God is Present Everywhere and God is Everywhere Freely Present
“God is Present Everywhere and God is Everywhere Freely Present” – June 1st, 2025
Okay, in a moment we are going to have a little theology pop quiz about a big theological word, omnipresent. Omnipresent comes from the Latin omni meaning “all” and praesens meaning “present.” Some results of a quick internet search reveal a few interesting things:
- Omnipresent implies a state of being that is not limited by space or time, often used in a religious context to describe the nature of a deity.
- Omnipresent signifies the ability to exist or operate universally across all places simultaneously.
- The concept of omnipresence can also be applied to other things, such as the omnipresent force of gravity or the omnipresent security apparatus of a museum.
Taking all this into consideration, here are your three pop quiz questions:
- Is God always present?
- Is God present everywhere?
- Is God present in all things?
These short questions seem simple enough, and it’s so good to ask these kinds of big questions! Karl Barth, our resident theologian for this sermon series, tells us that “because and as God is one, unique and simple, he is for this reason omnipresent. Omnipresence is certainly a determination of the freedom of God.” He goes on to explain that the concept of omnipresence “contains the reference to a universe … to which God stands in a very direct and very intimate relationship. He is present to it, yet he is not identical with it, but distinct from it as it is distinct from him.”
“God is omnipresent” cannot mean only that God is present always, everywhere, and in all things, because that definition is indistinguishable from pantheism. The Oxford English Dictionary defines pantheism as “a doctrine which identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God.” In our Vineyard Statement of Faith, one of our affirmations, entitled God the King: The Creator and Ruler of all things, says: “We believe that God’s kingdom is everlasting. From His throne, through His Son, His eternal Word, God created, upholds and governs all that exists: the heavenly places, the angelic hosts, the universe, the earth, every living thing and human beings. God created all things very good.”
As the name of our current sermon series says, God is the One who loves in freedom! Renowned professor of systematic theology, Jürgen Moltmann, says that “the story of the gospel is the great love story of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, a divine love story in which we are all involved together with heaven and earth.” And God’s freedom means that in God is present in three primary ways.
The first way in which God is present is that God is present to Godself.
Our Vineyard Statement of Faith affirms that from all eternity God exists as the One Living and True God in three persons of one substance. The three persons of the Trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – are equal in power and glory and dwell in the communion of the trinity, in the divine fellowship, the eternal exchange of love. Daniel Migliore says that “the starting point or root of trinitarian faith is the good news of the love of God in Christ that continues to work in the world by the Holy Spirit.”
We better know God as the One who loves in freedom when we understand that God is present to Godself.
The second way in which God is present is in Jesus Christ.
In Jesus Christ, God and humanity are brought together – God with us!
As the apostle Paul said in his address in the Areopagus in Athens in Acts 17:24-25 – “24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.”
God, who is present in Jesus Christ, is the Lord of heaven and earth. The Greek word translated Lord is kyrios, which refers to supreme authority, one exercising absolute ownership rights.
God is present generally in the world at large. And God is present specially in God’s work of revelation and reconciliation. In freedom God chose to create us (humans) in God’s image. God loves all of God’s creation, all of God’s creatures. However, God loves in freedom. In freedom and love, God gave creation a gift particular to us humans that God has given no other creature. God gave us the gift of Godself in human form! God has come as one of us, in the person of Jesus Christ! In Jesus, God and humanity have become one.
Remember Jesus’ prayer in the upper room at the Last Supper, in John 17:20-23 – “20 I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
Karl Barth speaks to the glorious mystery of Jesus in us and us in God: “It is only the One who is present in this special manner and place [Jesus] who is also the God presence in the world as a whole.”
Ephesians 1:17-23 helps us to more clearly understand how God is present in Jesus Christ – “17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. 20 God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. 22 And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”
We most clearly see God’s omnipresence in God raising Jesus from the dead and seating him at his right hand on the throne as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, far above all others. The incarnation is the defining event of all history, in which we see that God’s omnipresence finds its goal, completion, meaning, and origin in Jesus Christ.
We better know God as the One who loves in freedom when we understand that God is present in Jesus Christ.
The third way in which God is present is with people and with all creation.
There is a special way in which God is present with us, with people.
The Apostle Paul speaks of this in Ephesians 2:4-7 – “4 God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ —by grace you have been saved—6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
It is because Jesus is who he is and because of what he has done that by grace we are saved, and God makes us alive together with Christ! Incredibly, God raises us up with Christ and seats us with him in the heavenly places. Again, this points to the glorious mystery of Jesus in us and us in God.
Although God gives us the freedom to choose how to be present with God, we are unable to completely avoid God’s presence with us. Wherever we could go in space or time, God is already there!
The psalmist beautifully expresses this in Psalm 139:7-10: “7 Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.”
For God to be present with something other than Godself implies both distinctness and relationship. Karl Barth helps us to understand: “God … is everywhere undividedly and completely as the One he is and in all the fullness of his being.” However, there is a mystery about how God is present with us. God’s presence with us is not always exactly the same. If it were, God would be lifeless and loveless and fundamentally unfree. Karl Barth puts it this way: God “actually is present everywhere … in the manifestation of his freedom, the fulfillment of his life, and the reality of his love.” He adds that God is also “present in an individual way in individual cases, in the individuality which he has himself and which is determined by himself.” One of my daily devotionals this week noted that “for so many of us this dynamic of presence and absence is a familiar pattern in our relationship with God.” Theologian Daniel Migliore acknowledges God’s freedom to be present with creation in distinct ways: “God is present when and where and how God pleases. God is present to all creatures and in all events, but not in the same way.”
Karl Barth sheds some light on this aspect of God’s freedom which is admittedly difficult to wrap our heads around: “There are certainly very different forms of God’s presence in his creation, but there is no absence of God in his creation … There is a presence of God in wrath and a presence in grace. There is a presence in his hiddenness and a presence in his revelation … But there is no non-presence of God in his creation.”
We better know God as the One who loves in freedom when we understand that God is present with people and with all creation.
Taking these three ways in which God is present together – God is present with Godself, God is present in Jesus Christ, and God is present with people and with all creation – Scripture makes it clear that God is present everywhere and God is everywhere freely present.
How can we become more freely present with God?
In a moment we are going to talk about a practical application of this rather mind-blowing theological concept. Before we do that, I want to point out an obvious difference between God and us that is worth noticing. God is present everywhere; however, we can be present in only one place at a time. How easily we forget our limitations, some of us more than others! I also want to point out a similarity between God and us that exists precisely because God created us in his image. Our God who loves in freedom created us with the ability to choose to be freely present with God (or not). We get to decide. To choose to be freely present with God is God’s desire for us! As we choose to be freely present with God, we are enabled to live more in the shalom of the already-not-yet kingdom of God, the place of universal flourishing, wholeness and delight. It is also true that as we learn to become more freely present with God, this will spill over into us being able to become more freely present with ourselves and with others.
God is the one who loves in freedom. That is how God wants us to love, too. We struggle to love like that. Remember Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that we read earlier? Let’s read verses 21-23 again: “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” Even though the way that God answers prayer remains largely a mystery to us, we do know that God made people in the first place to reflect his image into the world, as N. T. Wright puts it, “to bring his love and wisdom and purposes to bear on the world, through human beings.”
Author and pastor Kai Nilson speaks to our human tendency to perpetuate division in every direction instead of becoming one. “When so much of our world is geared toward measurement; grades, promotions, making the team, getting the part, college acceptances, neighborhoods we live in, schools our kids attend, we end up bearing the cost—in our bodies, minds, and spirit, of a perpetual cycle of never measuring up. We are overcome by what I call ‘comparison fatigue’ as we carry the weight of comparison. We are prone to judgment, participate in bitter resentment, and become perpetuators of a divided world—winners and losers, those who make it and those who don’t.”
So how, in a practical way, can we instead cultivate lives that are in harmony with Jesus’ prayer? In other words, how can we grow in being more freely present with God? I have two suggestions: a book and a Scripture.
Nilson points us to a simple, remarkable, and life-changing book written by Brother Lawrence, a humble 17th-century monastery cook, The Practice of the Presence of God. Brother Lawrence discovered that it is God who paints Himself in the depths of our souls and that we must merely open our hearts to receive him by practicing the presence of God “in one single act that does not end.” Brother Lawrence resolved to make the love of God the end of all his actions. He pleaded that all work is valuable to God, and we need not accomplish great things to please him. Kai Nilson sees two guiding insights in this unparalleled classic: Love is the measure of our work, and right habits increase our capacity to love.
Now to Scripture: I find the way that Psalm 46 is rendered in The Message translation to be an excellent guide as the psalmist encourages us to develop four good and right habits that help us to be more freely present with God. Psalm 46:1-11 (The Message) – “1 God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him. 2 We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom, courageous in seastorm and earthquake, 3 Before the rush and roar of oceans, the tremors that shift mountains. Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God of angel armies protects us. 4 River fountains splash joy, cooling God’s city, this sacred haunt of the Most High. 5 God lives here, the streets are safe, God at your service from crack of dawn. 6 Godless nations rant and rave, kings and kingdoms threaten, but Earth does anything he says. 7 Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God of angel armies protects us. 8 Attention, all! See the marvels of God! He plants flowers and trees all over the earth, 9 Bans war from pole to pole, breaks all the weapons across his knee. 10 ‘Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.’ 11 Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God of angel armies protects us.”
The first good habit we can develop is to remember who God is! God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him. God fights for us and protects us.
The second good habit we can develop is to come close to God! God is present everywhere and everywhere freely present. God lives here. God is with you. God is for you. God beckons us to come close and desires that our intentional choice be to approach God right here, right now. God is so freely present with us that we can in less than a moment run uphill into God’s secure retreat, no matter what is going on in our lives, either within or around us. It does not depend on any ability we have. It is inherent in God’s character and purpose, that in God we are safe, loved, and welcomed, right here, right now.
The third good habit we can develop is to remember what God has done! God has created all that there is and it is very good! God urges us to pay attention and see his marvels. God brings forth abundance and beauty all over the earth. God defeats death and destruction from pole to pole.
The fourth good habit we can develop is to be still and know that Father God is God. Be still and know that Jesus is God. Be still and know that the Holy Spirit is God. In the Message translation, the psalmist calls us to step out of the traffic, a deeply relevant phrase for us in Atlanta! There are so many distractions pulling at us every day. What we need is not more ways to numb our weary and worn-out bodies and souls, but to “take a long, loving look at … [our] High God, above politics, above everything.” Brother Lawrence says, “Let us occupy ourselves entirely in knowing God. The more we know Him, the more we will desire to know Him. As love increases with knowledge, the more we know God, the more we will truly love Him. We will learn to love Him equally in times of distress or in times of great joy.”
I invite you to consider what would help you to develop these good habits. Good habits don’t just happen. They require intentionality on our part. Consider what time of day is best. I highly recommend the first thing each morning, no matter what your schedule looks like. Start small, even five minutes a day. Adjust your sleep schedule if needed. I encourage you to choose a place that is beautiful and relatively free of distractions. The important thing is to start and to be consistent. Whenever I change up or add a routine to my life, I find it helpful to give it a good try for six weeks before giving up on it or altering it. Think of it this way – living in the world as we do is somewhat akin to making our way upstream against the current. There are so many things that try to pull us in directions that are not good for us. God desires for us to love as Jesus loved, to live lives in harmony with Jesus’ prayer, and to be freely present with God. We won’t be able to withstand, let alone move forward against, the current without intentionality and effort. This is why developing good habits is essential. Otherwise, we end up sliding back into whatever we’re most tempted by whenever life gets hard.
The good news is that as we practice being freely present with God and develop good habits, our capacity to love grows. It’s not what we know that’s important; it’s how well we love. The more we habitually live and act out of love for God in all tasks, whether seemingly mundane or majestic, the greater our capacity to love becomes. God is the One who loves in freedom. God is present everywhere and God is everywhere freely present. May the Lord give us the grace and the grit we need in order to grow in being more freely present with God, with ourselves, and with others, as we continue to do small things with great love, reaching out to neighbors and nations, for the greater glory of God!
