Close Circle - What is the Church?

What is the church? What is her purpose? Is it a collective of people who share the exact same beliefs? Is it a social club where membership comes with specific benefits? Is it a political outpost to organize people around common causes in which to shift and change society? Is it a place to be affirmed in what we already believe or to be challenged to continue to grow? What is it that holds the church together as a unified people? What brings us together in the first place?

There are no doubt various ways to answer these questions. I’ve found that sometimes we give one answer that we believe is right but if someone were to examine our lives, they might give a different answer for what they see as the purpose of the church in our lives. There are a lot of ways to define what the church is, but I want to play a definition I read recently, “The church is a community of practices that join people together in their submission to Jesus as Lord.” I would add one adjective to this definition, “diverse people.”

One of the major issues within the church of the New Testament is how they will unite as one people in Christ amongst their diverse backgrounds. This wasn’t a simple difference in opinion about how life should be done. Their diverse backgrounds put one another at odds in their surrounding society. The sentiments one feels toward another do not change overnight but must be continually washed clean in the waters of our baptism.

I like how this person defines the church as a “community of practices” because our habits do more to shape our identity than any sermon that we will ever listen to. “Practices,” simply put, are exercises participated in by a group of people to achieve a common identity and purpose. We all engage in practices in our lives that shape our identity daily. Are you intentional with your daily practices with a vision of who you would like to be? For the most part, we go about our lives not very cognizant of how we are being shaped. This isn’t too different for the Christian assembly on Sunday. Are we intentional with our practices and how we want to shape our community?

The practices of the church are to join people together in “submission to Jesus as Lord.” Recognizing Jesus as Lord brings everything in our lives into contrast with his lordship. Our identities, cultures, countries, jobs, families, etc. all are reoriented in their importance considering the lordship of Jesus Christ. In our submission to Jesus as Lord, we submit all other allegiances in our lives to him. Societies tend to divide people into groups, giving one group more power and other groups less. These powers shift from time to time leaving groups to fight for their positions of influence. The church is supposed to reject this way of viewing one another (2 Corinthians 5:16-17) and live into the reality of the new creation.

Our focus on Sunday will be on how the church is the place where the divisions of culture washed through the blood of Christ to bring about the unity of Christ’s diverse body to reflect the creation God intended for the world. Reflect on these passages as you prepare for Sunday:

Galatians 3:26-4:7 – Being an heir was typically reserved for the firstborn son of a father. We have a different reality in Christ. If you are a slave baptized into Christ, you are an heir. If you are a free person baptized into Christ, you are an heir. If you are a Gentile baptized into Christ, you are an heir. If you are a Jew baptized into Christ, you are an heir. If you are a woman baptized into Christ, you are an heir. If you are a man baptized into Christ, you are an heir. No matter who you are, what you have done, or where you have come from, you are an heir and God’s loved child when you put on Christ in baptism. In what ways does the Church best reflect this reality into the world?

Ephesians 2:11-22 – Paul paints a picture where we, the diverse body of believers, come together as the holy temple containing the presence of God. The only way for this to be a reality is for all divisions of hostility need to be removed in Christ. The walls which used to separate Jews from Gentiles are removed so that they all move forward to the presence of God as one people. What other dividing walls do you see between people in the world which need to be removed in the Church so that we might show our oneness in Christ as an example to the world?

Faithful to God's Presence

Throughout this year we will be exploring the idea that God is faithfully present in this world and calls us to be faithfully present to him in this world. “Faithful Presence” names the reality of God being in and present to the world and that he uses a people who are faithful to his presence to make himself known, real, and concrete amidst the world’s struggles and pains. Will we be a people who are faithful to God’s presence in this world?

From the first pages of scripture to the final scenes of Revelation, we see God making himself known to his creation through faithfully being present. God is faithfully present in a whole new way through Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:15) and again in a whole new way through the giving of the Holy Spirit (John 14:16; Acts 2:38). When the church gathers, the presence of Christ is especially made known with us around his table. In the coming weeks we will dive deeper into how a community of believers is changed when the table is made central in their lives together.

We are faithfully present when we join with God in the work he is doing in the world. This is not a lone decision we make in a moment when we see things happening around us. Being faithfully present to what God is doing in the world comes from a life shaped by habits of being mindful of God’s presence in every area of your life. This does not come naturally but is developed through practice. Throughout the year we will look at seven practices of being faithfully present:

1. The Lord’s Table

2. Reconciliation

3. Proclaiming the Gospel

4. The Fivefold Gifting

5. Being with the Least of These

6. Being with Children

7. Kingdom Prayer

The question I want us to wrestle with this year is one of mission. How is it that the church is supposed to change the world? There are two major strategies that encompass the approach of a lot of churches in our culture. The first is a kind of triumphalism where the church tried to take over the culture and impose a moralistic rule over how the culture is shaped. The other is a kind of pietistic escapism where the church exists in the margins of society, never interacting, as a counter-cultural group that largely leaves the culture to rot. Throughout this year I want to advocate for a different approach of Christian engagement with the world, “faithful presence.” This “faithful presence” plays out in all our relationships and in every sphere of our social lives.

We will evaluate this faithful presence through three circles: Close Circle, Dotted Circle, and Half Circle. The “Close Circle” of Christian fellowship is where we gather in God’s presence where Christ is host at the Lord’s Table. The Table, where Christ is host, should reorient who we are as God’s people. How we view one another changes as our individual stories are baptized into God’s story of reconciliation. The “Dotted Circle” is where we host God’s presence at our tables for our neighbors to come and experience Christian community. This is where Christian community is on display for the world to see. The “Half Circle” is the scattered Church carrying God’s presence to the wider culture where they host us in their homes, at work, in the YMCA, at our kid’s sporting events, etc.

Christian Mission is a balance of life around these three circles. When Churches focus too much on the “Close Circle” they turn inward and enter maintenance mode. In this unhealthy balance, the church fights to protect a certain way of life for itself both within its assembly and in the society around it. These churches believe the world serves them and therefore the church becomes irrelevant to the world.

By contrast, churches who focus too much on the “Half Circle” turn outward and enter exhaustion mode. When every act of the church is focused on being in the world, the church becomes disconnected from the source of life found at the Lord’s Table. People become exhausted because they are not returning to the place where life is given freely.

As we prepare for Sunday, reflect on these questions and feel free to share your reflections with me:

• How would your time of worship on Sunday be different if you knew that God was present?

• How would your view of people change, in the church and in the culture around us, if you could see God perfectly loving people where they were?

• What group of people would make you uncomfortable with Jesus if you saw him having dinner with them and treating them as equals?

God's Faithful Presence

Have you ever felt desired by someone else? I don’t mean sexually per se. I mean that knowing that comes from friendship where you feel fully seen by the other person. In a world of over-connectivity, we find ourselves lonely because we often fail to give our full attention to one another. Desiring someone’s presence, to where nothing else matters, and feeling that desire from someone else is almost a fleeting experience. All of this to say, when I say that God desires to be with you it is hard to fully grasp how wonderful and powerful that is. God desires to be with you and he desires that you share in that desire.

There is a grand narrative in scripture that is the forest often missed because of our fascination with the trees. From the first pages of the Bible to the last, there is a narrative of God’s desire to be with his creation, be in relationship with us, and even go to the extent of doing everything needed for us to return to this divine relationship. At times we have made the Christian walk so much about what we get out of it (heaven) that we have missed the core of the Gospel: God wants to be in a relationship with us to the extent that he will do everything he can to create a way.

When we open the pages of the Bible, the first chapter puts on display who our God is and his awesome power. Humanity, male and female, is the highpoint of his creation as his image bearers. The next creation story places humanity at the center point of God’s good creation where Adam is the object of God’s attention. The relationship between God and creation is drastically changed because of Adam and Eve’s sin. God does not give up on his creation though. Without going into the full details throughout Israel’s history, God chose a family to bring about redemption of his creation. The problem is that this family was part of the problem God was trying to fix. God never fully gives up on redeeming his creation and continues to be present. Eventually, he makes his presence fully known to the world through the one who would make a way for the world to be redeemed, Jesus, called Emmanuel, “God with us.” Jesus promises to always be with us through the sending of the Holy Spirit. The Bible closes with God’s holy city coming down to his creation where he has made “all things new” (Rev 21:1-5). There is no temple in this city because God and the Lamb are present there (21:22).

There are hundreds of places we can go to showing the need for God’s presence and how God’s presence makes a difference in the life of Israel. The overarching point is that without God’s presence, we are nothing. Without God’s presence, we will fail. Without God’s presence, we are in hell. It is God’s presence that makes the difference in this life. Above all else, we should pursue God’s presence. The image of God in Jesus Christ is one of reckless abandonment in pursuit of reclaiming relationship with creation.

Spend a moment in reflection on this theological statement: God – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – live in an everlasting divine community together. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, stepped down from the divine community to meet us where we are to raise us up with him in his Resurrection into the divine community of the triune God.

God loves you so much that he desires to be with you to the point that he would die to make a way for you to be with him. As those who live in the reality of this divine community, we view one another differently than the world does (2 Corinthians 5:16-21) and therefore view the world differently as well. This narrative of God’s desire to restore us to his presence is the narrative we celebrate each week in our participation of the Lord’s Supper and the narrative in which we should read all of scripture. God is restoring all creation back to the good creation he intended it to be. We should be about that work in the church.

Advent - A Time to Love

Matthew 1:18-25

“God saves” and “God with us” are the two names given in to the one who was to come in this passage. Joshua, or Jesus as we know him, is the embodiment of God’s salvation come at last. Like the Joshua who guided God’s people across the Joran into the promised land, this new Joshua (Jesus) will take God’s people through the waters of baptism into the promises of eternal salvation. The fact that God saves when we are the ones at fault in our needing to be saved, is remarkable! God does for us what we fail to be able to do for ourselves. This is the love of God in action. That love first became a baby, born into a broken creation to experience life as we experience it and to show us the most perfect way. The God who was wronged by us, became one of us, to save us.

While Joshua was a common name during that time, Immanuel was not. Can you imagine baring the name “God with us”? Not only is he the embodiment of God’s salvation. He is God with us in the flesh. While God is a mystery that can never be understood, he has made himself specially known through his withness in Jesus Christ.

If you are feeling dirty, unworthy, unacceptable, or completely lost, take heart! The baby born in a manger on Christmas morning is the God who saves! His love knows no bounds. If you are feeling lonely and without a friend in this world, take heart! The baby born in the poorest of situations on Christmas morning is the God who draws near and is with you! In the hardest times in my life the people I’ve remembered the most are the ones who were simply present and assured me that I was not alone. Love is often powerfully experienced through a calm presence in the hardest of times.

The baby born on Christmas morning is the God who saves and the one who is with us. Love so amazing, so divine, came into this world to redeem it and transform it. This love is with us and invites us to embody that love of withness for a world that so desperately needs to experience it. As you prepare for Christmas morning, resist the distraction of commercialism and consumerism, and find rest in the celebration of the love of God born into our world. How will you birth God’s love during this season?

Advent - A Time to Heal

Power and corruption seem to go hand in hand. The leader of the nation was known for his sexual immorality but there were some who showed support for him in hopes of carving out some influence and power for themselves. Questioning or calling out a leader’s behavior can make you unpopular, at best, and threaten your life, at worst. When your position in society might become threatened it is difficult to bring yourself to call out the immorality in those who are in charge. If you’re close with the one who is about to take charge and assume the place of authority, you’re more likely to call attention to the inconsistencies in the life of the one who is ruling and who they are supposed to be as one who represents God’s authority. When you believe the one who is coming is greater then you can speak with confidence.

This is the situation where we find John the Baptizer. He paves the way for the rightful King to return to the throne. He calls into question those who have placed their claim on power and influence knowing that it’ll make him unpopular and likely land him in jail. In Matthew 11 we find John in jail contemplating his life ministry and whether Jesus is the Messiah that he was preparing the way for or if someone else was to come. It wouldn’t be out of line for John to question why his current life circumstances don’t look a little different.

Jesus’s response to John describes the year of Jubilee when the people expect the world to be set back to right again. Leviticus 25 describes a reset in the land where property, goods, crops, and land are restored to their original owners so that no one will have advantage over another. This is supposed to happen every 50thyear. Jesus’s ministry depicts something greater than Leviticus 25, a Jubilee of Jubilees where “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor” (Mt 11:5). Jesus is doing something bigger than simply bringing his reign to the throne. Being in John’s position, what peace do you receive when you hear Jesus’s response?

Is it possible that we ever have the wrong picture of who Jesus is and what his Kingdom looks like? Since reading the Sermon on the Mount this year, I’ve been trying to revisit this question for myself and for the church.

When you read this passage to the end at v19, Jesus reveals a few things said about him. He’s called a “glutton and a drunkard” because he didn’t require his followers to fast, and he was often going to parties with undesirable people. Jesus was ridiculed for who he spent time with. Why would he spend time with “tax collectors and sinners”? He came to bring healing to the broken (Mt 9:12). We are surrounded by people who struggle with financial stability, identity, anxiety, sickness, and general lostness. When we turn any of these groups into objects of a cultural war, rather than seeing their struggle and need for the love and mercy of Christ (9:13), we fail to live out the Kingdom of Jesus.

The sick need a doctor. The lost need a church. Christ came, and is coming, to bring healing to broken people. In this season of Advent, let’s develop hearts of compassion to see people the way Jesus does and strive to have a proper view of what kind of Messiah he is. When we have eyes to see Jesus for who he is, we can stand in prison with John and be at peace knowing the King has come to make all things right.

Advent - A Time to Repent

Matthew 3:1-12

One thousand years before John stepped into Jordan river to call Israel to repentance, the children of God crossed that same river into a promised land that they would have to conquer. John brings them back to the river again to prepare them for a new conquest, an even greater conquest. This great conquest is one of God’s defeating evil and the establishment of his Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.

John embodied the person of Elijah calling the people to repentance. One of the most remarkable things about John, for me, is that he had a message of repentance to make way for the coming messiah and the ushering in of God’s kingdom, but he didn’t fully know what that that would look like. Well into Jesus’s ministry, John was even puzzled at the outcome of how things were playing out. In Matthew 11:2-6, John asks Jesus if he is the Messiah or should we be looking for someone else. Sometimes the kingdom of God displays itself in ways that we would not expect, includes people we wouldn’t include, and takes forms we don’t fully understand. If John the Baptizer can proclaim the good news of the coming kingdom and still struggle to understand it, so can we.

John’s message, in its symbolic location, would make everyone sit up and take notice. They would have stopped what they were doing to get ready. The call to repentance is both personal and corporate. Those who went to receive John’s baptism of repentance would have done so on their own behalf as well as for the people in which they were connected. This is largely why Jesus felt the need to undergo this baptism of repentance. His baptism does not negate his perfection but fulfills all righteousness through his alignment with repentance of the people of God.

Repentance is a concept we might take for granted a bit. Who needs to repent? What does a person need to repent of? Is this a simple, “Forgive me of my sins” prayer offered at the end of the day to cover yourself? We tend to think of repentance as something that needs to be done for “big sins.”

What were the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to John to repent of? They prided themselves on their purity and were unlikely guilty of any gross or obvious sins. Pride itself was getting in the way of God’s homecoming. Their arrogance toward other Israelites, and even more so toward the rest of the world, was not in line with the humility needed before the coming of the king. John rejects them and calls for visible change in how they present themselves to the world. Is there ever a time when we as Christians take an arrogant stance on our own morality in a way that might get in the way of the coming of God’s Kingdom?

As we celebrate the coming of Christ, this is a time for us to remember that we are called to repentance. Repentance is a change of mind, heart, and action. We often think of “big sins” as the things we need to repent of, but a regular practice of repentance helps us get back to the heart of Jesus’s teachings in his sermon on the mount where he calls his followers to address the heart issues that lead to those big sins.

What does a regular practice of repentance look like? Once or twice a day for the next few weeks, ask yourself this question: Where did I withhold the love of Christ for others? Confess that to God in prayer. Ask if there needs to be reconciliation and resolve it if needed. This kind of regular repentance helps curb pride in our lives and prepares the way for the coming of Christ.

Advent - A Time to Watch

We aren’t very good at waiting. We get impatient sitting at a red light. If a person doesn’t let off their break within a fraction of a second of the light turning green, many people are quick to their horn. We like our food fast and our products delivered. A whole delivery industry has developed around our impatience. Our society of productivity has created an angst in us when there is a gap in our schedules. I’m exaggerating the point a little just to say, we struggle with waiting.

Is there a way to see waiting as productive? When the thing that you are waiting on is of greatest importance, everything else becomes distraction and can be set aside. Waiting is active. Waiting implies that a person is prepared for what is about to happen. Waiting is active because you made the choice to do nothing else but prepare and wait. There are no other tasks than what is coming so you set everything aside except for what will prepare you for what is to come. Paul, in his letter to the church in Rome (8:22-28), reminds them that the hope they have is not for what they have already seen but for that which they wait for patiently, with the Holy Spirit helping them in their weakness.

Throughout the season of Advent, we are going to take a reading from Isaiah, Psalms, an Epistle, and the Gospel of Matthew. These passages paint pictures of the future hope and the peace that will come. We can become so preoccupied with the world around us that we lose sight of the reality that is to come that we forget to wait patiently. This waiting looks like peace amongst the chaos. While the world invests their energy in wars and conflicts over power and land, we wait patiently and peacefully for the one who holds true power over all things and all land is his.

Our reading for this week: Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalms 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44

The focus of our lesson will be on the Gospel reading from Matthew. In the days of Noah, people were living life as normal right up to the moment the door shut on the ark. They were preoccupied with life and Noah was actively waiting for what was to come. His active waiting meant he was focused on the task at hand rather than distracted by the everyday life of the world in which he lived. When the flood came, who was taken and who was left behind? The answer is in verse 39 and provides important context for the misreading of this passage by “Rapture teachings.” In the coming of the Son of Man, we will be going on about life, but some will be taken, and others will be left. Those who are unprepared and distracted by the regular goings-on of life will be taken and those who are actively waiting will be left behind.

God created this creation as good and intends to return and restore this creation as good. We are to be actively waiting for this goodness to be restored when God comes back. We do not know the time of his arrival, but we wait for it patiently. The early church expected Christ’s return within a generation. Some of Paul’s early teachings reflect that he believed Christ would return in his lifetime. We need to reclaim some of that urgency and reprioritize our energy into things that will last forever.

What occupies most of your time and energy?

What are you doing to find rest in the peace of waiting for Christ’s return?

What in your life threatens that peace?

How well are you prepared for Christ to come?

For further reading in Matthew on waiting:

• The Parable of the Weeds (13.24–35)

• The Beginning of the Birth Pangs (24.1–14)

• The Coming of the Son of Man (24.29–35)

• The Wise and Wicked Slaves (24.45–51)

• The Wise and Foolish Girls (25.1–13)

• Gethsemane (26.36–46)

Desiring God's Presence pt. 2

“What will distinguish me and your people from all other peoples on the earth?” Moses asks of God. The presence of God sets his people apart as distinct from the world. This is a major theme in the Bible that needs the volume turned up a bit so we can hear the melody more clearly. As we talked about last week in Exodus 33, God says he is a God of his word and will give the promised land to Israel. He will even send an angel to clear the way for them. Moses meets with God, as he would with a friend, and demands that God’s presence must go with his people if they are to be distinct from others in the world. God relents and agrees to be present with the people. There are a few takeaways from this passage I want to highlight before jumping into this week’s focus:

• Moses’s concern was that God’s presence would be with the people, who were “stiff necked” complainers who had little desire for Yahweh God. When looking with concern on the people around you who couldn’t care less about your faith or the God you serve, how often have you cried out to God for his presence to be with them?

• Moses has a deep relationship with God and feels comfortable being frank with him. Where does this kind of relationship begin? Our world needs more people who are willing to have the kind of relationship with God that impacts everyone around them. Will you develop the habit this next year of spending time with God each day?

The season of Advent (Nov 27-Dec 24) is a season of hopeful waiting where we are reminded that while we have God with us, he has not fully made his presence known to the world. When all creation is restored, it will be full of his presence. The Bible finds different ways to articulate this reality. Revelation 21:3 paints a picture of God’s Holy City coming down to creation where his dwelling place will be “among the people” and “he will dwell with them.” This is the final reality when all things will be restored. What do I mean by restored?

Heaven and earth, or the spiritual and the physical, are not separate spaces. When God created, the physical was filled with the spiritual and they were perfectly together as one. This realty was broken by sin and God’s presence could no longer inhabit the same space. The Bible is a story of God’s relentless pursuit of being with his creation. He is first present to a people so that they would be separate from the broken creation as a light for the creation. They would partner with God in cultivating the good creation as Adam and Eve were called to do in the Garden. The story of Israel is one of continual rejection of God’s presence so they might be like the nations (1 Samuel 8:19-20). With very limited exceptions, the kings who led Israel did not desire the Presence of God and eventually God removed his presence from the Temple. God’s presence in the Temple is what sets them apart as God’s people. The Temple is the place where heaven and earth (spiritual and physical) came back together as God intended in the Garden. The expectation of the coming Messiah was that he would restore God’s presence to the Temple. This is why Jesus was called “Immanuel” (God with us – Mt. 1:23).

Jesus didn’t restore God’s presence to the Temple though. He restored it directly to the people, consecrating them as the New Temple (1 Cor. 3:16; Eph. 2:21-22; 1 Pet 2:5). God’s people receive God’s Presence through the Holy Spirit to be a glimpse of God’s restored creation, the reality of what is to come in the resurrection of the dead (James 1:18; 1 Cor. 15:20-23). The Church is therefore to be the place where heaven and earth come together, and the presence of God is made known to the world. This is the context in which I want us to focus on the passage for this week.

Take some time to read Acts 1-2 and pay attention to the Holy Spirit in this section. Luke emphasizes the work of the Holy Spirit through Jesus throughout his Gospel account and then continues that theme throughout Acts. You might call this book “the Acts of the Holy Spirit.” Here are some things to pay attention to when you read this section:

• 1:4-5 – They are told to wait for the Holy Spirit. When in your life have you tended to act on your own behalf rather than waiting on the Spirit? When have you felt lost as to what you should do, and this prompted you to spend time in waiting for the Spirit? What does it mean to wait for the Holy Spirit?

• 1:12-14 – When they arrived back in Jerusalem to wait, what did they occupy themselves with? Who all were present for this time of constant prayer?

• 2:1-4 – Who received the Holy Spirit? We often assume it was the 12 but others were with them praying continually in 1:12-14. The context points to the women also receiving the Holy Spirit. If this feels like a stretch, Peter quotes the prophet Joel (2:17-21) about the Spirit being poured out “on all people” where “sons and daughters will prophesy” and “even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit…and they will prophesy.”

• 2:38-39 – Baptism washes away sins in the same way that the sacrifice at the Temple creates a clean space for God’s Presence to inhabit. Through this Baptismal washing, the Holy Spirit has a place to dwell inside of us. Who is this promise for?

• 2:42-47 – Luke paints a picture of what the new community of believers looks like in response to becoming the restored creation, the New Temple where the Spirit dwells. What can you do today to be present to God’s presence in your life in a way that draws you into deeper community with fellow believers?

Desiring God's Presence pt. 1

I once heard a theologian say in a lecture that if you arrive in heaven one day and God is not there then you are in Hell. When we think of heaven, we often think of a type of paradise reward of perfect reality. When we experience wonderful and beautiful things, it is not uncommon for someone to say, “this is heaven.” There’s a song we often sing in our church that I hope might shape our attention for this next year. The lyric is repeated over and over throughout the song, “Your presence is heaven to me.”

What does God’s presence mean to you? Have you ever given it much thought? You wouldn’t be alone if the concept felt foreign to you. Much of the Christianity in our country’s history has been plagued by the teaching that God is up in his heaven, has set the creation into motion, and never interacts within his creation. This kind of teaching has led to all kinds of atrocities where we’ve convinced ourselves that we are made to be gods of our dominions here on earth. This is a deeper study for another time. The more pressing issue with this teaching is that God was made inaccessible, impersonal, and in need of appeasement.

In my time of studying the Bible, one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that it is essential to take off my metaphorical glasses and examine the lenses in which I look at scripture. The lenses we look through play a large part in how we interpret what we read. If we fail to never examine our lenses, we run the risk of fitting the Bible into our worldview rather than allowing the Bible to shape our worldview. Over the next two weeks, I want to hand you another set of lenses in which to read the Bible, and in turn shape how you view the world.

God’s desire from the beginning of creation, and the reason for the creation, is to be with us. He desires to make his presence known to us, in us, and with us. This is a lens in which we need to view scripture because it is one of the overarching themes of the Bible. The Bible is framed with the presence of God: being with Adam and Eve in the Garden (Gen 3:8), his presence coming in Jesus called Emmanuel (Mt 1:23), and finally his presence coming down to be with his creation in Revelation (21:3). There are many other places throughout the prophets, psalms, Gospels, and epistles that emphasize God’s presence with us. As we look forward to Advent, the season of expectation of God’s presence returning to his people, I want to look at the importance of God’s presence in the First Testament (this Sunday) and then look at the promise of God’s presence in the New Testament (Next Sunday).

The passage I want to focus on for this Sunday is Exodus 33. Pay attention to Moses’s attitude towards God’s presence. Jesus came to consecrate a new people to be his holy nation in this world. As I think about our calling to answer the call of Jesus to be salt and light to the nations, I want to urge us to take the attitude of Moses in Exodus 33 and embrace the promise of Jesus in John 14:15-17, that the Spirit will be with us always. When we develop the habits of slowing down to be present to God’s Presence within us, we will be transformed by his presence, and develop eyes to see where God’s Presence is at work in the world around us.