Did you hear what Sodom Hussein and Little Miss
Muffet have in common? They both have curds in
their way. You say, what has that got to do with
the message? Nothing. But you needed to smile.
My goodness. You would think it was raining inside
here this morning. There are some times when
words just aren't enough The couple in my mind
this morning had always wanted a boy they had
two beautiful daughters But they'd always just
wanted one more and Prayed it might be a boy,
but they were in their early 40s and their daughters
were teenagers by that time and so It was pretty
unlikely And then one day, the missus had an
announcement for the mister. And it was that
surprise announcement that they were going to
have a belated blessing. And another baby was
on the way in their early 40s. Now some people
would have found that quite alarming. And at
first it was shocking to these two, but they
decided that this might be the boy that they
had always wanted and prayed for. And so they
counted down the months and she got larger and
larger. And we waited and finally came that day
in April, 17 years ago. In fact, it was on my
birthday that she went into labor. And sure enough,
it was a boy. But as the boy was born, the umbilical
cord wrapped around his neck and he died. Their
prayers, their dreams, their joys were all dashed.
In an incident in the delivery room that probably
shouldn't have happened. And I can remember like
it was two weeks ago, standing with that couple,
our arms around each other, in front of a little
casket, and we wept. because sometimes words
just aren't enough. It reminds me of a bumper
sticker that I saw one time. And on the bumper
sticker, it said, God is, and then the letters,
N -O -W -H -E -R -E. God is nowhere. But in the
second part of the bumper sticker, the letters
were slightly rearranged with a space in between
the W and the H so that it read, God is now here.
As we stood beside that casket on that spring
afternoon 17 years ago, God was there. And God
is here this morning. The God we worship is here.
Lo, I am with you always, said Jesus, even to
the end of the age. Someone has said that Matthew
28 20 is absolute proof that God does not go
with those who fly. That those who get into airplanes
are on their own because Jesus said low I am
with you always However the word low simply as
a word meaning I have this announcement to give
to you behold Here is something that you need
to grasp and get a hold of I am with you and
he really says it I myself Me I am with you all
the days forever." And he said those words just
before he went back to heaven to be at the right
hand of God the Father. There are times when
you and I ask the question out of our feelings
of the moment, where is God? Where is God? But
inevitably, faith eventually responds by rearranging
the letters in our lives to say, God is now here.
God is everywhere present. All of Him, always.
God is present everywhere. Think about that.
I can say this morning that I am in this room.
But more precisely, I'm right here. I'm not back
there. And you're in this room, but you are there
in that chair, not up here. When we say God is
everywhere present, it means that God is everywhere.
All at the same instant. Constantly. Always.
We cannot go where God is not. Look back at Psalm
139 with me, which was read earlier in the service.
And notice how David puts this. He asks the rhetorical
question, where can I go from thy spirit? Where
can I flee from thy presence? He says, if I ascend
to heaven, if I go up as far as I can go, you're
there. If I make my bed in Sheol, the realm of
the dead, which is down in Hebrew thought, you're
there. If I take the wings of the dawn. Boy,
it's been a while since we've seen the wings
of the dawn around Minnesota, hasn't it? But
what a beautiful day it is when that sun begins
to get close to the horizon and those beautiful
wings of the dawn proceeded on the horizon. David
said, if I can go in that direction, east, he
says, you're there. If I dwell in the remotest
part of the sea, now remember where he's writing
from, Palestine, and the sea he's talking about
is the Mediterranean, and that's to the west.
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, he
says, even there, thy hand will lead me, thy
right hand will lay hold of me." He says, I cannot
even go into the darkness and pull it around
myself and hide because you are thereto and you
see me. Dr. William Evans was a great Presbyterian
preacher. For a while he taught at Moody Bible
Institute and then was a dean at the Bible Institute
of Los Angeles. Later in his life, he was a leader
of Bible conferences all across the United States.
Some of you who are older might remember him.
He died in 1950, when he was 80 years of age.
But he left behind some writings, including one
called The Great Doctrines of the Bible. In there,
Dr. Evans says this, God is everywhere, his circumference
nowhere. What is a circumference? Well, that's
the edge of the circle. It's the boundary. It's
the limit of the circle. He says God's circumference
is nowhere. You think about that for a moment.
You draw a circle as big as you want to. God
is in that circle. So you draw it even bigger
than that. Let's suppose you could even draw
it around the whole universe. You take a magic
marker, you might need two of them, and just
begin marking out the whole universe until you've
got a circumference around it. You still haven't
captured God. Because God is not only in His
universe that He has created, but He is beyond
it. So he says, God is everywhere, his circumference
is nowhere. But he says, this presence is a spiritual,
not a material presence, yet it is a real presence.
We speak of God as being both eminent, I -M -M
-A -N -E -N -T, and transcendent. When we say
that God is eminent, what that means is that
God is present everywhere throughout His creation.
That's not pantheism, which is the heart and
soul of Hinduism and of New Age philosophy. It
is not that. For that denies the personality
of God. And it claims that God is everything
and everything is God. That is not what the Bible
teaches. But the Bible does teach that the Creator
God is present throughout His creation. He is
eminent. But also He is transcendent, which means
that He is distinct from His creation. He is
not the creation itself, though He is present
throughout it. He is distinct from it. God is
present everywhere, and yet God is not present
everywhere in exactly the same sense. For example,
God does not indwell Satan. God does not indwell
lost people who are not His children. Furthermore,
the Bible indicates that there is a particular
dwelling place of God, so that it can be said
that he is enthroned in the heavens, or as Solomon
prayed in 1 Kings 8, calling heaven God's dwelling
place. And so God is everywhere present, but
not always in exactly the same sense. For God
dwells in heaven in a particular sense, a special
sense. God is present everywhere, and all of
him is. As triune God, as Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, he is present everywhere. We need to
dismiss any notion from our minds that the Father
and the Son are in heaven, and the Holy Spirit
is God on the earth. I say dismiss that idea
from our minds because God cannot be thus divided
as though each person of the Trinity were independent
of the others in some kind of a separate existence.
Where God the Father is, God the Son and God
the Spirit also must be. Louis Barry Shaffer,
in his theology, writes, The Trinity is composed
of three united persons without separate existence,
so completely united as to form one God. The
divine nature subsists in three distinctions,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And as triune God,
he is everywhere. As triune God, he is resident
in every true child of His. We'll just turn to
one text to see that. It's some words of Jesus
in John the 14th chapter. You recall this as
the discourse that Jesus gave around the occasion
of the Last Supper. In John 14 and verse 16,
he says, I will ask the Father, And he will give
you another helper, another comforter, a paraclete,
one who will be called alongside of you to help
you. And when he says another, he doesn't mean
someone who's distinct and different from me,
actually he says another who is just like me.
That's what he says. That he may be with you
forever. Who is that? That's right, it says in
verse 17. The Spirit. But then look down to verse
23 in this same chapter. Jesus goes on to say,
if anyone loves me, he will keep my word. And
my Father will love him and we, who's we? The
Father and Jesus. He says, we will come to him
and make our abode with him. So, you put those
verses together and you see that the Holy Spirit
comes to indwell us, to be our helper, our paraclete,
but also the Father and the Son indwell us. We
are the home of God in a special sense. God is
everywhere present in the world. But just as
the heavens are the dwelling place of God, so
is your body. if you're a child of his. Think
about that. And not only are we individually
the abode of God, but the New Testament teaches
that when we gather together like this into a
congregation of the Lord's people, He dwells
in us corporately together. When we come together,
God The Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit
reside in us as a local church. We need to underscore
in our hearts the importance of the local assembly
of believers in the mind of God. On this earth
there is nothing more precious to Him than the
local churches. The assemblies of believers all
over the world that come together as individual
believers but to unite as a single body in which
God dwells. I'm not going to take the time to
look up the text, but you will recall in Revelation
chapter 1 that the Lord Jesus appears on the
Isle of Patmos in a vision to the Apostle John.
And as he appears, he is in the midst of seven
golden what? Lampstands or candlesticks. And
those seven candlesticks represent what? The
seven churches of Asia Minor. Notice not the
church universal, but local churches. And the
cities are named in chapters two and three. What
is that indicating to us, this vision of Jesus,
that he is in the churches? And that's why he
says as he does in those letters, I know you.
I know what's happening in your midst because
he's here. He knows exactly what the condition
of Grace Church of Roosevelt is because he's
here. He knows our candlestick, our witness,
our testimony. But likewise, God the Father is
said to dwell in us according to 2 Corinthians
6 verses 16 and 17. I will dwell in them, God
says. And we know from 1 Corinthians 3, 16 that
the Holy Spirit dwells in us as a church. And
so the triune God is everywhere present throughout
His universe. but He is especially in a particular
wonderful sense present and residing in your
body and in us as a corporate group. What does
all of this mean to you and me when we think
about the fact that the God we worship is here?
how that ought to impact the very way that we
conduct ourselves in a service. How it ought
to change the way that I come to worship, the
attitude of my heart, my participation in the
service, if I recognize that God is here and
He's listening to the words that I sing and He
sees the expression on my face. God is here.
God's sure presence means his participation in
every circumstance of life. There's nothing that
happens by accident. Everything is by design
and signed by providence. James Russell Lowell
wrote of this idea when he penned these words
that we sometimes hear quoted. Truth forever
on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne.
It does seem that way in the world, doesn't it?
Truth is on the cross and wrong is on the throne.
But he goes on to say, and yet that scaffold
sways the future. And behind the dim unknown
standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch
above His own. I love those words. In the shadow
of our lives, even when it seems like wrong is
reigning as the king of our circumstances at
the moment, and Jesus is still on the cross,
and all that is right is crucified with Him.
Even in those moments, in the shadows behind
it all, is God. Keeping watch upon His own, He's
there. In all of the circumstances of life, a
number in our church have recently lost their
jobs. Some that I know of have come very close
to losing the business that they've been involved
in in years. That does something to shatter a
person. To lose your job. It's bad enough when
it's because of finances and corporate cutbacks
or whatever. It's even worse when there's no
real reason. Justifiable reason. When you have
put everything you have and you are into a business
to try to make it go, only to see it sputter
and begin to spiral like an airplane plunging
to the ground. It's out of fuel. That does something
to a person. Sometimes Men and women who go through
experiences like this feel ashamed. What's wrong
with them? Why didn't it go? Why wasn't I the
one who was kept? I've worked hard for that company.
And yet there is never a thing to be ashamed
of in that kind of a situation. We need to understand
that in all the circumstances of our lives, God
is shepherding us onward. I've had at least one
person say very honestly to me that he finds
it hard to accept help from others because he's
always been himself the one who's been able to
help. He's been the one who's in control as it
were and able to reach out and now he's in a
position where he needs to receive from others
and he finds a certain guilt in that. A difficulty,
it's humiliating. And yet even that is God's
hand. There is no shame, there is no guilt in
accepting help from others when we need it. That's
what we're here for is to help others, all of
us. When someone reaches out to help us, we need
to see that as the hand, as the angel of God,
our shepherd. Anne Murphy was married to her
husband Will in the early part of this century.
And together they operated a very successful
pottery business in Ohio. They used their wealth
and their influence to serve the Lord in the
church. Anne herself was a very talented singer
and a speaker. was active in ministry and used
quite broadly in those days. But in 1929, I don't
have to tell some of you what 1929 was all about.
That was the year of the Great Depression. And
the Murphys were among those who lost everything.
Everything. Materially. And then, It was not
long before Will died, and Anne was left alone.
She went to live with some relatives in Burbank,
California. Shortly before her death in 1942,
she was visited by a friend who reported to others
that she was in joy and in peace, trusting in
the Lord. You say, why do you talk about her?
Well, because she wrote a hymn that, from my
childhood, has been one of my favorites. It's
not in our hymnal. But we used to sing it often
in our country church. The first verse that Anne
Murphy wrote goes like this. There's a peace
in my heart that the world never gave. A peace
it cannot take away. Though the trials of life
may surround like a cloud, I have a peace that
has come there to stay. Some of you know the
chorus. Constantly abiding. Jesus is mine. Constantly
abiding. Rapture divine. He never leaves me lonely.
whispers, Oh, so kind, I will never leave thee.
Jesus is mine." What great words. What great
words. She wrote out of her own experience of
the constantly abiding presence of Christ. And
he is that in your life too. Not only does God's
sure presence mean His participation in every
circumstance, but it also means His preservation
until we arrive home. For God, you see, dwells
in us, and His Spirit especially is called the
seal of God that is upon us. He is called the
guarantee of our redemption. I'm convinced personally
that there is a visible seal that is upon the
child of God that though we cannot see, the spirits
in the heavenly realms are able to see it. So
that immediately by looking at you or looking
at me, they see some sort of a seal, an indication
that we belong to God. The fact that He dwells
in us, He resides in us, He said, I will never
leave you or forsake you, means that we are preserved
until that day that we will stand complete in
His presence in heaven. His sure presence also
means God's protection from our enemies. Paul
knew about this, didn't he, in Corinth? Things
rather turned sour there in Acts chapter 18.
So much so that Paul himself, the great apostle,
who by this time had already been stoned and
probably who had died and resuscitated, brought
back to life, He who had been beaten in Philippi
and imprisoned, things were going so bad in Corinth
that he was afraid. But Jesus appeared to him
one night and said, Paul, don't be afraid. I
have many people in this city. It is a great
thing to know you don't have to be afraid. Not
that we can be foolish and presumptuous upon
God, but the fact is that when we are walking
in the will of God, in obedience to His will
as much as we know it, we are protected by God
for His divine purposes in the world. And there
is nothing and no one who can touch us. Nothing.
His presence means His sure protection of our
lives. A true story is told by a missionary wife
by the name of Mrs. Dan Crawford of a nine -year
-old African girl who, because of her involvement
in a Christian school kind of setting in their
area, became a believer in Jesus. Her parents
were deeply involved in their animism, their
paganism, and they were opposed to her faith,
and so they took her out of the school. But she
would go back to the school and they would beat
her. And she kept going back to the people who
told her of Christ and who loved her. Just nine
years of age now. And finally, the mother in
desperation, trying to break this Jesus belief
in the girl, took her out into the jungle one
night and tied her to a tree, believing that
the jungle animals would so frighten her during
the night that she would turn away from this
faith in Jesus and return to her pagan ideas.
The next morning, a young man who was a Christian
happened to come by that tree, that path, and
found this little girl still tied there. And
he testified that There were lion tracks all
around that tree, up to five yards from it, 15
feet, no closer. The little girl said that she
had seen the lions during the night. But she
had learned in her school the story of Daniel
in the lion's den. And she prayed that God would
protect her. Who knows the power of faith in
a nine -year -old little girl. And that night
the lions were all around her but did not touch
her. God is here. And His presence means that
you and I are protected. from our enemies. God's
presence also means that there should be purity
in my lifestyle. Thou God seest me. It's interesting
that when Paul wrote to the Philippians in the
fourth chapter, he gets to the point finally
of rebuking the two women in the church who were
kind of at one another. And he commands them
to live at peace with one another. Then he addresses
the whole church and he says, now let your forbearance
be known to all men. And then he says, the Lord
is near. What was he saying? He's saying you
as a church need to clean up your act because
the Lord is near. The Lord is there watching.
He sees. Boy, if I believe that, it's going to
make a difference where I go and what I do. His
sure presence means his power in our lives for
the mission he's given us. And here I return
to our text in Matthew 28 .20. For you know that
that text where he said, lo, I am with you, comes
right after he says, make disciples. As you're
going, make disciples by baptizing them and teaching
them all things. That's our job, wherever we
are, to make disciples. To seek to win people
to Christ and not only that, to then enable them
to walk with Him, to teach them what they need
to know that they might walk with Him and be
a part of the body, the church, and the world.
And lo, He says, I'm with you always. even to
the end of the world. He said, all power is given
to me. I am with you. When you and I feel like
we just can't go on, when we feel afraid to witness,
when we wonder how we're going to be able to
follow through with the commitments that we've
made, he says all power is mine. I am with you.
We can trust him. Reverend Thomas Chalmers was
a Scottish pastor and a university professor
as well, even before his conversion at the age
of 31. After he was converted, he continued on
as a pastor and as a professor at the University
of St. Andrews and the University of Edinburgh
later. He was one of the most popular preachers
of his era in the first part of the 1800s. He
was a man who not only came to know Jesus Christ
and had a great ability to preach, but he was
a man who knew that his mission in the world
was to reach people who were in need. He not
only helped to organize the Free Church of Scotland,
but he labored among poor people. And in the
parishes where he ministered, he organized charitable
work to reach those who were in need. He wrote
these words. that are helpful to all of us. When
I walk by the wayside, He is along with me. When
I enter into company amid all my forgetfulness
of Him, He never forgets me. In the silent watches
of the night, when my eyelids are closed and
my spirit has sunk into unconsciousness, the
observant eye of Him who never slumbers is upon
me. I cannot flee from his presence. Go where
I will. He leads me and watches me and cares
for me." Are you living in the light of that
presence, his presence? The story is told of
an ocean liner in World War II who left a British
port headed for the United States. Of course
it was very dangerous because of all the German
submarines. And so they were given strict orders
not to have any voice communication with other
ships that might give away their position. If
in an emergency they had to, they could use the
wireless. Well this ocean liner got out into
the Atlantic Ocean a ways and one day, sure enough,
they saw on the horizon an enemy ship. And immediately
the captain sent a wireless message that said,
enemy cruiser sighted, what shall I do? And immediately
a reply came back to him that said, keep straight
on, I am standing by. He looked at the horizon
and saw one ship. He did exactly what he was
told. He stayed on course until finally he reached
port. And just after that ship reached port,
there was a British warship that also slipped
in the same harbor. You see that ship had been
trailing the other ship. Out of sight, but there.
And the message was, keep on course. I am standing
by. You may wonder today if you can keep on course.
Hey, the message is keep on course. God says
I'm standing by. The God we worship is here.
Let that sink deep into your heart and determine
as you go away from here today that you will
not forget it. And that will impact the plans
you make, the lifestyle you have, the people
you see, what you do, that it will soak into
every area of your life and fill you. He's here.
Let's pray. Our heads are bowed, our eyes are
closed as we come to the end of the service.
truth that God is here, that He is with you,
that He will always, always be with you. How
does that strike you today? Let it calm your
fears and bring peace. Let it stir you to holiness.
Let it fill you with confidence and courage.
Thank you, Father. For the great God that you
are we desire to know you And what a wonderful
truth this is to know that you are here and always
with us Amen