The text we pray the Lord be pleased
to speak to us from here this evening.
It's from Psalm 16 verse 8.
Psalm 16 verse 8.
I want to speak tonight on the theme
cultivating the presence of God.
Cultivating the presence of God.
Psalm 16 verse 8.
This is a psalm of David and he,
the psalmist David writes, I have set the
Lord always before me because he is at
my right hand.
I shall not be moved.
This is one of the most important verses
that you'll ever find in your Bible.
It's most important because it deals at the
very heart of what Christianity is really all
about.
A relationship with Jesus Christ.
As I travel abroad and domestically I come
across increasingly pastor after pastor after pastor who
has to confess to me I don't know
how to maintain fellowship with God.
I don't know what you mean when you
talk about experiencing the presence of God.
And one of the things that grieves my
heart is that the Reformed movement ought to
be the most experiential aspect or part of
Christianity there is but it seems that we
have become the least experiential.
Do you know what I mean by experiential?
The experiencing of the doctrine that we had
told to adhere.
Martin Lloyd-Jones said he spent half of
his time stressing the importance of doctrine the
other half the time telling them that the
doctrine isn't everything.
It's only part of it.
And it's true.
There is another aspect of the Christian life
rather than just the doctrine but also the
experience, the reality of that doctrine, those truths
that we learn from the Word of God.
God didn't give you a Bible in order
to make theologians out of you and scholars.
He gave you a Bible that you might
study God, theologian, and that you might know
God personally in relationship and experience.
And here we have before us David the
psalmist, the man after God's own heart who
knew how to walk with his God.
And he gives you an insight to his
heart and to his practice of walking with
God and cultivating the presence of God.
And so tonight I want to be more
practical than I was this morning.
I want to be able to do teaching
as well as preaching on this subject.
How do I cultivate?
How do I walk with my God?
How do I fellowship with him?
And of course this will not be exhaustive.
I can't do that in just a few
minutes this evening.
But I hope to give you enough that
you'll be able to begin practicing as soon
as you leave this place from this blessed
psalm that has been such a blessing to
me.
The importance, oh the importance of being aware
of God's presence.
I cannot emphasize this enough.
You cannot live the Christian life as Jesus
intended you to do so without being conscious
and aware of his abiding presence.
The doctrine of the omniscience of God, the
doctrine of the eminence, immanency of God, God's
nearness, is not just to be something that
you can impress your friends with.
That you can say, listen I know about
God's eminence and I know about his omniscience
and his omnipresence and all of these wonderful
attributes.
But they are truths by which you can
experience him.
Now why is it so important that you
just not know that God dwells with you
but that you experience his presence?
Well I would say number one it's the
antidote to fear.
It's an antidote to fear.
David said in Psalm 23 in verse 4,
yea though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death I will fear no
evil.
Why?
Why would he fear no evil?
For thou art with me.
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
It was the abiding conscious presence of God
that drove the fear away from this servant
of the Lord when he was in dangerous
places in the very shadow of death.
To Joshua the Lord said have I not
commanded thee be strong and of a good
courage.
Be not afraid neither be thou dismayed for
the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever
thou goest.
It is the conscious awareness of the presence
of God that drives away the fear.
The tendency of our heart to be afraid
when we're faced with challenges that we cannot
overcome.
But not only is it an antidote to
fear it's an antidote to materialism.
If you do not want to be covetous,
if you do not want to follow the
stem and tide of most Americans even in
churches like this, materialism grip your heart then
you need to know how to cultivate the
conscious awareness of his presence.
Listen to what Hebrews chapter 13 and verse
5 says Hebrews 13 5.
Let your conversation, that is your lifestyle, your
conduct be without covetousness and be content with
such things as he hath for he hath
said I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee.
It's his presence with us that is the
provision we need for he is our provider.
When I know that God is with me
and that he's promised to meet my every
need the Lord is my shepherd I shall
not want.
Well then my heart is curbed in its
appetites and there's a restraint self-imposed because
I know my God will meet all of
my needs according to his riches and glory.
It's a great antidote to materialism.
A covetous person is a person who's not
aware and conscious of God's nearness.
Number three, it's so important because it's the
manifested presence of our God that is the
provision of power and strength we need to
do the Lord's will.
There's a verse that I always recite to
myself and believe before I step to a
pulpit.
You know what that verse is?
I've told you before.
This is homework.
I want to see how well you pass.
Anybody remember Isaiah chapter 41 and verse 10?
Fear thou not for I am with thee.
Be not dismayed for I am thy God.
I will strengthen thee.
Yea, I will help thee.
Yea, I will uphold thee with my righteous
right hand.
I recite that before I move to the
pulpit.
Why?
Because he's the power and the strength that
I need to do what I'm doing now.
Do you think that I think I have
the gifts and the abilities by natural giftedness
to move you to God?
To tinker with your heart and to apply
the application that you need to solve the
issues of the heart.
Well, no I don't.
I know better than that.
I've been doing this way too long.
I know that human power, human giftedness and
all of these things are not sufficient to
touch a person where they need the power
of God the most.
The soul, the spirit of a man.
Only God can touch that area of your
life.
And so as I come to do what
I am not sufficient to do, I call
upon the presence of God who promised I'll
never leave you.
I'll never forsake you.
I'll be with you.
I'll uphold you with my righteous right hand.
And so as David said in the Psalms,
I have set the Lord always before me.
Asaph said something that I really like in
Psalm 73 verse 28.
But it is good for me to draw
near to God.
I exceptionally love the Holman Christian Standard Bible,
now known as the Christian Standard Bible's translation
of this verse.
You know what it goes?
How it goes?
Here it is.
But as for me, God's presence is my
good.
Isn't that wonderful?
As for me, God's presence is my good.
Yes, sir.
You need the conscious awareness of his presence.
He didn't save you just so you could
get the ticket into heaven.
He saved you to fellowship, to walk with
you, to know you, to interact with you,
to have relationship with you.
But you say, yes, I know that God
is with me.
God is everywhere.
He's omnipresent.
Well, this is not a study on the
attribute of God's omnipresence.
What David is talking about here in our
text is the manifested presence of God.
It is to be consciously aware, to sense,
to feel, if you please, for a lack
of a better word, to be able to
feel the presence of God.
And when I use that word feel, I
don't want you to think necessarily emotions, but
there is a reality that grips you, that
abides with you, that gives you comfort, that
you are not alone ever.
That's what we're here to talk about.
It's exactly what Jesus promised his own disciples
and to those who loved him in John
chapter 14 verse 21.
He that hath my commandments and keepeth them
is he that loveth me, and he that
loveth me my father shall love him.
He shall be loved of my father, and
I will love him, and I will manifest
myself to him.
That's the promise of God.
Christ has promised to make himself known to
you.
Yes, we know God is omnipresent, but the
fact of his omnipresence has little impact on
most of our lives.
We hardly ever think about it.
Well, so you know the doctrine.
You know, well, you could explain it to
someone else.
Yes, but are you aware of his presence,
my friend?
I'd rather experience the presence of God than
to be able to define omnipresence.
This is a case where I often say
that the number one problem among Christian is
what?
They don't know what they know.
I read of a well-known Christian leader
who underwent a severe loss and as a
result learned something about himself that he didn't
previously know.
His discovery led him to pray.
Here's what he prayed.
I know you're all I have, but I
don't know you well enough for you to
be all that I need.
This is a man that if I mentioned
his name, you'd know it, most of you.
I know you're all I have, but I
don't know you well enough for you to
be all that I need.
And that's what we need to cultivate, beloved.
We need to cultivate the knowledge of God
so that we do know him so intimately,
so well, that he's all that we will
ever need and ever want.
A.
W.
Tozer said, the world is perishing for a
lack of the knowledge of God, and the
church is famishing for the want of his
presence.
What made today so special?
Because I was here?
Absolutely not.
I will take offense if anybody thinks that.
I tell you what made this day special.
God's presence was manifested in our midst.
He was here when I got here.
Duncan Campbell, the great revivalist Presbyterian of the
Hebrides revival of 1949 to 53.
After that event, people have invited them to
his church thinking that he carried revival in
his hip pocket and he had to tell
him, I don't.
No, it's not the presence of an evangelist
or a preacher that we need.
No, it's the abiding presence of almighty God.
And you need to cultivate that.
You need to know that you need to
be aware of that.
And you need to know how to cultivate
that.
But one question before we get into the
text, this is all introduction.
Thank you, Donnie.
I heard you laugh.
How does invisibility become manifest in a visible
world?
God is spirit, the immortal, the invisible God.
How does the invisible become manifest in a
visible world?
How does an immaterial being manifest himself in
a material world to a material being you
and me?
Well, you've got to learn how to discern
his real but invisible presence.
It said of Moses that he endured as
seeing him who is invisible.
Paul said, while we look not at things
which are seen, but at the things which
are not seen.
He also said, we don't walk by sight,
but by faith.
You see, faith is the organ of sight
and hearing and taste and touch for the
spiritual man.
When a Christian is behaving carnally, I know
for what it's for one reason.
It's because he or she has resorted back
to the physical sense of seeing to the
physical senses.
That's how they're living by their own senses.
And they refuse the spiritual site of faith.
Therefore, we've got to learn how to develop
the vision of faith so we can see
and experience the manifested presence of Christ.
This is not mystical.
This is not something out in left field.
This is biblical spirituality that I want to
communicate to you.
Well, you say yes, but why must we
learn?
Why must we learn to act or do
something in order to experience his presence?
Why can't the Lord just make himself manifested
to us?
Why do we have to do something?
Cultivate his presence, learn how to be aware
of his conscious presence.
Well, there's two reasons.
Now, my introduction is a little lengthy, even
more than normal, but you see the necessity,
do you not?
The first reason why God just doesn't make
himself known.
If the Lord made himself overwhelmingly present with
you, you couldn't live and function as you
ought in this world.
I'm sure that all of us have had
those times when the Lord forcibly made himself
aware to you when you're praying in your
closet or even maybe in a church service
like this today.
And you just knew that you knew God
was right there.
You could, the air was so electrified.
You could almost taste, yes, literally taste and
see that the Lord was good.
And those are blessed memories, are they not?
Seasons of great ecstasy.
But just like the blessed experience that Peter,
James, and John had on the Mount of
Transfiguration, they could not nor can you perpetually
live in that kind of environment or atmosphere.
But we can live in a climate where
we are continually aware of his presence.
And it is the perpetual awareness that David
is speaking of.
I have set the Lord always before me
because he's at my right hand.
I shall not be moved.
But there's a second reason why God just
doesn't pop out and make himself known to
you.
The Lord, if I can say this reverently,
with all seriousness and sobriety, the Lord wants
to be wanted.
He doesn't need it.
He's self-sufficient, but he wants to be
wanted.
Personal relationships develop not because someone forces themselves
upon another.
Those relationships won't ever work.
But because both parties move towards each other,
you can have as much of the Lord
Jesus as you want.
And he's done everything to show you that
he wants a relationship with you.
And he has done everything to make it
possible.
Now it's up to you.
You have your responsibility in this relationship.
And that's to seek him, to desire him,
to want to be aware and interact with
his presence.
All right.
Let us move now to the text.
Here, I want to give you just a
brief outline of how you can develop and
cultivate a conscious awareness of the presence of
God.
Number one, a determined will must be in
place.
A determined will.
Notice the words, I have set the Lord
before me.
I, he was determined to live in the
conscious awareness of the presence of God.
David, this man after God's own heart would
not be satisfied with anything less.
My heart pants after thee, as the heart
pants after the water brooks.
When shall I come and appear before my
God?
You hear this kind of language from David
all the time.
Early will I seek thee, as my soul
longeth after thee.
My flesh desires you as in a dry
place.
This is the language of a lover, a
man who's in love with his God, who's
not just satisfied to know that he's right
with his God, but that he wanted to
experience this God.
He wants to have communion and fellowship with
this God.
And so his will was determined.
Is your will determined that you will know
God and you will experience his presence, that
you will not leave it up to the
preachers of this fine church to stimulate and
stir your soul so you have some kind
of sense of God's presence when they preach,
but that you will carry that with you
into your own prayer closet, to your own
times of being alone with God, where you
meet with him who is in secret, and
he who is in secret will reward you.
How?
With the manifestation of his presence.
Hebrews 11, 6 says that those that come
to God must believe that he is and
that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him.
What is the reward if their diligent seeking
him can be none other than him himself,
God?
Is this the determination of your will?
I want to know my God.
I know him, but I know him only
so little.
Do you not mourn?
Is there no grief about you that you
should be further along than you are?
I feel that way all the time.
The older I get, the more I read
and learn about my God, the more I
experience him.
I moan the fact that I've wasted so
much time.
Oh, God.
Why was David like this?
And if you look at David, you see
that he's simply a type of the Lord
Jesus Christ here.
This is what God, our Lord Jesus, did.
Why was he up late at night praying?
Why would he spend the entire night in
prayer, get away before the dawn and before
the disciples were awake, and get alone and
pray?
Why was this?
Why?
Because he loved his father, and he loved
his father's presence.
He enjoyed being consciously aware of the fellowship
of God.
He just didn't get alone and memorize scripture
and just say, well, there, I've got that
scripture memorized.
Now it's done.
That's all I needed to do.
No, he let the scripture and the wind
of the Spirit make the presence of God
real to him.
And so must you and I.
There must be a determined will to do
this, to live in this kind of awareness,
because it is possible.
One of the toughest jobs I've got tonight
is to make you believe that such as
possible.
Some of you have been Christians for many
years, and there are rare moments where you
experience the presence of God.
Some of them are almost a fog, foggy
memory.
Now, my dear friends, it shouldn't be a
foggy memory should be something you can recall
just recently, maybe like this morning.
I experienced the presence of God, and I'm
not boasting.
I'm just trying to convince you this is
a reality that's not just for preachers.
It's for any one of you.
God doesn't love us anymore.
He loves you.
We're just a member of the body of
Christ like you are.
We're a sinner saved by grace, just like
you are.
We have a function in the body, just
like you have a function.
It's different, of course.
It's certainly crucial to the body, but it's
not more special.
Yesterday morning, I experienced the presence of God
early in the morning.
So real that my body literally basked in
the physical pleasure and joy of being in
the presence of God.
I could feel it.
It's nothing like it to know that you're
in God's presence and he's right there and
his smile is upon you.
You talk about making a man ready to
run through a troop and leap over a
wall.
When you know the presence of God is
abiding with you at my right hand, my
friend, why?
Who should I be afraid of?
A determined will.
Secondly, a determined method.
Look at the word set here.
I have set the Lord before me.
David did something.
You could use another word.
I have established the Lord's presence before me.
This word set is used in other places
in the Bible.
Do you remember one key place where the
word set is recorded?
It's in the New Testament, Colossians chapter three,
set your affection on things above, not on
the earth below.
And here David is exactly saying the same
thing.
I have set, I've taken my heart and
its affections and I'm focused upon God.
And I've made it as if God is
right here before me.
He sets the Lord, perhaps a crude illustration.
What do you do when you determine you
want to get up at a certain hour
in the morning?
What do you do?
You set your alarm clock.
The setting of the alarm is a determined
method of waking at the desired hour.
My dear friends, we must have a determined
method.
There must be a method by which you
cultivate the presence of God.
David said, I have set the Lord before
me.
What is that determined method?
And I have studied the scriptures.
I have sought the Lord for many years
to come to this understanding.
And there's only one thing.
It is a deliberate meditation on the word
of God.
So this is not mystical after all.
And yet it's just as real and experiential
as anything you could ever experience.
A deliberate meditation on the word of God,
specifically on the promise of God's presence.
This is how you set the Lord before
you.
You meditate on the promise of God's presence.
What did Jesus say as he ascended back
to the father?
I am with you all the way, even
until the end of the age.
What a blessed thing to think about.
Before you do your devotions, before you open
your Bible in the morning to pray or
whenever it is, you read your Bibles.
Stop.
Don't read your Bibles.
You'll never hear another preacher say that probably.
Maybe Kyle because he's heard me say it.
Don't read your Bibles.
Quit reading Bibles.
Writing Bibles is not what the Bible told
you to do.
Some of you are looking like me.
I knew there was something wrong about you.
You'll never find, all you want, Genesis and
Revelation.
There's not one command that tells you to
read.
But there's numerous ones that tells you to
study and to meditate on the word of
God.
Quit reading your Bible to get through the
chapter a day or exchange reading plan or
whatever program you're using.
Read your Bible to experience God.
Read your Bible to experience the reality of
His presence and His promises.
Read this book as if it's God's personal
word to you and meditate.
And God has made you a promise, I
will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
And so before you read this book, in
order to experience His presence, you need to
stop and believe that His presence is with
you.
Meditate.
You set the Lord before me.
How do you do that?
You simply take the promises, God you're with
me, you're in this room right now, I'm
not alone.
And you believe it.
You believe it.
It's not having that scripture memorized that's going
to give you the awareness of His presence.
It's believing that promise.
You're in this room with me.
Why?
God is in this room right now.
The Almighty Lord, the one who walked on
the Sea of Galilee, the one who stopped
the bear, the funeral bear at Nain and
raised that boy back to life.
He's here.
The one who broke the bread and fed
the 5,000.
He's in this room.
The one who by the blast of His
nostrils caused the Red Sea to heap up
like walls.
He's here.
He's in this room.
We're not alone dear friends.
And the more you believe that promise, I
have set the Lord always before me.
You begin to sense.
Because it's faith that sees the invisible.
It's by faith, taking God's word, believing what
it says, that you get the sense of
reality.
Now please, please be careful with me and
listen intently and purposely.
I'm not after you getting a bunch of
emotions or feelings, even though I use these
words.
I'm not after that.
That's not really what I'm after.
I don't think that's what God would be
pleased for you to pursue.
Because the devil can give you any feeling
or experience you want.
What we're after is the sense of reality.
There are times when I know that God
is with me.
I, by faith, believe it.
I don't necessarily feel anything tingly or warm
or wonderful.
But there's something in my heart that stands
at attention.
Something in my heart that's aware that He
is there in that room with me.
That I am not alone.
And it's with that awareness that I enter
into the word of God and begin to
read.
Knowing that God is speaking to me through
this book.
And my prayers are nothing more than my
response to what He has said in this
book.
That's the deliberate method.
That's the determined method of cultivating the presence
of God.
Well, number three.
There is a determined routine.
A determined routine.
I have set the Lord always before me.
Notice the word always.
This is something you continually do.
You do this whether you feel it or
not.
Now, I was sharing this with a group
of young men the other day.
And I said to them, sometimes when I
do this.
Before I open my Bible and begin to
pray.
As I meditate upon the presence of God.
That He is there with me.
I don't sense anything.
I don't have no sense of reality.
That may go on for five minutes.
It may go on for 30 minutes.
But I don't open this book and start
reading.
Until I am, by faith, seeing and experiencing
the presence of His person.
Because why read this?
This holy word of God.
You will not have understanding apart from His
help.
All you're going to do is read for
information.
Because that's what you've been trained to do
all of your church lives.
You're going to read and hopefully you'll find
a verse that might give you some comfort.
Or some peace or some joy.
But you're going to read.
And after you've done so, you'll close your
Bible.
And you probably can't remember by 10 o
'clock what you read at 7 a.m.
No, no.
Don't waste the word of God like that.
Get your heart ready.
Get it warm.
To the presence of God.
And then when you begin to read.
You will find you'll have to reach for
a Kleenex box.
Because you'll see your eyes will begin to
be moistened.
Because you know God is speaking to you
through the word of God.
But it's something you always do.
When I don't feel, cannot be consciously aware
of His presence.
I don't say, well, tomorrow morning we'll give
it another try.
No, sir.
I've learned I can't wait till tomorrow morning.
Because if I wait till tomorrow morning.
Something's going to come up to deter my
heart.
And my heart will be even duller.
And I'll want to do it even less.
No.
That moment is the moment you do business.
That's the moment you don't leave until you
get the conscious awareness of His presence.
Otherwise, you're on a downward spiral, my friend.
Deal with it immediately.
A determined routine.
If you please, you can just simply say,
practicing the presence of God.
This is what we're talking about.
This is what David is teaching us here.
He consistently practiced throughout his day the presence
of God.
A determined routine.
Oh, how we need God.
You say, but I know.
I'm saved.
I have God.
Oh, yes.
But we're not talking about the knowledge of
your salvation.
We're talking about the knowing that He is
with you.
And His abiding presence is with you.
Number four.
A determined focus.
I have set the Lord always before me.
Before me.
He says, I put the Lord right there
before me.
I act as if God's right there in
front of me.
What does He mean by that?
Well, I think He means this.
A mind fixed upon the Lord.
He has set His mind.
He has fixed, focused His mind upon the
Lord.
Isaiah 26.3 You will keep Him in
perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee
because He trusts in You.
So what is your mind fixed upon mostly?
You answer the question right now.
Please, answer it to your own self.
What is your mind mostly fixed upon?
If you don't fix your mind, the world
will fix it for you.
It will focus it for you.
The world, life, trials, living, work, relationships, children,
spouses.
All of these things will begin to determine
the focus and the attention of the mind.
No sir, you've got to be determined here.
There has to be a determined will, a
focused mind.
I'm going to set my mind on the
Lord and His presence, that He's with me
always.
Friends, I'm not speaking to the elders in
this church only.
I'm speaking to all of us.
This is your God called responsibility.
You are as responsible as I am to
exercise this kind of determination.
No wonder most of us are weak.
No wonder the enemy has his sway and
power over us.
We're not doing the very essence of what
Christianity is.
We're not practicing relationship with God.
We have a relationship and therewith we're happy.
But friends, what kind of marriage would work
that way?
I've got the license, we live together under
the same roof, we're married, we're related.
No, no, no.
No, that relationship has to be continually cultivated.
We've already heard what happens.
It can happen over a space of time
and over the years.
You drift apart if you don't actively, determinedly
fix your mind upon one another and cultivate
the relationship.
Oh, I see it among Christians all these
years.
I've grieved as I've watched Christian couples grow
apart because they don't cultivate the relationship.
How in the world do you believe you
can know God and walk with God if
you don't cultivate this?
It's impossible.
Herein is our problem.
Well, we're reformed.
We believe in the sovereignty of God.
God takes the initiative.
Yes, He does.
He is the pursuer.
He's the suitor.
But as the bride, we have a reciprocal
responsibility as well.
The sovereignty of God does not eliminate my
responsibility.
And according to my effort in this relationship,
to that degree I will experience the conscious
presence of God.
It's not the blame of the Lord.
It's not His fault that our relationship is
weak and we know Him so little and
we experience His power so, so little.
No, it's because we've not done what we
should do in the relationship.
What is your fine mind fixed upon?
This is where the Word of God is
absolutely essential.
You've got to fix your word upon the
truth.
How do you think of God?
How do you think when you think about
God?
It's been said that what comes into your
mind when you think about God is the
most important thing about you.
The most important thing about you is what
you think when you think about God.
When God comes to your mind, does He
come to you as a being very present,
very near?
A being at your right hand, as David
said?
Or do you think of Him in heaven,
wherever that is?
Tell me, what do you think?
When you think of the Lord God, do
you sense His nearness?
Do you believe He's right here at your
right hand?
Or do you see Him with the pastor?
Or the place where the saints gather?
Or do you feel as if He's some
million miles away?
What do you think about God when you
think about Him?
The Puritan Thomas Watson wrote, The first fruit
of love.
The first fruit of love.
If you really love Jesus, here is the
first fruit of that love.
It is the musing of the mind upon
God.
In common modern vernacular, the first evidence of
a true love for God is that the
mind meditates, contemplates, studies, thinks about, daydreams about
God.
That's what He's saying.
He who is in love, his thoughts are
ever upon the object.
He who loves God is ravished and transported
with the contemplation of God.
When I awake, says David, I am still
with thee.
God said to the psalmist, when I am
awake, I am still with thee.
God is the treasure and where the treasure
is, there is the heart.
And by this way we may test our
love to God.
What are our thoughts most upon?
Can we say we're ravished with delight when
we think about Jesus?
Have your thoughts got wings?
Do they fly away and get distracted onto
something else?
Do you contemplate Christ in His glory?
A sinner crowds God out of his thoughts.
He never thinks of God unless with horror
as a prisoner thinks of the judge.
Oh, my friend, how do you think of
God?
And do you?
Do you?
Well, there's a determined result here.
It's the last half of this verse.
Because He's at my right hand, I shall
not be moved.
An unshakable spirit is the result of a
person who's cultivated the practice of the presence
of God in their lives.
An unshakable spirit.
We don't know what may happen to us.
Not even before this night is over.
And we certainly can't predict tomorrow.
Your calendar may be full, your schedule is
brimming.
But you still can't predict what's going to
happen tomorrow.
But the Christian who's learned to cultivate the
presence of God doesn't need to know.
Doesn't need to know at all.
He or she has this firm and resolute
spirit.
They're unshakable because He's at my right hand.
I shall not be moved.
And he or she can face whatever tomorrow
brings.
Why?
Because they know God will be with them.
An unshakable spirit.
How are you, my friend?
Any least bit of troubling news causes your
heart to tremor?
Are you easily disquieted when things don't go
your way at all?
It proves one thing.
You have not a mind who's set on
God and you're not practicing His presence.
Not only is there an unshakable spirit, but
an unquenchable power.
There's a power when you're conscious of the
presence of God.
I need Thee every hour.
Stay Thou nearby.
Temptations lose their power when Thou art nigh.
It's kind of hard to sin, to give
in to temptation when you know God's right
there at your right hand.
And you're really conscious of that.
Now there are some signs of not cultivating
the presence of God.
What are they, number one?
Just the opposite of everything I've said.
Anxiety, worry, and doubt.
Are you a person given to anxiety, worry?
Then, my friend, you're not practicing the presence
of God.
The person who is practicing the presence of
God, the news may be terrible, but they
immediately go to God because God is their
environment.
They live and breathe in His presence.
Another evidence that you're not practicing the presence
of God is that there's dryness in your
service to God.
You do what you're supposed to do because
you know better.
You know you need to do so.
But there's no life in it.
It's dry.
It's dull.
You're going through the motions.
I told you about the pastor this morning
who said his ministry had just turned into
going through the motions.
And what was the reason?
And the reason was that in his time
on the loan, he was just going through
the motions there as well.
There was nothing vital.
There was nothing vibrant.
Nothing alive.
No sense of God in that closet of
prayer.
Dryness in our service.
Another evidence that you're not cultivating the presence
of God is you only turn to the
Lord when you're in trouble.
It's the only time you get really serious
with God is when the heat's turned up.
But brother, I want to say to you,
if you want to find the Lord in
the time of trouble, and don't we all,
we need Him.
If you want to find Him in that
hour of trouble, set Him before you when
you're not in trouble.
Because if you wait until you're in trouble,
you'll not do it.
You're just not doing it.
I've watched this.
I've seen this in my own life as
well as others' lives.
It's been confirmed over and over.
When you do not practice the presence of
God and not walking in His presence, conscious
of Him, well, when trouble comes, you then
are immediately beset with a hundred doubts.
I can't call upon God now.
You haven't been walking with Him.
You're just playing the role of a hypocrite.
Why would He listen to you now?
And you're further depressed.
I can't depend upon the Lord because He
can't depend upon me.
And Satan will do everything he can to
keep you from acknowledging the presence and the
help of God.
No, no, that's not the time to do
it.
Beforehand, practice it, learn to do so now,
so that when the hour of trial comes
your way, oh, you will not be cast
out, but you will know that God's help
is immediate and certain.
Well, there's one great objection to all of
this that I always hear when I talk
to people about practicing the presence of God.
Do you know what that objection is?
How can I focus my mind on the
Lord when I must be focused on my
work, my job, my task at hand?
It takes all my powers of concentration to
do my work.
How can I practice the presence of God?
Well, David answers the objection.
It's right there in your text.
He knew what you were going to object
and say.
Therefore, he has the argument ready.
David answers the objection by saying, because he's
at my right hand, I shall not be
moved.
In other words, I live as if God
is bodily right here at my right hand.
Therefore, I engage him in all that I
do.
Whether I'm at work, I acknowledge his presence
and say, Lord, what do you think we
ought to do here?
When I'm confronted with a difficult situation, a
terrible phone call, I've got to give an
answer.
Lord, you're right here.
What do I do?
What do I say?
You promise wisdom.
David is saying, no matter what I'm doing,
I work and labor and function as if
God's right there with me.
I engage him.
What if Brother Kyle or Brother Brian went
to work with you tomorrow?
They had gained the permission of your employer.
And so they hang around just to watch
you, just to observe you.
Because they want to get better acquainted with
you and see what you do.
Because you spend eight hours at least a
day, every day at work.
And so they want to get a better
idea of what you have to face.
And so there they are with you.
Do you think you'd never say a word
to them all day long?
Do you think you'd never engage them in
conversation at all?
Do you think you'd never look at them
and say something or even wink at them?
Acknowledge them at all?
Of course not.
You would converse.
You would acknowledge them.
You would talk.
You would engage one another.
Well, my dear friends, greater is He who's
with you every single moment of the hour
than any of us.
He abides with you.
He promised, I'll never leave thee, nor forsake
thee.
I am with you always.
He is there.
And He's watching you.
He covers you as a shield and a
buckler.
He spreads His wings, and under His wings
you do abide and dwell.
Can you not acknowledge that?
Will you not speak to Him?
Will you not engage Him in your daily
activities?
Because He wants to be.
He wants to be your partner.
He wants to be your co-laborer.
Come unto me, ye who are heavy laden,
burdened and heavy laden.
I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke
is easy and my burden is light.
He wants to be there.
Because He loves you.
This is the most incredible thing.
That the God of the universe, this wise,
omnipotent, omniscient God, would delight that He'd want
to be with me.
I know He loves me.
But you know, I also know He likes
me.
Because you never like to be around somebody
you don't like.
You can love them, but you don't necessarily
like them.
But God loves you, and He likes you,
because He wants to fellowship with you.
My dear friend, what I have talked about
is not a dream.
It's not for the spiritually elite.
It is your potential.
It's your promise.
It's your birthright.
It's your inheritance.
Live it.
Enjoy it.
Experience it.
God has saved you to walk with you,
to talk with you.
That you might know Him in intimacy and
in love.
Cultivate the presence of God.
I have set the Lord always before me.
Because He's at my right hand, I shall
not be moved.
Amen.
Our Father and our God, we are grateful
to you tonight for your help.
And I pray that we will not forget
this message.
Take this mere introduction into this wonderful subject.
And may the days to come develop it,
Lord, in their hearts.
Make this a church that comes together and
experiences the overflow of everyone else's personal relationship
with you.
Lord, these worship services are not designed, it
seems to me, to pump us up, to
encourage us, to lift us up, and enthuse
us so that we can go out and
live the Christian life.
That they should be more or less places
where we overflow and spill out of our
personal walk with you of this week.
And thereby we are encouraged.
Oh, help us, Lord, to experience what you
died for.
Reconciliation with you.
You, the same God that would come in
the cool of the evening and commune with
Adam and Eve.
The same God who walked with Enoch.
Called Abraham friend.
Talked to Moses face to face as a
friend.
Oh, Lord, we delight in you.
We want to know you more intimately.
We pray, Lord, that whatever the barriers are
that keeps us dull-witted and cool-hearted
towards you, you'd help us to remove them.
The veil, Lord, has been torn in Christ.
Access has been made by faith into this
grace wherein we stand.
Oh, set us at liberty, Lord.
Let us know the privilege that is ours.
Starting even this night, I pray in Jesus'
name.
Amen.