God’s Omnipresence

Omnipresence means the state of being present everywhere. God is all-present.

 God is everywhere at once. He is everywhere present all the time. We
cannot escape His presence. He is near to everything and everyone.
 The heavens cannot contain God. HE fills the heaven and earth. (1 Kings
8:27)
 No one can hide from God. He is always near at hand. (Jeremiah 23:23-24)
 There is no creature hidden from God’s sight. All things are naked and
opened to His sight. (Hebrew 4:13)

Read Psalm 139:7-12

Ps 139:7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your
presence?

Is there a place we can escape from God? The answer is No. There is no such place
that God cannot reach. There is nowhere we can be where God’s presence and
Spirit is not.  Omnipresent means all-present, God is everywhere in the universe at
the same time, although he is not limited by space or time, there is no space or time
where God is absent. It’s not just a part of God that’s everywhere; God Himself is
everywhere – God is spirit, John 4 says, and we must worship Him in spirit and
truth. 

Psalm 139: 8  If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in
[c]hell, behold, You are there.

*Sheol is the Hebrew word for death or the grave

Death will not separate us from God. Hell- is not created by Satan. God created it
to punish Satan and his angels. God is present there as judge.

Psalm 139: 9-10 If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost
parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand
shall hold me.
Distance will not separate us from God. Story of Jonah. He was swallowed by a
great fish, but God was with him and heard his prayer.

V10 = This is such a comforting verse because of the assuring fact that God’s hand
will lead and hold onto us.  David, as he wrote this, he knew that God was present
back when He was a shepherd boy, he would write “The Lord is my shepherd …
he leads me, restores me, makes me lie down.”  He knew that God was with him
when he faced Goliath and later the Philistine armies.  “One plus God is always a
majority.”  He knew God was with him when he had to flee for his life, he knew
God was with him when his family and kingdom later unraveled in a coup attempt,
he knew and lived God’s presence as a man after God’s own heart.

Psalm 139: 11-12 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall [d]fall on me,” Even the
night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness [e]shall not hide from You,
But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to
You.

SO DEATH WILL NOT SEPARATE US FROM GOD, DISTANCE WILL NOT

SEPARATE US FROM GOD, BUT NOTICE ALSO IN V. 11 THAT
DARKNESS WILL NOT SEPARATE US FROM GOD

The “darkness” here could go beyond the idea that God can see in the dark, verses
11-12 may refer to dark times – the language and principle could apply to trials in
your life, God is always with us. 

That in any distress, God is there to help.

Remember when Potiphar’s “desperate housewife” was trying to seduce Joseph

when they were all alone in the house – what did he say?

“How could I do this great evil and sin against God?” (39:9)

God was with Joseph in this temptation, he was with him when he was in the pit
and left for dead, He was with Joseph when he was sold into slavery, when he was
earning his way to favor in the eyes of Potiphar, when he was falsely accused and
sent to prison, when he was forgotten in prison by those who he helped got out, he
was with him when Joseph was elevated to stature in Egypt, when he needed to
forgive his brothers, when he was able to preserve the children of Israel.  God was
always with him and is with you!

 Implications/ Truths to Remember:

God is not limited by time or space
First, God cannot be contained in a building. Solomon said as much in the
dedication of the First Temple in Jerusalem. Sometimes I hear well-meaning
people call the church the “house of God,” as if his presence somehow specially
dwells in a building made by the hands of man. But a church is not a holy place in
the sense that the temple was a holy place. Today God dwells among his people
and in his people wherever they are and wherever they go.
Second, God cannot be localized in a city or a nation. This truth should keep us
from boasting too much in our supposed moral superiority. God is not an American
nor does he exist to defend and perpetuate our form of government.
Third, God cannot be reduced to an image or a statue. This is why the Second
Commandment warns against making “graven images.” It is also why the Jews
refused to make any pictures, drawings or statutes of God. The danger of idolatry
is so great that J. I. Packer in Knowing God warns against the danger of religious
pictures, even innocent drawings of Jesus. The truth is, we don’t know what he
looked like and any picture or statues meant as an “aid to devotion” may somehow
lead to superstitious worship.
Fourth, he is always present whether we believe it or not. In the early days of space
travel, one of the Russian cosmonauts returned from orbiting the earth to announce
that he had looked out his space capsule and had not seen God anywhere. To which
Dr. W. A. Criswell of the First Baptist Church of Dallas replied, “Let him take off
his space suit for just one second and he’ll see God quick enough.”
Fifth, he is present even in the worst moments of life. God’s omnipresence means
that he is there in the midst of suffering, pain, sickness, sorrow, anger, grief,
bitterness, divorce, betrayal, murder, rape, sexual abuse, cancer, AIDS, abortion,
warfare, famine, earthquakes, fires, floods, every natural disaster, accidents,
personal loss, and at the moment of death.
Sixth, he is always available to us wherever we go, 24 hours a day. We always
have his full attention, we don’t have to make an appointment, he’s never too busy
to hear us when we pray, he’s never preoccupied with other problems. Can you
imagine what it would be like if we prayed only to have a angel tell us, “I’m sorry,
but God is busy handling a major crisis in the Middle East. Leave your name and
number and someone will get back to you as soon as possible.” That will never
happen because all of God is completely available to you no matter where you are.
Though there be a thousand wars in a thousand places, our God hears you as if you
were the only one praying.
Seventh, we may rely fully on him no matter how desperate our situation may be.
This week I spoke with two of our senior adults. One has just been diagnosed with
cancer. When I talked with her, she said, “Pastor, don’t worry about me. The Lord
has been so good to me.” She’s 80 years old. Later I spoke with a woman who is
90, very weak and frail and eager to go to heaven. Her voice quivered, but her faith
was strong. “I’m just trusting in the Lord,” she told me. These dear saints have
learned through a lifetime of walking with God that he will never leave them for he
is always present with his people.
God is always present everywhere in the universe
God is present even though we do not realize it. One writer said that God’s
presence is like the air we breathe. Air is odorless, tasteless, invisible (when it’s
not polluted). Most of the time we don’t even think about the air we breathe, yet
we depend on it for our very existence. Even so God’s presence is everywhere with
us, and if it were withdrawn, none of us could survive for even one moment.
God can be ignored but he cannot be avoided
You can ignore God but you can’t avoid him. That’s why Genesis 16:13 calls him
(in Hebrew) El Roi, which means The God Who Sees. Every sin you commit is
committed in the presence of God. He hears every white lie, he knows when you
cheat, he listens when you swear under your breath, he takes note of every bad
thoughts etc. You can’t avoid him even if you try.
God promises to draw near to anyone who will draw near to Him
God is always near his people. This promise is repeated many places in scripture.
Hebrews 13:5b says, ‘‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” In
Matthew 28:20b Jesus promised, “I am with you always."And in Deuteronomy
31:6, as he was nearing the end of his long life, Moses reminded his people, “Be
strong and courageous. Do not be terrified because of them, for the Lord your God
goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
The Bible also tells us that he draws near to us in times of pain and suffering.
Psalm 34:18 tells us that “the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those
who are crushed in spirit.” Many of God’s choicest servants have experienced
God’s powerful, uplifting presence in the midst of unspeakable sorrow. Often they
look back later and marvel at how God brought them through when their own
resources completely failed.
He is also near when we least expect him. Second Kings 6:8-18 tells how the
mighty armies of Aram had completely surrounded the people of God at Dothan.
When his servant saw the enemy drawn up on every side, he cried out in fear,
“What will we do?” Elisha told him not to fear because, “those that are with us are
more than those who are with them” (v. 16). Then Elisha prayed that the servant’s
eyes might be supernaturally opened. They were, and as he looked up, he “saw the
hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (v. 17).
Something like that needs to happen to many of us. We need a glimpse of God’s
presence all around us—even in the midst of difficult circumstances. Maybe you
don’t need a new neighborhood or a new job or a new school. You need to see the
angels of God surrounding you right now!
We also know that he draws near to those who approach him in humble faith. In
Psalm 145:18 we read that “the Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call
on him in truth.” James 4:8 challenges us to “come near to God and He will come
near to you.” To quote Tony Evans once again, “God is with you if you are with
God! If you are far from God today, who moved? He’s right where he always said
he would be. If you aren’t conscious of his presence, perhaps it’s because you have
moved away from him.”
There is one final promise we need to remember. This is the most important
promise of all. He promises to walk with us in the hour of death. You will not pass
across the threshold of death alone.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
for you are with me” (Psalm 23:1-4).
The best two words in Psalm 23 are two little words in verse 4: “You are with me.”
The shepherd is no longer up ahead leading the flock. The valley is too dark for
that. Now he is walking with us, step by step, walking side by side reassuring his
sheep by his calm presence.
If God is with us, we have nothing to fear.
Death casts a frightening shadow over all of life. Visit any hospital or nursing
home and you will see the fear on the faces of the patients. Go to a funeral and
watch the faces of the mourners. One reason we hate funerals is because we don’t
want to face the truth of our own mortality.
We can struggle with many other enemies but we can’t struggle with death. The
grim reaper wins every time.
We’ll all eventually go through the valley of the shadow of death. We need a guide
to help us find our way through that land of darkness to the light on the other side.
Where will we find a guide who can take us through that valley? We’ve got to find
someone who’s been there before, who’s gone through himself, who can take us by
the hand and lead us where he’s already been.
But thank God, we don’t walk through that valley alone. Jesus will walk with us.
He’ll lead us through to the other side.

Most people are not comfortable with an omnipresent God. That’s why they have
idols. They want a god they can see and feel and touch. A god they can understand.
A god they can control. A god made by their own hands.
But you can’t fully understand the God of the Bible. And you certainly can’t
control him.
Questions:
How can a proper understanding of God’s omnipresence drive you to be more obedient and
holy?

How should your understanding of God’s omnipresence affect your worship?

APPLICATIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF GOD’S OMNIPRESENCE

Because God is everywhere, How should these truths affect us or what

difference should it make to affect our lives?

ILLUSTRATION: I suspect we do not often live in light of God’s

omnipresence. 

We live and speak differently when we know someone else is watching. Maybe
you and your sibling or parent are arguing outside about something and then
when you saw someone familiar / someone from church. You’ll like change
from a good mood.

You might drive down EDSA and whenever you see a cop, you slow down, but
not even thinking twice about God Himself

You might watch different TV shows or change the channel quicker if certain
people from are in the living room, but the Holy Spirit Himself is always on
the couch

What is lacking is that we do not realize that He is here, and most of us Act
like He is here. And because of lack of Faith and sin in our lives, He is not
manifesting His presence in powerful ways among us, but HE is here.

Imagine what it would be like to have the literal presence of Jesus next to you,
to be able to talk to Him, ask Him questions, and just know He’s next to you
to help you.  As believers, we do have that privilege!  If we really believe God’s
omnipresence it will (not can) affect how we live.
When kids see us looking right at them, and go ahead and disobey, that is
defiance!  But everytime we disobey God, knowing what His word says,
sometimes even having the conviction kick in and there is that opportunity to
stop and turn, and we all know God is looking right at us – to continue and sin
is rebellion and defiance of high degree.

If you knew your sins and thoughts would be shown on the overhead tonight
at Bible study, no one would be in this room.  When we sin, the fundamental
problem is that we do not take God seriously enough – we are not really living
in light of what we know about His omnipresence, and are presumptuously
sinning.

A. Worship-   We should praise God

The omnipresence of God means that we can worship Him

ANYWHERE. Anywhere you go, you can worship God.

God’s attributes and character are not just to be intellectually analyzed, they

are to be adored.  I like what one writer said:

Indeed, one cannot think of God and His wondrous works without bursting
forth into praise.  This is the reason why in so many textbooks of theology,
even in the midst of their exposition of the truth, the author allows his feelings
of love and praise to God to break through. It is well that such is the case.  To
be pitied is the man who can discourse about the greatness of God without
emotion. He who knows God and loves Him cannot speak of Him without
feeling … If we are not moved to praise by the contemplation of God’s
attributes, we may well examine our hearts whether we possess the true
knowledge of God. When the devout heart begins to contemplate the greatness
of God, it loses itself in wonder, love, and praise. (E. J. Young, Psalm 139: A
Study in Omniscience, 70-71.
B. Comfort           

— Psalm 46:1 “God is our refuge and strength; a very present help in
time of need”!
— Isaiah 43:2 “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk
through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you.”

God says there is no situation you will ever endure in life in which
you cannot know that He is with you. “Though the earth should change
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea” – He will be a “very
present help” – not just “present”, but “VERY present”! It doesn’t
matter where you are – He is with you!

Psalm 23 says “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me”!
When King Nebuchadnezzar threw Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah
into the fiery furnace in Daniel, the Bible says that Nebuchadnezzar
stood to his feet and said, “Was it not three men we cast into the midst
of the fire? … Look, I see FOUR men”! – and the appearance of the
fourth was like the Son of God! They were not alone – even in the fiery
furnace. God was with them!

In the same way, when YOU walk through YOUR “fiery furnaces” of
life, God is always there with you in that fire. He will be with you in
your heartbreak; He will be with you in your illness; He will be with you
in that financial struggle; He will be with you in that false accusation;
He will be with you when you that bad news breaks; He will be with you
when everyone else has deserted you; though father and mother give
you up; He will not. Though friend and lover leave you; He will be with
you. Even when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death –
He will be with you!
 That is the truth: God is everywhere, and He will be with you no matter
what. But it is up to US to realize that He is with us, and to ACT like
He is. In Psalm 16, David says: “I have set the Lord continually before
me.” The truth is, the Lord IS continually with us; but we don’t always
ACT like He is. It is up to us to “practice the presence of the Lord” and
consciously rely on Him by faith in those time. That same Psalm goes
on to say: “In Your presence is fullness of joy.” If we would only realize
that God is with us every moment of our lives, what a difference it
would make; what a comfort we would find in that constant presence!

C. Conviction/Holiness
Just as we saw earlier in Psalm 139, where it says “darkness and light
are alike to Thee”, the fact of God’s omnipresence can be both a source
of comfort and conviction. It is a source of comfort: He is always with
us. But it is also a source of conviction: you cannot get away from God!
We saw earlier that Jonah is an example of that: he wanted to get
away “from the presence of the Lord”, but he found that he could not.
In the hold of the ship, God was with him. In the middle of the sea, God
was with him. In the belly of the fish, God was with Him. He could not
escape His presence, no matter where he went, for good or for bad – and
neither can you!
We like to think of God, at least subconsciously, as “residing” in
certain places, like in heaven, or in church – and then that we “leave”
Him there, and then go and do as we please, and He will leave us alone.
But the truth is, you never leave His presence. You cannot “rope off”
certain areas of your life, as if God were not there. He is with you
everywhere – and that means everywhere!
We saw last week that Elisha’s servant Gehazi tried to sneak away
and take some money and clothing that he was not supposed to take.
Elisha, speaking with the Spirit of the Lord, said, “Did not my heart go
with you” when you went to get that money? He tried to hide, but he
could not hide from God. He was with him every step. And the same
thing is true for YOU! God didn’t stay in church last Sunday; He was
with you everywhere you went. He was with you at the Mardi Gras ball
and all the activities you participated in last week, do you know that? It
is not like God wasn’t there and you get a “free pass” on that stuff! His
Spirit was with you. God was with when you made that business deal
last week. He was right there when you told that lie. He was sitting
beside you as you made every click of the mouse on your computer – do
you realize that? You are not just in His presence on Sunday morning –
you are just as much in His presence on Friday and Saturday night! He
never leaves you – that should comfort you sometimes; it should also
convict you. If this is true – and it is – God’s word for some of you this
morning is that there are some things in your life that need to change —
TODAY! — because He is always with you.
D.Mission
In Matthew 28, Jesus gave us the Great Commission: “Go therefore
and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all
that I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of
the age.” Jesus commanded us to go to all the nations – a daunting task
– but He also gave us the promise that He would be with us wherever we
go. His omnipresence should be the power and comfort behind our
mission efforts: there is nowhere you can go on mission in this world
that God will not be with you!
E. Eternity
Not only is God everywhere with us now; He will be in eternity as
well.
But it is not only heaven where God’s presence will be known for
eternity. His omnipresence will also be known in hell. Psalm 139:8 says,
“If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there.” We sometimes talk about
being “separated” from God in hell, but that is not quite true. Those
who go to hell are indeed separated from the glorious presence of the
Lord, but there is a real sense in which they are not “separated” from
God – the sad fact is that they will experience the awesome, fiery
presence of God in His wrath.
 If someone thinks that the torments of hell will come from fire, or
from the punishments that the devil or his demons might be able to
afflict on them, they are mistaken. What they will face is the wrath of
the presence of the holy, holy, holy, God against one who had rebelled
against Him, purposefully broken His commandments, and when given
an opportunity to repent, trampled under foot the blood of His only
begotten Son and rejected Him. The punishments of hell will be from
the omnipresent, thrice-holy God of justice and wrath. God is a God of
love, and He wants to save us all through Christ Jesus. But if you reject
Him, you will face His wrath.
— John 3:36 says, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he
who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides
upon him.” And the wrath of God is awesome beyond our
understanding:
Our Great God is a God of love; but He is not only a God of love. He is
also a God of justice, and He is a God of wrath. If you reject His Son,
and refuse His sacrifice, you will spend all eternity in the presence of the
God of wrath. You will never see His face of love; you will only see the
awful face of His wrath; wrath so great it caused the Lord Jesus to
sweat drops of blood in anticipation of facing the wrath of God for sin
on the cross! If you reject His sacrifice, for all eternity you will cry out:
“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your
presence?” – but like Jonah there will be no place to hide. You will
never escape the eternal presence of the wrath of “Our Omnipresent
God.”

CONCLUSION:
A.W. Tozer rightly says that “the practice of the presence of God”
does not consist of projecting an imagination from our minds, and
acting like it is there; rather it is the recognition of the REAL presence
of the One the Bible says truly IS there! But we do that by FAITH! It is
FAITH that pleases God, not “sight”; not “experience” as such!
 By faith, consciously live your whole life in the Presence of Him who
is “unseen, yet more real than any other.” I believe that for many of us,
perhaps the greatest challenge of our Christian lives is to truly
apprehend this doctrine of the omnipresence of God: not merely to
“know” it in our minds; but to experience Him as with us in reality – to
truly LIVE and ACT as though God were with us – because He really is
“Our Omnipresent God.”

PRAYER:

Dear Lord, help us to live in light of your presence, setting you continually
before us, constantly conscious of your all-seeing, all-knowing intimate
presence. When We sin “in secret” or When we harbor sinful thoughts, We
are not really believing in your omnipresence. We need your grace to believe
what We know.  We don’t need more information, Lord, We need more
application.  Help us to apply this message, that it would be the thought that
comes to my mind next time We are tempted to sin.  As David prayed in
Psalm 19, “keep back your servant from presumptuous sins, let them not have
dominion over me.”  Forgive us for times We have not taken your attributes
seriously, and help us to live more in light of your presence.