Makeni | A People of His Presence - Janco Boshoff

[00:00:00] It feels. [00:00:01] Yeah, it just feels like we've already experienced something of God's beautiful presence this morning. Would you guys agree, as elders, we have to weigh up, what is the Lord doing? What do we do next? And it was a difficult one for us. Now we were trying to figure out, do we land and go into the message? Because did you guys also experience something of God's presence now? Something of his sweetness? It was amazing. But what I want to share on is actually on the presence of God and we want to spend time in response to that worshiping at the end of the meeting. [00:00:33] So, yeah, I'm going to just share the message now. We don't always do it like this. [00:00:39] Yeah, let me just pray again and then we go from there. Father, we just want to acknowledge you again this morning. [00:00:45] We want to acknowledge you for who you are, God. [00:00:49] Lord, if you don't go with us, Lord, we don't want to go anywhere. [00:00:53] We want to thank you for your presence here this morning. We do not take it for granted and we recognize that we cannot earn your presence. [00:01:02] And so we thank you for the blessing that it is to have you with us here this morning. We thank you, God, that you are alive and active, that you are not just a historical figure, Jesus, but you are alive and active and you are currently the head of your church and you are leading your people forward. [00:01:20] So this morning we want to quieten our hearts. [00:01:22] Say, God, come and have your way in this meeting. [00:01:27] Lord, will you come and impart something into our hearts this morning? Will you come and have your way? Holy Spirit, you are so welcome here. And Holy Spirit, will you come and work in our hearts now in this time, in Jesus name, Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Yeah, so I want to share one or two things that just we felt for this year. We obviously don't know exactly what God is going to do this whole year. We're not that prophetic, but we do have a sense of just some things that God wants to do. [00:01:56] So one of the things we're excited about is we feel like God wants to, as a people, take us to a space where we do life together, that we're true family. We don't just say we're family, but we are true family. And that's where community groups come in. The heart of it is, yes, we meet on a Wednesday, but. But the idea is that you become family and it spills over and that you're in each other's homes to the point where you know where they live, you know, Their dog or their cat's name. You can just rock up and eat out of their fridge. [00:02:24] So, yeah, obviously with a heart of consideration and love, but that's one of the things we feel God wants to do in us this year, is that we'll be a people that every single one of us is known and loved within this body. And that's why Sundays are incredibly limited. [00:02:37] Yeah, so that's one of the things we're feeling. Obviously, there's a building, a building that we want to do. You guys can see we're slightly tight in space. We removed the stage. I don't know if you noticed the difference. Did anyone notice that there isn't a stage anymore? [00:02:51] Yeah, it helps to create space. And it's not like we want to elevate that. No one was using it anyway, so, like, no one wants to be up there. It's about Jesus. So we just removed it. There's some more space in the meanwhile, but we are. We will be building soon. So that's also coming. That's big for us this year. We believe God's in the building. And it's a. It's a. Yeah, it's going to take his kingdom forward in a spiritual way. Because you're creating space. We're making the circle bigger for people to join. So that's coming up this year. [00:03:15] Yeah, we're trusting for God to raise up more leaders. We're hoping to pray. Deacons in. New deacons in by the end of this term. [00:03:22] So there's a lot of exciting things. And the thing that we feel to start on above all the things I mentioned is we feel to start with the presence of God, that God would be in our midst. And we can. We can talk about doing life together. But if we do life together without Jesus, we're a social club. [00:03:41] And if we. If we build buildings without Jesus, we become a construction company. [00:03:45] And we can do all these great things we have planned, but we need to be a people first of the presence of God. And so I would love to this morning share a bit on the presence of God. And then God willing, we don't know. Yeah, maybe the Lord can change our plans. Maybe next week. I'd love to share on the person of the Holy Spirit as a person in the Trinity. Often we think of the Holy Spirit as some vague feeling of force. Just share on the Holy Spirit. And then I'd love to go into some of the gifts of the Spirit and how it operates, because it feels like the Father is encouraging us to move beyond What? [00:04:19] Paul? Paul has a scripture in 1 Corinthians 2, 4, 5, where he says, I did not come to you with human words of wisdom. I did not come to you with eloquence. But I came out demonstrations of the Spirit's power. And I just felt convicted this year. It's so easy for me to default on. [00:04:36] Let me operate in spaces where I'm safe. Let me preach. [00:04:39] And as long as I'm preaching, I'm in control. And as long as I do it this way, then I'm safe. And it just feels like if we're going to do that, we're going to box God in. And this morning in this prayer meeting, it came through again and again. [00:04:49] It's so easy for us to box God in. And God doesn't force himself on us, but he allows himself to. And he's sovereign. He can do what he wants. But that's the amazing nature of God. It's actually the word for it is meekness. Definition of meekness is when you're able to do something, but you don't. And he chooses to limit himself based on how we want to co labor with him. It's like Jesus not doing miracles in his hometown. He can, man. He's God. And so, yeah, we're really feeling that we want to build beyond human ability when we do church together, and that we would create space for God to do what man cannot do. And, you know, who gets the glory then? God, because no man could have done it. And so this is something of what we're feeling this year. [00:05:33] Trust that you guys are excited with us to come with us on this journey. [00:05:37] So that's some of what we're feeling and where we want to go this year. [00:05:41] So I want to start, as I share about the presence of God, another thing I just felt. [00:05:48] Yeah, Gordon also actually felt the same thing. It came through a lot of lines this morning. Sipho felt it. That as we talk about the presence of God, as we talk about the person of the Holy Spirit, as we talk about these things that are difficult to quantify, that that will be rooted in good theology. [00:06:03] And it's just essential that for people that believe in the gifts, we are called charismatic people, not charismania. We don't go over the top, but we are people that believe in the gifts. That's what. Yeah. [00:06:16] But that we will be rooted in theology, that we will be able to give a defense for every single thing we do from Scripture. [00:06:23] And so that's kind of my heart in this next few weeks. Is to root everything we do in scripture. But then obviously scripture needs to be applied. And then, and then we, and then it makes sense why we preached on fear of man last week. [00:06:34] Because if we, if we trusting that God will do beyond our human abilities, it's like Peter walking on water. [00:06:42] If you feel pretty unsafe, you are out of control. And there you see miracles happen. There you see God operating when we go beyond what our human capabilities can do. [00:06:51] But if we come into meetings and our greatest treasure is what people think of us, then we won't be able to surrender fully to God. [00:06:59] Because what people think of us will be more important than what God thinks of us. And so if you missed last week's sermon on the fear of man, I feel it's key for us this year as well as we step out and trust God to do that which we cannot do, that his presence will be moving in meetings, that he will change us from the inside. Because I'm so aware as I stand you guys, I cannot change any one of your hearts. [00:07:19] Not particularly that I'm better than anyone because I also need changing. And we all need the Holy Spirit equally to come and change us. And so, yeah, that's some of what we're feeling this year. And I trust that you guys will be excited with us. That going to jump in. Right? You guys ready for it? [00:07:35] Yeah. So there's many reasons why we come to church. I already mentioned some of us come to church and it's a bit of a social club. We come because we might have been a bit lonely or we realize there's some good fellowship here. The coffee is good, friends are good. So some of us might come to community groups because it's friendship and it's fellowship. And that's the primary reason why we come to home groups. The primary reason we come to church. For some of us, church is a bit of a social insurance. That's the main reason we come. So if I get lonely, someone will be there for me. If I pass away, I know I'll be sorted in terms of a funeral. It's social insurance. [00:08:12] There's different reasons why we come to church. Some of us use church's eternal insurance. We think we get our tickets somehow while attending church. Some of us come to church based on I want my intellect prickled. [00:08:26] I love this theological relationship I can have with God and I want that prickled a little bit. Some of us come to church with us, we treat him a bit like a fire extinguisher. [00:08:36] You keep him on the wall, make sure. He's always close to you in case a fire breaks out and you've got him and you can use him. It's a bit like an emergency situation. [00:08:44] But God is not a fire extinguisher. He's not an atm. It's not about what we can get out of Him. But some of us come to church unknowingly, subconsciously. And if you ask yourself, what is the main reason I come to community group? What is the main reason I come to church? What's my heart really seeking after? When I think about not coming, what's that reason that makes me come again? [00:09:03] Is it because what can I get out of it? Is it because it's the fellowship? [00:09:07] And all of those reasons actually, to some degree, all of these things are actually true, what I mentioned. Now all of them have a level of truth in them. [00:09:14] But I believe the Lord, according to his scripture, wants us to be a people primarily, firstly, that we come to church. [00:09:23] We are the church primarily because his presence is with us. And that's the reason why we come. [00:09:29] And especially with community groups. I was just thinking, do we come to our own groups because the food is good and the chats are good, or do we come primarily because we want to seek and find his presence and everything else can suck? Maybe someone burnt the chicken, maybe there was no meat and it's all veggie dish and if you knew, you wouldn't have gone. [00:09:47] Some of us are like that. I won't mention who. [00:09:50] And that's fine because if you found God, then it doesn't matter if there was only veggie dishes and they didn't have chicken with your. What? What? [00:09:59] And it's, it's. Yeah, I believe the Father wants to call us back to a place of what is the true reason why you come to, to the things that you're coming? Is it actually primarily because you want to seek and find the presence of God? Or are there maybe some other reasons why we come? [00:10:14] In Exodus 33, verse 15 and 16, I want to read us a passage where Moses has this conversation with God. So God gets. I'm just going to give us a bit of background. God gets very fed up with Israel and he calls them a stubborn and stiff necked people. [00:10:31] And the people are mourning, they don't take it very well. And God basically says, you guys, I've tried with you. I've tried and I'm done with you. I'm no longer going with you. I'm not going to be with you because if I continue with you bunch of stubborn people, I'm going to consume you, so I'm no longer going to be with you. [00:10:48] But he says, you know what? [00:10:50] I did promise you guys the promised land. So I will still give you that. And I will even send an angel with you guys to escort you guys through the different territories where it's dangerous. So God says, I promised you this. Let me still give it to you that way. [00:11:03] And then before I read it, let me say this. If I think it's very tempting for us when it comes to our walk with God, would we have in some situations in our life said yes to that deal where God says, I'm not going to go with you anymore, but I'll still give you what I promised. [00:11:21] I'll still give you the promised land, and I'll even send an angel with you. Now, that's pretty miraculous. That's pretty supernatural stuff. Imagine we have a meeting and an angel appears here. We would consider that pretty spiritual stuff. [00:11:33] And imagine God gives you the blessings that you are after, and he gives you the promised land that you were hoping for and the fruitfulness and all of that. But God says, I'm not going to be with you. I'm not going to go with you. Would we maybe actually have taken up that offer? But here we see Moses response. Moses says, if your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. [00:11:55] How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and your people unless you go with us? [00:12:01] What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth? [00:12:08] I pray that that will be the hard cry of us as God's people. God, unless you go with us, we're not going anywhere. [00:12:15] And it is easy when you know how church should go or you know how community groups should go. You know, there should be some coffee and tea and then a few songs and then a sermon and then some prayer time. [00:12:27] It's so easy to be going through the motions and we lose the heart of God unless your presence is there. We don't want to play these church games. We don't want to go to community group and do the things we do. And he says, what else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth? And that's a good question. We can ask ourselves, what does distinguish this meeting from other social clubs and other religions and other groups? [00:12:54] Is there a distinguishing factor in our meetings? [00:12:57] And I do wonder, like, if God doesn't pitch up in one of our meetings Would we notice it? Or would we be so used to singing our songs and preaching our sermon? [00:13:09] Let's say at a community group, you're coming together with 10 people, 15 people, you guys have supper together, you ask, how's everyone doing? Maybe you share a few testimonies. If God doesn't pitch up and his manifest presence isn't there, would we miss it? Would we notice that God isn't there? Are we so used to doing the things we do? [00:13:28] The thing is, above everything, we want God's presence to be with us. That is the defining thing. That is the primary thing in our hearts. And actually, this meeting, if this meeting goes badly, it's fine if only we can find God. If this meeting doesn't run smooth, it's fine if we can find God. If the food is bad at community, it's fine. But we will find God as a people when we come together on a Wednesday, that our heart's intention will be Lord. As a group, we want to find you, want to press. And we've got this one thing in common. It's easy. It's easy, especially in smaller groups, to build on many different foundations. You can build a group on common interest so easily instead of the common interest of Jesus. [00:14:08] And that our pressing thing in our heart will be Lord, we want to find you today. And if not, what's the point? [00:14:15] So I want to share, maybe clarify just this in theology, because sometimes there is this theology that but God is always present. As I'm speaking about the presence of God, if you know your Bible, you'll say, but what about the omnipresence of God? Isn't God always with us? [00:14:32] And I believe due to. Due to, like, an overemphasis of that theology of our. But God is always with me. What do you mean? Have you found God today? What do you mean? Where is Jesus? He's always with me. That can actually lead to us not having faith to press in and find his manifest presence. Because, like, oh, he's always with us. And so I do want to share with us that there's a difference in Scripture between the omnipresence of God and the manifest presence of God. [00:14:55] And it's important that we understand the difference. So the omnipresence, it's a big word. It basically means God is everywhere, all the time. So you cannot run from him, you cannot hide, you can lock yourself in your room, you can do what you want. [00:15:07] God will find you. And that's amazing. He says, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. And that's an amazing promise. And we are thankful for that character quality of God. He doesn't change, and he'll always be with us. He won't leave us. He won't forsake us. [00:15:21] But even though that's true, even though God is everywhere, Scripture actually shows us that he's not the same amount everywhere, or he's not the same way everywhere. [00:15:32] Okay, I'll show you. I'll show you now from Scripture. Even though God is everywhere, he's not the same amount or he's not in the same way everywhere. At the same time. [00:15:40] There's actually varying degrees of his presence that we see in Scripture. [00:15:45] In one sense, God is even with the unbeliever right now because he's omnipresent. But we want him to be differently with us in this meeting. We want a manifested awareness of his presence. When we come together as people. We want to know that we found him, man. We want to know that we didn't just come and play games. [00:16:01] And that's the manifest presence of God that I want to speak about this morning. An example would be that passage that I read with Moses. Moses says, lord, if you do not go with us, we're not going anywhere. What do you mean, Moses? God is everywhere. So clearly Moses understood, no God. If you're not with us, then we're not going. There's a difference between God being with you manifest and him just being everywhere. [00:16:23] Does it make sense? Or another Old Testament picture that's easy for us to see is when a lot of the temples, like for example, Solomon's temple, was finished building and they inaugurate this temple, then God's manifest presence with flashes of fire and cloud would fill the temple to the point that the priests can't finish their work. They can't operate in the temple because God's presence descends. Now, God is omnipresent. So is he outside of the temple at that moment? Yes, he is. But is he differently inside the temple? Yes. And he fills himself in a manifest way. He reveals himself. [00:16:57] It's more visible. Does it make sense? So that's what we're speaking about this morning. And that's what we want in our meetings. We don't want to settle for the omnipresence of God. We want to settle for a place where God is visible and actively working in our midst. And the beautiful thing is that our Jesus is not just a historical figure. [00:17:15] He is alive and he's active, and he's currently the head of his church. He's currently busy building Gospel Central Church with all the other churches that Jesus is in. He's busy building his church, and he's alive. And when we come together like a morning like this, that's why there's so much talking going on here in front. And that's why we're hoping that you guys bring contributions and words and prophetic things. Because we're trying to see what is the person of Jesus doing in our midst this morning. Because he's alive and he's not doing the same as last week necessarily because he's a person. And when I say a person, I don't mean he's got a body. God is spirit, but he's got a personality. He's got emotions, he's got a will. He's got an opinion about things. And this morning he wants to take us somewhere. And so that's because we are given oversight of. [00:17:57] Then we need to figure out, Lord, like, please, we need to. We need to know where you're going this morning. [00:18:05] So another example, maybe just to explain the difference between omnipresence and manifest presence is any of us will know. Like, let's say, let's use husbands and wives. An example. It's possible for you to be present in the house, but you're not really present. Would you guys agree? [00:18:20] Like, Leilani can be present, but she's on the other side of the room doing her own thing. And that's different from me sitting across from her making eye contact. And we're talking the one. You would even say, no, man, you're not really present. Have you guys ever heard that? This doesn't feel like you're present with me, but I'm sitting right here. God, you see my body, but my head is 500 miles away. [00:18:40] So that's the difference between omnipresence and I'm there, but I'm not connecting. And so when we speak about finding God's presence, it's not like he was. He wasn't there. [00:18:50] It's not like he's lost. [00:18:53] So we're speaking more of a relational revelation. It's more of connecting and creating space and making eye contact with him. That's like the manifest presence, the place where he's revealed. He was always there, but there's something we can do as a people when we're intentional, that, yeah, he's always there, but now he's. Now he's becoming manifest. Now he's actually revealing himself to us. And that's the manifest presence. Does that make sense? Do you Guys see that in Scripture, there's a difference. Okay, lovely. [00:19:20] Another example of that in, in the New Testament would be in 1 Corinthians 14, 24 and 25. [00:19:28] Just some background context. Paul is writing to this church in Corinth who was so excited about the gifts of the Spirit. They were incredibly spiritual with all the gifts. They were very charismatic but very carnal at the same time. [00:19:41] How do I put it? They weren't living holy at all, but they thought the gifts were just fantastic and they were doing too much of it. They would preach in tongues, they would worship in tongues, they would shout in tongues, all at the same time. Everyone would try to outshout the person next to them. And Paul is coming in, trying to bring order. And specifically with tongues. He tells the guys, listen, shouting in tongues is not particularly helpful. Like, what does it benefit anyone? Because tongues builds up your spirit. [00:20:06] But when we come together, the idea is that all of us will be edified. So based on that, he says this. If an unbeliever or inquirer, someone that's not in the church, usually comes in while everyone is prophesying. [00:20:19] And so what he's saying is compared to tongues, if everyone's shouting in tongues, it doesn't help too much. Honestly, no one, no one understands anything. But if everyone can prophesy in church, think about how amazing that would be. And we'll speak about it in a few weeks time maybe. But Paul is encouraging everyone in the church to desire prophecy. If everyone could prophesy, think how the church would be built up. [00:20:40] And so Paul says this. [00:20:42] If an unbeliever or an inquirer comes in while everyone is prophesying, they are convicted of sin and are brought under judgment by all as the secrets of their hearts are laid bare, so they will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, God is really among you. So Paul is painting this picture to say, whatever we do in this meeting, it needs to be reasonable enough so that if someone walks in, we don't give them a fright so that they run away. And there's always a fine line with that one. Some of us want to go for God and be spiritual. And we need to remember there might be some of us that don't understand everything and we need to bring them along. [00:21:19] And so he's saying, if all of us could prophesy, then this person would come in and they'd realize God is seeing what I'm like. God is like, Suddenly it's like, this word is piercing me. How could you have known that and they will fall to their knees, they'll worship God and they'll say, God is truly among you. And that phrase, God, God is really among you. That's the phrase that you want to hear when we come together as God's people, that there will be evidence in our meetings so that it'll be clear, even for the inquirer, even for the one that is visiting, to say, oh, God is here. [00:21:57] And that's what we want in our meetings where God is manifested like that. And Paul makes it seem so simple. He's actually trying to tone them down. [00:22:04] Guys, if you guys will just prophesy and reveal Jesus, because prophecy is the spirit of Jesus. If you will just point people to Jesus, the revelation of Jesus, how amazing would it not be? And people would say, God is really in our midst. [00:22:19] So that's one of the hints. We'll get to that later. Now, how do we do that? It's one of the hints of how God is manifested is actually through the gifts and things like that. [00:22:28] It's interesting when I did a bit of a. Just a short study on that phrase, we are a temple of God's presence. So we are a temple of God's spirit. When I use that phrase, we are a temple of God's spirit, what's the first thing that comes to mind? What's the temple? [00:22:44] Our bodies. [00:22:45] That's the thing that comes to mind. So I did a bit of research and I found that that phrase, that imagery in the New Testament of we are a temple of God's spirit is used five times in the New Testament, that imagery, that phrase. And four out of the five times it speaks of our corporate gatherings at the church. And once does it say, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit as an individual? So both are true. I. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. And that's in the context of purity, in terms of sinning, in terms of holiness. Realize that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. But four out of the five times when it writes about the temple of the Holy Spirit with God's indwelling presence, it writes about our corporate meetings. Actually. Do you realize that it's interesting scriptures and why that's important is that when it comes to God's indwelling presence in us as a people, the emphasis is more on the coming together than you individually finding God. There's something different in scripture about when we come together, about his manifest presence. It's like when we come together when there's a corporate gathering, the emphasis is Then God's manifest presence is there. And that's actually emphasized more than you just finding him alone in your room, which is so important that we would find him when we're on our own with God, that we will be found in the secret place with an intimate relationship with God. No one can do it for you. That intimate relationship for yourself is what God is after. He loves you and he wants to know you. But when it comes to the manifest presence of God dwelling in a temple, it refers to mainly to corporate gatherings as believers. And that's why I'm hoping that stirs a little bit of something in you about, oh, I don't want to miss meetings. That's why I want to be with the people of God. That's one of the. One of the reasons, because Scripture emphasizes God's manifest presence. When his people come together, there's a way that he shows himself that's more. When we come together, it's just a bit different. [00:24:35] Does it make sense? [00:24:37] Let me read one of those scriptures as an example. Ephesians 2, 2122 reads, in whom the whole structure, all of us being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by His Spirit. And so do you guys see the link with being built together into a dwelling place for God by His Spirit, before the dwelling place for God by His Spirit. What's the phrase used? [00:25:11] You need to be built together first for God to come into a dwelling place for God by His Spirit. There's a being built together and there's a being joined together that first needs to be stated. And so as God builds us ad God joins us. And that's why I get so excited about the idea of every single one of us maturing and growing in this room right now. Because if you grow, if you mature as we are unified, as we grow together, oh my word, we're all going to see more of God. But if you are struggling and if you are lagging behind in some way, your pain is my pain. Because if you are not unified with us, if you don't come to our meetings, I'm going to see less of God. [00:25:52] Our desire is that every single one of us will overflow when we come on a Sunday morning, that there will be a thirst in us to press in and find the Lord. [00:26:02] Because then I know I'll see more of God. If you like that as well. [00:26:06] As we are built together, as we are unified, we see more of Him. So that's one of the reasons we desperately need unity in the body. [00:26:14] And that's one of the ways we can undermine God's presence. Let me not run ahead to it. We'll get to that later. [00:26:22] In 1 Corinthians 12, 7, Paul Paul says to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. And that word manifestation means something being made visible. [00:26:34] And so we need to notice something here. When it speaks about God being made visible. You guys have it on there. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. That's writing about gifts of the Spirit. We'll get to that maybe in a few weeks time. [00:26:47] When he's writing about the gifts of the Spirit, he calls it the manifestation of the Spirit. That word manifestation means for something to become visible. And so the Spirit becomes visible for the common good. And that's speaking about when you as an individual are finding the Lord and from that place of finding him and overflow, when we come together, you bring something. You bring that which God is placing, that special gift that every single one of us has. And when you bring your special thing, your gift, let's say your gift is loving people incredibly well. You just make people feel loved and safe and you make people feel welcome. And you're the glue in this family. Some of us are the glue. [00:27:27] That's your gifting. When you do that, then the Spirit is actually manifested, like God becomes visible to us. [00:27:34] And if we don't as an individual bring that which we carry from overflow, then we see less of God. [00:27:41] And this is again in the context when it comes to the manifestation of the Spirit, when it speaks about gifts. Again, it's in the context of corporate meetings. Every time it speaks about the gifts, it's linked to corporate meetings. There's something when we come together and each part like a tiny river of water, a tiny trickle of a stream. When we come together, it's like this mighty river that forms from all these tiny trickles of water. These tiny rivers of you finding God in your secret place. And we come together from overflow. And we come together. It's a rushing water. Water. It's a full picture because Gordon sees a part of the puzzle and Faith sees a part of the puzzle. [00:28:17] Ang a part of the puzzle and Amy sees a part of the puzzle. And together we see the whole picture. And none of us gets. [00:28:24] I don't get to see the full picture, guys. On a Saturday when I'm praying about Sunday, it's like I'm looking at a broken mirror. Trying to figure out what am I seeing. And I'm so trusting and hoping that you guys come on a Sunday. Also bringing a part of your puzzle piece. And as we put it together, we see God and that's how his spirit is manifested in our meetings. [00:28:45] Okay, I want to say this just because we come together. There is that scripture that says when two or three are gathered in his name, there I will be. [00:28:54] And that is true. God loves to dwell amongst these people. That's the principle. [00:28:59] But just because you come together doesn't mean that God will necessarily be the same way in your midst. Like in Revelations 3:20, Jesus is speaking to a church. It's an established church that John and Paul and the guys were working into. I think Paul had planted it maybe. [00:29:15] And this is Jesus speaking. And he says, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him and he with me. This is one of our favorite evangelism scriptures. Behold, he's standing at the door knocking. That's not written for evangelism. It's written for, for Jesus as a church saying, hey guys, I'm outside. [00:29:38] You guys are meeting. It's to the church in Laodicea, the lukewarm guys that he was going to spit out, it's that church. He says, hey guys, I'm outside your meetings. You're a well known church, you're quite established. [00:29:48] But I'm outside and I'm knocking, would you please let me in and I'll come and dine with you? [00:29:53] And so just because we come together does not mean Jesus is necessarily welcome in our midst. And so I want to ask the question, how do we welcome Him? [00:30:02] How do we make sure he is in our meetings? [00:30:06] Another example church is a church in Colossae where Paul writes and he says in Colossians 2:19, they have been disconnected from the head, which is Christ, and they are not connected to Christ, the head of this body. He's writing about people in that church and they are believers in the church. [00:30:25] Well, believers they are, they are part of the church. And Paul says, those guys, they actually disconnected from Jesus. [00:30:32] And so it's possible for churches to lose connection with the head. And then the church, well, then it becomes dead, which is. We see that in scripture. [00:30:39] So our heart, yeah, I believe the Lord's heart for us even looking at these scriptures is that we will be a people that know. How do we find. And then once we found Stuart, the presence of God. [00:30:53] And for me, it's also like, Lord, I'm also not like, I can't quantify these things. We love to put formulas to anything. And I would love to have a formula. When it comes to God's presence. I don't. You know, that's scary stuff. [00:31:08] Like there isn't a formula for God's presence. It goes beyond understanding. But that makes sense because relationship does go beyond understanding. If you think of your relationship with your family, can you quantify it in numbers? [00:31:21] Is your relationship with your family, is it a theoretical relationship or is it an experiential relationship? [00:31:28] There's something that you feel. Relationship is more than just words on a page. It's more than just scripture. Scripture gives us the outlines, the boundaries, and we cannot go beyond it. Scripture reveals Jesus to us, it draws us to Christ. [00:31:44] But then his Spirit comes and fills us and he makes his Word alive and we can know him beyond our intellect. And the Word is amazing, but it's not an intellectual thing. The Word with the Spirit points us to Christ and we can know him beyond intellect. And it's a. When it comes to the Spirit, we need to. In some ways, I don't want to say let go of your intellect because your intellect is a gift from God. Use it to get closer to Him. [00:32:09] But be wary that we don't have a spiritual or intellectual arrogance. That's the word, a pride. Don't let your intellect cause pride in you and trip you up when it comes to things that we cannot define. Because if it's in scripture, we're going to go for it. [00:32:25] So I want to ask, I'm going to try to, for the rest of what I'm sharing, make it practical. [00:32:31] What does it look like and how do we facilitate God like this? So what does it look like? [00:32:37] Yeah, I need to say this. [00:32:39] When it comes to when the Bible was written, they were written by guys who, a lot of them were Jews or Hebrews and they did Hebrew thinking. So Hebrew thinking is they don't put humans in boxes. Greeks, Greek way of thinking is we have a soul, a body and a spirit, and all three are very separate and they can't operate together. And it's from the Greek way of thinking that people stopped worshipping expressively. You guys realize that it's called Gnosticism. [00:33:05] It's the place where you say my spirit is pure and beautiful and my body needs to just get out of the way because my body is obviously not from God and it's all about. And they separate the body and the Spirit. And so Whatever I do in my spirit is holy and pure. And whatever I do with my body doesn't really matter. And it's from that place that people became like they could sleep around like they want. They can drink like they want, they can sing like they want, because my body doesn't count. It's all about my spirit. That's actually a Greek way of thinking, and it comes into our way of thinking very subtly. [00:33:34] We separate our spiritual life from our bodies and from who we are. And it's at that point where we don't worship expressively anymore. But the Hebrews understood I am, all of me is one. I can't separate soul, body and spirit. The idea of worshiping only with my spirit. Oh God, you are amazing. I'm going to dance for you. I'm going to sing for you. And it's only your heart doing it makes no sense to a Hebrew thinker, to the writers of the Bible, because you are one. And if you feel it in your heart, your body needs to show it. And it's from that same place that as God is working, we often want to feel God only in our spirit. And when God comes and works in manifest ways like speaking in tongues, and now the body gets involved, or gifts of healing and now the body gets involved. Or maybe the Holy Spirit is manifesting his presence and the person next to you is doing the funky chicken. Or like there's an arm that's twitching. Then our Greek thinking just glitches and we're like, no, that must be the flesh. [00:34:26] My God is spiritual. And it's all in here. It's just in the heart. [00:34:30] And that's, that's. It's a foreign concept to the writers of the Bible. We are. God made all of us as one. Let's not compost. So God can break out when it comes to his spirit. It breaks out of our theological boxes. And our relationship with God isn't a theoretical exercise, but a big part of it is experiential. [00:34:49] It needs to be says that needs to be said that none of these things, things of the Spirit can ever go beyond the word of God. That's very simple. It's an easy way to test needs to remain inside the boundaries of God's, of God's given word in Scripture. And so there's amazing safety in that. [00:35:08] So anything and everything that we do, we can test with the Word. [00:35:11] And even though the Spirit is doing something that's beyond our understanding, it doesn't mean we can't test it still with the Spirit. [00:35:19] Okay, so practically, what does it look like for me? [00:35:24] How do I know God's manifest presence is working? Well, this morning, I'm trusting a lot of you guys. I don't know how to quantify it. Like, this morning, I spoke with Gordon, I spoke with Sipho, and all of us were like, God is here, man. There's just like a sweetness in the air. [00:35:39] How do you define that? It's an experiential thing. [00:35:43] And part of it is because his spirit is inside of us. And because his spirit is inside of us, our spirit witnesses with his spirit and he recognizes God is working here and that we need to realize takes some time. It can take time to develop because just like in a relationship, it takes time to grow into it. We grow in getting to know, okay, this is God. [00:36:04] Maybe initially, if you're just born again, God might be doing something and you might not realize it's him. And we grow into that. Okay, my spirit has grown. It's matured. Oh, this is God. This is him working. So for me, practically, what it is is often just a peace in my heart as I'm doing something, as I'm praying, as I stop what I'm doing, and I quickly ask God, like, lord, I'm here. [00:36:27] There's a certain peace or a joy that might fill my heart sometimes. That's how I know God's here. Sometimes God would just drop a thought into my head and my heart, and I just. I know, like, okay, I'm in line with him. This is him. He's working. There's just a. It's like oil. Something's flowing, something's going here. [00:36:43] And, yeah, that can take a bit of time as we grow and get to know God in that way. Sometimes, not always. I'm not the biggest feeler. I think some of us, God wants to touch you in very physical ways. Some of you guys are like that. Some of us, God will do a little bit less. That's fine. [00:36:59] God works differently with individuals. I have at times felt the warmth. [00:37:04] Sometimes I would feel full. Like, physically, I'd feel like there's something bubbling up in me. There's this thing that I can't contain. So sometimes I do have these physical feelings. So it does go into the physical thing as well. [00:37:16] One of the ways that we looked at already is how we know God is working and active in a meeting is there will be manifestations, as we saw now, and that scripture says manifestations of the spirit for the common good. So there will be prophecy, there'll be increase in prophecy, maybe the gift of tongues that's being released. Last week there was a healing. Auntie Patricia's knees were better when Mila prayed for it. Then you know, okay, God is here. God is working. [00:37:43] That's how we know God is working. There's an increase in the. In the apparent clear manifestation of the Spirit in our meetings. [00:37:50] Sometimes for me, because I'm not so much of a feeler, I'll also perceive it in those around me. I look around and see. I look in the room and I can pick up, okay, God is touching people here because some meetings, people stand like this. In other meetings, people are flat on their faces. It weren't you. The person that last week was just. Was just standing with your arms folded at the back, and this week you're on your face. God must be working. And that one, how you discern it comes from that scripture that says that the spirit is like the wind. [00:38:19] The wind, you can't see it, but you can see the effects of it. So you cannot see the wind. But there's no wind. But I know there's no wind because no leaves are moving. [00:38:30] And so when I look at you guys, I can see whether the spirit is moving because there's an effect when the wind blows, I can see the responsiveness. Does it make sense? So I'm trying to put into clear biblical terms, how do we know that the Lord's spirit is active and moving in our midst? [00:38:47] Yo, my time has run. Okay, Let me say this. I don't know how much I'm going to keep going. I might leave a lot of this stuff because it's. [00:39:02] No, I want to say this. [00:39:05] It's not striving when it comes to experiencing God, this is where I still go wrong. But I used to miss him completely. I would try so hard to feel him that I would just miss him. [00:39:17] Now, if you think about it logically, it doesn't make sense to try to feel someone. So if I'm having a date with my wife, I'm sitting across from her. [00:39:24] And the point of the meeting is we want to connect. [00:39:27] If I'm sitting across from her, and the whole time while we're trying to talk, I'm like, feel the love. Feel the love. And I'm trying to. [00:39:35] Have you tried it, Uncle Gabby? [00:39:43] You haven't tried. [00:39:44] Doesn't work that way. [00:39:48] If you guys want marriage advice, please go to the Baliyas. They're very good. [00:39:54] But it doesn't work to try to feel something. [00:39:58] I'm not going to feel connection. By focusing on the feeling, the connection. What I should simply do is focus on her. [00:40:06] Make eye contact, speak to her, listen when she speaks. Forget about the feelings. The feelings come when you connect. And so it's the same with God when it comes to his presence. Forget about how you're going to feel it, what it's going to feel like. Oh, am I feeling something? Did my finger twitch now? Is that a fuzzy feeling? Forget about it. [00:40:23] Just yield, surrender, let it happen, whatever. But that's not the focus. We don't want manifestations. We want him. We want the real Jesus. He's alive and he's active and he wants to manifest himself to us. He wants to reveal himself to us. That's what we want. The manifestation or how it happens or how much do we feel what, when that'll come. That's. That's secondary. We just focus on connecting with Him. [00:40:47] We need to remove those boxes and those preconceived ideas of how you think it should be like to feel him or to know Him. I always wanted a more physical thing, and now I've realized there's something more inside that's just maybe me. Maybe I need to learn a few things still. But for me it's more. There's a piece that I. Oh, it's amazing. It just feels like we're connecting. It's a bit more on the inside for me. [00:41:11] For others it's a bit more outside. Maybe that's your personality. That's the way God deals with you. So we cannot tell him how he needs to deal with us. [00:41:22] His presence in our meetings. I want to say it's not putting the volume louder. It's not putting an echo on the mic. It makes the worship guy sound more spiritual. But that's not the presence of God. [00:41:34] It's not limited to our emotions. [00:41:38] It's not only our emotions. Sometimes we really want to feel a certain emotion, but that's not necessarily God. I'm sure many people at different concerts have cried. I'm pretty sure someone's cried at a Young Ups concert, for example. [00:41:51] And I doubt that God was there. Well, maybe, I don't know. [00:41:56] It's a good one actually. [00:41:59] But emotions does not necessarily equal God. You can get a goosebump even in a moment of bad doctrine, and you miss God. But there's a goosebump because of how great this person sings or whatever. So it's more than emotions, but emotions is part of it. Okay, so there is experiential element to our Christianity, according to scripture, but it's not only that. And so let's not limit God. [00:42:23] It's often just a spiritual peace and a joy. [00:42:27] And often, and this is what Paul writes about mostly is it's clear when the different people in the congregation start, start bringing their gifts, then it becomes clear, okay, God is now, he's working. There's something different now. And we see it in the, in the people's responses. Because when we see him, what happens? We repent. We convicted. That's what happens. So you might want to shake, but maybe God's presence calls you to repentance and you're convicted of your sin and you're like, what? I thought the Holy Spirit was more into the shaking. No, the Holy Spirit is just as much convicting you of your sin. And then I know God's presence is working. [00:43:01] And so it's not about the big ooh and ahs necessarily, although it can be. [00:43:07] Yeah, we can know instead of striving, we can know that he has promised to reveal Himself to us. Let me go to that scripture. [00:43:17] I think it's my last scripture. [00:43:19] 1 John 14. [00:43:21] No, just John 14, verse 21. [00:43:25] He says, those who accept my commands and obey them are the ones who love me, because they love me. My Father will love them and I will love them and reveal myself to each of them. This is Jesus speaking to his disciples and he's saying, guys, I promise I will reveal myself to you. And he's speaking about the time when he goes away and he gives us His Holy Spirit. That's the context. Jesus is saying, guys, I'm going to be away. I'm going to give you the Holy Spirit. If you love me, if you obey Me, I will come and I will manifest myself to you. And so there's a promise from the Lord that He will reveal Himself to us. And that can settle our hearts when it comes to striving to feel something. Or we can just know that he promises, he wants to reveal Himself to us and we can just put our eyes on Him. [00:44:13] It's interesting. What comes up there is. It's the degree to which we have Jesus in our meetings. It's a lot linked with purity and obedience. It's interesting, eh? [00:44:25] You know, that was one of my points. You're not going to get there. Unity, obedience, creating space for him to move. [00:44:33] We can't be in a hurry. We can't be busy. [00:44:37] If Satan can't get you to fall into sin, he'll just keep you busy and then he's got you anyways. You're missing God. Anyways. [00:44:51] Now, let me. Let me just mention one more point. [00:44:56] Yeah. So how we find him is firstly, we don't strive. We don't have to strive for it. I was going to summarize what I wanted to share. Secondly, it comes with individual overflow. So as you come on a Sunday morning, overflowing, then the river comes together and it's bigger. And so I want to ask you, when you come together on a Wednesday, when you come together on a Sunday, do you. Do you come overflowing? [00:45:20] Have you found him in the secret place? And you come with. And then we find him. That's how we do it. Number three that Jesus writes about is, anyone who thirsts, come to me and drink, and I will give you the spirit and rivers of living waters will flow from your inside. And all of that starts with one word, thirst. Those who thirst. [00:45:43] So I want to ask us this morning, are you thirsty? [00:45:46] Are you parched? Imagine if all of us come together on a Sunday and all of us are desperately thirsty for God to come and touch us. We're desperate. Church is not a social club. Church is not a. Like, I don't care whether the food is good at community. I'm desperately thirsty for the one that can imagine if we come like that every time in a unity, to be like, oh, if we can find Jesus as a group tonight, I'd be happy. [00:46:09] We come as a thirst. We need to ask. Ask and it will be given. That's the principle. [00:46:18] Yeah. And then one of the ways the. Maybe the band, you guys can come up so long again. One of the ways that we find him and we experience his presence is actually we create space through praise and worship. [00:46:33] So it's not to say that praise and worship is more spiritual than another part of Christianity, but what worship does or what praise does is it takes your eyes off of yourself. It takes your eyes off of everything else. [00:46:48] And you acknowledge God for who he is, and you lift him up. [00:46:53] And as you acknowledge God as king, then God can come and do what he wants because he is king in that space, because he's been acknowledged now. And we take our eyes off of ourselves. And Scripture says, as the Son of Man is lifted up, he will draw all men unto himself. It says that he inhabits the praises of his people. [00:47:12] And there's something about when we worship God, we don't worship in order to feel Him. [00:47:17] I think we often make that mistake. [00:47:21] We don't worship to get something out of him. We worship him because he is worthy. We Worship him for who he is. And like an example of Leilani and I tried trying to feel each other's connection. Be wary of that in worship. [00:47:34] Don't worship so that you can get a feeling. [00:47:37] I want to worship so that I can find something about worship him for who he is. Worship him because he's worthy. Just focus on connecting with him, pouring your love over him because he's so worthy. [00:47:47] Make him your worship and your adoration. Lord, there is no one like you. And then from that place, he can work because he's been acknowledged, he's been glorified. And where is king? Where is sovereignty? Like, where is king? He can operate in that space. [00:48:03] So I'm not exactly sure how this is going to go now. It's not like we're aiming for something specific here, but I just as I was praying, like, lord, how do we respond to a message where you're calling us to be a people of your presence? Primarily, we're above everything. [00:48:20] We come together because we want a touch from you. We want to know you. [00:48:25] How do we respond to that? And I felt it would be helpful to just go into a time of worshipping him and praising him and connecting with him. [00:48:34] So, yeah, if you guys wouldn't mind just coming to your feet, we're going to go into a time of worship now.