I Can’t Feel God

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So I asked the question, how many of you have felt the presence of God? Raise of hands, have felt the presence of God? How many of you felt the presence of God today? Amen. Good.

Let me ask this, how do you know you felt the presence of God? Do you get a tingly feeling? Do you get goosebumps? Is it tears? Is it some type of emotion?

I mean, where is the line between feeling God or just experiencing some kind of emotion? I mean, God's presence can give us goosebumps, for sure. But so can sitting next to your girlfriend, right? God's presence can make you cry, but so can the Lion King when Simba's dad dies, right? I mean, so how do we know, like, God's feelings, whether we feel God or whether it's just some kind of emotional response?

If you didn't feel God today, a lot of times we question, whose fault is it? Whose fault is it if you don't feel God when you come into church? Is it like, is it your fault? Is it like God saying, I'm going to handpick people that are going to feel my presence today? Like, the 90% over here will feel God's presence, and then these 10%, they were bad this week, so they're not going to feel God's presence, you know?

I'm just going to, you know, kind of pick people. Sometimes we think that way. Whose fault is it? Or is it the worship leader's fault or worship pastor's fault because they didn't choose the song that you like, you know? That must be it, right?

Or it's the pastor's fault because he didn't pray enough or fast enough that week or whatever. Or is it, whose fault is it? Is there something wrong, you know? And we ask those questions. We're constantly comparing ourselves with others and comparing ourselves to what we think or what we should experience.

But here's what I want to say. If you don't always feel God's presence, you're not alone. If you don't always feel God's presence, you're not alone. In fact, the psalmist in Psalm 88 says this, But I cry to you for help, O Lord. In the morning my prayers come before you.

Why, O Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me? King David even said it in his psalm over and over again. I cry out to you, God. Where are you? I can't find you.

I'm going through this pain, Lord. Why aren't you listening to me? Why haven't you revealed yourself to me, Lord? Today I'm having a hard time here. And he was a man after God's own heart, yet he experienced it.

Then we have Jesus himself. And I can't understand everything that was going on during that time where the Father turned his back on Jesus. I don't understand completely the mysteries of what was actually going on there. Theologically we have some kind of understanding of it, but it's still hard to grasp what's really going on there. And when he says this, he experienced the absence of God at that moment when he was on the cross where he says Jesus, where Jesus looks up and says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

You're not alone. C.S. Lewis, the great thinker, wrote this in an excerpt. He was writing about the presence of God.

He wrote on this very subject. He said, A door slammed in my face and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. And after that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more empathetic the silence will become.

Empathetic. Emphetic. I'm sorry. Emphetic. I got it right.

Okay. Got a misspell on my notes here. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited?

It seems so once. Why is God so present, a commander in our times of prosperity and so very absent, a help in time of trouble? Why don't I always feel God? Well, let me just offer you just a few things here that perhaps will help you. First of all, you may be over sensationalizing it.

You may be overemphasizing the presence of God with connection to some kind of sensation. Jesus was, in John 6, just to give you some context of John 6, 30, which kind of emphasizes this a little bit. The people were walking with Jesus, but as Jesus was teaching and preaching and going about doing his ministry, and he was doing a lot of miraculous things, and a lot of people were getting fed in his ministry, and they were following him. And Jesus recognized that these people really weren't after the master. They were only after what the master had on his table.

They really weren't interested in who Jesus was. They just liked what he was doing. And they were asking him, are you going to perform some kind of miracle? They said this. So they asked him, what miraculous signs then will you give us that we may see it and believe you?

What will you do? We want to see it. In order for me to believe it, we want to see it. We want to see you do more miraculous. What more could I do?

Jesus says, I'm not here to give you miraculous signs. I'm here to give you a bread that lasts forever. It's not just a moment where I'm able to feed you or appease you or whatever you need at that time. I want to give you a need that never runs dry, a thirst. You have this thirst inside you that's not filled.

I want to quench that thirst everlasting. And so many times we mess out on what God is trying to tell us or what God is trying to show us because we're so interested in what he can do right there at that moment. The sensation that we want to receive. We want the supernatural, the miraculous. I won't believe it until I see it.

And we often miss out on what God is doing on the inside because we're so focused on the outside. And God often reveals Himself in spectacular ways. I'm not denying that. But sometimes, and I would even say more often, He reveals Himself in the times of peace. When silence is there.

When it doesn't feel like He's there. Sometimes He's speaking directly to us. I grew up Pentecostal. And I pride ourselves in being a Pentecostal, Methodarian, you know, kind of non-denominational church. But as you can tell, I get excited when I preach and I kind of roll around.

So you probably kind of see some of my Pentecostal background coming out here and there. But I'll tell you what, I can pick on Pentecostals because I am a Pentecostal. And I grew up a Pentecostal. My dad's a Pentecostal pastor. And I can kind of pick on him a little bit.

But one thing that we did is we would overemphasize, which we meant well. But we would overemphasize something supernatural and miraculous that we would miss out on what God was doing all around. We would pray over people, you need to feel the power of God. I mean, I had this one guy come up to me one time when I was a kid. And, you know, I was always kind of a skeptic anyway.

That's just kind of my personality because I'm a teacher and whatever. You know, I got teaching gifts. So I just think about things a lot. And this guy comes up to me. I think it was like at a youth revival when I was a kid or something.

And he's like, he's like, glory. And he comes through. He's like this big chubby guy. And he's like kind of busting through the chairs coming at me. And he wants to lay hands on me.

And he's literally like, I guess people were like falling out or something like that. And he was going to do it to me. And I'm just sitting there. And he's pushing on me. And I'm just like, nothing's happening, dude.

And then he's like pushing me over the seats trying to make me fall to the ground. He wants so bad. But the point was, I was up there for something. He was so interested in me falling out on the ground that he missed out that God was actually doing something in my heart. And we had these evangelists that would come and they would emphasize that so much that we'd forget about the 30 people who gave the life to Christ right around them, which was equally a miracle.

And sometimes we overemphasize what God is doing because we want to feel him or we want to experience him. Why am I not experiencing God? Perhaps God is doing something. Secondly, you may be distracted. A really cool thing I heard a pastor say one time, an example was, and I used it when I was in youth ministry, is this thing about noise.

And that if you're trying to communicate with somebody across the room, like George back there with his Stormtrooper hat on, he told me he wouldn't be weird this week, but he did it anyway. So I'm like preaching at a Stormtrooper right now. We got all different kinds of people in this church, guys. I'm okay with that. But if everybody just started talking up and talking back and forth, and I'm trying to tell George something, and I don't have the mic on, he's not going to hear me because of just so much noise and so much distraction and so many things going on.

And often Jesus, or God, the Father is trying to show something to us, and he's trying to whisper something to us. He's trying to communicate to us, but we got so many distractions in life. And even in ministry, we tend to do this. If you're a minister, if you understand, we're so focused on the work of the Lord, we forget to hear what God is trying to show us and tell us because we don't stop for a second and listen. And we've got all these distractions.

I mean, we've got social, I've got to put my Facebook up, and I've got to check Twitter because there might be a good tweet, you know. And I know I need to pray, but there's a soccer game, and there's a yard sale down the street, and Dr. Phil's on, you know. I've got to cut on Dr. Phil, you know.

My granny, she thought, boy, she loved Dr. Phil. I just remember that. She'd talk about Dr. Phil like he was the most wonderful person.

My granny was a wonderful Christian woman, too. She loved the Lord, but boy, she loved Dr. Phil. And she would talk about Dr. Phil, and she'd say, you know, she had a real southern accent.

You know, she's from the mountains of Virginia. She would say, you know, Leon, I believe he's a Christian. He's just so wonderful. He cares about people and stuff. And I said, granny, maybe so.

Maybe so. But, you know, sometimes we have these things in our life that we're like, I've got to put this first. I've got to cut on the news, you know, before I, you know, and we have all these distractions. And I know life is busy, but sometimes we just have to eliminate the noise so we can clearly hear God. Distractions.

Distractions of life. Now, this doesn't grow churches. But the third point I want to make, you may have a hardened heart. There might be either hurt in your life or maybe there's sin in your life. I know I missed that other scripture, but y'all can study it on time on the other point.

But there may be, there may be hurt in your life or there may be sin in your life. In Matthew 13, 14 and 15, you will be ever hearing, but never understanding. You will be ever seeing, but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become callous. They hardly hear with their ears and they have closed their eyes.

And perhaps we aren't hearing because our hearts are callous. We're not seeing because we have things in our life. Maybe it is hurt. Maybe somebody has hurt you deeply. Maybe it could be somebody in the church.

Maybe it could be a Christian brother or sister. And you're seeing the hypocrisy of it. And you put your trust in people rather than God. And you let people determine your relationship with Christ. And how you communicate with God because they hurt you.

And you've allowed that to come into your life. And it messed you up. Or maybe it's sin. In fact, Isaiah says in 59 says, Listen, the Lord is not too weak to save you. And he is not becoming death.

Right? He hears. He can hear you when you call. But there is a problem. Your sins have cut you off from God.

So sometimes sin in your life. Now, let me say this. If you're a Christian and you sin, you still are a Christian. Do you know that? But if you have ongoing sin in your life.

When you're refusing to let some of that sin go, it can affect your communication with God, it can affect your experience with God. The presence of God cannot be there if you have ongoing sin. It's kind of like a marriage. If I have a relationship, Brent and I have an intimate relationship with each other. What does that mean?

That means we constantly take care of each other, we consider each other's needs, we're there for each other. But if we have, if I'm abusive, if I'm not, if I'm denying her, her needs, if I'm not in a relationship with her, if I'm gone all the time, if I'm putting other stuff in the way of our marriage, then that intimacy is going to be lost. In the same way, our relationship with God will be lost. Our communication with God will be lost if we have ongoing willful sin in our lives and we're allowing that to hinder our relationship with God. So maybe there's sin.

Maybe God wants to draw you closer. Sometimes in the silence, God is closer than he's ever been before. Acts 17, 24, 27 says this, For one man, God made all the nations, and they should inhabit the whole earth. And he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him.

He laid out everything so that people would seek him, perhaps reach out to him and find him, though he is not far from them. He's actually not far from us. In fact, he organized and supervised everything to work in a way that you could find him and reach out to him. And sometimes he's closer than he's ever been before in the silence because he has a way of working in us, not outside of us, to grow us deeper and closer to him. Deprivation draws desire.

If you know, if you're thirsty, you want water, right? If you're hungry, you want food. If you're away from it for a while, you thirst for it more, you hunger for it more. In the same way, it happens with God's presence. If we can't sense his presence, it draws us to want to be with him and know him more.

Familiarity breeds content, as it says, but absence breeds desire. He wants us to have a desire for him. We are relational beings, right? We desire to be in relationship. And when we are cut off, we crave that time with others, right?

We really need to be with people. It's hard to be by yourself for extended periods of time. And God knows that. And sometimes he pulls himself away so that we might draw closer to him. So that he can teach us and show us so that our desires may become more full for him and his purposes.

And then fourthly, maybe you don't know God. Perhaps you don't know God. I mean, we may know of God. And we know about God. And we may know Jesus.

And that's exactly what Jesus was talking about with the bread. He said, y'all don't really know me. You want all the bread. You want all that's on the table. And you know he blesses.

And you know he gives this. But you don't really know me because it becomes a heart thing. You can know all the scriptures in the world. You can know the Bible up and down. And you can be intellectual.

You can be all those things. You can be a great theologian. But if you don't really know him, then you can't really experience him. Now experience is always backed up with scripture. But if we're not really, if we want to experience him fully, we have to know.

John 7 says, you do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me. In context there, the people were questioning him because he was a carpenter from Nazareth. And they knew who he was and they knew about him. But they didn't really believe that he was the Messiah that was sent because he was this man. We know about him, but we don't really know him.

He said, if you knew the father, you would actually know who I am. We need to know God. So in transition, truth is you are not always going to feel God. It's just not always going to happen. But it requires faith.

That's what faith is about. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. It's impossible to please God unless there is faith involved. That's where trust comes in. That's where we move through those hard times, those bad things that are happening in life.

Walking with God is not about our feelings. Walking with God is about being with him regardless of our feelings. Walking with him in faith. And although I may not always be able to see what God is doing here with ministry, for me personally, I can't always see exactly what God's doing in the midst. I know where he wants to take us, but I can't see all the things that are happening.

I don't understand things clearly, but I can trust him and I can walk with him. And when bad things come my way and then things start shooting at me, all these fiery darts that the word of God talks about that are shot at us and these disruptions. And when things happen in the family and all these things happen around us, it's important for us to look to the one, to the person. His name is Jesus. And we walk towards him.

And we trust him. And we are faithful to him because that pleases God. He wants us to know him, not just know about him. John 20, 29 says that Jesus told him, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, but still believe.

You know who he's talking about? He's talking about us. You've walked with me, disciples. You've walked with me, Peter, Andrew, James, John. You've walked with me.

You've seen the miracles. And blessed are you for believing, but you've seen the miracles. But more blessed are the miracles. But more blessed are the miracles. Those who 2,000 years later believe without seeing, blessed are those because they have faith.

They believe in Me. They trust Me. So because of this, as we talked about last week, because we can have, because of who He is, because we can have hope in Him, we have promises, very present promises today. When we don't always feel God, we have these promises. And the first one is you can find God by seeking Him.

Because we know that we can overcome, you can find Him by seeking Him. Jeremiah 29 says, you will seek Me and find Me and you will seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you. Josh McDowell, if you read Morton the Carpenter, he's an apologist kind of for the average layperson. Very good books that people can read to kind of learn about, you know, evidence that Jesus Christ is Jesus Christ and He rose from the dead.

There's a lot of good material out there. But I was at a conference with him one time and he wrote a book around that time called The Unshakable Truth and talking about the 12 Unshakable Truths of Christianity. And he was talking about this concept about, you know, really seeking God. If you really seek Him, you will find Him. And his son, his son was sitting with him, Sean was sitting with him at a table at a ski resort.

And he kind of leans over to Dad as they're talking. He says, Dad, I just don't know that I believe all this Bible stuff. I don't know. I mean, you've been preaching this for years. You've been talking about it.

You've even given all the evidence. But I just don't know. And Josh's response was like, instead of like, how could you? He was like, that's great. Because I don't want my God, because it's my God, you're just making it your God because it's your Father's God.

I want Him to be your God. I really want Him to be yours. But I'll tell you this, Sean, if you seek Him with all of your heart, whether it's evidence, if you dig, or it's prayer, and you just seek Him, you will find Him. If you seek Him, you will find Him. God delights in you seeking Him.

I think about when I play with Max. I play hide and seek with Max. And I go out to hide, you know, and Max is trying to find me. And, you know, he's kind of looking around. And, you know, he's like looking around.

And he's like, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. Like, he almost wants me to kind of step out. So, you know, obviously I give in. And I kind of jump out. And he's like, and then he starts running, right?

And I chase him. Especially when he's little, I chase him and I just grab him up, right? Because it's just, it almost turns around like he was seeking me and now I'm seeking Him. And I think that's a great image of God. Like when we seek Him, He actually wants us to find Him.

And not only does He find, do we find Him, Him, He comes after us. And He picks us up. And He carries us. So, if you seek Him, you will find Him. That's a promise.

Number two, you can experience God all the time. You can experience God all the time. It's not just once a Sunday. I was talking to someone a couple of weeks ago about, you know, I love church, man. I love coming to Salt Church because, you know, I get my spiritual thing going on.

But I can't wait to come back. And I get that. That's great. I'm excited that He can come to church and He can actually experience God and get excited. And He's like driven to come back each week.

I think people, more people should be like that. I want to actually gather together with believers and enjoy Jesus, you know? So many people are like, I don't want to go to church. Well, I guess you're not really, you know? But this guy, he's like that.

And I was like, but I don't only want you to enjoy it on Sunday. I want you to carry it through the rest of the week. I want you to be so excited about God and experience God all week. I want you to take these nuggets, these little nuggets, these little seeds. I get you because the stuff I share up here is nothing compared to what God really has for you.

And I want you to run with it. And I want you to grab hold of it. I want it to fill your heart. And I want your heart to be filled over and over and over and over again from that abundant joy inside. John 14 says this, and don't worry, I'm almost done because I got one more point after this.

John 14 says, and I will ask the Father and He will give you another counselor who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit and He's God. Did you know that? Who leads into all truth. The world at large cannot receive Him because it isn't, because it isn't looking for Him.

I love how it says that. I love how the NLT says that. Because it isn't looking for Him. It doesn't recognize Him. But you do because He lives with you now and later will be in you.

The Spirit of God lives in you. The moment you receive Jesus, the moment you make a decision for Jesus, He has given you a promise that He will come and live within you and He will walk out life with you. They call Him the counselor. He actually gives you advice. He encourages you.

He pushes you along. He gives you spiritual gifts. He does all these amazing things. You can experience God all the time. All the time.

Even when you don't feel Him, He's there, the Holy Spirit. And then thirdly, you can experience God. You can experience God now. Psalm 145 says this, the Lord is righteous in all His ways and loving towards all He has made. The Lord is near to all who call.

If you don't know the Lord, you can know Him now. That's the good news. If you haven't experienced Him, you can experience Him now. Going back to that scripture, this is not up on the screen or in your notes, but it was a scripture before. It says, God did this so that man would seek Him and perhaps reach out to Him.

The reason God... God organized, constructed, supervised, if you want to call Him the superintendent, He did all of that. He created this world in such a way so that you would find Him at the exact point in history that you would know Him. In fact, He gave His Son. It was all designed with greater love than one to give His life for His friend.

Jesus gave His life. Jesus gave His life so that you could know Him, that you could have a relationship with Him, so He could be your Father. He wants a relationship. He doesn't just want you to be good. Well, God wants me to be good.

No, He wants you to have a relationship with Him. He wants me to do the right things. No, He wants a relationship with you. God is love. His Son.

And I think it's interesting that we can look at the whole scope of history. Everything pivoted on that moment that we talked about last week. The death and resurrection of Christ. And some of you have been coming here at the Salt Church for a long time, and you've never made a decision for Christ. Some of you have walked away from Christ.

You knew Him, but you don't know Him anymore because you've let the noise and the sin and all that get in the way. And you don't really know Him. This is a time. This is an opportunity. It's this point in time.

God has designed this moment so that you will know Him. So with all heads bowed and all eyes closed, I want us to take this moment very seriously because this is a decision upon decision. Somebody's getting ready to change their entire lives here by making one decision. So let's respect this time. All heads bowed and all eyes closed.

Take this very seriously. If you are here today, and you don't know Jesus, if you could lift your hand and say, I am ready. I am ready to give my heart to Christ today. It is time. Make that decision now.

We are not promised tomorrow. Eternity is on the line. If that's you today, give your life to Christ. I pray this with me. Father, I believe that you are the Son of God, that you died on the cross for my sin.

Lord, I surrender my life to you. I walk with you from here on out. I'm making a decision today for eternity. I believe in your blood. I believe in your sacrifice.

You are the Son of God. Change me from the inside. It was a gift. You are the Son of God. You