God Our Home | Part 3: Homecoming

This sermon concludes the three-week series "God Our Home," connecting the longing for God's presence with the reality of Christmas. We recap that God's desire to dwell with His people is the entire storyline of the Bible—from Eden to the New Creation. However, significant barriers like disobedience, shame, lies, and God's holiness keep us from experiencing this intimacy.

The Good News of Christmas is that Jesus came to address every single barrier. He is the "obedience of the one" that makes many righteous. He clothes our shame so we can hide in Him rather than from Him. He reveals the true nature of the Father, dispelling lies. He comes full of grace and truth to make us holy, paying the entrance fee we could never afford. And He empowers us to forgive by first forgiving us.

Scripture References

• Revelation 21:3: "I will be your God, you will be my people, and I will dwell in your midst."
• Psalm 22:3: God inhabits the praises of His people.
• Deuteronomy 8:10-14: A warning not to forget God in times of plenty.
• John 8:28-29: Jesus' perfect obedience to the Father.
• Romans 5:19: "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous."
• Colossians 3:3: "For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God."
• Hebrews 4:15: We have a High Priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses.
• John 14:6-9: Jesus reveals the Father: "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father."
• John 1:14: The Word became flesh, full of grace and truth.
• Matthew 6:9-15: The Lord's Prayer, emphasizing forgiveness.

Key Points

1. Jesus Addresses Our Barriers
   • Disobedience: Jesus' perfect submission overthrows our rebellion. His obedience is credited to us, making us righteous.
   • Shame: Instead of hiding from God in shame, we can hide in Christ. He clothes us in His righteousness, fully knowing and fully loving us.
   • Lies: Jesus reveals the true nature of the Father, dispelling the enemy's lies about God's character.
   • Holiness: Jesus doesn't lower the standard; He pays the price. He comes full of grace and truth to make us holy and blameless in God's sight.
   • Unforgiveness: We are empowered to forgive others because we have been forgiven a debt we could never pay.
2. How to Not Miss His Presence Like the characters in the first Christmas story who did experience God, we must:
   • Worship: Adore Him to gain perspective and crush comparison.
   • Ponder: Like Mary, treasure God's work in your heart. Be curious and wonder about Him.
   • Seek: Like the Wise Men, actively pursue Him. Don't assume His presence; hunt for it.

Conclusion

We don't have to live separated from God. Jesus, Emmanuel, has come to bridge the gap. He has dealt with our sin, shame, and separation so that we can once again stand in the presence of a holy God—not with fear, but with boldness and joy.

Calls to Action

1. Invite Someone: 80% of people are willing to come to church if invited. Use this Christmas season to invite someone to the Fox Theatre service.
2. Worship & Ponder: In the busyness of the season, take time to worship and ponder what Christ has done to bring you near.
3. Come to the Table: As you take communion, reflect on the cost Jesus paid to remove every barrier between you and the Father.

Transcript

Hey, we're real excited about Christmas Eve at the Fox, and I just. I want to challenge you with a little bit of, Well, some some stats. 80% of people claim, and I don't know if they're telling the truth, but 80% of people claim that they would be willing to attend a church service if invited. And then 2% of us are involved in inviting.

And so I just want to ask you to ask. Don't decide for people. Let them decide if they want to come. I know it's scary to put them in a place where they've got to turn you down, but Christmas Eve is just an awesome time. Awesome time to invite people to the Fox. And we've got plenty of seats and just a really cool service coming together that I think is going to be compelling.

In fact,

It's her time. We've got a service that we're excited about, and, we think it's got a shot of interrupting the noise going on around people's lives and inviting them into something truer and something deeper than what they've been swimming in. So please, invite people to the fox. Okay, so we've been in a three week series, and it concludes today.

And for the last three weeks, we've been talking about God, our home. And I want to take just the first few minutes this morning and kind of bring you up to speed. So if you're here and you missed one or you missed all of the last few weeks, I just want to bring you up to speed on what we've been talking about.

And the first thing you're going to need to know is this God making his dwelling among us. It's not just the Christmas story. Right. And during Christmas, we talk a lot about the presence of God. We talk a lot about Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. But his presence amongst his people is not a seasonal offering. It's the point of human history.

It's not the reason for the season. It's the reason for your entire Bible. Page one opens and it's God dwelling with his people. You turn one page and we've lost his presence. You get to the final chapters of revelation, the last book in your Bible, and God's dwelling is once again with man. And so this is the point.

This is the trajectory that every one of us is on. In fact, we summed up the Bible like this I'll be your God. You will be my people, and I will dwell in your midst. This is the story. The second thing we talked about is we we tried to define the presence of God. We talk about it a lot.

We we pray for it. We we assume it together when we gather. But rarely do we define the presence of God. So we celebrate it this season. But how do we know that we're in his presence? We don't often talk about what it looks like or even what it feels like. And again, I've got no problem with goosebumps, no problem with all the feels, no problem with tears.

But the presence of God is not a feeling, although it may lead to some feelings, right? The presence of God is a reality. Presence of God is not a feeling, but it will and often does lead to some feelings. It's a reality. And we talked about the Bible, which communicates that God is omnipresent, right? Which means that he is everywhere doesn't mean he's in everything, just that his presence cannot be limited to one place.

He's capable of being present anywhere, at any time, right when the psalmist says God came near, he doesn't mean that God traveled some distance to get to him. It wasn't that he was far off, it's that he made his presence felt. He made it known. The Bible also talks about the indwelling presence. So he's present in every Christian by the person of the spirit.

And in this sense, you don't seek his presence like you have his presence, and it needs to be realized. And then the Bible also talks about his manifest presence. So God is often present in an intensified way when we pray and seek him, or when we gather together corporately in worship. And I think we've all experienced this. Yeah.

How often do we feel his peace, his joy, his presence when we gather in song? The Bible says that he inhabits the praises of his people. So there are times, and I'm guessing maybe you've experienced one of these times when the awareness of his presence can touch and even overwhelm our senses, right? So last week we I asked you to think about Moses and Elijah like hiding in the cleft of the rock, because God's passing by is like truth.

Who can stand, hide away? Think of the priest unable to stand in Solomon's temple because the presence of God is so weighty, so heavy. Think of soldiers who are thrown to the ground, Roman soldiers thrown to the ground. When Jesus says, I am. Think of new believers filled with the Spirit at Pentecost and people accusing them of being drunk.

And they're like, nope, it's the first service.

The drinkers come to the second service.

Think of Paul thrown off his horse by the presence of God. He saw the light, right? These are a rare but the very real. And they shouldn't be dismissed. And many, many of us have touched something of this, and it leaves us just really longing for more. Ruined by an encounter with God's manifest presence in our lives. Also, a little, I guess, update or to bring you up to speed.

There there are some reasons why we can't get along or share space with with, God. So the story of God trying to room with his people is pretty complicated. I wish that the story of I will be your God, you will be my people, and I will dwell in your midst, was a straightforward one. It's not.

It's a saga. And we've been working and journeying towards this reality for 6000 years. 6000 years we've lived in the song from war that says, why can't we be friends? That's what I was thinking. I was just reading my Bible, reflecting on our issues, and all that was repeating in my head was, why can't we be friends? Why can't we be friends?

Why can't we be friends? Why can't we be friends? Thousands of pages in your Bible. Why can we be friends? So I laid out last week just a few reasons. The first being disobedience and rebellion. We want and have always wanted to do our own thing. The person who does their own thing is certainly not doing their own thing.

They're doing the same thing that every human has done for thousands of years. We want gods lowercase g that are not God's, so that we can be as God's, so that those things can serve us and serve our interests. So disobedience has fractured our relationship with God, shame and hiding. Also, one of the reasons we can't be friends when we screw up, we hide our shame screams cover up our shame screams.

You didn't just do something wrong. There's something wrong with you. You're fatally flawed in some way. And we hide. And the reason shame is so tricky to get your finger on is we're really good at hiding. And there's many ways that we hide. And sometimes in our shame, we actually achieve. Sometimes we motivate our shame. And you would have no idea that that person is struggling with a deep, crippling sense of shame, that there's something wrong with them.

So we hide in all kinds of places. We hide in all kinds of of ways. Also the hiding and the rebellion and the disobedience. They're fueled by believing lies about God. And it's it's hard to have a roommate that you're believing lies about, right? Have you ever had that happen where you've decided something about someone, and now you're just looking for evidence to support your case?

Well, that's no way to that's no way to be friends, right? Satan, the father of lies, accuses God day and night. Another issue, which is a huge issue is the holiness of God. I love the equation that we just sang where we we sang together. You are here. You are holy and we are standing in your glory. And we sing that and we take it for granted that he's here and he's holy, and we're standing in his glory.

This is something that just isn't possible without the work of Christ. No one stands in his presence, but Christ is made away. And we'll we'll get to that. But our sin doesn't just separate us from God. It contaminates. And so we're rooming with a God who dwells in unapproachable light. And we love the darkness. It's an issue for us, right?

The fifth thing we brought up was unforgiveness. Sin is separated us from God in one another and repair is needed. And when we harbor unforgiveness towards God and others, we just don't experience the presence of God in our lives. So if you're harboring unforgiveness, you'll find yourself far from the presence of God. The sixth thing we talked about was forgetting God.

And in particular, the most dangerous place you can be is doing good. Because when things are good, we tend to forget God. And you know what happens when we forget God? Things go bad. I want to read this verse again just because I'm scared. You didn't hear it last week. Deuteronomy 810 I just thought, this is such an amazing scripture.

When you have eaten your fill, 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 and disobey his commands, regulations, and decrees that I'm giving you today. For when you have 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. The seventh thing we talked about that seems to be an issue is that we just assume God's presence. We just march forward and we say things like, oh yeah, he's with us. Why wouldn't he be with us?

Of course he's on our side. Right? But the question is not Is God with us? The question is, are we with him? He doesn't follow us, we follow him, and we need to get that order in order. So this week, I know that that's a sad list that we live in. So this week I bring you good news of great joy.

Unto us a child is born, a son is given. Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, has done something about all these issues, and he has addressed almost all of these barriers. What difference does Jesus make for the disobedient? What difference does Jesus make for those hiding in shame? What difference does Jesus make for those who are deceived and believing lies about God and about themselves?

What difference does Jesus make for those who can't hang, can't stand in God's holiness? And what difference does Jesus make for those who are hurt, harboring unforgiveness and bitterness? And what g. What difference does Jesus make for those who have forgotten, or maybe just assumed to God's presence? Well, we're going to get into that. The first thing I want to draw your attention to and just glory in, is the obedience of Jesus Christ.

The obedience of the true son. I have often marveled that Jesus brought about a revolution through perfect submission, because he often gets pitched as some sort of revolutionary, like this chair of our kind of character who listens to Rage Against the Machine and is going to stick it to the man. This is what Jesus says in John eight.

I do nothing on my own, but I speak just what the father has taught me. The one who sent me is is with me. He has not left me alone. I always do what pleases him. He overthrew the system through perfect submission. That's a wild idea. And this this verse makes it sound easy, right? I only say what the father is saying.

This verse can sound a little bit dorky at times. You know, where you're like, oh, I'm so glad. Did you pack a lunch? I only do what my father tells me to do. But listen to this one from Hebrews five. While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings. There's a difference between the two, right? With loud cries and tears to the one who could rescue him from death.

And God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God. Even though Jesus was God's Son, he learned obedience from the things that he suffered. Wild. He too had prayers that were heard and then went unanswered. And why does this matter? Why does it matter that this son was obedient? Well, Romans five says that this way for us by one man's disobedience, referring to Adam, many were made sinners, referring to us.

So by the obedience of one Jesus, many that would be us would be made righteous. His obedience is ours by faith. Adam is disobedient and the result is sin and death. Jesus is obedient until death and is without sin, and the result is life. And not just survival, but life to the full, abundant life through obedience. And now we're made righteous through the obedience of Jesus, and we go into all the world, says Matthew 28, teaching people what Jesus commanded, close teaching people to obey all that Jesus commanded.

Because we've got a renewed heart, the presence of the spirit, and we now long to please our father in the same ways that Jesus longed to do only what the father was doing. Your life is hidden in Christ. What difference does Jesus make for people who are hiding in shame? Remember Adam and Eve sin and then what follows shortly they hide right and they cover their nakedness with fig leaves.

They patch something together so they won't feel exposed. And then God begins to ask the question of them, where are you? And that is the question that God's been asking ever since.

To us as well, to to those who are hiding in shame. Remember, shame is this deep sense that there's something wrong with us. Guilt is like, hey, you messed up and then shames right on its heels going, no, you are messed up. There's something wrong with you. And again, this can be pretty tough to put your finger on because we hide in all kinds of ways, and we've gotten really good at it.

Right. And then I just want to say, for those of you hiding in shame.

For those of you who have clothed yourself with just about anything, I just want to remind you that Jesus offers to clothe us in his righteousness and says that we can hide in him. In fact, someone wrote to the church in Colossae, Paul, he says, you've died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. You can now be hidden in him.

You don't have to run away from him. You can run towards him and you can hide in him. And in my experience, the healing of shame happens in different ways at different times. But each time it seems to have these factors at play. The first thing that heals our shame is when God knows us and loves us.

The remedy for our shame is being both at the same time, fully known and fully loved. Here's what won't work to get rid of your shame. Being fully known and partially loved. Or being fully. Wait, how did I say that? If you're fully known and not fully love, shame persists. If you're fully loved but the person doesn't fully know you, shame persists because the accusation persists.

I want to say this. Ken prayed it. Jesus knows you. The good, the bad and the ugly. And that might make you this morning want to run and hide? Cover yourself up. But here's the good news he fully loves you. The good, the bad, and the ugly. You can be fully known by him and fully loved, and it can draw you out of hiding.

You find yourself running towards him and not away from him. The second thing that heals our shame is someone's pursuit of us. Someone pursuing us when we hide. Do we really want to not be found? I think we're hiding and hoping to be found. I think we're hiding and hoping that someone comes after us. I think we're hiding and hoping that someone pursues us.

I think we came this morning, and whether you know it or not, you're hoping that someone pursues you. You're hoping that someone asks you how you're doing, cares about your week and what the holidays look like for you. I think we step back, but we're hoping that someone's going to step towards us. We want to be found. If only.

If only we had a savior. Who? Maybe a savior who's come to seek and save that which is lost. If only we had a Savior who who leads with questions.

To draw us out. If only we had a good shepherd. Who would leave the 99. Go find the one that stuck, and then carry them back into the fold. That'd be awesome. The third thing that heals our shame is when someone sympathizes with us. When someone finds us and understands what we're facing, that when someone comes to us and says, I understand what you're feeling, what you're up against, that makes sense.

It heals a shame. Thank God that we have this great High Priest in Jesus who came and can sympathize with us, who, like, gets it. Are you broke?

He gets it right. He understands what it is to be poor. Have you been betrayed? He understands that and can sympathize with that. Do you feel abandoned even by those closest to you? He understands that. Are you single, trying to sort out these holidays? He understands this, right? Are you being unfairly criticized? I didn't do that. But I'm facing all the consequences of that.

Well, he understands us. He sympathizes with us. Have you have you ever had have you ever had Jesus? I felt so tempted to jump up here. Have you ever felt. We got to hold people's attention. Have have you ever had.

How do I want to say this? I'm never surprised when Jesus challenges me. Because this is in line with the Jesus I see. So when I come to him and say, man, I'm having a hard time forgiving, I'm never surprised when he's like 70 times seven. You need to forgive Trav. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. I'm never surprised when I'm met with the challenge of Coach Christ, who's like, give me seven more.

Eklund I'm never surprised by that. I'm always surprised by his compassion when I come before him. And he says, I understand. And that hurts. And almost immediately, my sin and shame dissipates. It's kind of like a kid who skins their knee and you can tell him, suck it up, you're fine. It's just a scratch. Or you can say, wow, that looks like it really hurts.

And when you say that looks like it really hurts, they're like, okay. And they go back to playing. And when you're like, suck it up, it's just a scratch. They persist to try to communicate to you this hurts. Have you ever had Jesus come to you and say, I know he's challenged you, I get it, and he does.

I'm not going to say he doesn't, but has he ever come to you and say, that hurts, that hurts to invest your life into a coworker thinking they were going to take a position only for them to leave and go to another company?

I mean, even now it just causes us to melt. He's compassionate.

He's compassionate.

Jesus comes to set your father facts straight. So for those who are deceived, for those living in lives, for those entertaining lies about who God is, Jesus comes so that we can get the story straight. He comes to ask the question, where did you get your information from? Long before the Beastie Boys? And this turns out to be a pretty important task that Jesus takes on because, as Tozer says, what comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you that no people group in history has ever risen above their view of God.

In fact, the God you see is the Christian. You'll be. So if it's Coach Christ, guess who you'll be?

Yeah, coach Chad. Coach. Eric. Coach. Jim, come on, 70 times seven. Let's go. But if we see this compassionate Jesus now, we step in and we say, man, that's rough to be unfairly criticized.

Listen to this. This is such good news because we don't have to be down here wondering what God is like. Jesus has answered this forever. Hebrews one three. The sun is the radiance of God's glory, and he is the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word word. And he has provided purification for sins.

He sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven, and he would say to Pilate that he's come to bear witness to the truth. Listen to this. Jesus is giving his parting words to his disciples, and he says, I'm the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my father as well.

From now on. You do not know him. From now on you do know him and have seen him. And then Philip said, Lord, show us the father. That will be enough for us. And Jesus answered, don't you know me, Philip, even after I've been among you for such a long time, anyone who has seen me has seen the father.

How can you say, show us the father? Don't you believe that I. I am in the father and that the father is in me? The words I say to you, I do not speak of my own authority, rather, it's the father living in me who's doing his work. We don't have to speculate. We've been liberated from speculation about what God is like.

We have revelation in the son, the revelation of Jesus. Fourthly, Jesus makes a way for it for us to enter the Most Holy place and to do it boldly. Whilst praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ, free chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

Wild to be holy as he is holy. And Jesus doesn't come to lower God's standards of holiness. Jesus doesn't come to like waive the entrance fee. He comes to pay the entrance fee. It's never been waived on your behalf. Jesus doesn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. For us to cross every t to dot every eye and Jesus doesn't make it easier for us.

He makes a way for us right? I love this passage when talking about Christ's coming in John one it says, the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We've seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son who came from the father. And he came full of grace and full of truth. And if you read down to verse 17, it says, for the law was given through Moses grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

So Jesus comes with the truth about our sinfulness, and he reveals and exposes what is hidden in our lives. But he doesn't just come with the truth to reveal what needs to be exposed. He comes with grace to remove what's been exposed. He comes full of grace. He comes full of truth. And I know some of you have friends who are truth very much at the expense of grace.

And I know others of you have friends that are full of grace, and it seems to be at the expense of truth. But Jesus comes full honor, percent grace, and 100% truth, which means that in his truth he can reveal, and in his grace he can remove. And this is what he does for us to make us holy.

He doesn't ignore what's going on in our lives in order to make us holy. He actually calls it out, but when he calls it out, he doesn't leave us to sit in it like others do. He actually extends his grace towards us to remove the sin that has us all tangled up right? Without truth, we've got a world full of compromised deception, avoiding confrontation, minimizing sin.

Without grace. We've got legalism and a harshness and a self-righteousness and a crushing judgment. And Jesus models this for us, stepping towards us to make us holy because he's full of the truth and he's full of grace. If you read on in John, you go from John one, go to John eight. Jesus has this interaction with a woman caught in adultery.

And it's really interesting because she's being condemned.

And Jesus does two things he calls sin. Sin in her life and tells her, go and sin no more. He doesn't excuse what's going on in her life. He speaks the truth to her, but he also brings grace and says, I don't condemn you. It's fascinating. Both the truth of the situation and grace come to liberate this woman and make her live Holy.

Last one forgive just as you have been forgiven. Jesus. In this, model prayer, Matthew six, we get the Lord's Prayer, which is this teaching on prayer. And he says, this, then, is how you should pray our father in heaven. You guys got it from here. Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. No, no. You guys take it because it looks like we've got translation issues.

In this model, prayer. Get your head around this.

Forgiveness is mentioned six times more than anything else. It's as if Jesus is saying to us, you might be talking about this with me more than anything else, more than daily bread. You're going to be saying, help me forgive. It's almost as if he knows forgiveness can be challenging. It's like he knows how difficult it is to truly release people when they've wronged you.

And he provides for us. And the fuel for us to forgive is that we've been forgiven. And this is really interesting. But this is something of the Christmas story.

And it goes a little something like this. If God can forgive us and if he can bridge this gap, the one that stands between him as our holy, perfect God who dwells in unapproachable light. If we if we can stand in his presence, then there's no horizontal barrier that he can't overcome. And I find that the story spins a little bit different in my own mind.

It's like, oh yeah, this this was minor. And this is I don't know, I'm not sure I can clear this. This is major. The story of Scripture is this this is major, major. So when you get it, the evidence that you get it will be this is minor. This is minor compared to that, that I can be reconciled to a holy God.

If God can do that, shoot man who knows what he could do.

It's good. I was so nervous as I typed my notes because number six and seven are. I'm going to summarize them. And I was so scared that I would say that. So let's just get it over with. Okay. The last two were that we can forget his presence and that we can assume his presence. And I wish I could tell you that Jesus did something about this and that it's no longer possible for you to assume or forget his presence.

One day, he will. I can say that with certainty. One day every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, and no one will forget that he is Lord. But right now we're living in the time between the times. And so we choose in this time to be aware of Jesus as King and to receive him as Lord. One day you won't have to assume this right.

It will be a reality for us. But that's not this day. So how do we become the type of people that are aware, attentive, and instead of assuming his presence, we're enjoying it. How do we become those people? We don't want to be those characters in the Christmas story who are like, sorry, no room in the in sorry.

We can't house what's happening in and through God. Just keep moving. And I want to point you just as we close here today. Worship team, would you guys come? Not everyone in the first Christmas enjoyed or experienced the presence of God either. Not everyone in the first Christmas story enjoyed the nearness of God, but there are a few characters who catch it, and those characters are the characters we talk about every Christmas.

And those characters did a few things that I want to call us to do today. In response, would you stand with me?

I want to call you to to worship. Worship is the way to not miss God's presence. Worship is the way not to assume his presence, but to enjoy his presence. Worship is what happened with the angels, with those shepherds. There's songs everywhere in the Christmas story. Worship is that way where we adore him, get enamored with him, think about what he's done, and when we do, we end up with perspective and comparison is crushed.

Let's worship with our mouths. Let's continue for the next week and in this season to worship. The second thing is the people who get it in the first Christmas, and the people who continue to get the presence of God. They ponder. They wonder, they're curious. Mary receives a prophecy about Jesus at his dedication, and it says that she treasured these things in her heart.

She wondered about them. She started scrapbooking. She was like, and I wonder what God's going to do? What are you pondering? What are you stewing on? What are you chewing on? The way to enjoy God's presence is to continually wonder about him. Ask questions. Be curious. And lastly, the characters who get it in the first Christmas are seeking.

They're pursuing. They're hungry for the presence of God. They're they're diligent to meet with this coming King. Are you on the hunt? Is there any sort of hunger or appetite stirring for the presence of God? Because the call is to follow hard after him. You're not going to just float downstream into his presence. You're going to have to paddle because the current is going a different direction.

So have you been diligent to do that? So here is we respond, here's what we're going to do. We're going to lift up our voices. We're just going to worship. We're going to marvel. And then I want you to come to the table, and I want you to ponder what Christ has done to make a way for us to be right with a holy God, to actually stand in his presence and to come boldly.

And then I want to seek. I want to seek his presence. Don't just assume that he's following you. We are the ones called to follow him.