The Freedom of a Pure Life

Written by Ed Allen
Saturday, 24 April 1999 19:00

How To Experience God's Presence

If our spiritual lives are going to grow strong, if we?re going to receive from our spirits the nourishment that we need to live effectively, then we must lead balanced spiritual lives. In order to grow in balance we need to grow in three directions. Just as you and I live in a 3-dimensional physical world, so our spirits must grow in three directions in order to achieve the balance we need.

We must move out toward a world that desperately needs God?s love as a messenger of God?s love. We do this through service and through announcing the good news of the radical transformation that Christ brings to a life. We must move in toward others who also love God, consciously and intentionally building a network of support where we can offer and receive healing, where we can challenge and be challenged. And finally we must move up toward God. The Bible tells us that God has placed eternity in our hearts. We long for God. He is the source of our life and happiness. Movement toward God makes movement in the other 2 directions possible.

The challenge here is that God is not like us. The Bible tells us quite honestly that His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways. He is Spirit. While we may acknowledge that we have a spiritual dimension to our lives, we could hardly say that we are spirit. We barely understand our own spirit, much less understanding One who is essentially spirit. And He exists in perfect holiness, immutable knowledge, absolute power and eternal self-perpetuity. The words are even hard to pronounce much less understand.

Really, if I?m honest it seems that having any kind of relationship with such a one is ridiculous. What is the common ground between God and me? I can offer prayers, but how do I know that they?re making it past our own head? How can there be any real interchange between God and me? I certainly know what it is to hang out with Diane, to hear from her and know that she hears from me, to enjoy her company. How can I enjoy the company of God? How can I know and feel that He is with me? How can I experience the presence of God?

While the Bible is quite honest about the mystery that surrounds God, it is equally insistent that God both wants a relationship with us and prescribes the means by which such a relationship can happen.

Today, we are ending a 4 part series on Experiencing the Presence of God. We have looked at three means, which God has provided for an encounter with His person and His power. These means are designed to combat the forces within us, which keep us from experiencing His presence.
 

Cynthia ? 34 years old, single, addicted to food

Roger ? dissatisfied with his job, addicted to pornography

Cynthia and Roger understand the burden of a guilty conscience. They long for the freedom of purity. They are not surprised that Bible says that those who can enter the presence of God are those who have clean hands and a pure heart. They can understand why Jesus said, "Happy are the pure in heart, for they will see God."

Some of us are just like Roger and Cynthia. We can say with the Old Testament hymn writer that "our sin is ever before us." We are hounded by a secret habit that burdens us, drains us, and drives us into a guilt-motivated pit. For others of us, the burden is less predictable, the guilt is hit and miss, but its there.

Happiness comes from doing what God wants.

• Verses 1, 2
• God knows what is best for us. So His rules represent freedom.
• I would be a very poor father if I let my children do anything they wanted.

• Verse 4
• US News and World Report 1994: 80% of Americans believe the Bible is inspired by God. 50% believe there is no one right moral code.
• God made us to reflect his character. Made universe so that such a reflection affords blessing, to ignore moral code built in to the universe produces hardship.
• Why Jesus said, "Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."

• Verses 5-6
• Word "steadfast" means steady, consistent enduring.
• "There are only 2 ways to have no guilt on this terrestrial ball. To have a clear conscience or none at all." Ogden Nash

• How?
• Verses 9-11
• God?s presence like the sun. Constant, but distant and diffuse. But if we take a magnifying glass we can intensify and concentrate the heat and light of the sun. The word of God is a magnifying glass.
• How can a young person keep their way pure? Not by great effort. Not by cleverness. Not by the right upbringing. The only guarantee is by basing my life on God?s word.
• This must be our value. When I was younger, huge sports fan. Could remember all kinds of sports trivia, but could not remember the Bible. From this passage, God convinced me that I recounted sports facts. I meditated on them. I rejoiced in them. I hid them in my heart. In my case, lack of obedience was not an effort problem, but a value problem. I did not value God?s word as that which was the key to my true freedom.

Conclusion

God?s grace is free! Do not earn it by purity. Still purity is one of the means by which we experience God?s presence. If you are feeling the weight of your own impurity this morning, there is a remedy.

Not long before she died in 1988, in a moment of surprising candor on television, Marghanita Laski, one of the best known secular humanists and novelists said: "What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness. I have nobody to forgive me."

We have someone to forgive us.