I read an article in World Magazine a few weeks ago that spoke about the crack down on Christians in the time preceding the Olympics.  In China, you don’t know when your pastor is going to be arrested, or when the doors to your meeting house will be closed.  You have no control over so many things that you must depend upon God alone to do a work if anything is going to be accomplished to build His Kingdom.  In America, we have the financial resources, freedom from our government for the most part, to do anything we want to do, and the ability to set up impressive productions.  Of course, the problem with these kinds of things is that we can do these without God being a part of it at all.  We make our plans and develop our ministry, then, almost as an afterthought, we ask God to bless it.  God will not bless what He has not asked us to do.  He will not work through a people who are hungry for self aggrandizement, or self comfort.  God has a plan which is fabulous!  He has a means which will both bless our socks off and bring Him the most glory; but it will never occur without His presence.  This is why I wanted to end this sermon series on God’s call on Trinity EPC with this sermon.  I believe with all my heart that God has called this people at Trinity to be whole-hearted in our growth and love for Jesus; to worship the Lord in Spirit and in truth; to be healed and delivered; to be equipped for every good work the Lord desires to do through us; and to be sent to the nations with the love of Christ and good news of the gospel.  This sermon is in some ways a summation of our vision, the focus of who God has called us to be as His people at Trinity.
This morning our theme idea is For the church to operate in power, we must hunger for the manifest presence of God, allowing Him to have His way in our midst.

I. The abiding presence of God.

Stay with me this morning as I try to unfold some related, but distinctive ideas.  When you said “Yes” to Jesus Christ and asked Him to come into your life to save you, you were born again.  At that moment, the Spirit of God came inside of you and marked you as one who belongs to Jesus Christ.  We are literally the temples of the Holy Spirit.  Wherever you go, the Spirit of God is with you.  Jesus promised His followers that He would never leave them nor forsake them.  The psalmist says it this way in the book of Psalm 139, “7 Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?  8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.” 
The truth is this: wherever, or whenever we are gathered together in Jesus’ Name, He is right here beside us.  This is the abiding presence of God.  You can be sure Jesus has not left you and will never leave you!  This is His promise!  Because this is true biblically, what I am preaching in this sermon sounds foreign to some Christians.  My conviction is that, by and large, we have allowed ourselves to become satisfied with the abiding presence of God.  This is a part of God’s grace.  It is a very good thing.  I lay hold of this promise often!  So should you!!  BUT, this is not enough!

Many Christians have become complacent about God, because they have not encountered the Living God in long time.  They think about God sometimes, they pray to God at times during the day; but if you were to ask them about their latest encounter with Jesus, they would not be able to give you a clear answer.  They are what I call intellectual Christians.  Again, it certainly isn’t wrong to think about who we are in Christ!  I consider myself a “Thinking Christian”!  I love to engage people in thinking about who they are in Christ!  We need renewed minds, to be sure.  But if this is all we have, then it isn’t enough.
Van and his wife Barbara came to the church and I met them in a New Member’s class.  As we got to know them a little, they volunteered to watch our kids once and month so we could go out on a date and have free babysitting, which was a ministry to us.  Through these kinds of interactions, we got to know Van and Barb better and better.  One time, they had invited me over for breakfast to talk about their faith, and I told Van– “you know what I have noticed Van?  You have a very intellectual faith, but I am not certain that you have saving faith.”  Barb smiled because they had recently had a similar discussion.  Van knew about Jesus and the cross, but he was not yet born again.  After talking for some time, I asked Van if he wanted more of Jesus, to personally meet and know Jesus.  He said he would and when he prayed a prayer to receive Christ, the Spirit of God came on him in a wonderful way.  Van took off in his faith, and now, whenever we see Van and interact, there is still evidence in his life that he is encountering Jesus.  As we talk about Jesus he tears up often, which he never used to do.  This is because of the presence of God in his life.  Van now knows the presence of God, whereas before we prayed together, Van simply knew about Jesus in his head and then tried to live the Christian life on his own.  Praise the Lord for this work in Van’s life!!

Many Christians, and even churches try to figure God out and use their own wills and own strength to live the Christian life.  This results in much frustration and a lot of closet problems– in public church life things are wonderful, but behind closed doors, they are not!  We are to delight in and welcome the abiding presence of Christ.  This should give us great confidence wherever we go and whatever the Lord is leading us to do, because of His promise to be in the midst of that activity or ministry.  But this isn’t enough!  If this isn’t enough, what is enough?

II. The manifest presence of God.
The manifest presence of God is what we are after.  Some people call this revival.  I don’t use the word ‘revival’ much, because for most people in the South, the word revival means having church every night for a week.  Biblically, this isn’t revival, it is meeting real often.  Let me read for you one picture of revival, of the manifest presence of God from the Scriptures:  2 Chron 5:13‑14, “The trumpeters and singers joined in unison, as with one voice, to give praise and thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, they raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang:
"He is good; his love endures forever." Then the temple of the LORD was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God.”

In a book called The Fire of God’s Presence, Wesley Adams describes for us what this would look like in our community: “this is revival from heaven– when men in the streets are afraid to speak godless words for fear that God’s judgement will fall!  When sinners, aware of the fire of God’s presence, tremble in the streets and cry out for mercy!  When, without human advertising, the Holy Spirit sweeps across cities in supernatural power and holds people in the grip of terrifying conviction.  When every store becomes a pulpit, every heart an alter, every home a sanctuary, and people walk carefully before their God– this is revival!”  As you read through the revivals God has brought in history, they all convey similar accounts.  When God wonderfully responded to the cries of His people by sending His presence, He overtook people with His power and glory!  In the wake of such an encounter, there was weeping, repenting, rejoicing, reconciling, change of habits, healing of people and families!  There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that they had been with Jesus.  When this happens, we don’t need to work hard to defend or promote God, He does this very well by changed lives!  If your life has been changed, you don’t go to work tomorrow and act like you used to, but you are filled with the zeal of the Lord.  You can’t wait to tell others about what God has done.  It overflows out of you.  We are not talking about some formula, but about the end of all things– the presence of God.  After all, you will be with Him forever, in His presence, if you know Him today.  Knowing God’s presence in theory becomes religion, but biblical faith calls out of us an encounter with the true and Living God. 

Why is it that we don’t hunger for the presence of God? Part of the reason we haven’t experienced the power of the Spirit in dynamic ways is because of our view of God and the way we treat God.  Many people in America expect special treatment.  They want the presence of God to be brought to them and for it to be easy.  We aren’t willing to be desperate for anything and are afraid to let others know that we struggle.  We treat God like our butler and ring for Him when we think we might need Him.  We use entertainment to substitute for the lack of God’s powerful manifest presence.  The pursuit of God is costly.  It costs everything you have and are.  It requires time from us to pray, to fast, to worship, to lay down all our agendas and seek His alone.  This is called sacrifice.  Jesus showed us what is required– He gave Himself up for us.  And we are to follow His example! 
In her book on transforming our cities for God, Rhonda Hughley tells about an encounter she had which changed her life.  She went to Argentina to train others, but encountered God in a way that changed her life forever.   She says, “every day in chapel, the presence of God could be felt.  I remember the waves of His presence moving over hundreds of students as they poured out their hearts in worship and sacrifice before God...  Why did the Lord apparently hang out on this campus?  It was because the students made a place for Him in their hearts and lives.  They prepared a dwelling place for His presence and He came in such a way that everyone was aware of it.”  She said that when she returned to her evangelical church in America, and the service ended just when it was supposed to end and people left for lunch.  She said she wanted to shout to all of them, ‘Wait!  You can’t leave!  Jesus hasn’t shown up yet!”

Please understand that this isn’t a program, and isn’t a formula, but is a dynamic relationship with the Living God that we are after.  The Lord’s manifest presence does not come on our terms nor at our whim.  God appears in His sovereign way as He is sincerely invited and as we set ourselves apart to do whatever it takes to invite the presence of God in our midst.  That is where I am today.  I long more than ever to meet the Lord again!   I don’t want anything unless it involves the presence of God.  Nothing else will satisfy me.  How about you?
The result will be that many people will saved, the people of God who encounter the Lord will have a complete change in priorities.  What used to be important won’t matter so much anymore.  Love will flow through us naturally.  Love is a person!  Jesus!  When the presence of Jesus is so full you don’t feel like you can stand anymore, the love of Christ will flow out of you and others will be changed!  This is the way transformation works!

III. What invites the manifest presence of God– personally, as a church, as a community.

First and foremost, we need to check our theology.  I believe many evangelical Christians believe that God is genuinely disappointed in them or angry with them.  If we believe God is angry with us, we will avoid Him instead of hungering for His presence, or at least we will keep our relationship with Him impersonal– it is safer that way.  We assume God thinks the way we do, which is our mistake.  God is not like us.  One of the truths which has cut me free is that this incredible and holy God of the universe who made me and all things, is deeply in love with me personally and with His church.  This love has nothing to do with my actions or motives.  His love is dependent on Him alone– His character, and His choice to love us.  He delights when we wake up and come into His presence.  Rather than condemning us, our Lord is pursuing us!!  This is a staggering concept!  But it is biblical and true!!  We must embrace the love God is desiring to pour out upon us.  Some of you are thinking, “But pastor, you don’t know what I did or do...  I have never experienced the kind of love you are speaking about, from others so I cannot embrace it...”  God loves you perfectly right now.  There is nothing you can do to make your Father love you more, and there is nothing you can do to make your Father love you less than He does right now!!  Do you believe this?
You see, the body of Christ will only function the way God has designed us to function when we believe who we are in Christ, and by doing so, are restored to our first love.  Remember what Jesus said the greatest commandment was– “to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength!”  And then to love your neighbor as yourself.”  We must be lovers of God before we will be powerful workers for God.  We must be worshipers before we will be effective warriors!  When you taste the love of God and it is confirmed to you over and over again, so you fully believe His love for you, you are free.  God’s love is not dependent on how long your quiet time was, nor upon how many people you witnessed to this week, nor upon anything else, except that He has chosen to love you like this.  Embracing the love of Christ for us is the first step.

Second, our role in inviting the manifest presence of God in our midst is to repent.  Repentance is a gift to us.  As we confess our sin, turn from it, which is what repentance is, and receive both God’s forgiveness and His strength to press on, we are made more free to serve and give to others.  You confess and repent of sin, and then you believe in, trust in His grace to enable you to live for Him.  Ask for His Spirit to fill you and wash out over you.  This is not an emotion, but emotion often is associated with or follows our love relationship with Jesus.
Someone asked me how often I feel God’s presence during a given day.  My response was, “I know in my heart of hearts that God is with me all the time, and every time I turn my attention to Him, no matter what else I am doing, I sense His presence with me– I feel His closeness to me.”  I believe this is right.  We don’t seek the feeling, but we seek the Lord’s face, to know Him and worship Him, knowing that one of the results will be the emotion of God’s presence with us.  This isn’t only for Bryan– the Lord loves you the same way, and He wants you to know Him and to encounter His presence! 

Each of these items we are describing could be a sermon on its own, but I want to briefly touch one more response item this morning.  Believing the truth that God loves me unconditionally, repenting of all my sin so I can live a righteous life by His grace, and third, walking in unity with my brothers and sisters are 3 of the key conditions to God’s manifest presence.  If you hold unforgiveness towards a brother in Christ, then that sin will hinder you from experiencing the full manifest presence of God.  I heard an African-American preacher say this one time, when he was wondering out loud why most of the revivals which have come in American have, for the most part, missed the African-American community– “God showed me that when you are bitter you, will not get better!”  One of Satan’s tactics is to convince us that the unforgiveness we hold is justified so we should never let it go.  This is false.  Jesus tells us to forgive one another, and to love one another, and then we will have God’s manifest presence in our midst!  As we are committed to walking together, worshiping together, seeking the face of God together as a body, the Lord delights in showing up in our midst.  The opposite is also true– when our unholy lives defame His Name, when we are complacent and satisfied with lifeless Christianity, and when we hold unforgiveness and are critical of others in the body so that there is disunity, God will not allow His Name to be dragged through our mud.