Jesus is With You Always

Psalm 23:4 (click on the pic to listen to sermon)

 Even when I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will not be afraid,
for you are close beside me.
Your rod and your staff
protect and comfort me.

The Bible makes it pretty clear that Jesus is always with us.  The Bible declares emphatically that God is with us because God is for us. He’s here to make sure we’re taken care of. He’s here to hook us up and back us up.  He’s here to provide protect and empower.

He is not against us.  Why would he be against us? He created us. A lot of people think that the scriptures are about humanities love for God. We got it totally wrong. It is about God’s love for humanity. Does that not blow you away? God loves you! Because he loves you He is for you! Because He is for you He is always with you!

Romans 8:31-32 states this truth:

What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?  Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?

God is with us because God is for us – this is the Gospel. The Good News.

No matter what you go through, He is with you and He is for you. Even if it doesn’t make sense, He is with you and is for you. Even if I can’t cross every religious “T” and every religious “I” he is with me and for me. No matter what anybody says, he is with me and for me. No matter what my emotions tell me, no matter what bodily aches and pains tell me, no matter what my bank account tells me, He is with you and He is for you. No matter your age, no matter what you can and can’t do. He is with you and for you!

There is one myth we need to clear up. Jesus isn’t just with you when you are doing well, or full of faith or living in holiness. Aren’t those the times when we FEEL most blessed? Aren’t those the times when we FEEL close to Him?

• We get the job we always wanted…. O Thank-you Jesus
• We get the car we always wanted ….. O Thank-you Jesus
• We get the healing we always wanted – O Thank- you Jesus
• Life is going the way we planned – O Thank-you Jesus

Then when things start going bad or we get bad news or life around us  is just swallowing us up alive. We seem to get spiritual amnesia. We forget He is still there. We forget He is for us.

Jesus is with you in the crud of your life. Jesus is with you in the valleys of your life. No problem is too big, no failure too permanent, and no enemy so powerful that Jesus can’t give you the victory.  As the old hymn goes.

OH, VICTORY IN JESUS,
MY SAVIOUR FOREVER
HE SOUGHT ME
AND HE BOUGHT ME
WITH HIS REDEEMING BLOOD

HE LOVED ME
ERE I KNEW HIM
AND ALL MY LOVE
IS DUE HIM
HE PLUNGED ME TO VICTORY
BENEATH THE
CLEANSING BLOOD

You have victory and You have hope because He is with you! When you are walking through a dark valley in your life – He is close beside you. He will comfort and protect you.  In the darkest part of your life the reality of knowing He is always with us give us hope and you will have victory, you will have comfort, and He will protect you.

Jesus speaks to us today, just as he did to his disciples so long ago, BE SURE OF THIS: I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS!

No matter what you are experiencing in life –  Be sure of this: I AM WITH YOU.

No matter how good or bad Christian you are – Be sure of this: I AM WITH YOU.

No matter how good or bad my past has been – Be sure of this: I AM WITH YOU.

When you begin to grasp that He is with you, you begin to:

• Think differently
• Act differently
• View life differently
• Believe differently

When you begin to grasp that He is with you, He begins to transform the way you think. He begins to renew your mind.  He renews your confidence. He strengthens your faith. When you remember that He is with you always – things begin to happen in you.

The truth is sometimes we forget that He is always with us.

I had a not so great moment this past week. I had been standing in line to pay an electric bill  for a family here in Marion.  I had to fill out this form while standing in line and they had no pens available. I had to run out back out to my car in the rain to get a pen. When I got back in a women blacked out in line. I was irritated that I had wait a little longer in line. When I got to pay the bill. There was a $2 service fee to pay the bill. It had to be paid in cash. I told them I don’t carry cash. All I had was a credit card. She said I had to have $2 to process the transaction. I was more irritated and I said, “Really!” “Are  you kidding me?” Then Jesus showed up in a powerful way and completely humbled me. The manager of the grocery store pulled out two one bills from his wallet and paid it. I was so stunned than I ran to my bank and withdrew $5. I went back to the grocery story, found the store manager and gave him the $5, and I apologized for my rudeness. Then I ran out of the store so he couldn’t catch me to give the $3 in change.

I had forgotten that Jesus was with me.  This manager reminded through his kind act that Jesus is with me all the time. Sometimes I forget. When I get irritated. When I get upset. When I get angry. I tend to forget He exist.

When bad things are happening  to me. I tend to forget.

When life around me is confusing. I tend to forget.

When the bills come in and I don’t have enough money to pay them. I tend to forget.

When your life stinks. We tend to forget.

When we have the possibility of losing our health care – we tend to forget.

When our life is full of despair, disease, and dysfunction – we tend to forget.

If you think your life bad take a moment and look at the Apostle Paul. (find Acts 16 for the story)

Paul wrote a lot of books of the Bible in prison. In one particular prison, he was with Silas. They were thrown into prison because Paul had cast out this demon in a woman.  Her masters’ hopes of wealth were now shattered. This woman could tell fortunes and these men were making a fortune off of her.  What ends up happening is  that these masters’ get Paul and Silas thrown into prison. Before they were thrown in to prison, they were stripped naked  and beaten with wooden rods. Then they were thrown into the inner dungeon and their feet were clamped in stocks.

They are naked. They are beaten and bruised. They are thrown in a dungeon. To make it worse, the Bible scholars tell us that this dungeon is full of sewage. They were standing in human sewage up to their waste!

Can you guess what they were doing while in human sewage up to their waste? Look at Acts 16:25  – “Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening.” Paul and Silas were not super spiritual guys. They were ordinary guys.  They hated to be in prison. They hated being beaten. They hated standing in sewage up to their waste. But it sounds like they were celebrating! They were singing. They were praying.

How could do they do that? Because they knew they belong to Jesus. They knew he would never abandon them. They knew Jesus was with him. The same faith and trust that Paul and Silas had is available to us.  It really is. We have access to this kind of faith!

We can get into stuff up to our waste. The world can beat us up and pin us down but at our core of being Jesus followers  there is a song praise and celebration that’s waiting to get out because we know He is with us always. When we understand that He is with us always, God will make himself known in the muck and mire of our life.

Look at Psalm 40:2

He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
    out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
    and steadied me as I walked along.  (Psalm 40:2)

When you understand that He is with you always, He will lift you out of your pit of despair, He will lift you out of the waist deep sewage you are imprisoned in called the world and He will put you on solid ground.

When we understand that Jesus is with us  we can make it through anything.  We don’t want bad things to happen to us. We don’t ask for bad things to happen to us but the reality is bad things happen to us.  Those who understand that Jesus is with them and is for them come out better and stronger people.  They become more alive than a person who was born with a silver spoon in their mouth. They have a better grip on reality on those who don’t go through  bad things in their life.

Romans 8:28 reminds us   –  ^“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”

Today, I want to remind you of the simple good news of the gospel:

Jesus is for you.  Jesus is with you always.