God's Presence

Q: What does the Bible say about God's presence?

The Bible reveals that God's presence provides rest, grace, help, joy, and salvation to His people. Scripture emphasizes the importance of God's presence in the lives of believers. In Exodus 33:14, God promises Moses, 'My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.' This indicates that God's presence is essential for peace and rest in our lives. In His presence, we receive grace (as seen in 2 Kings 13:22) and help in times of trouble, as demonstrated in 2 Chronicles 20:9. Furthermore, Psalm 16:11 teaches us that 'in thy presence is fullness of joy,' highlighting that true joy comes from being in fellowship with God. Ultimately, God's presence assures us of our salvation and eternal hope, reflecting the comprehensive nature of His grace and love.

Q: How do we know God's grace is true?

God's grace is evident through His covenant promises and the redemptive work of Christ. The concept of grace is foundational in Reformed theology. It is established through God's covenant promises and His commitment to save His people. In 2 Kings 13:22, we see that despite Israel's sin, the Lord showed grace due to His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This illustrates that God’s grace is not dependent on our merit but is a result of His unchanging character and promises. The apex of this grace is seen in the person of Jesus Christ, who willingly took our sin upon Himself (Romans 5:8). The Holy Spirit also applies this grace to believers by regenerating their hearts and enabling them to respond to the gospel, ensuring that we stand secure in His grace as long as we trust in Christ.

Q: Why is the presence of God important for Christians?

The presence of God is vital for Christians as it brings rest, joy, and support in trials. The presence of God is crucial for every believer because it is where we find rest and support during difficult times. In Exodus 33:15, Moses expresses that he does not wish to proceed unless God's presence accompanies him. This reflects a deep understanding that without God's presence, our endeavors will lead to emptiness and despair. Additionally, in His presence, we experience fullness of joy, as stated in Psalm 16:11. For believers, feeling God's presence provides comfort, assurance, and the strength needed to endure life's challenges. Engaging in worship in God's presence allows for deeper fellowship with Him and with one another, enriching our Christian walk.

Q: What does the Bible say about joy in God's presence?

The Bible states that joy is found in God's presence, with fullness of joy promised to believers. Scripture teaches that joy is fundamentally linked to being in the presence of God. Psalm 16:11 declares, 'In thy presence is fullness of joy,' indicating that true joy is derived not from external circumstances but from communion with God. This joy is distinct from fleeting happiness; it is a deep-seated, enduring sense of well-being that stems from knowing God's love and grace. Believers experience this joy even in trials, as the presence of God provides comfort and hope. Furthermore, during worship, the joy felt in God's presence encourages believers to draw on the wells of salvation, leading to a deeper appreciation of His grace and mercy.

Q: How does God's presence assure our salvation?

God's presence confirms our salvation by assuring us of His grace and mercy towards us. God's presence is intricately linked to the assurance of our salvation, as it signifies His ongoing commitment to His people. Isaiah 63:9 states that in their affliction, 'the angel of His presence saved them,' highlighting that God's presence is active in the salvation of His people. When believers experience the presence of the Lord, they are reminded that salvation is not based on their performance but on God's promises. This level of assurance comes through knowing that Christ dwells with us, and as Romans 8:1 affirms, 'There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.' The intimate relationship fostered through His presence enables believers to confidently rest in their salvation, which is secure in Christ.

Well, good evening, everyone. If you would open your Bibles with me to Psalm 51. I'd like to begin our service reading this Psalm, Psalm 51. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.

Wash me throughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blout out all mine iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away, from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth, shall show forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering, Then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

Okay, Sean? Okay, if you would turn to song number 267. We'll sing All Things Were Got For Good. 267. All things work out for good we know, such is God's great design. He orders all our steps below for purposes divine. for purposes divine. This is the faith that keeps me still, no matter what the test, and lets me glory in His will, for well I know tis best. For well I know tis best, so now the future God guards the work begun. And mortals are immortal here until their work is done. Until their work is done. Someday the path he chose for me Okay, if you would now turn to song number 168 and we'll sing Even Me.

♪ Lord, I hear of showers of blessing ♪ ♪ Thou art scattering, full and free ♪ ♪ Showers the thirsty land ♪ refreshing, let some drops now fall on me. Even me, even me, let thy blessing fall on me. Pass me not let me love and cling to thee. I am longing for thy favor whilst thou calling, O call me. Even me, even me, Let Thy blessing fall on me. Pass me not, O mighty Spirit, Thou canst make the blind to see.

Witnesser of Jesus' merit, speak the word of power to me. Even me, even me, Let thy blessing fall on me. Love of God, so pure. Blood of Christ, so rich and free. Grace of God, so strong and boundless, magnify them all in me. Even me, even me, let Thy blessing follow me. Pass me not, Thy lost one bringing, bind my heart, O Lord, to Thee. While the streams of life are springing, Blessing others, O bless me. Even me, even me, Let Thy blessing fall on me. All right, let's open our Bibles now to Exodus chapter 33. Exodus chapter 33, begin reading in verse 12.

And Moses said unto the Lord, see thou sayest unto me, bring up this people, and thou hast not let me know whom thou hast sent with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name. and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now, therefore, I pray thee, if I found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight, and consider that this nation is thy people."

And he said, oh, what a precious promise from our God. He said, my presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, Moses said unto the Lord, if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. Let's bow together in prayer.

Our father, we've gathered here together tonight in thy presence, in the name of thy son, father to worship thee. And I trust that we've come desiring to hear a word from thee, and able to open thy word and have your darling son, the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior, preach to us. And Father, I beg of thee that you would be pleased tonight to enable me to rightly divide the word of truth and to proclaim nothing but Christ our Savior. All of us would be taken up with him, that he would be our sole focus, our sole desire, certainly our sole focus and object of worship. And Father, as Moses of old, we pray you'd bless us with your presence in our worship service tonight. If you don't meet with us, Father, we've met in vain. And we plead your promise that where two or three are gathered together in thy name, there you'll be in the midst of us. Father, I pray you'll be in our midst tonight and enable us to have a true hour of worship from the heart.

And Father, I thank you for this place. I thank you for this body of believers that you've called together. And Father, pray your continued richest blessing upon us, that you might be pleased to let this place stand as a lighthouse of the gospel for many, many years. could be possible to you return. That this is a place where Christ is preached, where Christ is glorified, where your people gather together to hear of Him, to learn of Him, to worship Him. Father, bless us for your great namesake, we pray. Father, it's in Christ's name. It's for His sake and His sake and His glory alone, we pray. Amen.

Now tonight, I want to look at the second of Moses' three great requests to the Lord. Last time we were here, we looked at this that Moses asked, show me now thy way. And here he says in verse 15, if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. Now this verse is almost always my prayer before I preach.

Lord, if your presence doesn't go with me, don't let me go. Let's just stop the whole proceedings if your presence doesn't go with us. We will miserably fail in our attempt to preach Christ, to preach the gospel, to worship him, if we do not have the Lord's presence. A believer finds themselves the most miserable when they feel like they don't have the presence of the Lord. It's not pain and suffering that makes it the most miserable. It's if we don't have his presence. So this is our constant prayer. Lord, like David said, don't take your presence from me. Lord, if your presence don't go with me, don't let me go. And show you how important the Lord's presence is here. You think about Moses. Moses grew up in Egypt. He was raised as the son of Pharaoh.

And you know how he got run out of town. He went across the desert, found a girl to marry, tended her father's sheep. for 40 years. And the Lord called him at that burning bush and told him, go back. He walked all the way back across that desert by himself and went to the most powerful man on earth and told him, God said, let my people go. And Moses went through the 12 plagues and crossed the Red Sea on dry ground. And Pharaoh and his army came up behind him. Lord brought those walls down and destroyed the mightiest army on earth at that time.

The presence of the Lord been with Moses all this time. And now he's getting ready, he thinks, to go straight from this mountain, straight to the promised land. But he doesn't want to take one more step if the Lord's presence doesn't go with him. Lord, I've had your presence up to now, but if you're not going to go with me, don't let me go.

John Newton. understood this when he wrote this song. How tedious and tasteless the hours when Jesus no longer I see. Sweet prospects, sweet birds and sweet flowers have all lost their sweetness to me. The midsummer sun shines but dim, the field striving vain to look gay. But when I'm happy with him, when I have his presence, December is as pleasant as May.

And this is the desire, it's just a harsh desire of the believer because having the Lord's presence is not optional equipment for the believer. It is so comprehensive, this presence of the Lord. In verse 14, the word presence there, and in other places throughout scripture, the word means faces, faces, plural. To have the presence of the Lord is to have the face of the Father. the face of the Son, the face of the Holy Spirit, the whole Godhead moving together to save our souls. Now that's what we need. We can't go without it, can we?

This presence of the Lord, the faces of the Trinity. And I saw here six places in scripture where it talks about the blessing of having the Lord's presence. And I hope after hearing these six passages of scripture, it'll be more important to us than ever. to pray for the Lord's presence with us. Now, the first one is right here in our text. This is a blessing. In the Lord's presence, there's rest. In verse 14, he said, the Lord told Moses, my presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.

You know, there's so many things that people fear. And the biggest thing that people fear is always this, facing God in judgment. I mean, someone outside of Christ fears to face God in judgment unless their conscience has just been seared or something. But outside of Christ, we ought to fear meeting God in judgment. You're just not gonna get any rest from that fear. And the reason we can't get any rest from that fear is we can't come up with a way to put the fear away. We can't come up with a way to answer God's requirement for us. So God, If this is not gracious, I don't know what is. We're the ones who have declared war on God, and God is the one who made a way of rest for his people.

It's through the sacrifice of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, agreed to be born as a man, made under the law, and he obeyed that law for his people. He obeyed it perfectly. And remember, now he's our representative. Whatever he did, his people did. Christ obeyed God's law perfectly. Well, if you're in Christ, you've obeyed it too. The same way that you disobeyed God in Adam, you obeyed God in Christ. If you're in Christ, well, if you've obeyed every commandment of God, there's nothing to fear, is there? There's rest. And the sacrifice of Christ, took away all of the sin of his people. He paid the penalty for the broken law. Justice has been satisfied.

If you're in Christ, if you trust him, there's no reason at all that you should fear condemnation. Now, I'm not saying we don't sin. I'm saying there's no reason to fear condemnation because our substitute was condemned for us. Justice is satisfied. See, it's just impossible for us to fear the penalty of our sin and to fear the law of God when we have a sense of the Lord's presence with us. He took care of the sin problem of his people and there's rest. Now that's not to say that we'll never fear.

As long as we're in this flesh, there's gonna be things that come up that scare us half to death. We think about our enemies, just who knows what they're gonna do. I think about myself. I mean, I almost always find I am my own worst enemy. I fear myself. I fear doing what I would do. I fear going somewhere without the presence of God. What on earth will I do? I fear that. We can fear different events, you know, of this life and just crazy people. I mean, people are crazy. You just don't know what's going to happen when you go out driving around town, you know.

But listen, all these things are in the world. and there's no reason to fear them. Because our Savior told us, I've overcome the world. If we're in the presence of the one who has overcome the world, how foolish is it to fear the world? You just can't do it if you have a sense of the Lord's presence with you. And as sweet, I can't find the words to describe how sweet it is to have a sense of the Lord's presence. We're here on this earth. I mean, it's the sweetest thing. If you've had it, you know what I'm talking about, but there's coming a day that that is going to so pale in comparison.

Our savior is coming back and he's going to gather his people to himself and we will have complete rest. That's what this promise land where Moses is fixing to take the children of Israel to, that's a picture of. It's a picture of God bringing his people to glory, to be with him and have perfect rest. Not just to have a sense of his presence, but to be in his presence face to face.

Now that'll carry us through a lot of dark nights. No one, that's the way this story is going to end up in. All right, now here's the second thing. Look at second Kings chapter 13. In the Lord's presence, there's grace. Can you think of anything you need more than grace? When the Lord's presence, there's grace. 2 Kings 13 verse 22.

But Hazaliel, king of Syria, oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoaz. And the Lord was gracious unto them. Now this enemy was oppressing them. I'm sure he was, he was a mighty, awful enemy, but the Lord was gracious unto them and had compassion on them and had respect unto them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and would not destroy them. Neither cast he them away from his presence as yet in the Lord's presence.

There's grace. If you are in the presence of the Lord, He's being gracious to you. He's being gracious to you just to allow you in His presence. He's so gracious. And does anything sound sweeter to a sinner than grace? Grace. Grace, the songwriter said, is a charming sound, harmonious to the ear. I love to hear about God's grace. I love to hear something that we know so well and I can't wear out the joy of it.

The father elected a people to salvation, his electing grace, where he chose a people that did not deserve it, could never deserve it. The son came in redeeming grace and redeemed his people from all of this. He paid a price that was not his. You know what I mean? It became his, but it's our sin. And in redeeming grace, he came and put away the sin of his people, so that the father who sees everything doesn't see it, gone under the redeeming blood of Christ.

And the Holy Spirit comes in regenerating grace, and through the preaching of this word, he gives spiritual life to the dead. I mean, dead is a doornail, dad. I mean, you just can't describe how dead we are in trespasses and sins, And the Holy Spirit gives life. That's regenerating grace, powerful grace. It's the kind of grace we want, the kind of grace we need, the kind of grace we pray for ourselves, for our loved ones. Believers who have been saved by grace, they know that grace and they love that grace.

I mean, you can't move them from it. But our old man, that old man we've been born with in Adam's nature, he never gonna bow to it. He's always going to try to make us afraid so that we'll get to work and keeping some laws so that the Lord won't cast us out. That old man just keeps telling you, yes, the Lord's been gracious to you so far, but he can run out of patience with you. You better get to work. And you know, the most shameful thing that I know, the most shameful thing I know of is my sin, especially after the Lord revealed himself to me. There's no excuse for it, it's the most embarrassing thing I can think of.

Well, why doesn't the Lord cast us out of his presence? He didn't cast his people out of his presence here and in 2 Kings 13, why doesn't he cast you and me out of his presence? For the same reason, covenant grace. Because God promised to be gracious to his people. He promised to save them and gather them together and bring them to be with Him forever that we may see Him as He is and behold His glory. Now, if we have the presence of the Lord, in His presence, there's grace. If we have His presence, we have grace that's greater than all of our sin. I'm asking you, is there anything we need more than that? Oh, I need His presence. All right, now look at 2 Chronicles chapter 20. Here's the third thing. In the Lord's presence, there's help. 2 Chronicles 20 verse seven.

Art not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend forever? And they dwelt therein, and have built thee a sanctuary therein for thy name. saying, if an evil cometh upon us as the sword judgment or pestilence or famine, we stand before this house and in thy presence for thy name is in this house and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou will hear and help. Now what is going on in this chapter is the Moabites and the Ammonites, these two powerful nations gathered together and came in one army, with the intent of destroying Israel. And the people of Israel gathered together to pray for help from the Lord. And they did that because the Lord told them, in these times of trouble, when evil comes upon you, and sword, and judgment, and pestilence, and famine, you come to my house, in my presence, and you pray for help, and I'll give it to you. That's what the Lord promised them. Well, now they're in trouble. And I love what King Josaphat did.

He didn't go out and try to raise up a bigger army. He didn't send for help from other countries and asking them for, you know, send us some missiles and some, you know, military equipment and all this stuff. He didn't do any of that. He gathered the people together and he prayed. And I know I say this over and over again, but I think this is the absolute best way we can ever pray. to pray and ask the Lord to do what he's already promised to do.

Jehoshaphat said, Lord, you promised us help. If we gather here in your presence and pray, now we're praying and asking for help. And this word, help, this is important. You know, usually when we want somebody to help us, I want somebody to come and do the part I can't do. Or, you know, maybe the two of us together can get something done. That is not at all what Jehoshaphat is asking for. He's asking the Lord to help them by doing it all for them.

The word help, I looked this up and I was just so blessed to see the meaning of this word help. You know what it means? It means to save. The root word is to be propitious, to cover my sin in the blood of the sacrifice. And in that, this is what we need. I need the Lord to do all of the saving for me. The Lord promised, you know what he promised? He will save his people from their sin. He said, I came to save sinners. I hear that and my hand goes up. That's me. I'm a sinner. Now, Lord, in my prayer, There is absolutely nothing about me. There's nothing I've ever done. There's nothing about me. There's no reason whatsoever that you should save me. None whatsoever.

But Lord, you promised that you would do all of the saving for sinners. I'm a sinner. I'm begging you to save me. I think you'd be, it would be impossible. to find anyone that prayed that prayer. Sincerely, I'm not saying this is a sinner's prayer, repeat after me, but with that from the heart, begging for mercy because God promised to save sinners, I don't think you can find anybody that the Lord didn't save. I just don't think so. If we have the presence of the Lord, we have the salvation of our souls. Our souls are saved because in His presence is salvation.

Now, can you think of anything more important than that? Can you think of anything that you need more than that? I can't. We had to cancel a service last week, so I've had two whole weeks working on this and thinking about this passage. I can't think of anything I need more than the salvation of my soul. for the Lord to be propitious to me, and that he'd do it just because he promised to save sinners.

That's a blessing. All right, now look at Psalm 16. Here's the fourth thing. In the Lord's presence, there is joy. Joy. Psalm 16, verse 11. Thou wilt show me the path of life. In thy presence is not just joy, fullness of joy. And at thy right hand, there are pleasures for evermore.

You know, there's a lot of things in this life that make us happy. Our family, our friends, the different creature comforts, you know, that we have. Every evening, about nine o'clock, I'll kick back my comfortable chair and, you know, it's just a chair, but it's comfortable.

And I tell you, I'm thankful for it. And me and Janet start watching a movie. We never get through it all one night. We have to watch the next part the next night. But that's just so, I mean, I just, you know, in my comfortable chair with the wife of my youth, I'm just, you know, it makes me happy. And there's nothing wrong with that. I don't like when religious people say, well, you shouldn't be happy about these things on earth. Yeah, you should. God gave them to you. Be thankful for them. Enjoy them.

But I tell you, there's only one way we can have true joy, lasting joy. Everything that gives us some sense of enjoyment in this life is soon going to go away. But lasting joy is found in the presence of the Lord. David says they're pleasures for evermore. You can be laying in the hospital thinking, I'm not going to make it through this next hour and have such joy because the Lord's presence is with you. And if we have the presence of the Lord, there's nothing but joy, nothing but joy because Christ is our joy.

This is something I hope we never lose. We didn't gather here together tonight and through the years and through the coming years, we're not gonna be gathering together here to spout off our Calvinistic doctrine and to get everybody's ducks in a row, you know, the way I want them in a row or you want them in a row or something. We're gathered here together to preach hymn. to preach a person, to focus on worshiping Him. Brethren, let's never let anything take our eyes off of Him, off of Christ.

He's all we need. If we have our eyes on Him, there's joy. There's joy, the joy, the salvation of our souls, the joy of forgiveness, the joy of just, I mean, His presence just makes your heart so happy. Isaiah said in Isaiah 12, verse three, Therefore, with joy, shall we draw water out of the wells of salvation. And that's what the worship service is supposed to be. We're drawing out of the wells of salvation, the water of life. And it's such joy to us.

Let's not let any of this junk of the world get our eyes off Christ and rob us of that joy. You know, we should be overjoyed simply to be in the presence of the Lord. How can a sinner be in the presence of the Lord? Can't be, can't be. If we're in the presence of the Lord, you know why we're in the presence of the Lord? He's done something for us. He's made us fit to be in his presence. He's made us qualified, fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. He's made us righteous. He's made us accepted in the beloved.

And if we get a hold of that, now there's joy, the fullness of joy in that. And like I said, even though believer, we have joy in his presence, but we're still for the end of this life, going to have plenty of times of weeping and sorrow, but don't ever forget this. Now this is the promise of God and his word for the believer, that will always end in joy. I wish I had a nickel for every time Brother Henry quoted this, weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning. Joy's coming. David said Psalm 126 verse five, they that sow in tears, they're gonna reap in joy. They're gonna reap in joy in being in the presence of Christ And I'll tell you the joy.

I mean, we cannot even begin to start to scratch the surface to understand the joy that's coming for believers. When Christ comes back, I mean, I don't know what that will look like. I have no idea. I don't even know if any of us will still be here when Christ returns. But can you imagine that trump sounding?

And every eye seeing him. Oh, the joy that that will be. Cause when we see him, we'll be liking, Oh, the joy of that. You know, the return of Christ is going to be such a joyous event. Creation itself is going to rejoice. First Chronicles 16 verse 33 says, then shall the trees of the wood sing out at the presence of the Lord because he cometh to judge the earth. Now, if the trees of the wood who have been made subject to sin and death and vanity because of our sin, if the trees are gonna rejoice and the grass is gonna rejoice and the oceans are gonna rejoice, how much more do you reckon those of us who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ are gonna rejoice? Oh, the joy, the joy of his presence to see him face to face.

You know, I've, I'm a, I'm a blessed man. For how many years now? I've spent my, my whole work day in the word of God, reading the word, studying it, praying. And I, I love it. I mean, I'm so thankful. I love it. I feel bad for y'all going out and work. I'm sitting in my study just enjoying reading the word and seeing. Can you imagine what it's going to be like to not see him through a glass darkly, not to see him through eyes of weak faith, but to see him face to face? That's coming. That's coming. Maybe we just better guard our loins and get ready because we're going to be happy. All right.

Now look at Isaiah chapter 63 in the Lord's presence. I've kind of touched on this already in the Lord's presence. There is salvation. Isaiah 63 verse nine in all their affliction. He was afflicted. And the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity, he redeemed them. And he bare them and carried them all the days of old.

If we have the presence of the Lord, we cannot perish. We cannot perish. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Now, if Christ is in you, you have his presence. You have a hope of glory. And just like Nearly every other time I look up this word, that hope of glory is not like, well, I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope. I was with my three-year-old grandson the other day, and he's already thinking about December. He said, I hope Santa brings me a present. And I said, I bet he will. But he didn't know if he will or not. I hope. That's not what this word means.

It means an expectation. if you have the presence of Christ dwelling in you. The apostle Paul told us, you're the temple of God. Christ dwells, his spirit dwells, and you're the temple of God. If you have his presence, you cannot perish. It's impossible. It's no coincidence that during our Lord's ministry, never one time do you read of somebody dying in his presence. Now he came up on someone who had already died, but no one ever died in his presence. Even the thieves on the cross on either side of him did not die in his presence. They didn't die till the Lord gave up the ghost. No one ever died in his presence. And if you're in have his presence, you can't die either. It's eternal life, everlasting life, life given to the dead.

That's grace. And that's what I need. I have that with his presence. You can see just why we crave his presence so much. And then last, look at the book of Jude. Heaven. You know what heaven is? What makes heaven so more glorious and spectacular that we can even imagine? Because heaven. will be having the presence of the Lord face to face eternally.

Jude verse 24, now unto him that's able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Can you imagine the exceeding joy of being faultless, being made just like our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of His glory.

I thought, I've been thinking about this, and this is a true statement. The best hours of my week, every single week, are right here. When we meet together to worship the Lord, and especially they're the best hours of the week when you get some sense of His presence. This is the best hour of the week. And I'm not going to have another hour as good as this until Sunday morning. And you know why that these hours are so precious and they're the best hours of our week?

Because Christ our Savior is right here in the midst of us. Just exactly like he promised that he would. And that's what makes these hours so special. And just like talking about reading the word and studying the word and in studying and seeing Christ being such a blessing. The joy of these hours. They don't even deserve the word joy when you compare them to what it'll be like in heaven. To have his presence, this joy we're talking about here, the joy of his presence will be perfected and it'll never end. My only complaint about these hours is the end. And we got to go home. Can't stay here forever. Body can't take it. But then we're going to have that joy and it will never end. Lord, if your presence doesn't go with us, don't let us go.

I don't care where it is. I got to be. That's where I want to be if his presence is there. How about you? I hope that'll make us so thirsty and sad. I'm begging the Lord to give us his presence. All right. I hope that'll be a blessing to you. Let's bow together.

Our father, we thank you for your mercy and your grace. We're thankful that by your mercy, we can even come before you and call you our father. And we're thankful for these precious promises of these blessings that we have in your presence. And Lord, I pray that you continue to give us your presence, that you continue to show us your glory, that you continue to enable us to meet together and hear the Savior preached and to worship him. Father, bless us for Christ's sake, we pray. We say with our brother David of old, Lord, don't take your presence from us now. And wherever it is that you would send us, don't send us without your presence. Father, it's in Christ's name, for his sake and his glory, we pray, amen. Okay, Sean.

Okay, if you would turn in your hymnal to song number 51, and we'll sing praise the savior. Praise the Savior, ye who know Him, who can tell how much we owe Him. Gladly let us surrender to Him all we are and have. Jesus is the name that charms us. He, for conflict, fits and arms us.

Nothing moves and nothing harms us while we trust in Him. Trust in Him, ye saints forever. He is faithful, changing never. Neither force nor gout can sever those he loves from him. Keep us, Lord, oh, keep us cleaving to thyself and still believing. Till the hour of our receiving, promise joys with thee. Then we shall be where we would be. Then we shall be what we should be. Things that are not, now nor could be. soon shall be our

God's Presence

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about God's presence?

How do we know God's grace is true?

Why is the presence of God important for Christians?

What does the Bible say about joy in God's presence?

How does God's presence assure our salvation?

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God's Presence

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about God's presence?

How do we know God's grace is true?

Why is the presence of God important for Christians?

What does the Bible say about joy in God's presence?

How does God's presence assure our salvation?

Sermon Transcript

About Frank Tate

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