How To Find God in Today’s World
Speaker
Pastor Jacque Clowers. Juniper Church - Knoxville, TN.
Scripture References
Proverbs 18:10, Psalms 144:2, Psalms 34:17-18, Psalms 18:2
Key Takeaways
God is not hiding from us - just maybe we are not looking for him.
You need to make a point this week to go to HIM. Set an alarm on your phone – when it goes off – you take Jesus your problems, set a Jesus habit in your life, find a scripture – write it down and make it a prayer for the week, instead of scrolling on your phone before bed – read a psalms or proverbs, take a walk – without headphones and just talk to Jesus: GIVE GOD OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW UP.
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Thank you. I mean, I'm excited. Get to look at everybody's faces and see see everyone who's here today and. Thank you all for helping me. Got to have my glasses really close. I just want to take a second and make sure that, you know, before we get started here today, that you have been on my heart.
You have been on my minds and you have been a prime point of prayer in my life. The last two weeks since I've known what topic Tim wanted me to speak on. And I just pray, I guess more than anything today that my words are his words and their words that someone might need one way over here and they might need to come a different way over here and that you hear what the Lord has for you today.
So I'm excited about that. I have a couple of announcements I want to start with. One is Green Magnet Academy. If you've not familiar with that. So I actually went in this week and made a new group in our groups that's specifically for Green Magnet Academy.
So what we are doing with them is we're trying to connect with a local school, local teachers, and we're doing a pretty good job here. They are getting to know us. They're calling us with specific needs, but we are doing a teacher's lunch on Monday, May 6th.
And so I just wanted to throw that out there that you know that that's something Juniper Church is doing. I know lots of us work can't be there on a Monday, but one thing you can do is give and I know Walter did the offering, but I felt like it was important just to mention that even a lunch for 75 teachers with us giving some things will have some people bring things.
It's still probably 700 bucks for us to do that luncheon. And so that money has to come out of our giving. Just like the Friday feedings that Walter mentioned on average, we spend about $400 on food and necessary items.
We have people who already give right now are hygiene kits and things like that. But food has gone up just expensive. Anyone who goes to the grocery store knows that. So I feel like it's worth mentioning that those things come out of this budget.
So I love it. It's super exciting. And the last thing I wanted to mention is something that's going to happen in July and it is a neighborhood barbecue. So for our serve Saturday, Tim has really felt led that we should pull the giant smoker somewhere.
We're going to give out free lunches. We're going to give out drinks and desserts and pick a neighborhood to love on. Juniper Church is going to go into the neighborhood, bring our kids, bring our families and love on the neighborhood.
So I say that for two reasons. I want you to get it on your calendar and it is Saturday, July 13th, July 13th. So that's one thing if you can keep that day open from let's say 10 to two on that July 13th.
So that's number one. The number two thing is if you know of one or if you don't to be in prayer for the perfect neighborhood, perfect apartment complex, we don't care where God tells us to go. I think if you've been around here long, you know that we'll go anywhere.
But we want to go somewhere, maybe a ministry to partner with to find an area to love on and to get Juniper Church into the community. So I just wanted to go ahead and say those those things are all over the website.
They're all over the newsletter that you get as well. So just wanted to mention those things. So let's pray before we get started, Lord. Jesus, we love you so much and we just thank you for being with us.
I pray that Lord, at the end of this time together, you're more real to each of us than at the beginning. God, Holy Spirit, we just want you to guide us into. Our hearts are to fall in love with you more today.
A love affair with you. And I just thank you for that in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Thank you, Pam. She's so good to stay with us till we as long as I blubber on. So OK, so my topic today is how to find God in this world, even when maybe we don't feel him.
Is that a question that only I ask sometimes? Or is there anyone else who sits and ever asked that question? So I don't think that I'm alone in it. So I was excited that this one fell on me. You know, that's probably, truthfully, a number one question I get from people is how do I find God?
How do I even know, how do I know he's real? So this is my message from mom. This one's a little bit harsh. It's not harsh, it's life and truth. And sometimes parenting is smacking you on your rear end saying, boy, do what's right, right?
God does that to us. He doesn't give us rules to harm us. He gives us rules to protect us. So that's what this little mom today is gonna do, gently and in love, and it's also for me as well. So my question is, are you making God a priority in your life?
You don't have to answer it right now, but it's a question to ask. So I had a night this last week that I wasn't sleeping very well. Thankfully, that doesn't happen very often. I'm a pretty good sleeper.
I'm pretty good at laying down. And the last thing in my mind is like, Lord, thank you for this day and I give you this night. There's nothing I can do but sleep and rest my body till tomorrow and all of these things will still be here for me tomorrow.
And I've got, I've made that a habit. That's a conversation I have as I lay down with the Lord. But this night it didn't work. And I was up all night long thinking about pressures, like real life things that are on Tim and I, not necessarily bad things, but life things that everyone has to work through.
We all have our own list of them. And as I was laying there, the Lord really, he woke me up with something. And, you know, oh, wait a second. Where is my phone? Huh. Is it over there? Can you bring it to me?
Gosh, I didn't mean to come up here without it. And this is my, Tim says I have to have a visual. But the Lord woke me up saying, how often do you look for that phone before you look for me? How often do I make sure this is near a port where I can charge it when the battery's getting low before I go to God to ask him for help?
How often do I Google something to find an answer before I pray to the Lord to help me? You know, how often do I go to this device before I go to God and yet I say, God, are you even real? Well, Lord, how can he be real?
If we're so consumed with everything around us? Okay, remember message from mom. So this is just mom because I love you so much. And I want you to somehow get what only you can get when you spend time with the father.
And I just laughed because I literally, number one, y 'all know I need glasses. And so I pull out my phone and I'm like in the dark typing, look for a phone during service because I do that all the time.
I don't even use this as a watch. I use this to tell me how many steps I get in a day. I use this to find my phone. That's what I use it for. And you know, and I just felt like I was supposed to start with that direction.
So this phone, this is what Joyce Meyer said at a retreat or a conference that we went to recently. You know, if this phone, let's say I'm up on top of the Smokies and it doesn't have service. You know, I don't start taking it apart to fix it.
No, I start holding it up, getting it near a tower, right? Like where can I get the service? What's that? Is that the proposal where she's out there running around with her phone, getting it near a signal, right?
We don't, it's not broken. It's just not near the source. So how many things in our life aren't broken. They're just not near the source. How many times could that, I'm not saying always. I am not saying always.
Sometimes bad things happen to good people and we cannot explain them away. But I am saying that many times in my life, I made a big decision and I go, oh, did I even pray about that when it didn't work out?
Tim and I, okay, so I've had the same car for 12 years. I'm like this person who keeps cars forever. Car lots make fun of me because like, they've got over 200 ,000 miles on them. My backup camera was like the size of a deck of cards, you know, and so anyway, so I bought a car this weekend and You know, I thought there was a choice between two and I couldn't make it in the natural.
And we didn't say anything where we were buying it. We didn't say anything to anyone, but Tim and I both knew we went and sat in the car and prayed like, Lord, we need peace if this is the right car.
And if it's not, I don't care. I really liked my Highlander. It was a little sad giving Heidi away this weekend. I gave her to Caitlin. So now I have a new car. I had to just go talk to Heidi for a minute because I loved her.
Like she was very close. A lot of life happened with her. So, but we have trained ourself. Are we perfect? Absolutely not. But we have trained ourself to ask God, just ask Him, give Him opportunity to follow up with peace in our lives.
And so God's not hiding from us. Maybe we're just not looking. Maybe we forgot where we laid Him down and we need to find Him. You know, we need to find Him. And maybe it's that simple. So I'm gonna start with a couple of scriptures.
Proverbs 1810, and it's the name of the Lord is a strong fortress. The Godly run to Him and are safe. So the message translation says, God's name is a place of protection. Good people can run to Him and be safe.
So the name of the Lord is like a strong tower for us. And then Psalms 144 .2. And it's, He is my loving ally and my fortress, my tower of safety. He's my rescuer. He's my shield. And I take refuge in Him.
What beautiful scriptures those are. One thing I'm reading, which I'm getting way out of order, Pam asked me earlier, like, or where's the end? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know where I end up. But so I know a few of us, and I'm not gonna ask to raise hands, but a few of us started this year saying we were gonna read the Bible through in the year.
So if you have stuck with that, you are now somewhere in Samuel, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel. You've got some Psalms that are being put in there. Well, the word stronghold, which back in those days, it says like David who was running for his life went to a stronghold and that's like a cave.
It's a safe place. And it's mentioned over 50 times that you need to have a stronghold in battle. You have to have a stronghold where you can go and you know you're under God's protection. Well, that's what Jesus is for us is He's our stronghold.
He's our tower. He's our safe place if we go to Him. There again is that if we go to Him, He's not just a fairy up here. He's wanting relationship with us. So what if in our times of anxiety, our times of worry, our times of fear, we look for Jesus?
There's some things I was gonna ask you. How is peace? How is your sleep? These are questions only you can answer. These are questions that you, only you know the answer for your own life. How is your trust?
Do you trust that God is good? Do you trust that He wants good for you? Do you have hope in something bigger than yourself? Do you have hope in something bigger than your career, bigger than your degree, bigger than your future, bigger than your friends?
Is there a hope or do you live hopeless? Do you still have that nagging fear? Do you have addictions that you are fighting? Is there something that you want to lay down but you just can't do it? It's too hard.
Only you know that. Only you know that you don't wanna look at that anymore on your phone, yet you pick it up and there it is. Only you know that in Jesus. He knows it. What about your finances, your future, your marriage, your children?
Do you love yourself? Do you love your self -image? Do you love yourself? These are all questions. You know, these are questions that can cause me to need to run to that strong tower. Because some of those things that I was talking about keeping me awake were finances.
And I was laying in bed and the thought of having to buy a car, the thought of having, you know, a possible college education looming up, the thought of needing some repairs done around the house, the thought of, oh, is the job that I work a little unstable right now?
What can I do? I can't change any of those things. All I can do is ask God to help me, to have God show me, give me peace and sweet sleep. He promises us sweet sleep. I'm going to talk a lot about sleep because I do not like nights that I don't sleep well.
And the Lord promises us sweet sleep. So let's read Psalms 34, 17 and 18. And it says, the Lord hears his people when they call to him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.
So I'm going to say it again, that Psalms 34, 17 and 18. And it's the Lord hears his people when they call for him to help. He rescues them from their trouble. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.
Have you ever been brokenhearted? Have you ever been so brokenhearted? What says the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. So here again, the Lord hears his people, but it says he hears when they call for him.
So here's just another question. Are you calling or are you just complaining? How many times have we complained about God, complained about things in our life, and yet have never spent the time calling on God?
And again, this is directed at me as much as hopefully it helps some in the room. So reading, you know, reading this Bible, I love how God can speak to you from any book of the Bible. So it's just been amazing.
David's story and how he is running from the Lord and he's crying out to God. He is, you know, I know Tim talks about King David a lot and it says that he's a man after God's own heart. And I just believe it's because he cried after God all the time.
Lord, help me. You know, David's like, help me in my sin. Help me in my weakness. Help me. Just help me. So I wanted to say, I want to read Psalms 18 too. And this one, I have a little graphic that goes with it.
And it's the Lord is my rock, my fortress and my savior. My God is my rock in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me and my place of safety. So I just wanted, you know, if you all take a picture of that, something I do is I take a scripture.
And if I'm going through something, I'm walking through something. I'll just read that scripture. I might have it on my computer on a sticky note. I might have it on my car dash if I need it. I might have it in my phone.
I might have it laying beside my bed. But I like some of the words in this one. I like that it says he's our our rock. What is that? That means he's strong. He can't be moved. He is our rock. He's our fortress.
So he's a place of safety for us, a place that the enemy can't follow. He's our shield. What does a shield do? It stops the arrows, right? It comes between harm. It comes between. And you think when this Bible was written, David literally was on the battlefield using that shield to block arrows.
We don't we don't use shields today, thankfully. I don't have to have my shield outside, but God's still blocking the arrows in my life and then power. He's the power that saves us and he's our place of safety, which goes back to Strong Tower.
So I feel like if any of those things I mentioned, how's your peace and your sleep and your trust? Do you need help with your children, your finances? Do you need help in your marriage? Man, to me, this is a good scripture to read that the Lord is my rock in whom I find protection.
He's my shield. He has the power that saves me and he's my place of safety. And I just want you to know that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So even though these scriptures were written back in the Old Testament, He is still the same for us today.
Our lives might look a little bit different. Again, we're not hiding in caves. Hopefully. I watch Naked and Afraid. Okay, who else watches that show? Naked and Afraid. Anyone? Is it only me? Karen. Whoop, whoop.
I love it. And they're always looking for caves to hide in because it's a place of safety. And I'm like, it's just like the Bible says, they need the safety around them from the animals. Thankfully, we don't have to do that and you're never gonna find me naked in a cave, unless I've been kidnapped.
It's never gonna happen, but I would know to find a cave, a stronghold. So I want to say that when we feel far away from God, maybe from disappointment with ourself, maybe disappointment in others, or maybe just life's been hard.
Maybe life's been dealing you some blows. Maybe you feel like you failed at something. So that sometimes is when we might feel the farthest from the Lord as a strong tower. So I wanted to bring this more current into the New Testament.
And I wanted to talk about Peter for just a second. So if you're new to the New Testament and you don't really know who Peter is, Peter was one of the 12 disciples. Peter was outspoken. He was opinionated.
Peter was quick, hot -headed. And he's mentioned in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Really, Peter's one of the top three disciples talked about in the Bible. He's talked about way at the top in stories.
So there's a time when Jesus is being crucified. And Peter, they've taken him, they've taken Jesus. And this is the Jesus that they walked with. This is the Jesus that fed the 5 ,000 with them. This is the Jesus who they saw heal the lepers.
This is the Jesus that they saw raise Lazarus from the dead. This is the Jesus that gave love to Jesus to the prostitutes and the poor and the widows. This is the Jesus. So Peter's going about his business.
Jesus has been taken away. Jesus had warned Peter, you're gonna deny me three times. Peter's like, no, I am all yours. I am all in. Well, what does Peter do? He denies Jesus. And if you read about it, he's around a bonfire and it says like a servant girl said, hey, you're one of Jesus's disciples.
So Jesus starts cursing and cussing. I mean, Peter starts cussing saying, no, I'm not. I can just imagine him. Like you're so afraid. You're gonna cuss to this little girl, like I'm not one of his followers.
You know, heck no, I'm not. And he probably didn't say those words, but I won't say what I think he probably said. Do you think Peter felt disappointment in himself as soon as he realized what he did?
Do you think Peter had a hard time holding his head up after that? Do you think Peter had said he fled? Do you, can you imagine the grief he felt when he realized what he just did? Could you think that the negative self -talk that he's a loser, man, I'm a failure, man, I can't even believe I did that.
I just hurt the person I love the most, right? So I'm just wanting you to be where Peter is. And so then I want you to fast forward a little bit. Two chapters maybe, I think I was reading it in the book of John.
You know, and this week I have prayed about how can I take what at 52 years old I've learned and give it to you in 20 minutes, 25 minutes, about if you call out to him, he will respond. And there's really no way I can do that other than tell you to try it.
So Peter, fast forward a couple of chapters. You know what Peter did? He was a fisherman before a disciple, so he went fishing. And I'm not saying he turned his back. Fishing was probably just familiar to him.
Like let's go fishing. So he's out on a boat, he had fished all night, hadn't caught anything, just like probably miserable. And then he sees somebody cooking out of fire on the shore. Didn't recognize him at first, but as soon as he realized that's Jesus cooking on the shore.
What did Peter do? Peter knew that was his strong tower and he jumped off that boat and he ran to shore as fast as he could to get to Jesus. Even with the, I can only imagine the crushing disappointment and shame.
I can only imagine how his face was red and he was like, I'm so sorry, Jesus. I'm so sorry that I disappointed you. How many times have we disappointed Jesus we feel like? And instead of going to him, we hide in our shame.
I know I'm not the only one and I'm here to tell you today that instead of hiding in your shame, instead of laying your head down and saying, is he even real? I'm here today to challenge you to run to the strong tower that's available to you, to run to your stronghold.
And if it means you run in that cave and you get down on your knees and you cry and you just hide because that's all you can do, do it. And I promise you, he will show up. Am I promising you a life of ease and a life of no struggles?
No, but I'm promising you a hand that'll hold tighter than any other hand you've ever held. He sticks closer than a brother and I am proof of it. And I'm just here to encourage you in that. It's really, we make it so hard and he's just wanting us to run to him, to jump off our boat, to jump off of our place of shame, of failure and to run to him.
He doesn't care if you have a beer in your hand when you run to him. He doesn't care if you have your phone open to porn and you run to him. He doesn't care if your mouth is dirty, cussing and you've been convicted and you run to him.
He just wants you to run to him. He doesn't care if you've gotten yourself so in debt that you don't know how to get out. He doesn't care if you just binge ate 12 donuts. He just wants you to run to him.
And that's what I'm here to tell you. Just run to him this week. I'm sorry. So that's all I'm really wanting to leave you with today is that you have a place of safety in this world, in this world that can be hard, in this world that can bring tears, in this world that can bring disappointment, you have a place of safety.
And I want you this week to make a point and I don't have some perfect checklist to give you because what I'm learning the more I'm up here is it has to be something in your heart that you want. I can give you 0 .1, 0 .2, 0 .3, 0 .4 and if it's not in your heart to try it, you don't look at those again, which is fine.
This is my hope today that I get it in your heart. So a couple of things, I just want you this week, if you find yourself, maybe you're not even a believer and you're questioning your, do I even believe God's real?
Maybe you're in that phase of life. Maybe you're in the phase of life where you're like, at one time he was real to me but I don't feel him now. Maybe you're in the phase of life of, man, I want to love him like she's saying but I just can't get there.
I want that faith but I can't get there. Well, I'm just here to tell you that this week, I want you to try to set some Jesus habits in your life. Just like this alarm for my phone, just like that, I want you to set an alarm to take it to Jesus.
And if that's a physical alarm, on Mondays I pray with a couple of ladies, we pray every Monday. One of them, she has a timer on her phone that goes off every 45 minutes. And every Monday she gives the last 15 minutes of every hour to prayer.
I can't say I'm there partly because I work on Mondays but I admire that. She sets a physical alarm to remind her to pray and you might need to set an alarm on your phone for a time that you need it.
Maybe a scripture, maybe that scripture that I had up early, you write it down, you make a point to pray it for the week. For me, this is something I do. I like to walk every day and maybe I pick a day a week and I don't take headphones and that's just a walk to talk with Jesus.
Maybe I don't say anything. Many times, so on my walk in my neighborhood, I head back and there's like a, I don't know, it's about a two mile loop if I do it and there's a part of it that's a green way.
Many times I'm alone in this little green way and there are so many times that I stop and I'm weeping in that green way. Because I feel him with me because I gave him place in my life. You know, I'm up every day between 4 .30 and five.
Most days I want to, but some days I don't. But I get up because nothing's more important to me than hearing his voice right now as I speak to you guys. And I'm not saying you have to get up at 4 .30.
I have a different call on my life right now. But I am saying you might have to get up 20 minutes early. I am saying that. If you really want Jesus and you don't want to just, is he real? You have no right to ask that if you haven't put effort in to go into your strong tower.
And I know it sounds harsh, but I felt like it's what I was supposed to say to this group today. So I'm just encouraging you that. You gotta take some time and some action to live a life with God. So if the band wants to come on up, you're welcome.
But many times, you know, we wait for tragedy or loss to turn to Jesus. You know, how many times have I heard that? And let's be honest. When I was, I've always loved the Lord. I've always thought I served the Lord.
I did serve him to my best of my ability. I did. I loved him with what I thought I was supposed to do. But I remember, and I know I talk about it a lot, but it shaped me when my husband passed away and I found myself as a 39 year old woman with three kids and no set career path other than running the business that my husband was building.
Well, I'm here to tell you that if you've ever heard about faith in God, that's a time you're gonna reach for it or you're gonna reach for a bottle. You're gonna reach for something. And oh, that's partly why I weep sometimes.
Like, why Lord, did you grace me with the faith to reach for you? When I could have just as easily turned and gone a different direction. There was times, there were times I wanted to go a different direction.
I didn't wanna say yes to God anymore because it hurt too bad. There were times I wanted to just quit, but I wouldn't quit. And I'm not saying I did it perfect. In fact, my son walked through this life with me and I didn't do it perfect, but I did it to the best.
Just like Peter, when I realized I would run to him and I'd find myself on the floor usually and I still close my bedroom door, turn on YouTube and find myself on the floor when I mess up. I'm just here to encourage you to run to your strong tower.
So I felt like today, as I close, I just wanted to give opportunity to pray, you know. And I never know exactly how to do this other than I felt the Lord. I want y 'all to, inside of yourself, we could close our eyes or not close your eyes, but I want you to ask yourself, God, two things, I guess.
Number one, God, do I think you're real or not? And maybe you don't even say God if you're not sure if he's real. Maybe you just say it out loud. But then number two, I wonder how many people in here run to the world, run to their own strength before they run to the strong tower of Jesus.
And I'm just here today and I just want you to give you opportunity. If you want to say that, God, I want to run more to Jesus than I do right now, I just want you to slip your hand up and I want us to pray together.
I'm not saying that you don't believe, I see your hands. I'm not saying that you don't already ask him for help, but you want to do it more. My hands up, I want to do it more. I want it to be so second nature that I'm always asking the Lord for help.
And so right now, let's just say a prayer together. I'll say it and if you can just repeat after me, say, dear father, I thank you for loving me. Lord, I thank you that you're my strong tower and I ask you to help me run to it.
I ask for reminders this week of your goodness. Of your answers. I thank you for loving me. I thank you for loving me in my mess. And I run to you in Jesus name. Amen. And so I hope at the end of this that you hear my heart and that you hear the excitement in me too that I can offer you an answer, an answer to that gnawing anxiety that you feel in your stomach, an answer to that heart that's beating just a little too fast and you don't know why,
an answer to the night sweats that you get or the panic that you feel. And that answer is a strong tower. Can I ask my prayer team to come down front please? And as we sing this last song, I just encourage you if you need prayer for anything, maybe you need help with something.
You know, the Bible says that if there's something in your life that you need help with, you bring it to the elders of the church and they will pray with you and agree. This isn't just like an action that we do.
This is something we believe. And so I'm just encouraging you if there's something in your life that you need somebody just to hold your hand and agree. It's a simple prayer. That's what they're here for.
And that's what this is for. And that's why we're giving space to this during this song. And so as they sing this, and I think they're singing Waymaker, which, you know, the song Waymaker. I mean, that is a great song to finish out this message that Jesus is our Waymaker.
He is the answer to whatever problems we have. And now sometimes his answer can be, you gotta do this, this, or this. You gotta change some things. That can be another message for mom at another time.
But I'm here today to tell you if you run to him, he's gonna show you some of those things already. That's gonna happen naturally. So let's just finish the song and then we'll come up and finish.