Is It Just Me? | God Is With You | Pastor Alex Himaya

So so good to be with you today. I want us to pray together before we begin. And if you're able at your campus, would you just get on your knees there at your seat? If you're not just bow your heart and the posture of your heart before the Lord. Uh, but would you just in your own way and in your own words, tell God you need him today and tell him that you need him to speak to you today, that you need to hear from him today and ask him if he would, by the power of his Holy Spirit, take the living word of God and let it jump off the pages into your life today. We bow before you and your word today. We ask that you would do something personal in each of our lives in Jesus name. We pray. And together we all say, amen and amen. I want to start today where we've started all of, uh, the sermons in this series. I'm going to wrap up this series today. I have a great message next week on mother's day. You don't want to miss, uh, next Sunday, but today we're going to wrap this series up. And I want to go back to that passage that we started every one of these sermons in this series, uh, with, uh, in the book of Exodus. And as we go to this story, remember, uh, many of us ask this question on a regular basis, is it just me or does anyone else feel unseen or unheard or un, uh, misunderstood or unknown? And, and many of us, uh, we may even ask, is God really there? Is God really going to, uh, show up? And the Hebrew children had been asking that very same question for years and years and years and years. Uh, but before finally, uh, Moses has this literal burning bush experience, God shows up, speaks to him, and then he translates that message to the people. And here we are thousands of years later, uh, having that message translated back to us because it is a word, uh, for us from God. Look at what he says. I have certainly seen say seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard say heard their cries of distress because of the harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware, say aware of their suffering. So say, so say like that. So, so as a consequence of all of these things, so I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians. These two words in English, come down. It's just one word in Hebrew. And it's the word you're rad. Say you're rad. You're rad. You're rad. It means to personally come down and enter a situation. It does not mean to visit. It does not mean that you are passing through. This word is all about settling in and taking your time, uh, somewhere. And in the Bible, he comes down. Uh, he, your rods in different ways. He, and by the way, the way he wrote your rods in different ways, all through the Bible looks different depending on your point of view.

And today I want to look at some of the different ways that God, uh, comes down because sometimes God comes down in healing and we're going to pray for healing tonight in all of our, uh, campuses in our worship night. I hope you'll come be a part of it. We've seen God do crazy healings in those worship nights. We've seen, uh, fertility enter the lives of a couple who was completely infertile. We've seen cancer, uh, leave and be removed. We we've seen God set people free financially. We've seen God, uh, heal relationships. We've seen him do healing. And sometimes he comes in healing. Sometimes he comes down in blessing, right? And sometimes he comes down to discipline us. But every time that he comes, he comes in love. And listen, when he comes down, because he is Holy, Holy, Holy, he cannot coexist with sin. So when he comes down, he deals with it, right? At which is the gospel, the answer to all of our sin. What was the Holy life of Jesus Christ lived and him dying and being buried and being raised to life. And in the Exodus. In the same way, God didn't show up and show off in this one-off rescue. He said, I'm coming to get you and take you to be my own people. And he says to them, I will rescue you from the power of the Egyptians. There was a very real danger that he came and removed them from. And then he promised this, I will be with you. And I will keep on protecting you. And listen, him coming down, and this promise in this passage, of course, it's all about the Passover. Of course, it's all about him coming down and the blood being applied to the doorpost and being rescued from the power of evil. And of course, that includes him parting the Red Sea, them walking across on dry land, and then him drowning all of the Egyptian armies.

It even includes him parting the Jordan River later on when he took them into the Promised Land. And church, wouldn't it be great if that was all of the application? That he saves us, he takes us into the Promised Land, and there are no more problems or issues we ever have to deal with? That would be amazing if that was the application. And that's one of the reasons that we ask the question, is it just me? Is because we do find ourselves having problems and issues even after we're saved. And in fact, for the children of Israel, God coming down to rescue them wasn't a one and done story either. Let's talk about that today for a few minutes. Because often, the way that God rescues us is he comes down and rescues us from ourselves. Look, the first time that this word, Yerad, ever appears in the Hebrew, in the Bible, is in Genesis chapter 11. Anybody know that story? It's the Tower of Babel. Where the people of God are building this big tower that they could climb up onto, and they're trying to get on God's level, and they're doing that in their own power and their own strength. So God came down, he Yeraded. And he looked around and he saw what they were doing,

and what they were doing was not good or good for them. So he confused their languages so that they would stop it, and he comes down, he came down, and he rescued them from themselves. And he didn't just punish them because he didn't like them, he is doing this because he loves them, and he knew what they were doing was not good. Not just because it was wrong, but because it would harm them. In other words, even though God told Moses, I'm coming to rescue you, here's what I want you to see. God's rescue can look a lot of different ways, depending on your point of view. And a lot of times in the Bible, God comes down, when he comes down to visit, it doesn't appear to be a good situation. Kind of like when the boss has been gone, doesn't tell you he's coming back, and he pops in and half of you aren't there, the other half are streaming Netflix or looking at Instagram on your phone, and the boss is not happy at all. But then there are times when God does come down and he rescues us from the traps of something. There are other times he comes down where he comes to show us what we should do. Like in Exodus 19, God came down to Mount Sinai to give them Moses the law, and to show them what to do. And the mountain shakes, and the earthquakes, and lightning strikes, and it's this huge display

of God's power and God's might. And that's what we wanna see regularly, right? We want God to show up in our lives when we need him, when we need healing, and we're happy, thrilled, when he shows up to rescue us. In fact, the best way that God ever came down in the Bible is called the incarnation. Incarnation is a theological word that means God put on flesh. He came down in the person of Jesus Christ. John 1 tells us that the word was God, was with God and was God, and the word, that is the logos, right, Jesus Christ, took on flesh and came down to live with us. And Philippians 2 says that he took on the form. He's coming down, taking on the form of a human to be born like us. He humbles himself in obedience to God, even obedience to death on a cross like a criminal. And he did all of that to win our salvation. And Hebrews 4 tells us that he did it in order to be a great high priest who knows what it's like to feel all the ups and downs of life, to show us how we're supposed to live and to be acquainted with our sufferings. That's why God came down in the person of Jesus Christ. And I wanna show you in the Bible, there's great joy. In the presence of the Lord and it's not just our joy and experiencing him is his joy And the point I want you to see is that he actually loves to be with his people And all over the Bible we see that he loves coming down to be with us

He did it in the Garden of Eden. He did it in the person of Jesus Christ. He loves living among us and It's all over the Bible and today I want to look at an obscure Book of the Bible called Zephaniah It's in the back of the Old Testament In fact, it's just four books from the very end of the Old Testament If you got a Bible turn there or you can follow along in the Battle Creek app this morning This book is only three chapters long. We should do a series through through this book at some point But it's incredible in its message about God's Presence. So look at this verse in chapter 3 verse 117 and it says the Lord your God is living among you. There it is Living among you coming down He's a mighty Savior. He will take delight in your gladness with his love He will calm all of your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful Singing in fact circle this word in your Bible rejoice. What a great word that is in the Hebrew Because it's not what you would think and it's not a vocal word In other words, it's not him rejoicing with his mouth It's an action word and other the rejoicing is about what God does And it's it's so it's a word you would use to describe in English dancing He's dancing over us in fact The root word of this word in the Hebrew comes from the word that literally means to spin around And I don't know what you see but as a daddy of girls two of them I See them at about four years old jumping up on the coffee table and Saying daddy look at me as they spin around in that dress and throw that little dress Cinderella dress or whatever was all around and just keep spinning and spinning and the delight that they would feel as they would spin around And feel that dress spinning with them. I want you to hear today according to this passage

God is hosting a dance party when he comes to meet with you and That same idea that is found in Luke chapter 15 when Jesus tells us those three stories One about a shepherd who lost a sheep and left the 99 to go find the one and he found it and he threw a Dance party same word, right? and the woman who lost her coin and flipped the whole house upside down and found it through a dance party with Everyone and Jesus says it this way. There is Rejoicing same word as this one. There is rejoicing in the presence of God's angels and who is in the presence of God's angels God Meaning he's the one Rejoicing so Zephaniah is looking out into the near future and he foresees a time when God will live Among his people and again this word among it means to move in to habitat not just to pass through not to come Nearby, but to get in the middle of us in our midst and here's the crazy part because Zephaniah like most of the other Old Testament prophets everything he prophesied was not all good There was some bad news as well of how God's gonna show up in some judgment and he's gonna come and punish Sins, but because remember sometimes when God comes down he has to come down to rescue us from Ourselves. In fact, if you back up a couple of verses from verse 17 to verse 8, look at what he says I've decided to gather the kingdoms of earth and pour My fiercest anger and fury out on them and all the earth will be devoured by the fire Say fire by the fire of my jealousy Then I will purify say purify the speech of all people why so that everyone can worship the Lord Together now two things. I want you to see is fire and purify I'm gonna come back to that in a moment I want you to remember those two ideas because when God sends his fire is never just to burn it's also to Purify and here's the thing that God was telling Zephaniah that he's coming for the godless sinful pagan nations of the world He's coming for the kingdoms of the world what Paul would call the principalities and powers in the book of Ephesians So here's the question. What's happening here? What is playing out here? What's the context of this prophecy? Well, let me just give you little background. Zephaniah was a prophet during the time of Josiah.

Josiah was the king of Judah. He was one of the very last kings of all of Israel and he reigned right before what the Old Testament calls the Exile. Okay, you know exactly what the Exodus is. We've been talking about it for about eight weeks. The Exodus, right? But you got the Exodus and the Exile on the other side of Israel's history. Exodus and Exile are kind of like the bookends of Old Testament history. The Exodus is where the nation began, right? They leave Egypt, they enter the Promised Land, and they become this great, great kingdom. But they also have a problem, a big problem. They have an idolatry problem and God wants to take care of it. You see, when they came into the land, into the Promised Land, they were told, get rid of all of the altars and all of the idols and all of the high places, all the things that the people who were already there worshipped, the things that represented false gods, who are of no help to you whatsoever. In fact, God told them, don't even say the names of those idols. In fact, Samuel, the prophet of God, told them hundreds of years earlier in 1st Samuel chapter 12, don't go back to that. Don't go back to worshipping worthless idols that cannot rescue you. In fact, they are worthless. In fact, they are worse than worthless. They are harmful to you. And remember, God said, I'm coming down to rescue you, and he did. And they rejoiced, and they were happy, and they got into the land. And what did they do after they got into the land? They started worshipping all these other little G gods that did not rescue them and could not help them. And so Zephaniah put it this way in his book. He says to them, your silver and gold will not help you on that day. Now question, what do we know about gold in the story of the Exodus? In the wilderness, what did they do with all their gold jewelry? They melted it down and made an idol to worship, a calf, a golden calf. And 800 years later, they still had this problem. Nearly a thousand years of God's presence did not fix this issue. So the exile happens, and the exile is kind of like God saying, hey look, enough is enough. And the exile is just that. They were exiled from the land. And in Joshua 23, which was hundreds of years before Samuel that I just quoted to you, we read this in our daily reading this week in the app. We've been going through Joshua, and we went through Joshua 23. And here's

what God said to the people. I have been dealing with these idols for you, and I will keep doing it for you. But you need to let go of those idols, or else I will send you into exile away from the land of promise. And the exile was kind of like the Exodus, but in reverse. The Exodus was all about God rescuing them from slavery. The exile was all about God saying, you're not going back into the slavery of your own choosing now. And he told them how to stay out of that mess, but they did not cooperate with him. And sometimes we don't cooperate with him as well. And God coming down to rescue us in those moments looks different than the Exodus. It looks a lot more like the exile. And remember I said to think about these two words, fire and purify, right? Because every fire can purify. That's actually how they make gold. Pure gold, right? Is they subject it to fire, hot fire, to remove all the impurities. And sometimes that's what God has to do with us. And that's what he did with his children back in the exile. In fact, let me show you how this worked. Josiah was the king of Judah, and he was a good, good king. Not like his father, or his father's father, or his father's father's father's before them. They followed and worshipped foreign gods and worshipped idols, but Josiah's heart was set on God. Look at what happened in second Kings, and let me show you the context. In the 18th year of his reign, King Josiah sent Shaphan, the court secretary, to the temple of the Lord. And when he gets there, he meets Hilkiah, the high priest, who says, hey, I found something. Look at this in verse eight. I found the book of the law in the Lord's temple. He found the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, which had been lost for hundreds of years. So they're not reading their Bible at all. No wonder there was so much idolatry in the land. So Shaphan runs back to King Josiah and tells him, King, King, we found it. And he sits down and begins to read it to the king. Now look at what happens when the king hears the word of the Lord when the king heard what was written in the book of The law he tore his clothes in despair He's torn up He's mourning over this incredible loss when he finds out what the word says now you have to understand something God came down and he

Rescued them and he said to them every year. I want you to celebrate and hold a Passover and they didn't and And they weren't And then on Mount Sinai God came down you're rotted He came down and gave them the word and he said repeat these words to your children day and night And they didn't And now God says I'm gonna keep my word but before that happens I want you to see what Josiah did he starts going all around Israel tearing down all of the high places Which is exactly how you should pray that the Holy Spirit of God would move in in our land And he went to the temples and he destroyed them He went looking for every false idol and he got rid of them Look at this in verse four Then the king removed from the Lord's temple all the articles that were used to worship Baal the king had all these things look at that burned outside of Jerusalem in other words, he set them on fire. He was doing all that he could do to purify Israel from their Idolatry just a side note the exile worked When the children of Israel came back from exile, they didn't have a problem with idols anymore The exile broke them and and it fixed them but this whole idea of God coming like a refiners fire It's not just about the exile. It was pointing to something and In Matthew 3 John the Baptist says there's another one who's coming and he's going to baptize you He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with say it Fire and first Corinthians 13 says our work is purified through fire Psalm 66 says that God knows us is the keeper of our feet He keeps our feet from slipping how by purifying our hearts with fire and God is going to purify His children. He is going to come not because he hates us But because he incredibly loves us and Hebrews 12 verse 6 says he disciplines those that he loves in other words His discipline is actually an act of grace His good grace and we don't like it. We want God to be cool with everything that we do We want him to be the older brother God not father God We want him to show up and give us that look and say hey, you're good

Keep doing what you're doing But God isn't like that Because he sees what we do and he knows it's bad for us you see sometimes God's help hurts And we need to be willing to let him do what he needs to do On the inside of us to open us up and to find out what's wrong there and to remove it And this is the point in the sermon where all of us go. I'm glad we don't have a problem with idols today Like pastor you talking about Old Testament, right? That's a long time ago. None of us have any idols in our homes today If you think a physical idol is the only way you can slip up in your relationship with God, then you're absolutely wrong An idol is really anything That you look to for what only God can truly provide for ultimate security identity meaning provision and We're all tempted at times to run to something else other than God to help us make something of our lives to Provide for us financially to give us meaning and to give us Acceptance and it could be a job. It could be a title You've been striving for it could be influence that you crave and in order to get that influence You're pushing others down and by the way, this doesn't all happen at once it happens in subtle ways That's the nature of idolatry. It rarely announces itself, right? It just slips in Quietly, do you really think that the Hebrew children walked into the promised land watch God knock all the walls of Jericho down and then said You know, what's a great idea? Let's worship idols instead of God No, that's not at all how it works. What actually happened is much more gradual than that They were surrounded by people and neighbors who worshipped all kinds of idols And at first the Israelite people drew a line and said we won't cross that line You're over there doing that But we're not coming there and over time the line started to move Well, we'll go with you to the temple just to see we're not buying an idol Okay, I'll buy an idol, but I'm not bringing it home. Okay, I'll bring it home, but I'm not gonna worship it.

And before they realized it, they were right in the middle of the very thing they once resisted. And that's exactly how it happens today. You see someone cut corners at work, and you say, I would never do that. But you're frustrated that it seems to be working for them. You will say, my friends can go there, but I won't go there. Okay, I'll go, but I won't participate. Oh, okay, just a little bit, right? And before long, you find yourself stuck in patterns that you said you would never fall into. And I want you to hear me today and tell you that your loving father wants to remove that from your life. Not because he's threatened by competition, but because he cares about what it's doing to you. And he will pursue you relentlessly to break those patterns in your life. And when those things are broken, here's what I want you to hear. When he breaks those patterns in your life, he's not standing there with disappointment. He's celebrating your freedom. Look back at Zephaniah again. The Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty Savior. He will take delight in you with gladness, with his love. Some of you need to hear this. He will calm all of your fears,

and he will rejoice over you with joyful songs. He's coming like a mighty Savior, and at times his saving hurts. And it might hurt, but it is healing you. And after he opens you up, and you cooperate with him and let go of those idols, and he removes that from your life, he's gonna rejoice over you. Look at what it says. He will delight in you with gladness. In other words, double rejoicing. And he calms your fears, and he quiets you, and he starts dancing, and he starts singing. Why, because the bondage on his kid has been broken. And it does not end there. Look at this in verse 20. On that day, I will gather you together and bring you home again. I will give you a good name, a name of distinction among all the nations of the earth as I restore your fortunes before their very eyes. This whole series has really been about who we are, and we are somebody when someone else sees us. We are somebody when someone else hears us. We are somebody when someone else knows us. But really, all of this comes down to us experiencing God. It's God that truly matters. And hear me today, church. If he sees you, and hears you, and knows you, that's all that really matters.

Because he is the one who truly understands you. He is your creator, and he can be the one to give you a true identity, and a name of distinction. And if you've ever, throughout this series, and I know you have, because you've written to me, a little bit of fear in this series. A thought of, I don't really want God to see me. And I don't think I'm sure I want him to really know what I'm thinking. And if you feel those ways, there's some work to be done in you. To calm your fears. And to give you the experience with your heavenly father that he wants for you. That will end in a life of restoration, and freedom, and goodness. Let me pray over you as we wrap up this series. Would you just hold your hands open, and receive this as a blessing from the Lord at all of our campuses. Father, as we come before you today, we're so grateful that you're not distant. But you're a God who actually comes down. And you see us, and you hear us, and you know us. And Lord, even in the times and the places where we've wondered, is it just me? You've reminded us that we are not alone. We are not unseen. And God, thank you that you don't just come to visit, you come to rescue, you come to restore.

And yes, sometimes you come to refine. So would you, in your own words today, would you give him your permission to have his way in you? And would you ask him? Is there anything in my life that I've been holding on to that has taken your place? Any idol? Any misplaced trust? Any hidden sin? And would you just say to him, Lord, purify those things? Purify those things, not to shame us, but to free us, refine us, oh God. Ask him to purify your heart and burn away anything that doesn't belong so that whatever is left looks just like him. And Father, I pray that you would calm every fear in this room. And for those who are afraid to be known fully, wrap them up completely in your love. Let them experience that you are not against them, but you are for them. And God, thank you that when you do this kind of work in us, you don't stand at a distance, but you rejoice over us, you delight in us, you sing over us. So I pray, Lord, that every person under the sound of my voice today would leave today not just knowing about you, God, but experiencing you. And give them a new confidence this week that they are seen, they are heard, they are known, and that they belong to you. Lord, bring us all the way home. Restore what's been broken. Renew what's been lost. Give us that name of identity that only you can give. And we tell you we love you, we trust you, and we receive your work in our lives. In the strong and mighty and matchless name of Jesus, I pray. In Jesus' name we all say together, amen and amen. Thank the Lord for meeting with us today.