God Our Home | Part 2: Homeless

This sermon explores the deep longing for God's presence and the obstacles that obscure it. While we often associate God's presence with emotional experiences—tears or goosebumps—He is a constant reality. "Emmanuel" (God with us) is not merely a seasonal Christmas theme; it is the entire storyline of the Bible, from the Garden of Eden to the New Creation. God's relentless pursuit is defined by the promise: "I will be your God, you will be my people, and I will dwell in your midst." However, significant barriers often keep us from experiencing the face of God.

Scripture References

• Genesis 3:1-13: The Fall, introducing disobedience and hiding.
• Psalm 51: David's plea not to be cast from God's presence.
• Isaiah 6:1-5: The confrontation between human sin and God's holiness.
• Luke 2:41-52: Jesus' parents losing Him by assuming He was in the crowd.

Key Points

1. The Narrative of Presence The Bible is bookended by God dwelling with man. It begins in Eden, moves through the Tabernacle and Temple, finds its fulfillment in Jesus, continues in the Church through the Holy Spirit, and culminates in the New Creation where no temple is needed.
2. Seven Barriers to Intimacy
   • Disobedience: Sin naturally creates distance.
   • Hiding & Shame: Guilt says "I did something bad"; shame says "I am bad," causing us to hide from God.
   • Lies: The enemy deceives us about God's character and the severity of sin.
   • Holiness: God's unapproachable light exposes our darkness (Isaiah 6).
   • Unforgiveness: Jesus teaches that holding grudges hinders our prayers.
   • Busyness: Prosperity often leads us to forget the God who blessed us.
   • Presumption: Like Mary and Joseph, we can travel days assuming Jesus is with us in the "religious crowd" without actually consulting Him.

Conclusion

During the holidays, we celebrate God being with us, but the pressing question is: Are we with Him? It is dangerous to assume His presence while living distracted, disobedient, or unforgiving lives. Jesus came to remove every barrier—sin, shame, and separation—so that we could once again walk face-to-face with God.

Calls to Action

1. Stop Hiding: Come out of isolation. Confess your sin and let God cover your shame.
2. Check Your Assumptions: Don't assume God is with you just because you are at church. Actively seek His face daily.
3. Release Unforgiveness: Let go of grudges that block your experience of God's nearness.

Transcript

Hey. We're going to continue our series on the the presence of God.

How do we. How do we know that he's here? How do we know that we're standing in his. His presence? This is a question I've been considering as I've been shaping these sermons. But, when my daughter Avery was in sixth grade, actually, when every one of my daughters is in sixth grade, I start to freak out. It's always sixth grade.

And I start wondering, am I going to have a shallow kid? It's one of Tiffany and his greatest fears. And, I think it was Avery who was telling me, like, I want to date. I want to when I grow up, I want to be an influencer, you know? And I was like, okay, we need to do something about this.

And so. I wanted to save her from, like, this world of vanity and celebrity. And so I got invited to speak in India, and I thought, I know what I'll do. I'm going to baptize her in the realities of India. Right? I'm going to I'm going to burst her little pop culture bubble and expose her to something bigger than her reality.

And she's going to eat curry three meals a day. And, India actually has had a really profound impact on on Tiffany and I. We love that country. And I wanted to experience India with with Avery. And so this sixth grader is now my ministry partner. And, I was in India and I got asked to speak at a conference.

And, my humor doesn't travel. Well, my analogies don't travel well. The way that I talk doesn't travel well. And so I actually get really insecure when you have to speak in a foreign context. And there's some translator looking at you saying, we have no word for what just came out of your mouth. So she's my ministry partner for the week.

I'm starting to feel really insecure. And so after speaking twice, I remember us being back in the hotel room, and I was kind of like fishing for compliments from my sixth grader. I was tired anyway. I was like, hey, how you think that went? You know? And and she was like, good. And I was like, okay, what parts of it in particular we're we're good, you know?

And she's like, I don't know. And I was like, you can't remember one thing I said in the last two sermons. And she was like, no. This is like, you can't say back to me one thing that I said. And she was like, no, can't think of anything.

And then she goes, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I saw some lady crying. So it must have been good.

The sure sign for my daughter that God was present was tears. God's presence equals the presence of tears for her. And before we kind of giggle and dismiss that, I know many of you. I've talked to you. You're like, I'll be like, hey, pray. And you're like, I'm gonna be like, the second I open my mouth, I'll start to cry.

So it's like, Hold it in. Hey, man, why don't you lift your voices and sing, Who second? I start to sing. I'll start to cry. Some of you know this and have experienced this. That the second you sense the presence of God as the people of God gather immediately. The result is tears. How do you know you're in the presence of God?

Goosebumps, right? Goosebumps. I know sometimes, we can quote Billy Graham and say, well, you don't you don't see the wind, but you see the effects of the wind. And when you get around transformed lives, it's like, whoa, God is is here. He's at work. God's doing something, and we see the effects of his presence and healing and deliverance and salvation.

And when we see those things happening, we're like, oh, he's here. He's here with us. Because this doesn't normally or naturally happen for us. I have zero problem with with tears. I, I love them, I have zero problem with goosebumps. I have zero problems with emotions. I have zero problems with experiences. In fact, I have zero problems with pursuing experiences.

I'm not one of those guys who quickly says, well, don't seek his hand, seek his face. And I'm like, well, just why don't you seek him who has a hand and a face? And you can just have both those things. He's not like a floating face. He's not a floating hand. You can just seek him and he'll come with his face.

But but his hand will come to bless. And you don't need to take those things apart. So I don't have any problem with emotions. But I want to say over our church, we don't encounter the presence of God with our emotions. We do encounter the presence of God in a way that affects our emotions. But God is not a feeling or a goosebump.

He is a reality. And when that reality is felt, you might cry, you might get goosebumps. The presence of God is not a feeling. It's not when the worship song goes for 20 minutes or when the preacher raises his voice. That's not the presence of God, but the presence of God might lead to both of those things. For us, the presence of God is a reality, and often that reality might be mediated to us through our emotions.

The Bible talks about the presence of God in three ways. God is omnipresent, that is, he is everywhere. That does not mean that he is in everything like he's in that tree. He's certainly those are fig trees. He's certainly not in those fig trees. What it means is that his presence as the creator of the universe cannot be limited to one place.

He's capable of being present anywhere, at any time. The Bible also talks about his indwelling presence. He's present in every Christian by the person of His Spirit. And in this sense, you don't have to seek his presence. You have his presence. And then the third way the Bible speaks of the presence of God is his manifest presence. God is often present in an intense, intensified way when we pray and seek him, or when we're gathered together corporately and worship.

How often have we felt a sense of his presence and his peace joy when we gather together corporately to worship? The Bible says he dwells in the presence or the praises of his people, right? So there's times when the awareness of his presence can touch or even overwhelm our physical senses. Think Moses or Elijah in the cleft of the rock in Mount Sinai.

Think of the priests unable to do their job because they cannot stand in God's presence in the temple. Think of Ezekiel lifted up by the spirit between earth and heaven. Think of the soldiers who were thrown to the ground as they came to arrest Jesus. Think of the believers at Pentecost appearing outwardly drunk due to the power of the spirit.

Think Paul thrown off his horse by the presence of God. Yeah. John Piper says this when we experience God's presence, it means that we taste, feel, or realize the reality of God more directly, more authentically, more intimately, more effectively, more certainly, more satisfyingly or more terrifyingly and so on. In other words, his presence as we experience him is the heightening of his reality in our lives.

The psalmist says this that the Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. That doesn't mean that God traveled some distance to get to you. That's not what that means. It means he's near in the sense that he exerts his influence for our good in special ways, and causes us to experience the sweetness of his reality.

And this defies language. Most of us, if asked to describe this, would be like, I don't know. I just know in my knower that God walked into the room. And it's frustrating to use language, isn't it? And then you try to describe it to someone, and in the middle of the story, you're like, this isn't doing it justice.

All these 12 guys are going home and they're going to be like, dang it! I do not have words for this. And that's why the prophets who encountered God were always like, it's like this. I don't know, I've got to build some bridge with something. I know into the unknown. It was like this and it. But but it was more than that.

But this is the only way I can describe this to you. The manifest presence of God. I bring all this up not to throw my daughter under the bus.

But I bring this up because we are in a season, and the Christmas season is a time where we celebrate God with us. Emmanuel, God with us, his presence with his people. And secondly, I bring all this up and want to repeat what was said last week. Is the story of God dwelling with his people is not a Christmas story.

It is the story of human history. It's not a wild idea that God got kind of late in the game. I know what I'll do. I'll send Jesus to earth in a pod. That is not the story. The story from the very start of your Bible to the very end of your Bible, from Genesis chapter one to revelation chapter 21.

The story bookends your Bible, and the story is this I will be your God. You will be my people, and I will dwell in your midst.

It's not. Can I be your God and can you be my people? And can I dwell in your midst? It's I will, I will do this. I will be your God. You will have no other. And you will be my people, my chosen possession, my treasure. And I'm going to camp right in the middle of this. That's the story.

And it's not a Christmas one. It's a human one.

Last week we discussed all the places and spaces where God dwells with his people, first in Eden and then in the tabernacle, and then in the temple, and then in the temple. Part two and then uniquely and powerfully in Christ himself. And now Jesus ascended into heaven, but he gave us the gift of the spirit. And he doesn't leave us as orphans, but he fills us with the Spirit of God in the same way that the temple and the tabernacle were filled, were filled with his glory.

And one day the nations of this earth will be the nations of our God and King, and he will dwell with his people. The dwelling of God will once again be with people, and it will be in such an unmediated way that we will no longer have a temple. Not only will we not have a temple where we meet with God, we won't have a sun or a moon because his very presence will light up our streets.

God's dwelling will be with his people. This week, I want to talk about the issues that keep us or prevent us from experiencing his nearness in our lives. And then next week, I want to talk about how Jesus uniquely addresses every one of these barriers. Every one of these things that we keep us from the face of God.

Jesus came to deal with those things, and this is good news. It's what we celebrate. We will be his people. He will be our God, and he'll dwell in our midst thanks to the work of Christ in our lives. So if you've got a Bible, would you open it to the very first page? Because we don't get very far before people screw this up.

So God's presence is with us on page one, on page two of your Bible. We've blown it.

On page one, we move in together. On page two, we move out and start encouraging. Merry Christmas.

Our issues with God go way back. This is really a story as old as time. I'm going to read to you from Genesis three, starting in verse one. This is, talking about the garden. Now, the serpent was more crafty because could I get some water?

Thank you. Could it be, like, a different temperature than this? You might. Okay. Genesis chapter three. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Did God really say, you must not eat from any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, well, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden.

But God did say, you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you mustn't touch it, or else you'll die. You'll not certainly die. The serpent said to the woman, For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil.

And when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who is with her, and he ate it. And then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked.

So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. When the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called the man, where are you? He answered, well, I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked.

So I hid. And he said, who told you you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? And the man said, the woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it. And then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you've done?

And the woman said, the serpent deceived me, and I ate. What we just read was the fall of humanity, the loss of the presence of God. And I want to highlight really quickly seven barriers to experiencing the presence of God. And then we're going to have an opportunity to worship and receive ministry. From these guys who just walked through these seven barriers.

I like how I, I sometimes I coach myself up, up here and I speak prophetically and I say things like, and I'm going to take you really quickly through the seven barriers from the presence of God. See what I'm doing there. Just like you can do it. I. The first barrier that we see here is disobedience. It creates distance from the reality of God's presence.

When we disobey, we call this, sin. And sin causes a separation. It causes distance from his presence. When we do what we know is wrong, even if we try to justify it. It causes distance. And if you're here and you have no relationship with God, you know about this because this is the same in your relationship with people.

If you do what you've been told, please don't do that. And you do it. This sin enters in and it causes separation. When you miss the mark and your relationship with your family or your employer, it causes a distance, a separation. And we no longer experienced the closeness that we once experienced. So here's the deal. They're told, don't eat from this one tree.

They got one job. One job. You had one job.

And what do they do? That thing. What is it in us that when we're told not to trespass, you can watch every movie? Just not that one movie. You're like, I think I'm going to watch that movie. What is it in us? We have a sin nature. When told don't cross this line, we just start to mess with that line.

We just can't step away from it. That fence is electric. How electric?

I think I'll pee on it and find out. Okay. Honestly.

We're sinners by nature and then by choice. We're hard wired in this way. And then we give way to this way. We've been wired. The great apostle Paul would say, I do what I don't want to do and what I want to do, I don't do. Some of you were like, that's my life verse. That should be on my mug in the morning.

What I want to do, I don't do and what I don't want to do that I do.

The great King David, I love this. Stephen read this, but the great King David would disobey and then famously repent with Psalm 51. And he talks about being a sinner by nature and then by choice. And then he actually says, don't cast me from your presence. He knew that what he would experience in his sin is that he would no longer see the face of God.

Have mercy on me, oh God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me against you. Now he's he's repenting for an affair and then murdering the husband. Yes. Yeah.

He has sinned against a woman and against her husband. And he says against you. And you only have I said I have done what is evil in your sight. So you're right in your verdict and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth. Sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb.

You taught me wisdom in that secret place. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me and I'll be whiter than snow. And let me hear your joy and gladness. Let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Don't hide your face from me. Hide your face from my sins. And blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart.

Oh, God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence. Our disobedience will cause separation and distance. Tough to be roommates. When we keep sinning against the one we're rooming with. This leads to the second barrier, which is a hiding from God, a covering of our shame. So our guilt is saying you did something bad, but then shames quickly on the heels of that saying, no, you are something bad.

Your guilt is saying I did something wrong and your shame is right on the heels saying, no, there's something wrong with you. And so we hide. And when they eat the fruit, they hide from God. And God asks them the question. And God still asking this question, where are you? Where are you? Where are you?

And it's not so easy just to say here, because we know that you can be present without being present.

We know you can be in the room without being fully in the room. Hey, hey, where are you? Where are you?

They're hiding from him. And we hide in our shame. And they immediately in their shame start covering their nakedness. Because we have to patch together a righteousness of our own. And often that looks like justifying our sin. The woman made me do it, man, I was. I was. I told her I was like, no, I probably should need that.

You know? We immediately start to cover our nakedness and we do that with excuses. We do that with success. We have to feel better than someone, somewhere, somehow, and we start covering our nakedness because we know we've done something wrong. Both the disobedience and the hiding from God are based in this third thing, which is entertaining lies about God.

Jesus would say to a religious group, you belong to your father. The devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. And he was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there's no truth in him. And when the devil lies, he speaks his native language. For he is a liar, and he's the father of lies.

And you have to know this today, that the lies that cause us to disobey and the lies that cause us to hide from God are very subtle. And they often come in the form of a leading question. That's not an outright accusation against God. It's like a are you sure you heard that right? Are you sure? God said, oh, I'm sure he said it.

Well, I don't think that's what he meant, and I don't think it's a big deal. In fact, I think he knows that if you eat this, you'll be like him. What's he suggesting? God's holding out on you, and you need to make a way for yourself. If the devil can get you to believe a lie, then he doesn't have to make you do it.

Because you behave in accordance with what you believe. And so the war is always around. The truth. And when we start to believe lies, we start to behave in certain ways. And the enemy will come to cause distance by lying about God. He'll lie about God's character. He'll lie about others. He's the accuser of the brethren in order to keep you in isolation.

And he'll lie about sin itself. And the lie about sin itself. Sounds something like this. Jonah mentioned it in his testimony. So that big of a deal. It's just a little bit it's really not going to affect your relationships. It's really not going to affect your relationship with God. This is a wild thing. And I know you've experienced this on the front end.

The enemy saying it's no big deal on the front end is like, whatever, it's not going to affect your relationship. Then you engage in sin. And on the back end he's like, I can't believe you did that. What a you're sick. You're sick. And then the cycle goes over. It's just gossip. Everybody gossips, then you gossip and he's like, oh gosh, I can't believe you said that.

Have you experienced this before? The minimizing of your sin so that you get involved with it and then the maximizing of your sin so you don't run to God with it over and over again? You just. It's a red blooded boy. You've got needs.

You're a pervert. God would never want to see your hands held high in church. This is how this goes. This is how sin destroys. It deceives before it destroys. And the deception is this no big deal. You could take a little water on everybody, does it? I can't believe you did that.

For the holiness of God is an issue. Because sin. Sure, it's separates and it disintegrates, but it also contaminates. So how do we, as a people who love darkness, we love hiding. We love it. How do we, as a people who dwell in deep darkness, room with a God who dwells in unapproachable light? This is a huge question.

We we said it last week. Who will ascend the hill of the Lord? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who's lining up? Nobody.

Isaiah is a prophet, and prophets are really good at pointing out the sin of other people. And for five chapters he's like, woe to you and woe to you and woe to you! You. They've got issues. And man, I wish they would deal with those issues. And then you get to Isaiah six. In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on the throne, high and lifted up the train of his robe filled the temple, and above him stood the seraphim.

Each had six wings, with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another, saying, not just one holy. Three Holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his glory. And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

And I said, woe to me! He's like, and you, and you and those liberals and their. Oh no! God shows up in his holiness. And he's like, woe to me, I'm lost. I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. And my eyes have now seen not just the sins of others, but my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

Oh, no!

How will Jesus deal with this issue? That we love darkness.

And in him there is no darkness at all. Another thing that inhibits your experience of the presence of God is unforgiveness towards others. Listen to Jesus on this subject. Mark 1124.

Again, this is one of those things that you feel so justified holding on to. And this is a sin. The sin of unforgiveness is so deceptive. Therefore I tell you, Jesus says, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them so that your father in heaven may forgive you.

Your sins. I love the context of this. Jesus is saying, because I know some of us are like man, I have prayed before to forgive that person and I just keep reliving and rehearsing the hurt. And Jesus says, now come on. In the context of forgiveness, he says anything is possible in prayer to encourage us that this is a possibility for us.

And then he says, I would forgive if I were you, because it will block, it will inhibit. It will keep you from experiencing the presence of God. Number six busyness or business or.

Well, anyway, you get the idea. I was busy and distracted when I wrote this. Okay, busyness and distraction. There is a tendency in us to forget God, and most of this is about being attentive and alert and awake and aware of his presence. Wake up oh sleeper, Christ will shine on you. And let me tell you the scariest place you can be.

I know he doesn't feel this way, but according to the teachings of Scripture, the worst place you can be is doing well. Because when things are going good, you're like, oh, I'm good. And then when things are going bad, you're like, God, where are you? This this passage is so crazy. Deuteronomy 810 when you've eaten, you're still be sure to praise the Lord.

Your God for the good land he's given you. But that is the time to be careful. Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and decrees that I'm giving you today. For when you've become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, be careful.

Do not become proud at that time, and forget the Lord your God who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. Lastly, one of the barriers that we face worship team. Would you guys come is the presence of God can be assumed, not purposely ignored, but just assumed.

And I think we're very guilty of this during this season. You're here. You're holy. We're standing in your glory. God with us. Emmanuel. We just sing, talk, celebrate the presence of God. And I think his presence can just be assumed. Oh, he's with us. He's with us. The question is not, is he with us? The question is, are you with him?

Are you with him? Like, wake up. So there's verses in the New Testament where Jesus would say, And Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone wants to be my disciple, that's a weird statement. Would I ever say to my daughters, hey daughters, if anyone wants to continue to be my daughter, hey disciples! If anyone wants to be my disciple, you must take up your cross and follow me.

I don't follow you or Jesus is with us. You know, I think this has been, Maybe said, well, with the bumper sticker that says Not God Bless America, but America, bless God, he's with us. No, no, no. Are you with him? Are you with him? And there's this awesome story, not from the birth of Jesus, but from his childhood.

He's 12 years old, and at 12, his family goes to Jerusalem to celebrate a holiday like this one. And it says that his parents leave Jerusalem. Now they're from a small town and they're going to the big city. They're from VCU. They're headed to San Francisco. They go to San Francisco with everyone. They start coming back. And it takes a day.

One day, a whole day for his parents to go. Has anyone seen Jesus? Now, I don't know, maybe 12 year olds back then. We're not like 12 year olds are now. I'm sure.

But a day then it takes some of you've lost your kids for three minutes and it's a sick feeling. Some of you lost the kid for 30 minutes. It takes his parents three days to find him. The only way that happens, the only way a parent goes a day without a child, is to assume that Jesus is there.

So they're migrating. They're walking with a group of people, and they just assume Jesus is in the crowd. They assume his presence without ever waking up and going. Has anyone ever said he would see Jesus? And I feel this way during the holidays, like there's this mass migration and we're all in Coles and they're playing songs about Jesus, and there's like this tide that's like he is with us.

He's with us. He's. And then every once in a while during the season, I just stop and I'm like, I actually haven't experienced his presence and I have no worries at and in all the singing about him being with us, I don't feel like I'm seeing his face right now. And maybe that's you, and I certainly know. For the group that went up to the mountain, that was us just putting one foot in front of the other, unaware that life was in his presence and death was in his absence.

Death was in doing our own thing. Death was in the fig leaves that we were using to cover our nakedness. Death was in our ignoring of the Holy Spirit's promptings that we been a disobedient. We'd hid. So we're going to stand together. And our ministry team is going to come forward. And we'd love to pray for you if you're experiencing like, yeah, man, that's true.

I've just assumed his presence and I want to taste the reality of his nearness. I need to forgive you. I need to come out of hiding. I need to stop isolating. We'd love to pray for you.