Building A Life of Love III, Learning to Live In His Presence

I'm starting to preach a different sermon here. Well, hallelujah. Glory to God. But you know, in effect, beloved, it really is the same message today. Because what I'm going to talk about with you is what it means to be in the presence of the Lord. Interestingly, my very first comment today was going to be what I hear from people about coming into this building. And I've had numerous people say, not just the fact that, oh, it's so good to be back and it's so wonderful to see the activity and all that, but just as this brother said moments ago, when I came into the building, something began to happen to me. I sensed the presence of the Lord. I sensed that there's something, something here in this place. And you may be here today as someone who's never sensed that before. In fact, you don't even know what it is you're sensing. But I want to tell you this morning, it's the presence of the Lord. For God has given himself to dwell in this living temple, not just this structure by any means, but in this body of believers that he is seeing fit to add to daily those who are finding salvation. The presence of the Lord, beloved, is what changes lives. It's what brings people out of darkness into light. And I want to talk to you about that this morning because, you know, I'm finding that the world can counterfeit everything. The world can duplicate preaching. You've all seen these self help churches that have sprung up. TV personalities get a following of several thousand people just based on their own self help charisma. And the world can duplicate good works and you see all kinds of things that are out there and charities and all that. And it can even counterfeit miracles. In fact, it gives itself a lot of credit for the miracles it performs. And you know something, beloved? In some respects it can even counterfeit love. Not the real love, as Fred said last week. But I'll tell you one thing it can never counterfeit. The one thing it can never imitate. And it's what we experience as we gather in his name. And it's the presence of the Lord. You can never go to a rock concert at the civic arena and receive the presence of the Lord. You can never wander on off into some sort of a VIP club and experience the glory of the presence of God. And God's just been building up in me in these last weeks the reality that of all the things that we have beloved, that we have to enjoy and to receive and to share, it's the presence of the Lord. One of the things that religion has taught us. I'm talking about religion now, not faith in Jesus, but religion. It's taught us that we somehow experience God when we're in one place together. And then when we leave that place, then religion's over for the week. Some of you had that as a growing up experience. Religion was a Sunday morning thing, or Saturday night, or whenever it might have been. But beloved, the Lord is saying to us, his presence is to dwell among us wherever we go. We're to be in the presence of the Lord. I'm done with compartmentalized religion. How about you? I don't want anything more to do with just having God in one little part of my Sunday morning experience. I want to know him just as fully, just as personally, just as dynamically. When I walk out those doors in an hour. You know, God surprises us sometimes with just the flesh of the reality that he's there with us, doesn't he? I'll tell you, I was up on Interstate 79 just a few weeks ago. And I really, to be honest with you, I'll confess this. I think I was wasting time. I was driving, coming south. I'd just been up there to visit a place. Came down and really was feeling. It was a Monday, it was just kind of relaxing, and the kids were having swimming lessons. I went up there, and coming back, God was speaking to my heart. And I'll tell you, suddenly the presence of the Lord filled my car. I know the sense of that presence. And I'm sure many of you here today know what I'm talking about. I just knew that God was just enveloping me right there in my car with his presence. The tears started to just fill my eyes. Some of you know what I'm talking about. I just knew God was there. And I got hungry for the Lord, but I also got hungry right here. And so I pulled off 79, and there was this little Dairy Delight place or something pulled in there. And there's truckers and everyone there. And I get up, there's tears in my eyes, got the tape playing in my car. I was worshiping, had a hot dog, Coke, got back in the car, and the presence of the Lord was still there. And off I went, rejoicing again. You see, it wasn't something that just for a moment, I seized. But he was there. And a hot dog and a Coke didn't even bother him. And I was able just to continue. And I'll tell you, for an hour, I drove back down 79 and back home. It was the glory of God and his presence that I was enjoying. Now he doesn't want that just to be now and again a rare experience, a mountaintop. He wants us to live in the reality of his presence. The Bible says that Jesus came in the flesh and dwelled among us. That word tabernacle means to dwell, to be present with us. Now the Bible talks about the presence of the Lord in three dynamics. And this is on your outline, might be the only thing on your outline, but it's on there. It says that God is everywhere. You read Psalm 139, 7, Whither shall I flee from your spirit? And whither shall I hide from your presence, Lord? And you read about the fact that God is not only filling the earth, but he's filling all of the universe with his presence. You can't flee from God. You can't go into a dark enough hole that God isn't there. One of the great miracles in my estimation, beloved, is how the afflicted for Jesus Christ in prisons around the world give testimony to the Lord's presence being on those rat holes in which they're caused to live and to endure great punishment. God's presence. But then the Bible says that there's a special and a manifest presence of the Lord among his people and among the nations. And the Bible's full that we're going to talk about in a moment. This is the thing I'm talking about today. And finally, the third presence of the Lord is that which we find in heaven when we will behold the Lord face to face. When the glory of his presence is so bright, beloved, that there's no sun. Won't that be something? The only light in heaven is the light that God is. He doesn't need some ultraviolet lamp or some high powered intensity just to keep things going up there. There's no generator shortage. God's presence is the light of heaven. Now, beloved, I'll tell you. You know, to me, when the Bible says something from Genesis to Revelation, it gets important. Would you agree with that? And one of the threads that you'll find in your Bible from the book of Genesis right through to Revelation, is that God catch this wants to desires to dwell in our midst. He wants people to be with him. And in the book of Genesis we find that he fellowshiped with Adam and Eve in the garden. He wanted to be with them. Then we find. I'm just going to give you a real quick through the Bible course. Then we find that he appeared to Abraham and called out a people that he wanted to be with. And he told Moses that if you'll build me a tabernacle, tabernacle means tent or dwelling place. I'll dwell there and literally have my presence there. And in so doing, I will be present in the midst of your people. Exodus 29:45 and then he told his beloved David that he desired to tabernacle with him to have a place of his dwelling. And so he, David, in obedience, recaptured Jerusalem and brought back the Ark of the Covenant and established his tabernacle. And then Solomon built a great temple. And you know that temple, beloved, was the most ornate single building probably ever in human history. You say, well, God likes poor things. No, God was pleased to dwell in Solomon's temple. The Bible says in First Chronicles that he appeared in such a glowing manifestation that people couldn't even stand before. And then we go on and read in the New Testament that God dwelled in his people in the person of the lord Jesus. John 1:14, Jesus became flesh and dwelt. That word is tabernacled in the Greek among us. And by his Holy Spirit, he's still dwelling here. Amen. But beloved, there's a beautiful scripture. Since you have your Bibles there, turn to Revelation 21 and I want you to see this with me. When we think of Revelation so often, we think of and the kingdom of this world had become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. And he shall reign, and rightly so, we exalt the rule of God and the reign of God and the victory of God. But I want you to see Revelation 21:3. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold the dwelling of God with men. And he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them. I think that's a good place to say hallelujah. You see, the presence of the Lord, beloved, is what God is bringing us into. And that's always been his purpose. But man in his hard heartedness and man in all of his sin, has chosen to walk away from that. And it started back in the Garden of Eden, didn't it? You know what the Bible says happened when Eve and then Adam disobeyed God and chose to violate his commandment? What happens? The Bible says that they hid themselves from his presence. And then when Cain murdered his brother Abel, his punishment was to be banished from the presence of the Lord. And all the way through scripture, all those things I illustrated Moses, God said, I'll dwell with you if you keep my commandments. Moses sought to bring that to the people. What did the people do? They disobeyed the word of the Lord. They violated the commandments, and the presence of God left them. They fell into destruction. And then what happened later on in the reign of the kings and following David? Well, the glory of God inhabited the temple of Solomon. But the people didn't obey the commandments. They didn't keep their covenant. And so the glory of God left the temple. And do you know that three centuries after God told Solomon that he gave his glory to dwell in that place, that temple was leveled brick by brick. You see, beloved, there is a condition to the presence of the Lord. And those of us who would seek to dwell in that presence must fulfill the conditions of God's heart. And we're going to look at that in just a moment. God has given himself to dwell. And you know, when he dwells someplace, the Bible says, in thy presence is fullness of joy, and at thy right hand are pleasures forevermore. You know that he says that in his presence is protection from all that would afflict you. I don't know about you, but I know in my own life I need what God brings by his presence. How many of you need the joy of the Lord in your life? You want the blessing of God to be on your heart? You want the protection of God? You ever wonder why sometimes things are so rotten for you? I'll tell you. We get lines and lines and lines of phone calls of people who just can't seem to get out of a rut. And you know what it is? Because something in their life has broken fellowship with God. They have become absolute targets for the enemy. But do you know that a person who's moving in the presence of the Lord shall not be assailed? There is no weapon formed against them that shall prosper. And I believe, brothers and sisters, that one of the things that's going to lift some of you today out of the doldrums of a rut that you've been moving in is that you're going to come into a revelation of the presence of the Lord in your life, and it's going to free you from some of the affliction and the bondage that you've been laboring under. God desires to live with us, to dwell in our midst. Will we come to him? Why does he want to pour all this out? Because he loves us. Let me ask you fathers for a moment. Why do you give so much to your children just to prove that you're a good provider? The all American dad? No it isn't? Why? Just so your kid can have as much as a neighbor's kid? Well, if there's any ego in that, I expect it's partly the fact that we're all working that out in our lives, that most of us and most of the time love our children, and therefore we give to them. And that's what God does with us. He blesses us with his presence. Because he loved me. I got to tell you one little thing that happened the other night. How many of you came to the baptism on Sunday evening? How many were there at the baptism? How many of you say, that was just a glorious time we had together. Wasn't it Wonderful? We had 35 people baptized that night. 35. And the Lord, he was there, I'll tell you that. And he was there in his glory. As we saw that night, a meteor shower, and we saw the heavens opened up, and it was just beautiful. Well, when I went home that night, my son Jonathan. It was the next night, actually. My son Jonathan was with us and was rather late. And I walked up and I was going to show him a meteor going across the sky. I know we looked up for a few minutes, and you know how when you're going to show your kid that it never happens? Well, we didn't see anything, but he noticed that there was one real bright object out in the sky. And he said, daddy, what is that, a planet? And Paul Olds the night before had said, yeah, that bright object was the planet Jupiter. You may have seen it. And, I mean, it is really bright. It just stands out. We're looking at this thing. And he said, wow. He said, what makes that so bright? And I'm looking at it, and he said, you know, that is just so bright. He said, they must have all their lights on, Beaming out. God wants to dwell with us, beloved, but we allow his presence to fade. I want to share with you what I think happens in most of our lives. It isn't so much that we choose something that denies God. It isn't so much that we repeat the same sin of Eve and willfully disobey and say, oh, God, I'm not going to do that, or, I am going to do what you told me not to do. It's not so much that we're like Jonah. But the Lord came to and said, do this. And he said, no, I won't. And the Bible says in Jonah 1:10 that he fled from the presence of the Lord. You know what I believe happens in most of our lives? I think what happens to Us is much like what happened with Eli, the priest in the book of Samuel. Eli was given charge over the house of the Lord. Just like you, who are priests and heads of your home were given charge over your own households. And Eli allowed profane worship to begin. And he brought in idols and sacrifices that were not acceptable to God. And then his sons began to violate the law and began to take money for offerings and those kinds of things. And you know what began to take place? Eli, Listen neglected the things of God. And I believe that the reason why the presence of the Lord so easily slips away from us, beloved, is because we neglect Him. We don't give him the time that's worthy of his name. We don't pay attention to the details that he's concerned about. And I don't see it being like one day we're there and one day we're not. I see it being gradual eroding of the presence of the Lord until one day you don't realize the difference. You know that the Bible says very clearly that there will be a falling of the tabernacle of David, that there will be a destruction of the tabernacle. And that's exactly what happened. Because people neglected the worship of God and the maintenance of his tabernacle. Beloved, do you know what the Bible said took place when Eli just let this thing slip down to nothing? The Bible says that the Philistines saw that the Jews were weakened and they came in. And do you know what they did? They stole the ark of God. They took the presence of the Lord away from the people of God and over the house of the Lord. They wrote the word Ichabod. Ichabod, which means the glory has departed. And I want to say in all love and concern as a pastor, that in some of our homes and some of our lives, there is Ichabod. The glory of the Lord has lifted from your life and you know it today. I'm not condemning you. You just know that I'm speaking the truth. You want to know why there's so many empty churches today? Because Ichabod has been written over top of them. They have forsaken God and the glory of the Lord has departed. Oh, beloved, I'll tell you in my spirit. I yearn today that some of you in this place are going to find that the glory of the Lord is going to return. Because Amos prophesied that in the latter days he would rebuild the temple tabernacle of David that was fallen. He prophesied that he would come again and raise up the Walls that had been flattened. And that's what he's doing in this hour. How many of you want to exchange an Ichabod for the full presence of the glory of the Lord? That's what he wants to do in our hearts today. So how do we come into this renewed glory? Would you turn to me finally at Acts chapter three? Turn with me to Acts chapter three. What do you do if you're here today and somehow in your life right now, you sense there's no presence of the Lord. When I'm talking about glory, listen to me. I'm talking not about some mistake light. I'm talking about the reality that God is light and that where he is, all of life is seen through his light. And if you're here today and you're in depression, if you're here today and every circumstance that you're facing just seems to be immovable, if you're here today and you're finding that life is just one step of drudgery after another, I want to say to you the glory of the Lord's departed. You see, this has a lot of practical application, beloved. It has a lot to do with lives that are lived without the fullness of his presence. And today the Lord says, I'm going to come and I want to begin to restore the tabernacle of David that's been destroyed. How do we do that? Let's look together at Acts, chapter 3, verse 19. Repent, therefore, and turn again. That your sins may be blotted out and that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Beloved, I see three things we need to do. The first thing is, if I'm speaking today, and you know that I've been described where you're living right now, the first thing we need to do is to repent. And I think we have an overhead in those today. We need to repent now. Repent means to change your mind. To change your mind. It's just a change of mind. I thought this way about it. I now think this way. I thought of myself as being hopeless and out of any grace and away from God. But now I see that I've been wrong and God would come and restore. I repent, Lord. And many times our emotions follow that. Emotions are okay, but that's not repentance. I've seen people cry that never repented. You can bring tears and never change your mind. And the Lord wants to change your thinking about yourself and about Him. And then he says to turn again. And that's the Greek word that means to be converted. There are some things that you need to do, and it's a picture, literally, if you'll watch this, of a person walking this way. And to be converted means I turn around and go this way. That's what it means. I do a 180 and I begin to change some things. And I'm going to give you an application of that in a moment. So we repent, we turn again, and finally we. We establish some things afresh. You see, beloved, the tabernacle of God, the dwelling place of God was established. How many have you ever seen pictures of that early tabernacle with the specific tent pegs? And there was intricate detail given in every respect. And you know what? God has some things that he's given us to establish his presence in our lives. You can choose to ignore them, or you can choose to invoke them. You know, the Lord gave me a picture of two houses that were built at the same time. And I was driving on this street, and there are a lot of other houses around, but these two particular houses were side by side. They were two story houses, sort of a colonial style. The one house was beautiful. It was sort of a soft yellow color and beautiful deep brown shutters, and there were flowers around it. The windows were open and the curtains were blowing a little bit. And there was activity going on in the house that I could see. Everything was trimmed and in order. It was very appealing and I could tell there was life there. The house next to it was a house that was exactly the same in form. I saw that one of the gutters was hanging down and several of the shutters were broken off. And one of the windows was broken through. And the grass and the weeds were overgrowing 2ft high in some places. The driveway was all crumbling and falling apart. And I looked at these two things, and you know what? The Lord just spoke to my heart. He said, the one has been maintained and the other has been ignored. And that simple picture is like so many of our lives. We either maintain the things that God gives us, we establish his principles, or we ignore them. And do you want to know why? Some of you have become Christians and come to know the Lord Jesus, but for some reason today, there's not as much joy in your heart as there was a year ago or six months ago, or two years ago or 10 years ago, because you fail to establish the principles that God's given us to live in his kingdom. And that's what he wants us to do, is to maintain the glory of his presence. And I just want to conclude, beloved, by exhorting you on this point in one particular area. There's one place that I want you to begin to believe God to restore his presence. Every one of us has a home. Every one of us has a household. You may live in a camper. You may have a mobile home. You may have a condominium, an apartment. You may have a $50,000 house or $100,000 house or a $500,000 house. But the Lord has been speaking to me that he desires for his presence to be made known in our homes. You know, The Bible has 2000 references to houses, 2000 references, and frequently talks about the people of God as the house of David, the house of Jacob, and so on and so on. And I believe, as I was preparing this week and praying through this message, that the Lord would have many of us to begin to see him rebuild the tabernacles in our homes. A place where our children can sense the presence of the Lord. And I want to go through those three things again, if you would put them back up in the outline. Here's what we need to do to restore our homes in the presence of the Lord. By the way, turn to Isaiah, chapter four. Who's got a living Bible? Great. I do. Isaiah, chapter four. I want you to see something about this tabernacle. Let me read it for you in the living Bible. This is a prophecy of Isaiah. Those whose names, verse 2, 3 and 4, are written down to escape the destruction of Jerusalem will be washed and rinsed of all their moral filth by the whores and the fire. And they will be God's holy people. And the land will produce for them its luscious bounty and its richest fruit. Now look at this. Verse 5. Then the Lord will provide shade on Jerusalem over every home and all its public grounds, a canopy of smoke and cloud throughout the day and the clouds of fire at night, covering the glorious land, protecting it from daytime heat and from the rains and storms. And that paraphrase to me captures the heart of God. He would tabernacle in every home and over all the land that this people names to be its own. How many of you want to see the same presence of the Lord? Not just here, but when someone walks in your house. I believe that God wants that. That he wants to recapture the walls and rebuild the walls, that is, of our home, of the tabernacle, of his dwelling in our own home. Here's what we need to do. Number one. Beloved, we need to repent. We need to confess before God. That we've been negligent. If I'm not talking to you, just bear with me. But have you been negligent about your home? Have you ignored your priestly role fathers in your home? Have you not even seen your house as a place where God's presence might dwell? The first thing we need to do is to repent. The second thing we need to do is to turn again. And by that I believe the Lord is saying to purge our homes of things that are not fitting of a tabernacle of God. You need to go through your home and throw out everything that you know would bring displeasure to the Lord. I'll tell you, there's so much out there that causes us to compromise, isn't there? Being real quiet now, must be getting through. There's so much. You know it. You can turn your TV set on and see anything you want to these days. You can put the kind of music and the kind of junk in your homes and books and everything that absolutely would never be in a tabernacle of God. Am I right? But we need to purge our homes, beloved. We need to take out all icons and little idols and, you know, there are things that you brought back from foreign countries. I don't know what you got in Mexico, kids, but there's stuff down there that I'd never put in my house. I trust you won't either. There's symbols of demonic worship. We need to purge our house and we need to begin to restore it. And here's the third thing to establish your priestly role. And here's what you can do. Husbands and wives. And if you're single, I want you to just stand in your home and to begin in the spirit. Now, how many of you, I know there's people here today, that this is going to be the final thing. But you can stand in your home and in the spirit. Now, you know, we believe here in this community that there is a real world that we can touch and see and feel. There is flesh, and this is real. But we also believe that the world we don't see that God declares in his word is even more real than this one. There is an unseen world that we're going to, by the way. And it's so great that out of it this world was birthed. But we also believe that what happens in that unseen realm controls this one. I do. Many of you do. And I'm not talking about some weird spirit mysticism here. I'm talking about the word of God. It talks about the heavenlies. And I Want to say that in your home. You can stand in your living room or on your property and you can begin to establish the dwelling of God. You can begin to drop the stakes down in your home. You can see yourself raising up that tent where God will dwell and the Lord will give you things to do, to say. You can see yourself establishing the love of God in your house and then establishing a spirit of peace in your house. You want to know why there's strife and heartache in your home many times beloved, because it is being trampled over by the hordes of hell. Just because we call ourselves believers doesn't mean that our house is free from oppression. So I want to say to you, establish it. Begin to bring in the things of God. One of the things that we loved at this symposium were the banners that these people created. And in the months ahead, we're going to believe God to fill this room with banners. Won't that be great remembrances of things of God? But how many of you want banners in your home to put up a symbol of God's own love for you? And there's much that the Bible says, his banner over me is love. And Jesus, of course, is the typological fulfillment of that banner. Put sights and sounds of the places of God in your home and fill your home with praise. I'll tell you one thing like that, changing your music from the secular stuff that comes down the road. Not that that's awful, I'm not going to start beating on secular music. But fill your home with the praises of God, let the praises of Zion fill your home, and you'll begin to see the presence of the Lord appear. And finally, and I address this many to the men of homes, of couples, men, would you see yourself as the priest of that home? Would you see yourself as the one who will take responsibility to maintain the tabernacle of God in your home? I believe, brothers, that we've been so negligent, so unfaithful, our homes are strife torn because we've allowed the presence of the Lord to leave our home. And we haven't even noticed it. One of these days we'll be like Eli and fall backwards and die because we ignored what God wanted to do. But I believe today, Church, that many of you are going to leave this place and set yourself into a new extreme experience, a new personal encounter of the reality of the presence of the Lord. He desires to dwell in our midst, here in your heart and in your home. Let's begin to do it together. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah, Father. Let's pray. Lord, we would just right now, at your summons, according to your word today. I'm just going to ask any of you here today, particularly heads of households right now, if you would leave this place right now and begin to establish anew the presence of the Lord in your home. Ask you right now, just slip your hand up so I can agree with you as we begin to pray. Praise the Lord. Many hands, many hands. Keep mupping. Hallelujah. Lord, would you see these hands that are raised right now as an expression of those who are willing to say, lord, cause your presence to dwell in my home, Move me, father God, to be a faithful priest in the household of my God. Hallelujah. Okay, you can put them there. Thank you, Father. Hallelujah. Praise the name of the Lord. Father, we know that where your presence dwells, there is so much, Lord, of that which we seek to satisfy. Lord, there's so much of peace and righteousness and blessing, Lord, there's so much of holiness. We would just right now, Father, as your living temple. That first Corinthians describes us as your corporate dwelling place. Lord, we would right now invite your holiness to be in this place, invite you to come and by your presence, fill us right now. Let's sing Holy, Holy, Holy.