God With Us

 

God With Us

Revelation 21:22-22:5; John 14:23-29

(A sermon preached on May 22, 2022)

I have been growing lately in my understanding that to grow in the Christian life is to grow in our knowledge of God.

In saying that, I don’t mean that the goal of the Christian life is to grow in our knowledge about God. I mean rather that the goal of the Christian life is to grow in our knowledge of God in the sense of growing in our relationship with God. We want to know God better and better. We want to draw closer and closer to God. When we come to the moment of our death, we want to know that we have as intimate a relationship with God as we can possibly have. In every moment of our lives, we want to know that we have as intimate a relationship with God as we can possibly have.

Make no mistake about it—God wants us to know God. God wants to be known by us. Think of all the ways that God has revealed God’s self to us. God has revealed God’s self through creation and nature. God has revealed God’s self to us through God’s dealings with the people of ancient Israel. And in God’s fullest revelation of God’s self to us, God has revealed God’s self to us through God’s Son Jesus Christ. At Christmastime we celebrate the fact that the Christ child was God with us. Jesus was God with us throughout his life, his ministry, his death, and his resurrection.

Yes, God has gone to much effort, culminating with what he did through his Son Jesus Christ, to make God’s self known to us.

We can be sure that God knows us. We can be sure that God wants to be known by us.

I want you to be sure that we can know God!

We may doubt that because we are so aware of our limitations. And to be sure, for now we have no option other than to experience God as the limited, earth-bound, pulled in every direction  creatures that we are.

That will no longer be the case one of these days. The day will come when Jesus will return, when the New Jerusalem will come, and when God will make all things as they will forever be. When that time comes, John tells us in Revelation, there will be no temple in the New Jerusalem, because there will be no need for one. The temple functioned as a “go-between” that gave people a kind of indirect but vital access to the presence of God. Our church buildings have a similar function and play a similar role.

But the New Jerusalem will have no temple because no intermediary between God and people will be needed. God’s people will forever have direct access to God and to God’s Son Jesus Christ.

John also tells us that no sun or moon will be needed, because God and Jesus will give us all the light we need. We will see clearly because we will see everything in the light of God. There will be no darkness, no dimness, no shadows, no doubts, and no uncertainties. Everything will be absolutely clear. We will know God fully. We will relate to God with no limitations.

Yes, the time will come when God will be fully with us and we will be fully with God.

What a day that will be!

But right now, we live in this day. And there is a very real sense in which God is with us and in which we are with God here and now. When everything is fulfilled according to God’s purpose, we will dwell in God’s light forever. But we already have access to God’s light right here and right now, even as we struggle along with what we acknowledge to be our limited spiritual insight.

That is the case because Jesus promised his disciples—among whom we are included—that God in God’s trinitarian fulness would come to make God’s home with us. Jesus promised us that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit would come to be with us right here and right now.

Jesus told his original disciples that God in God’s fulness would come to them after he was crucified and resurrected. We live on the other side of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, so we know that Jesus has kept his promise.

We know that God comes to make God’s home with those who love Jesus. God is with us as we are committed to Jesus and as we join our lives to him. We demonstrate our love for Jesus by our commitment to him. We demonstrate our commitment by doing what Jesus tells us to do. We do what Jesus tells to do as we lay down our lives for Jesus and for each other.

We want to know how we are to follow and serve Jesus. We want to know how God wants us to live. One of these days, when all things are fulfilled and God fulfills all of God’s purposes, we will be fully who we are meant to be and will do fully all we are supposed to do. One of these days, we will live in the full and unfiltered light of God. One day we will be with God and God will be with us.

But God is also with us right now, and we are already with God right now. Jesus said what the Father wanted him to say, and the Holy Spirit reminds us of what Jesus said. The Spirit helps us know how we are to obey Jesus by loving God and loving each other.

I said at the beginning of this sermon that to grow in the Christian life is to grow in our knowledge of God. The time will come when we will know God fully. But God in God’s grace makes it possible for us to know God more fully here and now than we might think possible. Even with all of our limitations, God comes to us and makes God’s home with us. Through the Holy Spirit, God shows us how we are to follow Jesus through practicing love.

God is with us. Let’s pay attention. Let’s listen. Let’s live in light of what we hear God saying to us. Let’s live as those who are known by God and who know God.