11.15.2015 How to Experience God in the Day-to-day

11-15-2015 Grace Summit Sermon from Grace Summit on Vimeo.

11-15-2015 Grace Summit Worship from Grace Summit on Vimeo.

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Lord, there is a lot of anger and violence in the world. We lift France up to You that You would bring healing and give wisdom to the leaders of the free world to help us find peace. You are the Prince of Peace – may Your peace reign on this earth. May Your grace be with them. May we remember to pray for our leaders – to be obedient to You, as Christians, to pray – that You would lift them up and bless them. Thank You for the work You are doing in this world – the stories of hundreds of Muslims coming to Christ. May our hearts be stirred for the opportunity to bring souls into Your kingdom.
Two more weeks, and then we start Advent. The Mission of God in Advent – Mission of God seen in Christmas. The coming of Jesus is all about God’s mission in the world. So we will focus our four weeks of Advent on how that relates to the Christmas story.
Last week I told you that this week we would focus on the topic of “Everybody is a full-time missionary and minister” – we will do that next week, and instead, I would like to focus on experiencing God in our daily lives. Even if people believe in God, most live like He is out there. But God IS – God is involved in your life, work, neighborhood – and is alive and wants you to perceive Him and experience Him in your daily routine.
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from [a]any tree of the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’” 4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! 5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.
We know the story – I’m sure it wasn’t an apple. We don’t know what the fruit was. There are two ways of focusing on this passage and story – in both, the serpent attacks God – in two ways. The first and most familiar way – he is attacking the character of God – first, by trying to get Eve to question God’s word – that God is not really telling the truth – “Did God REALLY say…” – and what the serpent is trying to do is to get Eve to doubt – whether God’s word is reliable and faithful. The second way – when he says, “You will surely not die… he knows when you eat it you will be like Him” – Basically – God is trying to withhold good from you. He does not have your best in mind. He is withholding good. Doesn’t the serpent attack God in our lives in these ways? He doesn’t love you like you ought to be loved. That is the most common way of viewing this attack.
This week, I was listening to a podcast – Karl Barth – revealed this passage in another way – how the serpent attacks God – and it reveals his trickiness and craftiness and ability to scheme… - He talks to Eve about God as if God were not aware of the conversation! “Did God really say this?” – You can imagine Eve turning to the serpent and losing her understanding that God is completely present – and they get in this conversation as if God is gone – has left the building – is unengaged.
The serpent effectually removes God from the scene and from Eve’s mind. A lot of people live, even if they believe in God, live as if He is nowhere to be found. And her failure to understand that God was present caused her and her husband to sin. I would propose that most of our sin and brokenness come from failing to recognize God’s continual presence in our lives. We are forgetting or ignoring or pushing aside the fact that God is there.
You know how you teach your children – God sees! If the enemy can get us to forget that or ignore that, we are susceptible to do whatever. And that is what has taken place here – and Eve and Adam miss it.
So this begs the question – why does this happen? Why do we forget or ignore God’s presence on a daily basis? We tend to walk by sight and not by faith – not the other way around. The pressures of this life – we are so consumed with those things that we neglect to recognize that God is in our lives right now. We get wrapped up in the responsibilities and needs of life. Jesus said, the concerns and worries of this world choke out the word. For us – they choke out our experience and relationship with God.
Hebrews 12: 1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 [a]fixing our eyes on Jesus, the [b]author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
There is this weight that slows us down – it could be sins – or it could be all the stuff that gets piled into our lives. And the solution is to fix your eyes on Jesus.
1 of the things I have listed – our wrong dreams – unhealthy, self-oriented – like wrong attitudes toward money or sex – and we need to lay that aside – the sin that so easily entangles us. – But there are things that are GOOD – that we allow to become ULTIMATE things – comfort, security, significance, family – you can go down the line – friendship, work – all good things – things we should focus our attention on – marriage, children – but when any of those become ULTIMATE things – when they step in and take the place of God in our lives, they will lead us away from living within His presence. As Christians, these are the most difficult things to deal with – good things that become ultimate things. We see this at work – we see people… - as Christians, we should be faithful, responsible workers – but our career should never become an ultimate thing.
It is harder to see this when it relates to friendship or family – God wants to be first – He wants to be our ULTIMATE thing. When He becomes our ultimate thing – everything else drops into place – but when something else does, God drops off the scene, so we need to make sure our attention is fixed on Him.
I think sometimes God wants us to let go of the lower dreams. There are some lower dreams God wants us to let go. It might be goals for a career – it might not be sinful – but you might need to let it go. And there are so many things like that – that come in and become too important. But it is often in the letting go that we see God enter in and experience Him in our lives.
Usually, to experience God, it will require a death. The Bible is clear, we live, dying with Christ, Galatians 2:20 – We have been crucified with Him – and we have died – and He lives in us – But there are areas in our lives that need to die – it just needs to go – so you can experience the life He has for you.
Gen. 3: 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves [b]loin coverings. 8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the [c]cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Here they are hiding from God’s presence – because of shame. Why are you hiding? We are naked. Who told you you are naked? There is deep shame in their lives. For us, we don’t have to have that shame – because Christ died on the cross and we are forgiven – if you are living in shame – you will not be able to experience God on a daily basis. IF there are things that bring shame – understand that you are forgiven and God can reveal Himself to you – because of His love for us. He came to Adam and Eve – He knew what was going on – He asks questions like, Where are you? Which plays on the fact that they don’t know that He knows. I’ll play your game…. – Like hide and seek with your grandchildren… I can’t find you – and they start laughing – and God is doing this to reveal to them that they are not hiding from Him – and even though you have sinned, He makes provision right away so that they need not hide – and we need to live our lives that way – we don’t need to hide. We are immediately forgiven – but we act as if there is a period of time. Why? Because that is how we are with one another. If you sin against me – there is a period of time before you are forgiven – but God is not like that.
He does this to remove our shame. We have to be careful with shame – because we use it as a weapon – like the serpent – to bring shame into others’ lives – just like the devil did. We use the truth of God’s word that is not about God’s purpose. Jesus attacked that over and over again. Jesus constantly beat on them – that that is not the way to do it.
Failure to recognize of acknowledge God’s presence leads to sin and brokenness – but entering into God’s presence leads us down the road of transformation and change.
2 Cor. 3: 15 But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; 16 but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
Moses would go to see God and his face would shine in glory – but his transformation departed – so Moses would veil himself. But because of Christ – the veil has been taken off – so we can behold God face to face – and we are transformed into the same image. Transformation happens when we learn to live in the presence of God – to that extent we will be transformed into His image.
We need to create time to enter God’s presence – not so that you can check it off your list – if you read your devotion every morning as a checklist item – it does no good. You need to do it to experience Him.
Luke 5: 15 But the news about Him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But Jesus Himself would often slip away [f]to the [g]wilderness and pray.
Jesus developed a habit of life to separate Himself and enter into God’s presence – to remove things from His life – to make sure that at some point He was alone with God. He went off to the wilderness – you can do it in your bedroom – but remove the distractions of the world. It is imperative to the way we live.
Ask – do you create space for God? Have you created a frequency – like Jesus – do you often slip away to be with God.
Second – Find what works for you! If reading a devotional series works for you – do that! Try things. Mark was telling me he got a plan – and reads the entire Bible through in a year – in a different version.
Third – discover wilderness moments in your daily routine – you know – a couple simple ones – walking from a parking lot to a building. It might be a two minute walk – but you might be able to refocus your attention on God. For some – it might be the commute to work. Look for these opportunities to refocus our attention. It might be a break time at work – after you get your coffee – remind yourself – I am present here with God. Those are simple small things – but if we do them – we will begin a transformation process.