It said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. What even the Bible alludes to in the spirit realm, because we're creatures of a physical earth and a physical existence, the way God beautifully designed it. And so to think about God just being right here with us. Yes, he's in us. He takes up residence in us. That's beautiful. It's powerful. It's hard for us to really translate that. The Bible is always helping us understand the things of God. That's why God is spoken of in so many different ways. There are different object lessons. He's compared to different things so that we can have some level of comprehension. We're not going to understand God really till we get in his presence, and then it only remains to be seen just how much, but so much more than we understand now because we will be in that spirit realm. But God's promise there in Hebrews 13 five, which is a quote from Deuteronomy chapter 31, we'll look at that a little bit later. I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Has any human being in a relationship with you, friend, a spouse, a family member, father, mother, son, daughter, cousin, close pal, partner, any human being ever disappointed you? Every human being sooner or later is going to disappoint you at some level. And make sure you understand this. You're going to be a disappointment to people around you at some point and at some levels. But God is never going to forsake us. He's never going to leave us. And if we'll see him for who he is, he's never going to disappoint us. For he is holy and he is righteous. He is altogether lovely. He is our awesome, loving, heavenly father, our sovereign, our king, our master. And he says, I wanna just be near you. I wanna be in your presence. I want you to be, he says to you, I want you to be in my presence. Wow, what an amazing invitation. God's desire for all humanity is that he would dwell with us. Dwell with us. And his presence is perhaps his greatest promise because if you think about it this way, his desire for us to be in his presence, you could say, well, that prompted salvation because we were apart from God. We had no possibility of being in God's presence. He is holiness. We were sinfulness. And so God's miraculous work of redemption is to bring us who are sinful into a relationship with he who is holy. Because we do that only on the merits of Jesus Christ. If we try to gain a relationship with holy God, we'll be rejected. All of sinning comes short of the glory of God. So how do we as sinful beings, we're all sinners, the Bible makes that clear, how do we have a relationship with holy God? It's only through Jesus Christ. Because he, Christ, who knew no sin, became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So his desire for us to be in his presence was an impossibility until he carried out, executed the plan of redemption to miraculously bring us into relationship. And to illustrate this consistency that God has for us to be in his presence, I call your attention to what he spake to Jacob in Genesis 28, 15. Behold, I am with thee. and will keep thee in all places whether thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land, for I will not forsake thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. God wants to be in our presence, he wants us to be in his presence, and he's executing a plan for our lives, and he says, I want us to be near, because I have good things in store for you. He said to Joshua, in Joshua 1 5, we noted this verse Sunday morning, there's still not any man able to stand before thee all the days of thy life as I was with Moses. So I will be with thee. I will not fail thee nor forsake thee. He said to David, The Lord, in Psalm 46, seven, the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge, our dwelling place, refuge. Most of you probably have shared this sentiment, at least at some level. When you get home from a trip, you get home from a trip, I typically say it out loud, best part of a trip is getting home. Just getting home, getting back in my own easy chair, sleeping in my own bed, knowing where the stuff is in my refrigerator. I mean, just being right at home. And if there's a dog running by in the neighborhood, I know that dog know where that dog lives. When you're somewhere else, everything's a little off. Everything's a little out of kilter. Nothing's, you don't quite get totally comfortable until you're home. And that's what that refuge word speaks to us. a place of confidence, security, comfort, rest, peace. The Lord says to New Testament believers, as he's leaving us his great commission, go ye therefore and teach all nations, Matthew 28, 19, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you, and lo, I am with you all the way, even unto the end of the world. Over and over again, over and over again, God says in his words, I want you to be in my presence, I want us to be near, I want us to be together. Our text is that familiar verse in Hebrews 13, five, and I call your attention to its original proclamation from Deuteronomy chapter 31, six, the author of Hebrews picks it up from there. 31, six of Deuteronomy, strong and of a good courage, fear not, or be afraid of them, the enemies, For the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee. He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. You feel like you're apart from God? You feel like you're away from God? You feel like God's not near? Let me tell you, God hasn't been the one to forsake. God hasn't been the one to move. God hasn't been the one to walk away. God hasn't been the one to change. So if you don't feel like you're near to God, you're the one that's moved. Get back to God, get back toward God, get back into his word, get back into the prayer clause, and get back into commitment and surrender and obedience to God. And all of a sudden, God's gonna feel very near. God's gonna feel very close. He's not moving, he changeth not. Let's make a little list here. We'll go through these fairly quickly. Practical implications of God's presence, what his presence means to us. Consider number one, the power the power of His presence. 1 Chronicles 16, 7, glory and honor are in His presence. Strength and gladness are in His place. Now this is written in 1 Chronicles. This is Old Testament. This is Old Testament period in the tabernacle or the temple. I didn't look up the exact setting for that for chapter 16. but God's manifestation of glory, tabernacle, and temple is spectacular. It's impressive. And the words ring out to that glory and honor are in his presence. Strength and gladness are in his place. Now, we don't live in that Old Testament time. What know you not your body is the temple of God. So God's spectacular glory, his power, his awesomeness ought to be radiating through us and radiating around us. People ought to see Jesus when they see us. They ought to sense God's presence on us. And lost people can't articulate what that is. They don't know how to describe what that is. You know, a lost person can't look at you and say, well, you seem like you've experienced regeneration in Jesus Christ. I sense that you have been justified by the blood of God, by the blood of Christ and forgiven of God of your sin. Lost people, they can't articulate that. But there ought to be in our life the evidence of God's glory, his power, his magnificence, so that it would come true what Jesus said in Matthew 5, 19, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify you cause you're awesome. Did I quote it right? Glorify your father, which is in heaven. Our life of obedience, our life of Christ likeness, our life of living in the spirit and the fruits of the spirit having an outward flow from us ought to point people to our loving heavenly father. And so they can sense in us there's something about that person. There's something about that person. Now you sense this in other people. When you're around a believer, It's some believers, some a believer who's really serious about their relationship with the Lord. It doesn't take long for your spiritual antenna to kind of pick that up, right? Uh, I've made, I have made 33 new friends who, who serve in the Senate with me and several of them are believers. Some of them, some of them, I had to be told they were believers. Some of them I knew instantly they were believers. I hope I'm one of the ones that people encounter and they know instantly that I'm a believer. Not to glorify me, but to glorify my father, which is in heaven. Letting our light so shine. How does that come to us? It comes to us because God's presence is with us. It's not me or you manufacturing some glow. No, no, no. It's just letting the Holy Spirit flow through us. Get you and me out of the way. And the power of God shines through. The power of his presence. Notice also the rest of his presence. Rest, not rest like the remainder, but rest like the rest of God's presence. Listen to what is recorded for us in Exodus chapter 33, verse 14 and 15. And he said, my presence shall go with thee, the Lord speaking to the people of Israel through Moses. My presence shall go with thee and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, if thy presence goes not with me, carry us not up hence. Moses says, Lord, if you're not going with us, I don't even want to go. That was his response to what the Lord said. The Lord said, my presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. What does that mean? Does that mean, well, when the Lord gets near us that we just stop doing any exerting, we don't? No, it's about the relief, the relief of stress, the relief of the dis, harmony that we feel in the world pressing in on us and trying to always push us in the wrong directions. The presence of God brings to us a rest in our spirit. Remember when you were a little kid and separated from parents or whatever, you can invent the scenario, even if it was home with a babysitter or if it was, you got left at home. I have a faint memory of one of the first times I was left at the house by myself. The mom and dad went somewhere, and the other kids weren't around, and I don't know. In my mind, I'm probably fourth or fifth grade. I'm sure they didn't go very far, but I have some memory of being at the house by myself for the first time, and that there was a discomfort. And when you hear the car pulling the driveway, oh, rest, rest of the spirit, the rest of his presence. Just knowing the Lord is with you. Knowing the Lord is with you. When I was in the hospital and I've shared this and I hope I hope I don't talk about this too much. It just it was such a such a defining period of my life. Yeah, I had some great rest in the Lord, not all the time, but I had some great rest in the Lord because I knew I was going to go to heaven. And I knew the Lord was with me. The most difficult part of my experience was in those early days of COVID before the vaccines and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, I was separated from Linda. I was separated from my boys, all my family. I was separated from you. For those, I guess you got, I guess we connected probably about week six. So for six weeks, I didn't see anybody that I knew. Had some conversations on the phone, of course. And everybody who came in that room was on a hazmat suit. There was no touch. Disconnected, isolated. And yet, and yet, there was a presence of the Lord at times. I don't want to sound like I'm some spiritual giant and I was just living spiritual victory that whole time. That'd be a lie. No, but there were times when I knew it was just me and the Lord and that was okay. That was okay. Just to rest, to rest in him because his presence set things at ease and his presence will set things at ease in our life no matter where we find ourselves. or what the conditions around us are. We move on number three, the security of his presence. The security of his presence. Psalm 31 verse 20, thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man. Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. That's a beautiful, powerful verse, is it not? Psalm 31 20. That in the Lord, in the presence of the Lord, there's some top secret places that we go. It's just a secret, it's just between us and him. And he carries us in his presence, he carries us to the place of security. And the picture of Jesus saying that we're in God's hand and no one's able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. What a secure place, what a safe place to be to be in the hand of God, and because God is with us, we are secure. He's watching over us. He's taking care of us. He's guarding over us. Number four, the joy of his presence. The joy of his presence. This is a familiar verse, Psalm 16, verse 11. Thou wilt show me the path of life in thy presence, is fullness of joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. God with us. You know, the Bible doesn't say to us that we have unending happiness. No. There's sorrows in this life. There's difficulties in this life. There are burdens in this life. But nothing in life has the capacity to rob us of joy unless we let it go. Because in God's presence, there's fullness of joy. And joy taught to us through the book of Philippians, the joy that is seated within us anchored in his presence. Well, if my joy is anchored in him and he's promised that he's never gonna leave me nor forsake me, then if joy walks out the door, it's because I walked out the door. Because if my joy's anchored in him, I can always have joy, not always happiness. The joy of the Lord is our strength. Happiness is conditional. Joy is situational as it relates to our standing. I'm a child of God. I'm a child of God. How can you take that joy away? Well, I can make you sick. Yeah, I'll get over being sick, but I'm never gonna get over being a child of God. I can make you poor. I'll get over that. I'm headed toward a mansion. See, the joy of the Lord is our strength because it's eternal, because it's anchored in God. He is our joy, not the trappings and the circumstances and the happenstances of life. Joy of his presence. Consider also number five, the refreshing of his presence. The refreshing of his presence. Acts 319, repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins be blotted out. When the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, I parallel this with also 1 John 1, 9, we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Listen, no matter where you are in your Christian walk, and most people would say, I'm not exactly where I ought to be. If we were really going to put it on a scale, and you had to evaluate your Christian walk, some, if you were being honest, you know nobody else is ever going to see it. The pastor's not going to see it. Nobody's going to see it. You say, well, if I'm going to grade my spiritual walk today, right now, let's put it on a scale. One to 100, one to 100, somebody may have had Just had a really good day with the Lord and had some great devotions this morning and had a couple of spiritual victories and you saw temptation coming from a mile away and you walked the other way and you were armed with spiritual scriptures to deal with temptations and you were kind to people and thank you, Lord gave you an opportunity to witness to somebody. You're just walking spiritually tall. I don't think anybody's gonna say, well, yeah, I'm 100 today. Check the little box about did you lie today? Were you a little bit dishonest today? Nobody's going to say that they're 100. Some might say, man, I had a terrible day. The devil beat me up pretty good, and I kept walking into his punches. I kept walking right into them. I knew better and made bad choices. I knew better and reacted in the flesh toward this person, that person. I had an opportunity to speak up for the Lord and just let it go by. Instead of being kind, I showed indifference and just, ah, bad day. I'm probably a 10 today out of 100. Well, listen, no matter where you would put yourself on that scale, there is a refreshing that's available. You can move up from where you are. We'd say this to the young people at camp, say this to the young people at youth rallies, it applies to old people too. You're one decision away from being right in the center of the will of God. But it's a matter of deciding and then acting on the decision. You see, the will of God is right where you are, just one step of surrender away is where you may be. So you can step up. You can advance in your Christian walk and there is a refreshing that's available. And you can't go back and undo the mistakes of last week and last month. What you can do is say, this is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. Today, I'm going to be obedient to my heavenly father. Today, I'm going to do what's right. And the refreshing comes. Why? Because God's right here with us. He's right here with us. This is part of the omnipotence of God as we describe how we are, I don't even like to use the word, but how we're feeling, how we're perceiving. I don't feel very close to God. Well, as I said, you're the one that's moved, but actually you hadn't moved. It's just, it's your attitudes moved. God's still right there with you. So you don't have to chase after him. I'm feeling away from God, so I gotta go out the door and down the hall and out in the parking lot. No, he's right here. He's right here. He's right here. And so there is a refreshing available just to say, Lord, forgive me. I have been wrong. I repent of my doing wrong. I want to do right. Help me to do right. I acknowledge what I did was wrong. I'm agreeing with you about my sin. And we start over now with a clean slate. There's a refreshing. because God is near. I don't, I don't have to earn. So this is what's wrong with a lot of the, a lot of the false religions and cults. I never have to earn God's grace. That's the very definition of grace. It's the old acronym, God's riches at Christ expense. It's what we don't deserve that God offers to us. And the devil uses this by the way, I got to hurry on, but the devil uses this by the way. to convince people who have stepped away from obedience to God. And at times when they start feeling like, I need to get back in church, I need to get back in the Bible, I need to get back into prayer, I need to get serious again about my Christian life. But rather than just stepping into the refreshing with repentance and surrender, the devil says, oh no, you're gonna have to work at this a while. You're gonna have to earn your way back in. You're gonna have to get yourself kind of situated better before God's really going to, you know, give you a restart. And the devil keeps people away from the Lord. He keeps people away from the church. He keeps people away from obedience because he keeps beating them over the head with the victory that Satan got on them in the past. And that they're somehow going to have to themselves at least kickstart their spiritual walk and then let the Lord do the work. No, you can't do the work. You can't kickstart anything. It's about surrender, submission, repentance. the refreshing of his presence. He's right there. You don't have to go chasing and find him. Notice number six, the purifying of his presence. Purifying, this ties into what we were just saying. Recognizing the Lord is right here, and so he's ready to forgive, he's ready to empower, he's ready to execute his will through us. Psalm 140, verse 13. Surely the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name. The upright shall dwell in thy presence. Oh, friend, you know, there's something really spectacular about recognizing that you are seeking after God to be obedient, that you are seeking after his will, that you are surrendering yourself to his word, and you have a prayer life that's not just wrote words over and over again, and then just asking the Lord, Lord, cleanse me, purify me, help me, show me what else needs to change in my life. In other words, that's the breakdown spiritually of growing in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That's the working out of our salvation. That's sanctification, progressive growth in righteousness. That God is doing a work in us and he does that work as we just keep getting right up close to him. Recognizing his presence is right here with us. It's a purifying thing. You could say it the other way. That's in the positive. You could turn it around to the negative. Satan brings a situation that is wrapped around a temptation. Satan says, I'm going to get you to blow your testimony today. He brings some goober into your path that just sets you off, right? Does the exact same thing, the very thing you know he's going to do, the very thing that aggravates you. And Satan makes sure that person does that right at you, right in your face, because Satan wants you to go, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, and grind and growl on that person. But think about this. If you really acknowledge that the Lord's right there in that moment of temptation, we'd be slower to react in the flesh, react out of pride, react in a carnal spirit. Like the old television commercials, you gotta be my age or older to remember, The Phantom Police Car. How many of you know what I'm talking about? The Phantom Police Car. Nobody's as old as I am. All right. Only dad, see? There was a television commercial on back when I was a kid, and it was encouraging driver safety. And it's just old 32nd spot and encouraging people to drive slowly and drive, you know, well with two hands on the wheel. And it was against, they didn't call it this then, aggressive driving or road rage. And it would say, here's how you can be a better driver. Imagine the phantom police car. So the idea was imagine there's a state trooper right behind you. How many of you tend to drive a little cleaner, a little neater when there's a police right behind? Of course. So the essence of the campaign was, I'm not expressing it very well, but the essence of the campaign was, well, just imagine that guy's there all the time, or that gal, right? This was the 60s, it would be guys. Imagine that guy's behind you that time, the phantom, and it just superimposed, you know, this ghostly looking car behind the subject's car, the phantom police car. Well, he's not a phantom, but God's right here with us. We're in his presence where he's in our presence. And so when we are tempted to sin, there's a purifying aspect to that. Yes, it works in the positive, but it also works in the negative. If God's right here, maybe I'll watch my language. If God's right here, maybe I'll watch my attitude. If God's right here, maybe I'll make better choices. The purifying of his presence. Number seven, the good cheer of his presence. This is so practical and helpful, and so we can be so appreciative of it. Listen, you remember what Jesus said when he appeared to his disciples? Matthew 14, 27, but straightway Jesus spake unto them saying, be of good cheer. It is I. Be not afraid. Be of good cheer. I'm here. That's what God says. Well, he's with you every day. So every day we can take this unction. Be of good cheer. Be of good cheer, the Lord says. It is I. Be not afraid. We don't have to be worried. What's going to happen? What's going to happen with the stock market? What's going to happen with this situation? I've been dreading it at work. What's going to happen when I go to the doctor's office? Be of good cheer, the Lord says. I'm right here with you. It's me. Don't be afraid. Be of good cheer. I'm right here with you. Lastly, number eight, the comfort of his presence. the comfort of his presence. We've all experienced times in our life when someone that we love helped us just by showing up. Just by showing up. They didn't have to say anything. It most likely was a situation when there was no words that really captured the essence of the moment anyway. I remember when my brother died, our family gathered in Chattanooga. And there were friends that came from all over the country. They didn't have magic words to make it all feel better. with their presence. Their presence was a great comfort. Just having them right there. Having them right there. Listen, the Lord, his presence, he's right here. He's right there with you. And the comfort of his presence, claim it, know it, appreciate it, envelop it. The Lord's right here. The Lord's here. He's here with me. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 1, verse 3 and 4, blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. God's comfort comes to us And he uses us as the channel to extend that comfort to others around us, the comfort of his presence. Well, again, the message of redemption is the message that God went all the way so that he could dwell with us. He wants us to be with him. He wants to be with us. He made that clear in the Old Testament, Exodus 25 verse eight, let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. The tabernacle, right? Situated right in the middle of the camp. of the million or so children of Israel. And they had organized strategic ways in which the camp was positioned, this tribe over here, this tribe here, here, all around. What's right in the center? The tabernacle. God said, put it right there, because I want to dwell right in amongst you. I want my presence to be right in the middle of your gathering. So we see it in the Old Testament. We see it in the gospel record. It opens up this way. Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son. They shall call his name Emmanuel, which is being, which being interpreted is God with us. God says, I want to be with you in the old Testament. God says, I want to be with you in the new Testament, the gospel record. And then into the future, into the future revelation, chapter 21, verse three, I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle. of God is with men, the dwelling place. He will dwell with them and they shall be his people. And God himself shall be with them and be their God. God's plan all along for humanity is that his presence would be right with us. Let's take full advantage. Let's take full benefit. Let's take full appreciation of the simple fact and yet the profound truth that God is right here with us. His presence and his promises, his promises. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. God's desire for all human history and into human eternity is to dwell with us. to dwell with us into eternity and forever. Father, thank you for this wonderful truth. So simple, Lord, in its enunciation and yet so profound in its application. Help us, Lord, to have a full understanding as the best of our human mind can grab it and then to appreciate and to utilize and to let the dynamic of it, Lord, impact us. that we can be walking in obedience with confidence, with boldness, with joy, with sincerity, with capacity of your power flowing through us. We'll thank you and praise you for all that you do. In Jesus name, amen. you