God is omnipresent, meaning He is everywhere at all times, because He is a spirit without a physical body and thus not limited by location. This truth, drawn from John 4:24, means that true worship must be in spirit and in truth, not merely a physical presence or outward ritual. Because God is spirit, He is both transcendent and immanent, present in all creation yet separate from it. This omnipresence offers comfort, confidence, and calls for carefulness in our lives, as we are always in God's presence and accountable to Him.
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Returning this morning to the Gospel by John chapter four. John chapter four, we begin our reading at verse nineteen. Those who are acquainted with our Bibles know that John four deals with the Lord Jesus, ministering to the woman at Psyker as well, and the woman of Samaria. John chapter four, verse nineteen says, The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our Father is worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is a place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the R cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father.
Ye worship, ye do not want. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the R cometh, and now is. when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. May the Lord bless the reading of his word. Let's again look to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, as we talk about you this morning, our purpose is to learn more about who you are, what you have provided in thy dear Son, and what is our portion by divine grace.
And we pray that the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart will be acceptable in thy sight. O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer, for the Lord Jesus' sake we pray. Amen. Today we want to continue our study on knowing God, knowing about God, and I'd like to talk about the omniscience of God, or excuse me, not the omniscience of God, but the omnipresence of God. God is omnipresence. We mean by that, that God is everywhere. He is with us in this service. He's with us in every service. He is in my study.
He is in my bedroom. He is in my kitchen. He is in the bathroom. No matter where I go, God is there. That's what we mean when we read in John chapter four. God is a spirit. It means what was taught to the children in their children's shorter catechism or the shorter Westminster catechism. Question number four. Where the question is, what is God? And the answer given by the children is, God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. In his being, he is wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
Now that term spirit, God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. That term spirit communicates something negative as well as something positive. By negative we mean that God does not have a body like you and I have. He doesn't have a physical material body subject to the limitations that we possess. A body, you or me, can only be in one location at one time. To the woman of Samaria, we read this morning, she said, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
Our fathers say that this mountain is a place to worship, but the Jews say it's at Jerusalem. Where can we find God? That is the question. You see, God is a spirit, and you can say he is here, but he isn't there. God is everywhere present. And that is accepted by all evangelicals, down to church history, about the only denomination that I know that doesn't accept this truth, the truth of the omnipresence of God or the Mormons. The Mormons or those who are known as Latter-day Saints, they teach that God has a physical body.
He is simply a Superman. John Gosner, the theologian in the seminary class, He liked to sit with his students and ask questions and challenge them. He said, how would you disclaim what the Mormons teach? What scripture would you use to teach that God does not have a body like you and me? And of course, finally, one seminary student said, I return to John chapter four, the passage that we read today, God is spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. He said, but that's your interpretation. And they went on.
And finally, no one else answered. And then the seminary students said to him, Mr. Gerstner, where would you turn? He said, I would turn to John IV, that passage that says God is a spirit. And they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. And they turned to him and they said, but that's what you said to him, that's your interpretation. He said, I know I said that, and that happens to be the right interpretation. And I tell you that some of the students never forgot that, you see. God is here. And we can't say that he's here and he's not there. You cannot pinpoint God because God is everywhere.
Now, the Bible uses many metaphors. to teach us about God. It speaks of the right hand of God. In fact, somebody mentioned that in prayer this morning. The Word of God teaches us four times in the book of Hebrews that Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Four times in Hebrews. And I'm not going to quote those four verses because I can't. But nevertheless, it's quoted there four times. And the Bible speaks of that we are under the We're protected under the wings of God. The Word of God speaks of God as a farmer. I am the true vine.
The Lord Jesus said, My father is a husbandman. And there are many metaphors in the Word of God. But while it uses metaphors, it does so to teach us truths concerning God. When we speak of the right hand of God, it means the place of nearness. the place of acceptance, the place of honor, the right hand. That's why when you have guests in your home for a meal and the head of the table always sits the guest at the right hand, according to Emily Post. But anyway, the Word of God says that God is invisible. You cannot see God.
You heard about the man, the invisible man, he went to the doctor. The doctor said to him, I'm sorry, I can't see you today. But God is the invisible God. The Word of God tells us in John chapter one, verse eighteen, no man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. In other words, we know God. because we know Christ, the second person of the Trinity. It is the second person of the Trinity who became flesh in order that God could be revealed through Him.
And I thought of that as we sang that second hymn this morning. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. Why? God became a man. in order that he could be seen by man, but God the Father cannot be seen. Colossians one-fifteen, speaking of Christ, says that he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For the more, in first Timothy chapter one, verse seventeen we read, now unto the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, to him be glory for ever and ever.
Amen. He's invisible. Verse Timothy six, verse sixteen says, Who only hath immortality dwelling in the light, which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see, to whom the honor and power everlasting. Amen. God is invisible. Now, why can we not see God? Why? Because He is invisible. For God is a spirit, we read in John Paul. God is a spirit. Now, you can logically ask the question, what about those people in the Old Testament who saw and communed with God?
Abraham, he made a dinner for God. Genesis chapter eighteen. And he sat with him. And God revealed to Abraham what he was going to do to Sodom and Gomorrah because of their serious sin. What about those passages? How do you deal with them? Now, those passages are what are known as theophany. Theos, meaning God, Phanos from the word, means to see. A theophany. In other words, it was a pre-incarnate appearance of our Lord Jesus, when he assumed a human body in order to appear to man and reveal truths to man.
But God the Father, He is invisible. So we come to this passage in John chapter four, and the first question we have to ask this morning is, concerning God's omnipresence is this. What does John chapter four and verse twenty-four, where we read, God is the spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. What does that verse mean in our lives? It has to mean something. What does it mean in our lives? Well, first of all, it means this.
Because God is a spirit, the only way that you can worship Him is in spirit and in truth. There isn't any other way. But second, it means something also. It means that worship is not simply a bodily act. If you've come here this morning just to be here and to take up space, You did not worship God. Worship means that you commune with God, with your spirit. That is what it means.
That's what the hundred-third Psalm in the first verse means. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless His holy name. And this is where Israel failed so miserably. and contrary to the Second Commandment. The Second Commandment that God gave at Mount Sinai would thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, the likeness of anything in heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth. The nations round about Israel were all idolaters. They had their graven images that they worshipped. And the hundred and fifteen psalms says, Not unto us, not unto us, O Lord, but unto thee give glory.
For why should the heathen say, Where is not I God? The heathen could see their God. They had their little God that they could set somewhere. Can you imagine worshiping a God that you can sit on a pedestal? Or worshiping a God that you can sit on like Rachel did when she stole her father's God, the household gods, and she said, as she sat on them, they were under the saddle that she was sitting on the animal. Or can you imagine worshiping a God that fell over like Dagon did in the house of Dagon before the Ark of the Covenant, and you have to go set him up again? Well, we've got to worship, you know.
The Second Commandment says you shall not make unto thee a graven image, the likeness of anything. How can you make a graven image of that which is invisible? See, the doctor was pretty smart when he said to the invisible man, I can't see it today. You can't make an image of that which is invisible. And do we realize that what we mean when God says, when the scripture says, God is spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. You see, that's what our word meant when we read in Isaiah twenty nine verse thirteen. This spirit, these people draw near to me with their lips.
You see. and they honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. God is a spirit, and my friend, if we just come to church to take up space, it doesn't mean that we worship. If you just come to church to say that you've been there, but you don't have any heart communion with God, you haven't worshipped. And that's serious business. For they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth.
The Church of Jesus Christ is not a religious club. The Church of Jesus Christ are people united because they are indwell by the Holy Spirit and they worship. in spirit and in truth and no one else does. And apart from the soul communing with God, there is no worship. That's what we mean by the omnipresence of God. God is spirit. They that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. But that brings us to number two. Since God is a spirit, you need to be spiritual also. And there's only one way to be spiritual.
The Holy Spirit to regenerate you through the new birth. And that you can say, I have been born of God. Now, by being spiritual, we don't mean that you are a spiritual entity. That you are able to walk through closed doors or through walls like our Lord did. No, not at all. It means that you are in the process as a child of God of cultivating in your own soul that means. Giverance will be mentioned that you have from God, for we are partakers of the divine nature. That's what we mean.
Let me ask a few questions. Do you have an exercise program for your body? You know, I lived with a man in Chicago who does calisthenics every morning. Do you have an exercise program for your body? Question number two, do you have one for your soul? Do you have an exercise program for your soul? Are you on a diet? Are you on a spiritual diet? Do you feed the other man? They who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Are you trying, by the grace of God, to develop the fruit of the Spirit?
by permitting and enjoying and communing with God and that the Spirit of God is producing in you love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, gentleness, meekness, faith, and self-control. You see, it is very important, this verse teaches us, that it is very important that we make a conscious effort at this, for we have such a tendency to be body conscious. Aren't we conscious of bodies? and not spirits and souls. You see, most people think of themselves as a body with a soul, instead of being a soul with a body.
You see, we have it backwards. We have it backwards. Now, closely related to the fact that God is a spirit is the omni presence of God. The fact that God is everywhere present at all times. Why? Because the scriptures teach that He is a transcendent God. He is far above us. Our God inhabits eternity. His thoughts are so high above our thoughts as the heavens are above the earth. This is a biblical religion, as opposed to those who see God in nature, pantheism, who see God in a river, or God in a tree, or God in a bird or something else that He's created.
In other words, by God being a spirit, we say that He is outside and above the created order. But He is not far from every one of us, as we read in Acts chapter seventeen. For in Him we live, in Him we move, in Him we have our being. God is both transcendent, far above us, and yet He is with us. He is separate from His creation, yet He is among His creatures. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that great poetry. He said, Lord of all beings, thrown afar, thy glory flames from sun and star, center and thorn of every sphere, yet to each living heart are near.
I want you to turn to the hundred thirty-nine psalm and verse seven. The hundred thirty-nine psalm is the psalm of the omniscience of God. And it's also the psalm of the omnipresence of God. And I want you to read with me verse seven. Psalm one thirty-nine verse seven where the psalmist says, Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in El or in Sheol, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the outermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
The question... that the psalmist raises is this, how can I get away from God? You can't. No matter who you are, no matter what your relationship is to God, you can't get away from him. And the man who is lost and goes to hell will not get away from God either. You know, there are a lot of jokes today about the devil in hell doing this and that. and the devil ruling in hell. The problem is God rules hell. And that's the most fearful thing there is. That's what that text is saying. You see, when you think that you cannot go without God, in hell, God is there.
But His blessing, His beauty, and all the things about the grace of God are absent. But His judgment and His justice and His holiness is there. And can you imagine divine holiness apart from divine grace? There isn't a place that I can go where God is not. I preached a sermon years ago, about twenty-five years ago, it's one of the largest audiences that I ever preached to. It was in space travel with becoming popular and I spoke on the text, Two Certainties Concerning Space Travel.
And I worked the sermon around two truths. Number one, there isn't any place I can go in the universe without taking me along. And if I take me along, I spoil no matter where I go. And the same is true with you. You know, people talk about I don't get away from it all, but the problem is they take their worst enemy with them, themselves. Isn't it strange? I can't go anywhere. That's the first thing. The second thing is this. No matter where man goes in the universe, he can find the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Where can I go from your presence? If I go to heaven, you're there. If I go to hell, you're there. Or if I go to the uttermost parts of the sea of remote islands, even there I can find you. Oh, my friend, the salvation that's in Christ Jesus is the most important thing in the world. Do you have it? You see, we talk about space travel. A few weeks ago when talking about the speed of light, light travels at about a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second. And I illustrated that by saying if I took a rifle and the rifle or the bullet that I shot went at the speed of light and then followed the curvature of the earth, it would pass through your body seven times before you'd have a chance to drop.
You can't imagine that. You know how far the moon is. Traveling, if we could travel at the speed of light, you know how long it would take us to get to the moon? One and a half seconds. That's all. Do you know how long it would take to get to the nearest star in the universe? It would take four and a half years traveling at the speed of light. Only one and a half seconds to get to the moon. Four and a half years to get to the nearest star. We're in a certain constellation in the heavens.
Do you know how long it would take to get to the next constellation? About two hundred million years traveling at the speed of light. And you can't go anywhere in the universe and God not be there. Now I have five minutes I want to take, and we want to apply these truths of the unnoted presence of God. We must apply truth. If truth isn't applied, it doesn't mean anything. The first thing, our application number one, it should give us comfort.
Isaiah forty-one ten, God says, Fear not, for I am with you, be not dismayed, for I am thy God, I will uphold thee. all the comfort that we have of knowing that God is everywhere present, I can never get out of His presence. You see, this is taught in our home. You just think a little bit. When is a child most comfortable? A child is most comfortable when they're with their parents. When is a child of God most comfortable in the presence of God? And if you're not comfortable in the presence of God, examine yourself because you haven't been born of God.
You might be religious. You might even say prayers. Saul of Tarsus did. You see, Psalm twenty-three, that great poem that everybody knows, he said, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou. are with me. Oh, the comfort that comes from this truth beyond my presence of God. But there's application number two. Application number two is confidence. We are confidence because he is with us. In the great commission that God gave his church before the Lord Jesus ascended to heaven, He said, all authority, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
That's omnipotence, all power. Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations. And he closed the Great Commission by saying, O I am with you always, even to the end of the age. The Great Commission begins with all power. It ends with the presence of God. I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Application number three, carefulness. Carefulness should mark our lives for God. It is with us, and we must be concerned as to how we live.
Carefulness. Proverbs fifteen, verse three says, The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good. Now the more important a person is determines how we conduct ourselves. Let me give you an illustration. If you were having an important person for lunch today, for dinner today, the more important person or the more important you place in that person, the more detail you would go with a lunch or with a dinner. We do everything. our thinking, our speaking, our acting in the presence of God.
God knows everything about me. You see, this is so important to teach our children. A lot of times our children get away from us. That's why children from North Carolina a lot of times like to go to school and go away to college in Montana. Dad and mother aren't around that they can watch. You see, and we forget that God sees everything. Parents who teach their children that God is everywhere and how we live before Him is important. For He holds us accountable. When we get away from the eyes of our parents, do we kick the traces?
Do we run wild? Many do. All this teaching of the omni presence of God. That God is spirit. And they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. God holds us accountable. So I'd like to ask a question. And I'll put it simply. If you knew that Billy Graham would be with us today with George Beverly Shade. Would have you been at the nine o'clock service if you knew that George Beverly Shea would have been singing?
Would have you been there? Let me ask you a second and would have you been on time. May I venture to say you would have been? But you know who we met at nine o'clock this morning? We met Billy Graham's master. We met George Beverly Shea's theme, the one he sings about. Worship must be in spirit and in truth.
Application number one, this gives us comfort. Application number two, it gives us confidence. Application number three, it should give us carefulness. The saddest thing in the church today is we are more careful about our approach and what human beings think about us than God. We give God the leftovers. There are many who think more of Billy Graham than they do about God.
That's what the prophecy of Malachi is about, isn't it? In Malachi's day, they were offering God the lame and the blind in offerings. And God says to his people, he said, go give it to the governor. She if he'll like it. She if he'll accept it. Jeremiah the prophet said, My soul shall weep in secret places because of your pride. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom.
Let not the rich man glory in his wealth. Let not the mighty man glory in his strength. but he the glorious but in glory in this that he knows me do you know God comfort confidence carefulness let's stand together for the benediction our father As we bow in thy presence, we have often rejoiced when George Beverly Shea sang, My God, how great thou art.
How true it is. And we thank you that we can know you because we know Jesus Christ. And we have been born of thee. And we ask you now that you will dismiss us with your blessings. May this word which speaks to us that we cannot worship apart from spirit and truth. May it search our hearts, and may we be careful every day of our lives to bring honor and glory and praise to these.
For we cannot ever get out of your presence. And we'll just ask you to take this word and bless it to every heart. And may your grace, your mercy and your peace, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with each one for Jesus' sake. Amen.