Series: Abiding Presence Portraits of God

Well, good morning, my friends, and welcome to the Heritage Hour. I’m Mark Gonzales, your pastoral or soul care encourager here in Southwest Florida. And I am so delighted to be with you on air, online, and in media ministry for 35 years now.

So thank you for sitting with me at the feet of the Lord to listen for his heart, to touch our hearts. Well, if you’ve been with us, you know, we’ve been going through a brand new series called Abiding Presence Portraits of God, and we’re actually ending it today, an eight-part series. And I always feel like I’m saying goodbye to an old friend when we’re coming to the last of a marvelous journey together, discovering more and more about the Lord and his ways. And that’s why I see the scriptures being filled with the portraits of God.

And now I’m putting them in thematic series. And this one, as I mentioned, the abiding presence portraits of God. By the way, we’ve actually covered about 45 different portraits of God under this topic about the abiding presence portraits of God. The major portraits, each of them having some sub-portraits to them.

I’ll just give you the major ones. We started off with the abiding presence, how he is our abiding presence. And then we talked about how he is our inner presence. That’s how it’s manifested.

His abiding presence is manifested. And here’s some other ways they’re manifested. He is our holy presence. He is our comforting presence.

That was number four. Number five. that broadcast was on the whispering presence of God oh that was fun and then we talked about the transformative presence of God and all those sub-portraits we have there last time we talked about how he is our healing presence and all those sub-portraits now we’re coming to a fitting conclusion and climax as we’re going to look at how he is our eternal presence his abiding presence in us the way that is manifested in all the ways that we’ve been talking about climaxes when we think about how he is our eternal presence and that the moment we get saved eternity begins right then for each of us and we’ll be able to enjoy his presence from that moment on and to eternity future of course he also has an eternity past he is our eternal God Phenomenal So I can wait to share with you how he is our eternal presence And I have five sub bringing us to 45 or 46 total.

So I hope this becomes a series. It’s a go-to series for you. And by the way, Speaking of go-to, you can go to my website at markpg.org. Mark P G dot org.

I call it Helping You Hear God. And I have tools on there like some videos and some quick guides on multiple topics, some articles I’ve published over the years and archived there. And of course, these 27-minute broadcasts on varying series, all of which focus on various portraits of God.

So I hope you’ll jot that down. By the way, I don’t know if I’ve told you this. We added a transcription feature just a few weeks ago.

And so each of these more recent broadcasts, you can just read the transcription.

So if I’m quoting somebody or telling you the title of a book or something like that, or scripture references you don’t catch while you’re taking notes, you can look at the transcription there at the same place where you’re listening to the broadcast. right there at markpg.org. And yeah, it’s there for you and any friends you have and to review and to get caught up if you’ve missed some.

So that’s markpg.org. All right. Well, I’m excited about jumping into this final portrait, how he is our eternal presence. Oh, there’s some wonderful stuff here.

So let’s just go before the Lord as is our custom, as we just get ready to hear his heart to touch our hearts from John 14 and Revelation 3 and 2 Timothy 2 and 2 John 3 and 1 Corinthians 15 and oh several other places today. Let’s pray together. Wow Lord it’s been a marvelous journey. I’ve loved just communing with you sitting at your feet going over the scripture going over these notes seeing these portraits just letting you just unfold and reveal to me and hopefully to my brothers and sisters today as i pass it on just how you are our eternal presence one of the many ways your abiding presence is manifested in our lives so thank you, Lord, for this time together.

We’re ready to hear. Thank you for speaking. In Jesus’ name, amen amen and amen All right my friends Well if you have your Bibles let start over in John chapter 14 Actually just go to John 3 first Let me go to John 3 15 Here’s why. It really gives us the biblical basis for this general overarching portrait of how he is our eternal presence as a way to manifest his abiding presence.

It says this very simply. everyone who believes will have eternal life in him. That’s John 3 15. And of course, we know what John 3 16 says that for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. He is our eternal presence and it starts on the day we’re saved.

So let’s look at some more specific ways in which that’s shared with us in scripture and manifested in our lives.

Now let’s go to John 14 verses one through six. And in that context, Jesus is basically telling them after he’s told them that he’s going to be going away and he knew he was going off to heaven, he was going to be crucified. He’s been telling them that in different ways.

Now he’s just nailing it down. And he says, now let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me and in my father’s house are many dwelling places and I go to prepare a place for you.

Now here’s where I really want to focus on. The first of the five sub-portraits of how he is our eternal presence is his abiding place presence. Verse three here in John 14. If I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will take you to myself so that where I am, you will be also.

And then in verse six, Jesus said to them, I’m the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.

Now in this passage in the old King James version, I go to prepare a place for you.

Some people or some translations have the word mansion. I’m preparing a mansion. I will make a mansion for you.

And so we kind of, I don’t know, we get this kind of a big mansion and think about riches and grandeur. That’s not the field that was intended for this at all. What he’s talking about, because you are the bride of Christ, we are the bride of Christ. He’s talking about a heavenly love cottage.

Abiding place has more of a tender cottage kind of place. When my wife and I moved away from Austin, Texas, We married there We were graduates of the University of Texas moved from Austin up to Fort Worth where I began seminary there at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth And we had a little bitty house a little and it was a cute little thing that we fixed up for our years there in seminary and our first three or four years of marriage It was like a love cottage to us. And that’s the feel for this, my friend. His abiding place presence.

He’s prepared a place for us. It’s about intimacy with him forever and ever, not riches and grandeur and all of that.

But there are other things that are going to be happening in heaven beyond the idea of having a love cottage with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It’s the idea of his co-ruler presence. presence.

Now I’m telling you right now, we’re getting ready to cover stuff about heaven and eternity in the afterlife that’s beyond our capacity to grasp. These are just peaks. These are just glimpses of what we can expect. I’m going to do my best to give you the clear scripture and the implications of that and the possibilities of that, of what we’re going to experience in heaven.

One of them is the idea of being co-rulers with this. I really can’t get my head around that because God is God. Jesus is Jesus. And yet, listen to this out of Revelation chapter 3, verse 21.

The one who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit with me on my throne as I also overcame and sat with my father on his throne. What?

Now we know that in other segments it talks about us bowing down before him at his throne and casting our crowns at his feet.

But here’s a passage just talking about in addition to that, somehow we will be sitting with Jesus on his throne as he overcame and sat with the father on his throne. Wow.

Okay. Let me give you some other scriptures before we pull it together here and try to get a picture of what to expect in our eternal presence with the Lord, not just his abiding place presence, but his co-ruler presence. Here’s Revelation 5.10. Revelation 5.10.

You have made them into a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign upon earth. We’re talking about the new earth. new heaven and the new earth now. What? Yeah, we’re going to be reigning with the Lord.

Co-ruler. I can’t get my head around there.

But this is what the Bible is saying. 2 Timothy 2, 11 through 12 puts it this way. For if we died with him, we will also live with him. And if we endure, we will also reign with him.

Okay. All right. How that’s going to work out, I don’t know.

But here’s a glimpse that comes to my heart as I’ve been chewing on this and talking with the Lord about this.

First of all, we know that in eternity, there’s going to be a new heaven and a new earth. And apparently we’re going to have some delegated authority. We’re going to be his delegated authority sitting kind of with him on the throne and reigning with him upon the earth. It says in two different places. and the best thing that comes to my mind at this point is to remember the conversation between Moses and his father-in-law Jethro once Moses had led the children of Israel the throngs out of Egypt out into the wilderness and of course all kinds of chaos and confusion and even uh and disputes were coming up because that’s a lot of people and they’re out in the wilderness and things are scary and crazy and all up and down.

And Moses was trying to do it by himself. And what did Jethro tell him? He said, it’s unwise that you’re trying to do this all by yourself. He said, why don’t you put leaders of tens, leaders of hundreds and so forth to delegate the authority?

Well, you know what? That is apparently a foreshadowed picture of what will happen on the new heaven and the new earth, somehow, someway, we will reign with him with this delegated authority and who knows to what degree and where, how. That’s pure conjecture, but we know he is our co-ruler of presence. And I’ll add this one other feature.

Perhaps it’s more along the lines of our unity and oneness with Christ, that there’ll be such a oneness, such an interwovenness that we’ve been talking about throughout the series that somehow in our oneness with him we’ll be exercising this delegated authority as his co-ruler and reigning with him all right so that’s it that’s as close as i can get that is just astounding but oh my goodness as we look forward to that and again eternity begins now and how we experience the lord and a lot of these things will come to fruition later well let me give you a third portrait that i see here as we’re looking at his eternal presence i going to call it his new body presence his new body presence let me take you to first john chapter 3 verse 2 it says this beloved now we are children of god and it is not appeared as yet what we will be Well, we know that when he appears, we will be like him. What? We will be like him. We will have a resurrection body and appearance and capability like he did when he resurrected.

And he would suddenly materialize in the upper room. And there he was. He was not bound by space or time because he had entered eternity.

And so when he was on this earth, after he had died on the cross and then resurrected, there were some strange things that were happening. Not normal to human existence, but it was a new kind of physical existence with a new body. 1 Corinthians 15, verses 52 and 53. In fact, that whole chapter says a lot about this.

Let me just take this excerpt out where it says this. in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed, for this perishable body must put on the imperishable body, and this mortal must put on immortality. okay how can we talk about this how can we explain this all right so let me uh let me start with the basics um our physical bodies here on this earth is a temporary body it is a temporary earth suit to live on this planet we needed a body the lord gave us this one but this one was designed with planned obsolescence the scripture says so the outer man is decaying the inner man is being renewed day by day. Those of you who are getting older are figuring out, I can talk about decaying bodies. My hearing’s not the same as it used to be. My sight, my dexterity, my joints.

I mean, we can go on and on, right? It’s because we have temporary earth suits with planned obsolescence because this scripture tells us that when Jesus comes again, whether we have physically died on this planet or whether we’re still alive when Jesus comes in both cases this perishable body will be replaced with an imperishable body perfectly healed It what I call ultimate healing Does the Lord heal physically? Yes, he does. Does he do it all while we’re still on the earth?

No, he doesn’t.

Sometimes he does.

But all of us are going to die someday. All of us are going to experience decaying of the body. And that’s okay, because we’re going to get a new body presence, like he had a new body presence when he resurrected and walked among us for 40 days or so before he was risen up again. I just lifted up, levitated up into the clouds as the disciples went, what?

And watched him float up to the clouds. That’s going to be us, my friends. Is that phenomenal or what? All right.

The Lord is our eternal presence that we’ll get to experiencing him forever and ever in his presence, in that abiding place presence we talked about earlier, in his co-ruler presence as co-rulers and reigning with him, with a new body presence, with brand new, imperishable, strong, lively, physical bodies on this new physical earth and the new heaven and all of that stuff. Amazing. By the way, let me pause here.

So Randy Alcorn’s book on heaven is astounding. I mean, it has gotten rave reviews over the years. I think it was about 15 years ago that he wrote that, maybe longer than that. It could have been 20 years ago, but that’s a great read.

But if you want to get a glimpse of that and look forward to heaven and see the joy and the hope of eternal presence of God in these different ways, especially if you’re in your latter years, if you’re in the winter year of life and the body is wearing out and you’re spending a lot more time in doctor’s offices and hospitals and new like, and many of your friends are, and some people, not so much so. We just don’t know.

But the point is, we’re all going to get better bodies. We’re all going to be in the eternal presence of the Lord if we have come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that’s something we can look forward to. We can experience his eternal presence now because as i mentioned earlier our eternity started on the day of our salvation and now we just grow into it and discover more about it here on this earth though we see through a glass darkly but one day we’ll see him face to face as we’re translated up there as we resurrected and get the new body and all those things and then we enter onto the sea of eternity I going to call it his transcendent presence When we die on this earth our physical, current physical bodies die, we are going to experience an awakening in the heavens, new heavens, new earth, the transcendent presence of God.

I have several scriptures for us on this one. Listen to these. John 1, 1 through 3. John 1, the Gospel of John.

In the beginning was the Word, or the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos, or Word, was God. And he was in the beginning with God. All right, that’s pre-time, pre-time, pre-universe. The Logos, the Lord Jesus, was with the Father and the Spirit, the mystery of the triune God.

Verse 3, All things came into being through him, and apart from him, not even one thing came into being that has come into being. All right, let me stop there. That’s our first glimpse of the transcendent presence of the Lord. He had no beginning himself.

He was in the beginning. He was in pre-time. He was in eternity past.

Sometimes when we think about defining eternity, well, it’s on and on and on into the future. That’s half of it. The other half of eternity is going the opposite direction. to the left on a diagram of a timeline on a whiteboard or something. That arrow going to the left on and on and on is eternity past.

And then there’s another one going to the right for eternity future. My friends, that’s where we’ll be living.

Now, we don’t have an eternity past, but Jesus did and does. Isn’t that phenomenal? And we’re going to be in his transcendent presence in this way.

But let me take you to 2 Peter 3.8. Listen to this. 2 Peter 3.8.

But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like one day. You know, Psalm 90 verse four says something similar. For a thousand years in your sight, O Lord, are like yesterday when it passes by or like a watch in the night. OK, this is our first glimpse of timelessness.

I mean, no limit to time and so much so on the sea of eternity. A thousand years is just like a day or a day is like a thousand years, whatever.

However, not to us, while we’re living on this temporal plane called Earth with our fine very finite rather than infinite number of years, whether there’s going to be 80 or 90 or however many or 35. We don’t know when we’re going to go home to glory. Boy, time is precious. And yet it’s like just barely a speck on the sea of eternity, on the timeline of eternity.

I mean, it’s an infinitesimal speck. Our lifetime is an infinitesimal speck on the diagram of a line of eternity. Is that phenomenal or what?

Now, this is going to bring me to the theory of relativity, which I’ll talk about in a moment. Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Because we have this thing about time that’s eternal. It is limitless. Wow. Not only that, listen to Psalm 147, verse 4.

He counts the number of the stars. He gives names to all of them. Or Colossians 1, 16 through 17. For by him all things were created both in the heavens and on the earth Visible and invisible whoa where the thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things have been created through him and for him He is before all things and in him all things hold together.

This is the Lord is our creator, the Lord is our sustainer the lord who was in infinity past and now he’s also taking us into his infinity future with him if we have become born again saved i’m just astounded by all of this so here we have the lord who is a being not bound by time and not bound by space this is the theory of relatively.

Because somebody who is not bound by time will also not be bound by space. In other words, you can be somewhere in an instant, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.

Because a thousand years is like a day, a day is like a thousand years. On earth, a thousand years is a long time. We can’t last that long. In heaven, the sea of eternity, it’s nothing.

Is that phenomenal or what? That just blows my mind When we look out at the stars at night that God created very little of which is visible to us a ton is invisible to us but it’s out there. The grand scope of the universe, that is heaven’s playground. And we can be there in an instant of time.

We don’t need starships. We don’t need warp drive. apparently with the new bodies we become in a transcendent place with a transcendent god with transcendent options and capabilities somehow some way this just blows my mind but let me wind up these sub points these sub portraits in discovering his eternal presence, that it’s not only his abiding place presence, not only his co-ruler presence, not only his new body presence, not only his transcendent presence, but we’ll get to see and experience his forever family presence. Let me take you back to John 14, 1 through 6. When he said this, if I go and prepare a place for you, I’m coming again and will take you to myself, that where I am, There you may be also And then he talked about that abiding place not a mansion He talking family You know why This is betrothal language When a young man wanted to marry a young woman he go and make the proposal to the father.

And if the father accepted it, he would take a drink from a goblet of wine, give it to the son, and so they’re in agreement.

But then the young woman or the mother would then come in and he’d go to the proposal again and offer her the cup to agree with. And if she took that sip, he says, that’s her way of saying, yes, I will marry you. And he says, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and bring you to myself that where I am there, you may be also as my bride, family, forever family.

The child metaphor also works throughout scripture.

So many ways the Lord puts it, but we will be in His eternal transcendent presence. Wow. Well, Lord, thank you for this journey, and we look forward to the eternal one too. In Jesus.

Amen. Well, I’m Mark Gonzales, and I hope you’ll check out my website at markpg.org. Oh, until next time, find my life with Jesus, our eternal presence.