If God is always with Us.. Why is He so Hard to Find?

The Most Frequent Promise In The Bible

Last week, in Jamaica, I heard a theme that kept playing over and over. People were expressing a deep love and commitment to God but in their more open moments they confessed that they felt somewhat overlooked by God. I’ve heard the same theme since this last week, here in the U.S.

I know God loves me and sent Jesus to die in my place and offer me eternal life

But in the daily grind of my actual life…God sometimes seems so far away. I’m not sure sometimes whether it is me distancing myself from God or God distancing himself from me…. But sometimes I feel very distant from Him……do you relate to that?

I. GODISNOWHERE (Used by Josh McDowell)

One morning, in Jamaica, I slipped off my notes and into the theology about God’s omnipresence. It never fails to grab people’s attention:

Is God here in this room today?

How much of God is here in this room today? All of God

How much of God is with Jim and Laura McKeegan in Haiti today?

How much of God is with believers in prison in North Korea right now?

If you go to the extreme edges of the universe……… If you go inside the tiniest atom…..

(Psalms 19:1-3) The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. (NIV)

If you go into our study at home you will be treated to pictures of my children and grandchildren on the screensaver of my wife’s computer. If you go into our guestroom, (which since our son moved out last week has mysteriously become a scrap booking room), you will find pictures of our family strewn around the desk.

Hear me now… You are on God’s screen saver! The images of the tiniest details of your life are laying on God’s scrap booking table (figuratively speaking)

John Ortberg in his book: God is closer than you think reminds us that:

The most repeated promise of the Bible is not:

3) The same promise came to Noah and Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Amos, Mary, Paul, and a host of others ..

It was the strength many of the Biblical characters lived in:

(Joshua 1:9) Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." (NIV)

The Jewish people (who had not yet received the Holy Spirit) lived with these promises in the forefront of their minds.

(Psalms 23:4) Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. (NIV)

God gave Israel memorials, the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, the temple, manna, pillars of cloud and fire, and on and on…like sign along the way saying: “I am with you”

When Jesus was promised to come to earth as Savior his function was Savior… His redemptive name was:

“Emmanuel”- God with Us!

When Jesus went back to heaven He left this promise… His very last words in this world

(Matthew 28:20) …. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (NIV)

At the very end of the book what’s the big promise that tops off all of inspired Scripture?

(Revelation 21:3-5) And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"… (NIV)

We often talk about someone “searching for God” and there is relevance to that term…We will spend some time looking at this idea of searching for God in our daily lives….but I think some of our thinking is skewed on the subject.

We have stored, in the back of our mind, that God is elusive and we if we are serious about a relationship with Him we have to track Him down. (There is a reason that thought is lodged there…we‘ll talk about it) but the overwhelming picture of Scripture is of God relentlessly tracking down mankind until He got man to stop and pay attention to his presence.

My guess is that there are a whole lot more of us who don’t sense God in our daily lives because we are not looking for him, than there are those to whom God is being elusive or hard to find.

Consider Jacob:

He sure wasn’t the picture of integrity or spiritual strength. He deceived and lied to get his Father to bless him instead of Esau. Once he received his Father’s blessing he ran for fear of his life. He sure wasn’t running toward God….but God tracked him down!

(Genesis 28:10-22) Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.

God’s Covenant Promises:

Watch Jacob’s reaction to a visit from God:

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven." Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, (house of God…place where God dwells)

“Wow, I wish that would happen to me”, I sure would like to get a personal visit from God, giving me direction for my life. I sure wish God would give me the promise of his

willingness to use my life for the good of the rest of the world and I sure wish He would give me the promise of his constant presence in all that I do.

If someone said that to you your counsel to them would be:_________________

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Remember Jacob didn’t have a Bible, All the promises that are written into your life were yet to be written.

But here’s my point:

It wasn’t until Jacob woke up and shook the sleep out of his eyes that he realized he had been visited by God!

This is not unfamiliar to us all:

“Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it."

You probably have had a Jacob experience. Some sudden life experience wakes you up.

The birth of your baby, an obvious healing from heaven, a healed relationship, or maybe a time of suffering. Jacob would later wrestle with God…perhaps you have too…perhaps you are right now. But even those with the least spiritual maturity will awaken to times when they are certain they were visited by the power and presence of God.

Stop now and think; When were the times in your life when awoke to the direct intervention of God in your life.

Jacob went from: “he reached a certain place” ……. to …..

“This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

One of the things I’m wanting to emphasize to you this morning is that God wants to take us from “certain places“, to “the gate of heaven”…. Oddly both tend to show up ..or. don’t show up right in the daily grind of our everyday lives. Jacobs realization of God’s visit woke him up…to some degree. Every time he encountered God again it woke him to God’s presence more. God’s presence didn’t mean he was exempt from life problems or character flaws. But the more he “discovered” God’s presence in his life the more his character changed to become like God’s character.

This is interesting…to me: Twenty years later…when Jacob goes home and has to meet Esau, the brother he stole the birthright from…he is taking a chance on being killed. Instead of killing him his brother throws his arms around his neck and kisses him. Jacobs response is telling:

(Genesis 33:10) .."If I have found favor in your eyes, accept this gift from me. For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably. (NIV)

This is Henry Blackaby’s theme and one we are learning as a church. Learn to recognize the presence of God in daily situations. Instead of running our lives and begging God’s to be part of our plans, start watching for where God is and join Him in what he has planned for our lives.

Elisha: (2 Kings 6:15-17) When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" the servant asked. "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." And Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes so he may see." Then the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (NIV)

What if God were to open your eyes right now and let you see the layers of protection he has built around your life. The forces he already has in place to save you from the evil one?

Could it be that God is trying to get us to hear him, to recognize his presence in our lives but we aren’t used to the sound of his voice?

The Bible indicates that God is always, everywhere present, but more importantly to you he is personally, present right here, right now in each of our lives trying to tune our ears and hearts to hear his voice.

John Ortberg- The Spirit of God is continually available to you and to me…flowing all the time, welling up within us, quenching our unsatisfied desires, overflowing to refresh those around us. He is at work all the time, in every place. And every once in a while somebody, somewhere wakes up and recognizes His presence.

There was a man named Nicholas Hermann who was in the food-service industry. He spent time in the military and in transportation but ended up as a cook. He was deeply dissatisfied with his life, he was chronically worried about everything.

One day he was staring at a tree and discovered that the secret of the trees life was that it was rooted in something deeper than itself. He decided to give his life to what he called: “HABITUAL, SILENT, SECRET, CONVERSATION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD.

He never did rise higher than his job as a cook in a monastery. But the people around him said that river of living water flowed out of him. He didn’t write a book but after he died some of those he influenced put together some of the letters and conversations of the man they called Brother Lawrence. That book is still available today;

(Practicing the Presence of God) 400 years later, and next to the Bible is said to be the most widely read book in the entire world over the last four centuries..