Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 <inaudible> welcome
Speaker 1 00:00:07 Back to another edition of sermon Q and a I'm Vicki Basinger. And I'm sitting here with pastor Craig and pastor Michael, and we're going through some questions that came out of the sermon series or preaching in the golden calf. And this one was from the week of July 18th, 2021. So today we are asking the question, how do I know for certain that God's presence is with me? And we talked about two distinct kind of sides to this presence. So Craig, I'm going to give you the first one and then we'll talk to Michael about the second one.
Speaker 2 00:00:35 All right. How can I know God's presence is with me bottom line because he says it is, um, if you're a believer, you are in dwelt with the holy spirit, you have the presence of God. He'll never take his presence away from you. Um, you can go to the Heights, you can go to the depth. Um, you can depths of the sea. You can go, the Psalmist wrote it pretty well for us to see where shall I escape from your presence? Um, there's no escaping it. If you belong to the Lord, he is with you. Always on the question is, do we feel like he is? And that's sometimes it doesn't feel like he is. We go through tribulation or trials or our tasks, uh, all those teas. Um, then you, you may feel like God's presence is not there. And it's, at those times that I would say you got to run to scripture and scripture has been preserved for us for a reason.
Speaker 2 00:01:22 And one of those reasons is because we can easily get off track. When we follow our emotions. When we listen to our feelings, um, I may not feel like I'm loved, but there's plenty of people in the world that loved me. I may not feel things at times, but it doesn't mean that they're not true. So what you need is a good dose of truth. And in scripture, God simply says constantly that he will never leave us. He'll never forsake us. And there's one passage that I want to read for you in Romans eight. This is one of my favorite that I would go to. If somebody were to ask me, Craig, I just don't. I don't feel like God is with me. And how do I know that he's with me through all these things, or maybe I failed to the point where he's finally deserted me.
Speaker 2 00:02:03 Uh, all of those things are nonsense, not true. Um, and you can start with the Psalms because, uh, those Psalms clearly indicate all kinds of different activities that the writer says. I don't feel like God is with me, but ultimately he is. But for us, I would run to Romans eight in the new Testament. It says, who shall separate us from the love of Christ, shall tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or sword, as it is written for your sake. We bring killed all the day, all day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. In other words, our, sometimes our lives are falling apart. I don't feel like God is with me. And then he says, no, and all these things, we are more than conquers. I love that through him who loved us for I'm sure of this, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come nor powers nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. In other words, we may feel like of these different circumstances are pulling us out of God's presence, but in actuality, we may be, and we may have the ability to feel closer to God than we ever have before because of those circumstances. And the difference is you just run to scripture and remind yourself of what God actually promises.
Speaker 3 00:03:16 Yep. Amen. So there's a second side that we talked about. So I love what you said. Uh, God's presence is always with you, despite your motions, despite what you feel, despite the circumstances. There's another phrase that I think it's a throwback to the old Testament. And I would summarize this as the favor of God, particularly like in some charismatic circles out here, people say, oh, the favor of God, or the presence of God is, is on somebody. And, and it goes back to really the old Testament when the whole, when the spirit didn't dwell in the people, but what actually reside on someone to empower them for a season or a circumstance, Samsung would be the guy. So God's spirit, people would look on Sampson and they would be able to see by the fruit, if you will, that, that was like
Speaker 4 00:03:59 The dead body, the dead bodies. I was like, yeah, there's dead bodies everywhere. God's with them. But they wouldn't say
Speaker 3 00:04:04 Like, God, it's like God's with him. Cause he keeps winning. Is this unbelievable power in the favor of God? So it's, it's seasonal, it's situational and Kings got this. And, and it was just this like, wow, God is uniquely with that person. And so from the outside, people would look in on that and say, oh, the presence of God is there. Uh, we have Alijah, which I think we referenced this in the last few sermon CUNY and the sermon where Elijah did really big things for God. Then he got away from that. Like everybody's looking at him and saying, oh, the favor of God, the presence of God's on him. But then he leaves and he's emotionally destitute and he's, he doesn't feel like it. Although everybody else is looking at him and saying that. So now we fast forward to like today. And we look at guys like Billy Graham, um, was the favor of God uniquely on him.
Speaker 3 00:04:52 Well, when that dude would preach, people in droves would come to trust in Christ. And yeah, there were false conversions, but there were dark on it. A lot of real conversions. And um, you have different preachers, different people, different missionaries. And it seems that God bears a unique amount of fruit through them. I have an issue. I have an issue with identifying the favor of God with fruit. I have big issues with it. Um, because often God bears fruit through disobedient people, whoever rebellious. It's our, it's almost like our old Testament default. We're just taking these concepts and importing them that if God's working through somebody then privately, they're really obedient. And we have learned well enough that that's actually not the case. The Lord fruit is done in such a way that when all this is said and done, God is going to get all the credit and the fruit is going to be born.
Speaker 3 00:05:43 Despite the insecurities weaknesses, frailties disobedience of the person. Our problem is that we often assign fruit to faithfulness. And that is just not always the case. In fact, often it's not the case. Um, but I, I would say I would look at somebody and say, okay, maybe Craig, let's pick an area of ministry. You want to see more fruit, right? Because somebody else has more fruit. Well, that has no bearing on God's favor. In fact, God might be asking you to be very faithful for a season or Vicky. You're doing something. And God's like, you want it to bear fruit more quickly. But, but God is just saying, no, be faithful for the season. In fact, I'm withholding fruit from you because I'm doing something bigger than the fruit, right. And God's favor is for you because you're obedient. Not because you're fruitful. Sometimes the fruit is the sign of obedience, but sometimes it's not. And so there's a, there's a scary thing here, which is, uh, I would just go back to Craig statements earlier, which were basically, if you've trusted in Christ, God's presence is with you period. No matter what you feel, no matter what circumstance you're in, no matter whether it's big fruit, little fruit, no matter whether you're killed or persecuted or celebrated, it doesn't matter if you've trusted in Christ. You can know for certain that God's presence is with you. So it's there. But
Speaker 2 00:06:58 Yeah, some of the greatest, uh, the greatest examples we have of God's faithfulness God's presence in people. Yeah. Are I believe in the background. I mean, I think I'm going to get to heaven and I'm going to find out there's a whole lot of people that were making way more faithful than I was, but they were just quietly faithful. The presence of God was in what they did. They effected one single life and another single life. And God used those ripple effects, changed the world. And we don't know that right now. What if
Speaker 3 00:07:26 Trust got to do it? Billy Graham bore spiritual fruit, not because of his preaching because of some little old lady who prayed for him, what if she was the actual power and on earth, he gets the credit. But in heaven she gets the rewards. You know, we just, we, we just look at who's out front and then we assigned presence to that
Speaker 2 00:07:46 And be faithful, be faithful and trust that God's word is true. God's promise is true in the last verse of Matthew reminds us of this truth. And I think you actually have said this earlier in one of our preaching preps, but I love it where it, where Jesus ends with. He says, go into all the world, preach the gospel baptize, you know, make, make disciples, do all of these things, but he finishes with, and I am with you always to the end of the age. And that's a comforting thought that I think changes our lives in more ways than we care to admit just the fact that we know wherever we go, whatever we do, God is with us. Yep.
Speaker 3 00:08:23 One of my favorite things about that verse is every time God says this in the old Testament, almost every time without question, he's just asked them to do something impossible that could likely lead to their death,
Speaker 4 00:08:34 You know? And,
Speaker 3 00:08:35 And it's like, I'm with you, but it's the most often repeated promise in scripture period, because God is constantly
Speaker 4 00:08:41 Asking these people to do really terrible things that are very hard. Bring the gospel for those 12.
Speaker 3 00:08:45 I mean, all of them, I mean, Judas, he did his thing, whatever, but of the 11 that were left, all of them were killed. Um, or John was the one that tried to kill him, but they couldn't, all of them were killed. And literally Jesus was asking them to put their life on the line to bring the gospel to the ends of
Speaker 2 00:08:59 The earth and the power of God in the presence of God in their lives. The power of God created churches that are on every corner, totally
Speaker 3 00:09:06 Across the globe. Hey Joshua, go into the promised land. I'll be with you.
Speaker 1 00:09:13 Oh my goodness. Well, amen. I'm just so grateful for the presence of God that we can't be separated from that. And I would definitely point people back to that passage in Romans eight, if you are looking for an uplifting piece of scripture. So thanks for tuning in this time. We hope to see you back next time on sermon CUNY.
