Aug 13 2010
Pastor’s notes
We are continuing this morning to look at aspects of “God with us”. As I prepare and pray through this concept it is becoming increasingly apparent to me that we cannot even begin to function as Christ Followers until we begin to realise that God is actually with us. We are not alone. In our journey through life; in every day, with every thought, God’s is there. He does not necessarily intrude but He is there nonetheless. Why? I believe that it is because He loves us so much (For God so loved the world that He sent His Son …) and He has an acute desire for companionship with us.
His Presence with us gives meaning to us and all of creation, it gives us purpose and direction, it determines our destiny. If God is not with us, then nothing has purpose, everything is just an accidental event. If God is not with us then the fact that the universe exists is a freak of nature, life is irrelevant and nothing actually matters.
The Bible makes it clear that God is not just out there somewhere— having made everything, and now just waiting to see what happens. No! He is intimately involved in His creation and especially with those made in His image—that, by the way, is you and me. There are those who don’t believe in God—for them everything is just an accident. There are those who do believe in God but think that He is just a creator God who, having made everything is not too interested in it anymore— for them, He is just the “guy upstairs”, the grand architect; He is significant but not actually interested in us. And then there are the believers—and what makes us different is our awareness of God’s Presence. We know that He is with us, we know that this makes us different, and we know that we have direction and purpose in Him.
To recap—we began with the account of Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail. We saw that the jailer was converted, not because they had been able to escape but because, they hadn’t escaped when the earthquake opened the doors. They were content to stay because God was with them in the jail and the jailers conversion came because He realised that God was with them. Last week we heard about Moses’ argument with God. Moses was not prepared to move on with God’s people unless the Lord went with them. Despite the sin of the people in worshipping the golden calf, Moses held God to His word of promise to Abraham. “God with us” changes other people’s hearts and our confidence in “God being with us” changes God’s heart.
Today we are going to be looking at God’s desire to be with us. He gave the Israelites the Ark and the Tabernacle while he was with them in their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. Once in the Promised Land, the Ark languored at Abinidab’s house through the era of the Judges. When David became king he wanted to move it to Jerusalem— it wasn’t as simple as he thought but it taught him a lot about God’s Presence. Later in the Book of Acts, the abode of the Ark in David’s Jerusalem becomes the sign of God’s desire to be with all people—Jew and Gentile. God does not want to inhabit just the “holy” places—He wants to make every place holy with His Presence.
I mentioned last week that Dr Chris Walker—National Consultant for Theology and Discipleship in the Uniting Church will be here to share with us over the weekend of August 27/28. The details of this are now to be found on the “What’s Up” page of this newsletter. He will also preach on the Sunday which is to be a special service of celebration to mark George & Val Tengvall’s 60th wedding anniversary.
If you are looking to step up your walk with Jesus, you might be interested in attending the next Walk to Emmaus weekends. The Men’s Walk takes place at Katanning over the first weekend of September and the Ladies Walk takes place the following weekend. The weekend runs from Thursday evening to Sunday afternoon and is basically a series of talks and events which combine to create an incredible introduction into what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. The cost is $205 for the weekend. Both Steve and I will be on the leadership team for the Men’s weekend and Sal is on the team for the Ladies weekend. Speak to any of us for further details.
Blessings
David
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