful news of Jesus Christ can radically shift your life’s priorities. Suddenly, as the Holy Spirit descended in Acts 2, every person’s life in the upper room was eternally altered. Now, their life did not matter, their plans did not matter, their fancies and their likes or dislikes took on a whole new look. What looked so fulfilling before, now looked like dirty rags and broken cisterns compared to the majesty and glory of God. We were created and we were born again to experience this glory and majesty of God. Yes, everything changes when you experience God’s presence. To those enlightened fishermen only one thing mattered and that was to love God supremely and serve Him completely.
Many times we miss the wonderful presence of the Lord because we become too complex and lose the reality of how simple life really is. We as Christians can experience the presence of God when we walk in this simplicity and singleness of mind. I live for the glory of God, to love Him supremely above all other persons, places, or things. My pursuit is God. My pursuit is to know His heart and serve Him without any reserve. This simplifies everything and puts everything into an eternal perspective. What can be more important than the most important call God has placed on man? There is no higher calling than to pursue God and for those who pursue God there will be ample opportunity to experience His presence. He will manifest Himself to the simple, those that have heard the call of God to come out from among this world and separate themselves to know Him.
There is a lack of God’s presence among His Church simply because there is a lack of those who have dedicated their lives to know and love God. This singleness of life purpose is the single eye that Jesus spoke of having. When your heart has a single focus on God, then your body will be full of light. John says that the “light” that came was the life of God manifested in the person of Jesus Christ. A person or a people that have a single eye will never ever lack His presence. Their whole body will be filled His presence and His life.
2. Waiting upon God
Those that were simple in their pursuit were determined to move with God, for their dedication to God’s glory was more than lip service, it was a living reality. When a person has dedicated themselves to God they are not in a hurry to out-run God and go beyond His life, therefore they wait upon Him. The simple life is really a life that is spent waiting upon God. This does not mean that the worshipper is always sitting around doing nothing waiting solely upon God twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No, it is an attitude and purpose of heart. There should be definite times daily that the worshipper takes to wait solely upon God with no distractions or interruptions, reading His Word and talking with Him. This conditions the worshipper to know and recognize the presence and voice of the Holy Spirit. When we leave the prayer closet we do not leave God. We continue to go throughout the day with the knowledge of His presence and the effects of His presence. When we spend time alone with God it shapes our day and sets the heart in order to think clearly and maintain this inward waiting upon Him though we may be very busy.
The reason that many do not wait upon the Lord is the fact that life is so fast-paced. People over-extend themselves in today’s society and have mistaken that busyness in life means more satisfaction and fulfillment. I ask you, the reader, is this true of your life? How does busyness equal contentment and a fulfilled life in God? No one can prove that busyness and involvement in so many different activities brings true happiness. If anything, I believe that many people busy themselves to distract themselves from the hollow feeling they have inside. They distract themselves with busyness to cover up the deep loneliness and dissatisfaction that they find gnawing at their heart. Many people cannot take the solitude and comfort of being still and quiet before God. You cannot go anywhere today, all public places and church, where someone is not talking on a cell phone. Christians feel the compulsion today to always be doing something, and they fall into the same trap that society around them is caught up in. I believe this is one reason why there is no clarity in the church today about who God is and what His Word says; no one is taking the time to really wait upon Him.
You will find as you wait upon the Lord, giving Him quality time free from distractions, that your life will become simpler and more focused. Oh, how individual believers need to wait upon the Lord. Not just praying prayers and singing songs but truly waiting upon Him, taking quality time out of the day to spend with Him, sitting with Him talking with Him, worshipping Him, and reading His Word. You may say that you do not have time for this or wonder how you could ever squeeze this into your busy life? You need to really ask the question, for whom or what do you live? Do you live to love and serve God or do you live to burn up your life on things that are going to pass away?
You will spend and be spent for that which you love the most. If your life is simplified to loving and serving God then your time that you spend with Him will reflect that. We can measure our love and devotion by this simple test. A single eye comes from a single heart. Make God your pursuit, and you will find yourself resorting often to His presence waiting upon Him.
Some people have a difficult time waiting upon God because of the lies of the enemy. The prayer closet represents a place of conflict and struggle with the forces of Hell. Christians simply avoid God’s presence because of the mind trips that await them as they get alone with the Lord. It is true that Hell’s fury is felt most by those that attempt to wait upon the Lord, because the devil knows that a waiting man is a strong man, according to Isaiah 40:31.
Satan will do whatever he can to keep you from pursuing God and of this you must be aware. Paul knew this conflict and said that we are to arm ourselves with the armor of light. As we come simply before God, trusting in His goodness and grace towards our lives, we have assurance that God hears us when we come to Him in prayer. Sometimes we lack this assurance because of our own inward battles or struggles, or simply because of the oppression of the enemy. At these times we must come in simple faith anyway to seek God knowing that God’s Word is sure. We must exercise our faith to walk with God in this manner and become a disciple of waiting upon God if we are to truly know Him in any substantial and real way.
It is not complicated; you do not have to be a theologian, a great prayer warrior or an intercessor to know God in this manner. Draw near to Him and He will draw near to you. He will make Himself known in a very real way as you begin to wait upon Him.