The Presence of God

By Pastor Justin Cooper  |  Gospel Light Baptist Church  |  Songs of Degrees Series — Psalm 132

There is a kind of Christian who has heard about God a thousand times and never once known Him. There is a kind of church that opens on time, sings the songs, hits the points — and goes home spiritually starved. And there is a kind of believer, like David, who refuses to live another day in either category.

Psalm 132 is the longest of the Songs of Degrees — those songs the pilgrims sang as they climbed toward Jerusalem and the temple, the place that to Israel meant God is here. But more than the longest, this psalm is the culmination of the climb. It is both practical and prophetic. And in the first nine verses, the songwriter looks back at David and pulls one ache out of his life that ought to ache in ours: a man who would not sleep, would not settle, would not stop, until the presence of God had a place to dwell.

Most of us know the right answer about God. He's omnipotent — all-powerful. Omniscient — all-knowing. Omnipresent — always present. We can recite it. But there is a stretch of ground between knowing those words and walking with the God they describe.

"There's a big difference in God being present and God being present in your face."

There is a difference between God being everywhere in the life of Moses and God speaking from a burning bush on the back side of the desert. There is a difference between God being everywhere in the life of Abraham and God meeting with him in his tent door like a friend. There is a difference between God being everywhere in the life of Jacob and God being so close that Jacob could wrestle with Him at Bethel. The whole Bible is built on the gap between God's constant presence and God's manifest presence — the kind that wakes you up before the alarm and makes you feel like if you turn the corner too fast you might just bump into Him.

David Wouldn't Live Without It

Imagine the pressures on a king. Borders. Battles. Politics. People. Yet the songwriter remembers David's most desperate prayer wasn't about any of it. It was a vow about the ark of God — the box overlaid in gold that represented His manifest presence to Israel. After David recovered the ark, his next ache was a house worthy of holding it. If the little king had a palace, then surely the King of Kings deserved better.

No sleep. No comfort. No going through the motions. Until God had a dwelling. That's not poetic exaggeration — that's the heartbeat of a man who refused to be content without God.

Pastor Cooper put it plainly Sunday morning:

"If you don't want it, you won't ever have it. If you're content to leave it, then you will leave it."

A lot of us are spiritually on life support. Family fraying. Prayers stalled. Heart cold. And the presence of God has become a vague good idea instead of an unshakable need. David's vow is a confrontation: are you content to live without it?

He Wouldn't Just Hear About It

"Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah," the songwriter writes (Psalm 132:6). Ephratah is Bethlehem — David's hometown. As a boy, David grew up on the stories. How the ark went into the Jordan and the river stood up on a heap. How the ark led the way around Jericho until the walls came down. How God moved on the ark, met with His people, gave them victory.

Stories on stories on stories. And David got tired of them.

A lot of believers live in Ephratah. We've heard about revival. Heard about all-night prayer meetings. Heard about preachers calling out lost people they'd never met. Heard testimonies of God moving so thick people couldn't speak. And we filed it under nice for them.

"People act like God's got a gravestone somewhere in Walkertown."

As if God could be visited only in old newspaper clippings. As if the God who split the Jordan retired sometime around 1962. The Bible doesn't know that God. The Bible knows a God who is, who acts, who speaks, who shows up. The question isn't whether He can still move. The question is whether you and I are sick enough of stories to actually want Him.

He Went Out and Found It

"We found it in the fields of the wood." Not a polished, put-together place. The fields of the wood — Kirjath Jearim — was rough country, hard to get in and hard to get out of. It would be humbling to go there. It would cost something. But David said: that's where the ark is, and that's where I'm going.

Pursuing the presence of God will always cost more than convenience. It will require humility. It will require time. It may require leaving the cultivated places and stepping into something that doesn't look impressive on the outside. But every soul who has ever found Him has had to go after Him — bowed low, hungry, willing to be uncomfortable.

What Changes When God Shows Up

When the manifest presence of God is real in a place, three things happen.

People are motivated to go to His house. "We will go into his tabernacles" (Psalm 132:7). What makes home, home, isn't the structure — it's who's in the house. When God is in the house, you don't have to bribe people to come. They can't stay away.

People are moved to worship. "We will worship at his footstool." Real worship is not a stage performance. It is a contrite heart bowed low. It is sackcloth and ashes turned tender. It is the desire to be holy as He is holy. When God shows up, the room stops being a spectator section and becomes a sanctuary.

People begin to look like Him. "Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness; and let thy saints shout for joy" (Psalm 132:9). You become like who you spend time with. Stay in the presence of God long enough, and righteousness starts to mark you. Joy starts to mark you. Not the world's joy — the kind that depends on circumstances — but the joy David wrote about in Psalm 16:11: "In thy presence is fullness of joy."

"It's not the building that makes the service. It's the God that moves in that makes the service."

A Warning From Jonathan Edwards

In July of 1741, Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. It is largely credited as the catalyst for the Great Awakening in New England. People got saved. Church members got saved. Whole towns were rocked.

In April of 1742 — less than a year later — Edwards preached a follow-up sermon called Keeping the Presence of God. Why? Because he was already watching apathy creep in. The same congregations that had wept and prayed and walked aisles were already drifting back into routine. Pastor Cooper said it like a hammer on Sunday: "It took less than a year for them to get used to God."

Used to God. There may not be a more sobering phrase in the English language for a believer.