Our God is Omnipresent (Part 4)

It is rich. So long. And what makes it rich is when you make the connection between the truth or the information with where it plugs into our life. And so and part of it is, you know, some things don’t really plug into our life maybe directly, but they just make us stand in all of who God is. And that’s good enough because that plugs into our life as well because it causes us to give praise and glory to God that he is due.

And so that’s also related to our life. So let’s pray and then we’ll look at Matthew 28 and Mark 16. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity to again study your word. Lead us, we pray, in our study as we search the scriptures, as we seek for understanding about your attributes. Help us to find these things. You said, seek and ye shall find. And as a class, Lord, we are seeking in the scripture to find more truths, greater truths, even greater understanding of the same truths about who you are, Lord, because you are a great God and a great King above all gods and there is none like you.

And Lord, I pray that you would help us to stand in all and guide us in our study. Help me, Lord, to say the things that your people need, that which would encourage them as well. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen. Okay, so if you’ll look at these two verses, Matthew 28, in the context of the Great Commission, of course, verse 19 says, Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

Now, notice in verse number 19, the emphasis on the Great Commission in all of the accounts of the Great Commission is that there is a geographical aspect. The Lord wants the gospel to be preached, shared, taught, proclaimed, and, you know, in all of those things, not just in one location, but to the ends of the earth, all nations, every creature. And so that gives us a geographical context.

Everybody with me? What I mean when I say that? A geographical context. And you know what that’s related to? That’s related to the omnipresence of God. How do we know? Because the next verse says this, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Now, end of the world. Now we’re studying that in Matthew, right?

So, okay, so there’s two different ways you can look at that, because the world can refer to time and the world can also refer to location. Right? God’s created universe. So the idea of the end of the world is no matter how far you go, of course the world, despite the naysayers, the earth is round. And so as far as you can go to the end of the world, to that place, and the Lord says, I am with you even to them.

But it’s also true in time, because Christ is going to be with his people all the way until he comes. And so we notice what he says here. He says, I am with you always. I am with you always. Now in this context, part of this is the authority of Christ as we go preach the gospel, especially, you know, and most emphatically, those missionaries who go to nondescript places, go to distant lands to take the gospel far from where you might think God is.

And by that I mean the things that, like we saw before, that are related to God, like churches and Christians, and things that remind us of the Lord. And here the Lord tells us directly to go to places where they do not have that, where there are no churches, there are no Christians, and even there when you’re all by yourself, the Lord says, I am with you. I am with you.

And then you go to Mark chapter 16, if you’ll look there. Mark 16, verse number 15 says this, Verse number 15 says this, Notice that’s his location, right? Everybody there? That’s his location. Okay, so you have this idea where Jesus is not present, he is at the right hand of the Father, and yet he is working with them. How can he be with them and not with them? Right?

Just like in Matthew, when we saw in Matthew 28, when the Lord Jesus says, even though he’s ascended to heaven, he says, I am with you. I am with you. Now I know when we look at that, we think primarily it’s just another way of saying that God is going to help us. Right? God’s going to help us. But it doesn’t say that. It says he is with us.

We understand that means God is going to help us, but he’s going to help us by being with us. So even when a missionary is in a faraway land by himself, Christ is with him, not just to help him. It might be that that missionary is having a relatively fruitless ministry. Right? But there aren’t huge things happening that you can point to and say that. Does that mean that Christ is...

So it’s not just a matter of help. It’s not just a matter of power. It’s a matter of presence. And so that is the...and really when a missionary goes to the foreign field, that is exactly what he’s depending upon. He’s depending upon the fact that God is going to be with him, that God is going with him and will be present with him as he goes. And so it reminds us of one thing, one fact we’ve seen before and we’ll just kind of reiterate, which is that number one, God is at hand.

God is near at all times to us. And we know that’s true in the sense of omnipresence. You know, God’s Spirit fills heaven and earth. We’ve seen that already. But even in a different way, when God goes out of his way to say, I am with you, that’s not...he didn’t have to say that if it’s just a matter of omnipresence because we know that he’s everywhere at all times.

But in some special and specific way, he says to us, I am near. I am present. And so what does that mean? The second thing is this. That means under no circumstances is a believer ever alone. Under no circumstances is a believer ever alone. Even if that believer is in an arena, surrounded by a jeering crowd, hoping to see him get eaten by lions, or even if that believer is hanging on a cross for his Savior’s sake, surrounded by his enemies, at no point in time is a believer ever alone.

And we don’t mean that in the sense that...because honestly, if you look at it in the sense of God’s omnipresence, you could say that of an unbeliever too. Could you not? God is there. God is not far. That’s what Paul said to the Athenians. He said that he is not far from every one of us. So in the sense of God’s omnipresence, God is not far from anyone. God is near and with every person.

But that’s not what he means when he says that. Otherwise he wouldn’t say it. What he means is in a specific and special way, his presence is with every child of God at all times. You know, sometimes, just as a practical matter...and this isn’t true of everyone. For me, this is not an issue. As an individual, I’m an introverted person. I am happy alone. And whenever I get around people, I get around people, and they say the difference between introverts and extroverts is how you charge.

An extrovert goes around people to charge the battery. An introvert leaves people. It expends the battery to be around people. And then when the introvert is alone, he charges. That’s kind of one way people have described it. Some of you in here are introverts. Some of you are extroverts. And you might not even know, but I think with just a little thought you could probably figure it out.

But it’s not always the way people seem. So one thing that’s kind of...and again, I’m just speaking off the cuff here. But one thing that people have, I think, a false impression people have gotten is that preachers are outgoing. That preachers are jovial and in your face and around people all the time. That’s kind of like the ideal. But that’s not the case. Some are and some aren’t.

What’s funny, here’s the thing, flip that around on its head. Because preachers, you think of preachers as people that are supposed to be around people. They’re supposed to interact. And that’s true. That’s an indispensable part of ministry. But if a preacher always has to be around someone and they thrive on that, what about their private life?

You see, there’s a flip side to that that nobody pays attention to because we’re only looking on the externals. But the flip side is you have to have quiet, private time with just you and the Lord. And that is where an introvert thrives. And so what I’m saying is it’s not one or the other. It’s both. And for the introvert, he has to concentrate on paying attention to other people and not becoming a recluse.

And for the extrovert, he has to make sure he doesn’t neglect private time in favor of people time. And so that’s the way these things balance. But so for an introvert, going back to what I was saying originally, for an introvert, like myself as an example, I don’t have any problem being alone. Like I don’t feel lonely when I’m by myself. I don’t. Now if I didn’t have my wife nearby, now I would feel pretty lonely. My kids leaving.

That’s been pretty lonely. But as far as like just knowing on a day to day basis, it’s not an issue. That’s not true of everybody. That’s not true of everybody. Some people struggle a lot with feelings of loneliness and isolation. They do. And there’s a lot of reasons for that. Could be events that happened in their life. Could be their personality. There’s all kinds of reasons for that. But here is the truth to take away.

And it’s something that we know, but do we know. The truth is that for those that struggle with loneliness and isolation, is to remember that not in a general kind of omnipresent sense, but in a very real personal sense, God says repeatedly to his people, I am with you. And that doesn’t just mean help. That means present. And that means that anytime you have a companion, you have a confidant, you have someone upon whom you can trust.

One person, some people might feel a great deal of isolation because they’ve been betrayed and they don’t trust people. God can be trusted at all times. And so this is a real truth that although we know it, when we lay hold on it, is when it really helps us. Is when it can really help us. Now think about the idea of God being with us. God being with us.

For an unbeliever, that’s the last thing the person wants. Is it not? They want God to help them, but they don’t want God to be with them. Imagine, I’m going to embarrass Sam a little bit because he married into it. So imagine if I just followed Sam around all the time, just kind of everywhere he went. I was in the front seat of the car, you know, when he went here, went there, looked at that, saw this, talked to them.

I was always there. Listen, people don’t like that. And imagine, now that’s just an illustration, but imagine for a lost person who is conscious of the fact that God is, they don’t want God near them. They want the benefits God provides, but they don’t want God with them. See, that is specifically a promise for a believer who wants God nearby. Do you want God near you? Do you want God near you? Not just helping you, but near you, close to you.

Like you would your husband or your wife or one of your children. That’s what every believer should have. But the sad truth is that unbelievers will have that desire of theirs filled in full measure when they are cast away from the Lord. And the Lord says, I will not be near you. Even though he is there, as we’ve already seen in his omnipresence, but there will be no manifestation of his presence.

As far as they’re concerned, he’s not there. And that will be for all of eternity. And they’ll find that that, sadly, that that is the worst possible case for a human being to be away from God. Because in the presence of God is fullness of joy. In the presence of God are all good things. And outside of his presence there’s no good thing. And so that’s the sad truth about God’s judgment upon those who do not know Christ.

Look if you would at Psalm 46. Psalm 46. This is one other practical way that the scripture describes that God’s omnipresence or God’s presence with us is a help. Notice Psalm 46 verse 1 says this, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. A very present help in trouble. So the context of this passage or this verse is not general life, but this is specifically trouble.

This is specifically trouble. You know, whenever you have trouble, we ought, and I know this is not something easily learned. It’s really, it’s kind of innate. It’s something we learn little by little, atom by atom over a long period of time. And we don’t even know we’re learning it. But the idea of learning to turn to God instinctively in all circumstance, in difficulty, instinctively to turn to God like that.

That God is our first source of help. And you know what that’s based on? That’s based on the idea that God is near, that God is present. So we don’t have to go anywhere. Aren’t you glad that we don’t have to go to a building to pray to God, to call out to him? No, we don’t have to come here. We can, but we don’t have to.

God is present. He’s present with us. And that’s especially applicable in trouble, in trouble. All right. Would anybody like to add something to that? We’re just talking about practical ways God’s omnipresence can help us. Yes, sir. I’m sorry. There was something that you said. And probably one of those was John. It was John. Anyway, it talks about how I call you, I tend to call you not perfect, but friend.

And it says, why do you gotta call a friend? Because everything that no one has bothered at and no one can do, everything the father has given him, he has to do. Yeah. And so, it just, I don’t know, I was thinking about that in Sweden. That’s such a powerful proof that even though we all serve in Jesus Christ, we are one set of servants in Jesus Christ, but from Jesus Christ’s perspective, we call him a friend and not a servant.

And so it’s like, everything that God has to give to Jesus, God’s power, he gives it also to us. So, we’re one set of friends. Right. We’re near him. He’s near us as a friend. Anybody else?

Yes, sir. For me, I find witnessing to somebody singing is always fun to listen to pray to. But I pray for something that I notice in my heart as well, and I find it is there.

Yes, sir. Anybody else? Alright, well let’s turn to one last thing on this subject, on the omnipresence of God. And that is how the omnipresence of God relates to Jesus Christ. Alright, look at John chapter 1, if you would. John chapter 1. These are some curious verses you’ll see, and if you just maybe note these verses, these are some good kind of verses that you can add to your repertoire.

John 1, look if you would at verse number... Look at verse 15. John 1 verse 15. The Bible says, John bare witness of him, this is John the Baptist now, and cried, saying, This is he of whom I spake. He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me. And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

No man hath seen God at any time. Notice what it says here. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. Now notice what that says. Jesus here is the only begotten Son standing there before, well not standing there, this is John the Baptist speaking of him, but the idea is Jesus is on earth as the only begotten Son of God, and here John says by the Spirit of God, he says that Jesus the only begotten Son is presently in the bosom of the Father.

So how can Jesus be on earth and still in the bosom, bosom being your chest, how can he be in the bosom of the Father and at the same time on earth? There’s only one answer, which is he’s omnipresent, he’s in two places at once. Alright, look at John 3, just a couple of pages over.

John chapter 3. Look if you would at verse number, of course this is in the conversation with Nicodemus, verse number 12, a lot of people think Nicodemus, the conversation by him is about the new birth, but what’s interesting is that the conversation with Nicodemus goes all the way down to verse like 21. So the conversation with Nicodemus starts with the new birth, and then it goes into what we’re looking at right now, and then it goes into the serpent in the wilderness, and God loving the world, and condemnation, and light, all of these things are in the conversation with Nicodemus.

And part of that is in verse 12 where Jesus says to him, Now notice 13, Jesus here is speaking of himself, but he’s using third person, using the term son of man. He says, It’s just a weird thing to say, is it not? We all the time talk about how Jesus is, you know, when he came to earth, and that’s actually what he says too in verse 13.

But he says, right after that says he’s still in heaven. So the son of man is on earth, and the son of man is in heaven. Yep, that’s actually what I was thinking when we talked about that last Sunday. Somebody, probably a Mormon or someone who had been influenced by Mormons, told Sister Tammy that before we were born all of us came from heaven, even though the scriptures plainly disavow that.

The first man is of the earth, earthy, and we’re all of Adam from the earth. We’re definitely not from heaven, or else heaven’s got some problems. Just saying. That’s like you see somebody from a particular state, I’m not going to name any, and you’re like, that becomes the stereotype for that state, right? Yeah, you should. You should. But you notice in verse 13, Jesus says, Jesus is asserting, using his title son of man, that he is both come down and yet still in heaven at the same time.

This is Jesus’ omnipresence. All right, look at another, Matthew chapter 18. Matthew chapter 18. Matthew chapter 18. All right, look if you would down through verse number, look at verse number, Matthew chapter 18. All right, look if you would down through verse number, look at verse number 15 to pick up the context here. Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.

If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church, but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican.

Fairly I say unto you, whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth, as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

So here you have Jesus of course, he’s referring primarily to a future time, but again he’s speaking while he’s on earth. And so every time, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think, I think that probably a very large percentage of gatherings this morning, Jesus is not there. I’m just going to shoot straight with you. I think Jesus is not in the midst. Because the gospel is not there, there is no true faith, there is no, it says here, two or three are gathered together in my name, the implication is they’re believers in him, they’re his disciples.

I think there are many, many churches, and I’m definitely not trying to say that our church is the only church going to heaven or anything, I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying that there are many, many false churches, probably far more than the truth. And they gather together every Sunday, and Jesus is nowhere near them in the sense that we’re reading here. But for those churches where, and this is referring to local congregations, two or three, two or three groups here, two or three here, two or three there, and that’s the world over, local congregations.

And yet Jesus says in every case, this Sunday, all over the world, wherever two or three of his people gather together, there he is present. He is present. He is omnipresent. He is omnipresent. Look if you would at Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians chapter 1. Someone might take exception with what I said about churches, but we do not determine whether Jesus is present in the church gathering. That’s his prerogative. And if it is a gathering not in his name, and it is a gathering not of his people, but of pseudo-people, pseudo-Christians, he’s not obligated because you go inside of a building that has church over the top of it, that somehow he’s not obligated to be there.

He is there because his people are there. Yes, sir? Right. Well, I think what he’s doing, he’s not denying, obviously, he said, I’m with you all the way to the end of the world in the Great Commission passage, right? And that applies, of course, to anyone who is exercising in the Great Commission, and in the broader sense, as anyone at all times. So it’s not to denigrate the fact that he is with us as individuals, but he’s putting special focus on the gathering.

If you look at the passage, if you look at Matthew 18 again, and you notice throughout verse 15 through verse 20, he says, two or three, starting at verse number 16, one or two more, two or three witnesses. Then he mentions in 17, unto the church. And then he goes on down, if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything, where two or three are gathered together.

So the emphasis is the gathering together of multiple of Christ’s disciples. And that is different than the individual disciple. And it’s kind of just adding a special emphasis. I think the conclusion we could draw is that the church gathering, whether it be small or large, the church gathering is different than the individual gathering. It’s not that you need one and not the other, you need both. It’s not that Christ is not with an individual, but there is something to be said about the corporate aspect of the church gathering together.

Because the promise that you agree on earth as touching anything, and the idea of corporate prayer on a particular matter, that is attached not to the individual, but to the group. Does that make sense? Does that get you a little bit further anyway? So I think that’s the emphasis. Alright, let’s look at, to finish up, let’s look at Ephesians chapter one.

Look if you would at verse 20. Ephesians 1 verse 20. The Bible says, Okay, let me ask you a question. Who is the subject that hath put? Right. It’s God the Father. And you know that if you keep reading all the way up to the top, verse 17, So, God the Father hath put all things under his feet. Who’s his? That’s Christ. And gave him, that’s Christ, to be head over all things to the church, which is his body. Who’s body? Christ’s body.

The fullness of him, that’s still Christ, because it’s in relation to the church. It says, And I can’t be real specific about that, because the idea of filling all in all, which man, what a broad statement. The idea of filling all in all, that’s obviously an attribute of God we’ve already seen, but it’s in reference to the church, and specifically in Christ’s relationship with the church. Here’s the point.

I think in verse number 23 you have this assertion that Christ, like the Father, fills all in all. And he’s talking about the church. But this is one of those statements that we read in the Psalms, and in Jeremiah 23, how that God fills heaven and earth. And here it’s applied to the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ fills heaven and earth. Colossians 2.9 goes on to say, The fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ.

And this is the way these things interact, at least the way we think of them. If God is everywhere and all places, he fills heaven and earth, and it cannot contain him. That’s what we’ve already seen. And the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ, what does that say about Christ? It means he is God, and he likewise has that same characteristic that, even though Christ has a physical body when he was born of Mary, yet in his role as God the Son, he fills all things just like the Father does, which is an attribute of God.

And so the reason I said this is another kind of arrow in your quiver to show you that in each case, I’m not aware of any attribute of God, any what they call non-communicable attribute of God, that is an attribute of God that only God has, there is not even one that is true of God the Father that is also not true of Jesus Christ. And every one of those proves, piece by piece, that Jesus is indeed God manifest in the flesh.

And so again, I know I’ve repeated myself a bunch of times on that subject, but again, it’s not just proof texts. Proof texts are fine, but it’s also a whole structure of teaching about who Jesus Christ is, and he is God manifest in the flesh. Alright, well we will next week, Lord willing, we will turn to another attribute of God. If you have one that you’re particularly interested in and you want to move that to the front of the line, you let me know.

We’ll see, I don’t know, it might stump me. Alright, let’s pray together.