The Miracle of Christ’s Presence

David:     We have something exciting we’re looking forward to this coming weekend.

Karen:     That is certainly right. We have an on good authority that the risen Christ will be in attendance, at the church where we plan to worship.

Intro:      Welcome to the Before We Go podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David at Karen Mains.

David:     Karen, do you think Jesus, the risen Christ, will be at this church in bodily form?

Karen:     No. If that were the case, he could only be at a couple of churches that the most in our small Chicago suburb. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be at this church we will be attending.

David:     How many people do you think go to church with this keen sense of anticipation that Jesus himself is going to be present?

Karen:     I don’t know how to answer that question, but I think the answer would be small. We go to church because we’re supposed to. We go to church because we have friends there. We go to church because of spiritual input in our lives. But maybe not because with the attitude that Jesus will be here, he will be present.

David:     I sense that on the part of not only the congregation, but sometimes the people who are the leaders of the services. There just isn’t that awareness. It’s kind of a casual, it’s kind of, “Okay, here we are again. And we’re glad to be here.”

Karen:     Maybe not casual as much as there’s a lot to put this all together. And are we ready? And you get focused on those details, and you forget about another kind of extraordinary possibility.

David:     That is, that the risen Christ himself is going to be present. At any rate, we’re beginning a series of podcasts that will continue for a number of weeks about the difference having a sense of Christ’s presence makes in our worship.

Karen:     That’s something to think about. When Christians perceive the reality of Jesus being with his people when they come together in church, how that makes all the difference in the world and the worship? That’s what we’re talking about.

David:     You and I truly believe there isn’t Christ is present whenever his people come together. But let’s think about what would happen if we could actually see him. And how do you imagine people responding?

Karen:     We can hear this whisper go through the congregation. “Is that Christ? Is that really Jesus?”

Let’s first define worship. How are we using that terminology? Well, through the years, I mean, I’ve learned this from you. You’ve explained it as attributing worth to God. In other words, you’ve related that to complimenting God. That makes it a little bit easier to understand.

David:     Yeah. I think that’s very fair. That’s what I’m thinking about. Say it’s your private devotions. It’s not saying, God, this is what I request. That’s not worship necessarily. It’s not saying thank you for what you did for us. But it’s saying, this is what I like about you. I just want to pay you compliments because you deserve those.

Now it could relate to us. I think I’ve said a number of times to the Lord this last week, just in my private time speaking with him, “You are amazing Lord. You have met our needs in such a marvelous manner all through our lives. Now you just did it again.” That was neat. You know what I’m talking about. God knows what I’m talking about.

Karen:     Well, we had a friend who gave us a substantial check just for us to use as we needed and not even for the ministry. And it was just the right sort of thing at the right sort of time. And we could say the Lord moved in that man.

David:     It was an absolute surprise, but it was one of those times when you say, you know, we’re getting kind of tight. Yeah. And God worked. And I’m saying to him, “You are a marvelous initiator of solutions to our problems. Well, we haven’t even named them to you.”

Karen:     Your timing is impeccable. Or how do you do that?

David:     How could you see our needs? I mean, there’s nothing compared to the needs of people who belong to the Lord all across the world. Yeah. It’s just so gracious and personal.

Karen:     And think of it this way. Not only our needs, but those people all across the world. He manifests his love to them. It’s extraordinary. Isn’t it when you think about it?

David:     Yeah. That adds to the excitement of going to church this weekend and saying, “I come and I’m a grateful member of your kingdom. And I am wanting to come, and I want to give you all of the worth that is possible.”

And I’ll do that in every way I can, including singing, even some times when the songs are not even about you. They may be about evangelism; they may be about requests.

Karen:     What you’ve done for me, and those are all part of our knowledge of God. But worship, as you’ve taught it, is really identifying who he is and what his attributes are and worshiping him for those things.

David:     What would be some of the traditional ways congregations compliment God when they come together?

Karen:     Well, there’s singing.

David:     That’s probably the most understood one by people. Although I’m not sure people always can differentiate between whether it’s attributing worth to God or saying thank you or making requests, whatever. It’s just like conversation. Sometimes you are going to say, “I just want you to listen, I want to tell you how I feel.”  That’s part of conversation. It’s not worship, but you can do that with God. In fact, a lot of times I’ve said, “God, I’m just plain tired and my mind is not operating the way it normally does, but I still want to make sure that I acknowledge you and your presence in my life.” That’s a prayer, but it’s not a worship prayer in such.

Karen:     You know, David, when you were pastoring, I’m thinking back to those years and we planted a church in the inner city of Chicago in 1967, I believe. We were there for 10 years. And you had developed a remarkable concept of leading people who were in a church to worship. You divided our worship services into three parts. I think we borrowed this from another.

David:     That wasn’t original.

Karen:     This wasn’t original. So, can you recall of those?

David:     Oh Yeah, of course I can what did it for years? I have this in my mind when I go to churches, attending regularly to a given church or having a week when we can go somewhere else because our schedule is different. It was the approach to God and worship saying, this is what we like about you.

Karen:     So that really was the time when we gathered and began to worship.

David:     We would specify this is what we are worshiping for this given Sunday. And it related to what the message of the morning was when God spoke through His written word.

Karen:     This was actually printed in our bulletins that we handle.

David:     The approach to God and worship then, was having done that God speaking through His written word and then the response of obedience. This is how we want to respond to you, Lord, having come and attributed worth to you and listened to you as your spokesperson talked to us. And now here’s how we’re responding.

Karen:     Okay. And that was extremely helpful. I’ve never seen another church organize its worship services in quite such a succinct way.

David:     Those were the three elements of the service.

Karen:     Say them again.

David:     Once again, those three parts are the approach to God and worship. Then God speaking through His written word. This is not us talking to God, but God talking to us through His representative in that church. And then the last of those three is the response of obedience. What am I going to do now? Having been in God’s presence, recognizing something beyond just the human is going on and Him speaking to my heart in a special way. How do I respond? What are some of the traditional ways congregations can complement God when they come together, Karen?

Karen:     Well, you mentioned singing. Choirs certainly are. Now we have more in the contemporary churches singing groups that lead worship.

David:     Choirs are not as in churches as much as they once were. I would say it’s changed to the degree where you need a worship band in most churches now. But I would say that scripture reading could be worship. What would differentiate in terms of when it’s done as to whether it’s worship or not?

Karen:     Well, what part of those three parts it would fit into? We go through the scriptures and there are many scriptures that are just worship scriptures.

David:     What would be an example?

Karen:     Certainly, the Psalms.

David:     The Psalms often are speaking to God of His worth. And doing that psalm, whether with several voices doing it, one voice reading those Psalms. That certainly can be a part of congregational worship as well.

Karen:     And then there’s the arts. We don’t understand how much things that artists do can be used as worship or they can praise God through their art. I remember one gal I knew; she was a fabric artist. And she did beautiful work with different sorts of things embroidery on these banners. But we had panels that she had created in a small church that we once attended. They were like nine feet by four feet. She’d worked on them and sold them, put them together and they would hang from either side of the altar in the front, between the windows on the sides. They were beautiful, your eyes rested in them, but there was meaning in them. And sometimes you were led into worship by puzzling out the meaning of those banners. It was wonderful.

David:     Yeah, I would think that banners can actually have writing on them?

Karen:     Yes, they do. She always did have inscriptions or whatever you want to call it. I think that one of the things we don’t realize is that the prayers of the people, however they’re given up, can also be parts of worship. I’m not sure we use this tool enough where someone has had God work in their life that week and we begin to know about it at a certain point in their life. And we invite them to praise God for what he has done for them. Or praise God as far as what supernatural abilities he has to perform those miracles, both large and small in our individual lives.

David:     Poetry? We’ve done this a number of times when someone in the congregation was asked maybe a month ahead of time to say, would you write a poem of praise or worship? It’s not talking about something, but it’s talking to God about what you are appreciative regarding, paying him a compliment again, if you please. And those have been wonderful times when people have actually recited the poem they wrote. Now it doesn’t have to be worship, it could be another party, it could be a part of the response. This is how we’re responding as I expressed it in my poetry, but it certainly can be worship as well.

Karen:     Going back to reading scripture out loud, I remember one gentleman who had a long passage of scripture to read out loud during the worship service. And he did it all from memory. Do you recall that?

David:     I do recall, I remember the person who did it.

Karen:     It was stunning.

David:     He didn’t say he was going to memorize it either, he just started.

Karen:     And he didn’t have his Bible and he wasn’t looking down.

David:     A lot of the time he was with his eyes closed. I mean he had worked at that, that it was a marvelous time of worship. In fact, when it was done, I remember people of different places, some loud or some soft, say, “Amen.” Pageantry, banners, you know, I’m thinking that instruments, you know. Those can all be times of worship. We welcome you, your majesty. What kind of sound do you get in your head with that?

Karen:     A great trumpet.

David:     Yeah, trumpets. It’s all in terms of understanding what it is one is doing. Now, I’m kind of wondering if Jesus were bodily present. Say, all of a sudden, as people gathered, they were just getting ready and it’s coming to the place where it’s time to start.

Karen:     Quieting themselves.

David:     Who is that over there? No, he’s not dressed like we are. What would happen in the congregation?

Karen:     Oh, my goodness. I think there’d be a whisper that would go through. It’s Jesus, it’s actually Jesus.

David:     Yeah, and then my feeling is, Karen, that there would be some people who bow, go to one knee. That’s the body language of worship. It says, “Your majesty.” Often happens during times of great movements of the Holy Spirit when people just prostrate themselves.

Karen:     Yeah. I was going to say, I think some of them would just go prone, don’t you? And I think there might be spontaneous confession and tears and saying, “I haven’t been living the life I want to live or said I would live in following you and here you are and I’m so ashamed.”

David:     “I’m ashamed, but I say to you that you are worthy. I’m ashamed because I haven’t shown you with my life and how I live my daily routines. How much I really care about you. I’ve neglected you in terms of my mind.”

Karen:     David, I think this would be an extraordinary exercise for Christians to do before they attend church. Every Sunday and some churches are on Saturday evening before they go. Am I prepared to welcome the risen Christ to this church on Sunday? Because we know that he taught where the two or three are gathered together in my name. I will be in the midst of you.

So, he certainly is potentially present at all of our church and worship gatherings. So, before we go to church, maybe others can even make a note of it. I’m going to say, “Lord, am I ready to greet you? Am I ready to recognize you and welcome you as you attend in your unseen presence?”

David:     I’m trying to encapsulate in a sentence what we’re saying as we begin this series. We’re going to talk about different responses when we come to the realization that the risen Christ is present, not bodily, but he is present just the same. Here’s the sentence we’re beginning with.

Worship is an appropriate congregational response to the miracle presence of the risen Christ in their midst.

Say it one more time?

Worship is an appropriate congregational response to the miracle presence of the risen Christ in their midst.

So, I’m going to church this week and I’m anticipating that the miracle is going to happen again. It’s happened many times in my life where I’ve seen Christ’s presence thought how wonderful for the church. This is a thrilling thing that he is with us even as he promised. This Sunday that’s going to happen again. The question is whether or not I will be ready for that miracle to receive it and live in the wonder of it. How do we make sure that we’re ready? I’m kind of practicing through the week and saying, “Lord, here are the things that I really like about you.” This is how you’ve worked in my life. This is how you’ve gone far beyond what I ever would have anticipated.

I’m actually taking the time to tell you that and there are certain things that I can do as an individual that I’m doing. I’m not much of a singer but I can sing a song to Jesus. And I’ve done that in my private times. I just said, “This is a song that conveys what I’m really thinking. It’s been in my heart all this week. But I can’t sing as a congregation. And I can’t experience what other people know through their life unless I attend and I’m apart and kind of feel out what is going on in the church beyond just my little world. So anyway, I am excited about going to church this Sunday.

Karen:     So, you’re wanting to take this particular topic and develop in a future podcast.

David:     I have a whole sequence of what would take place if we truly believed as we should that Jesus is present when we come to his congregation in our given locales. We will go through those one at a time, if you just feel for what is there. I think when people sense that Christ is present, they will hear him say, in one way or another, “You need to love one another.” That’s a toughie and I’ve been kind of anticipating that coming. And I’m saying you know; I’ve not been acting lovingly toward these people. I need to make that right. I need to get a new start on that. If he’s coming to the church and we are going to meet him then holiness is going to be very important. I don’t want to come with dirty hands.

Karen:     Or dirty heart.

David:     Yeah, that’s a very good way to put it because sometimes that’s where we don’t look often enough you know what is really in my heart. But we’ll go through those one at a time.

Karen:     Okay, that sounds wonderful.  So, we’re in a series actually. We’re beginning of a series so our listeners can follow us and begin to get their minds around this topic and then practice it themselves.

David:     The presence of the living Christ in his church. It’s kind of good he isn’t there physically. Again, you mentioned before if he’s at this church he can only make so many churches. I think you mentioned the Chicago suburb within but all across the world. Jesus said it’s to your advantage that I go away. You know that I’m not confined to a body as such.

Karen:     Well, he is present in the presence of his Holy Spirit and that’s what he says to those who became his apostles. The Holy Spirit will come and will teach you all things. Right?

David:     Yeah, there’s simple basic truths but I think if we really concentrate on them they will come alive during these days. So, I’m looking forward to the series.

Karen:     We’d love to hear how they experience Christ in their church. So, give us a line and write us an email.

Outgo:     You’ve been listening to the Before We Go podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address,  hosts@beforewego.show. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please remember to rate, review, and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is copyright 2023 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Wheaton, Illinois 60187.