All I Want Is for God to Show Up

1. Where is God?

Where is God? God’s people are no longer experiencing God’s presence. So they cry out, “Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is he who put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit …?” (Is 63:11) “Where are your zeal and you’re might? The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion are held back from me” (Is 63:15). The places that symbolized and represented God’s presence with his people, the places where God’s people worshipped Him, are destroyed, in ruins, desolate and a wilderness (Is 63:18; 64:10-11).

Where is God? Today, we as God’s people are also crying out and asking where is God? Our society, our country seems to become godless by the day. Many churches are empty. Churches have become coffee shops, restaurants, museums. The Gospel Tabernacle on the corner of 8th Avenue and 44th Street in New York City, where AB Simpson pastored and was the mother church of the C&MA, closed its doors as a place of worship after 80 years in 1970. It was abandoned for a long time, filled with homeless, and gang graffiti decorated its walls. In 1997 John’s Pizza opened its doors in this abandoned church. It still has the original church chandeliers, and the original Alliance stained-glass windows showing the Fourfold Gospel. A place once dedicated to the Bread of Life is now the largest pizzeria in the US.

Every banknote states, “In God We Trust,” but it seems that we have put our trust in everything and anything else except God. The world is a dark place, and we are wondering, where is God? He seems to be missing. “We have become like those over whom you have never ruled, like those who are not called by your name” (Is 63:19). Where is God?

2. Show up, Lord!

All I want for Christmas is for God to show up. Is that also your wish and desire? At times like these, the hope and deepest desire of God’s people is for God to show up. That is the cry of God’s people in these verses, for God to make his presence known.

“Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage” (Is 63:17). They cry out to God asking Him to rend, to tear open, the heavens, to come down and to make His Name known. They call on God to show up, and to do so in powerful ways like a fire. Fire is powerful and you cannot ignore fire. It burns wood and it boils water. They are asking God to show up in the same powerful and visible ways and to make his Name, his presence known, to the whole world so that the nations will tremble and the mountains quake.

God’s people call on God to show up because he had done so in the past. God has done awesome things in the past for his people. He acts for those who wait for him. He meets those who joyfully works righteousness, who does what is right. He meets those who remember God and his ways, those who obey him, worship him alone, who live according to his ways and walk in his ways. (Is 64:3-5) God acts on their behalf. He meets them — he shows up.

3. Why is God not showing up?

But, that is not the case now. His presence seems to be gone from his people. Why is God not showing up? God is angry because his people have sinned. God said, “‘Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely.’ And he (God) became their Savior. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit; therefore he turned to be their enemy, and himself fought against them.” (Is 63:8-10)

We have sinned. “Behold, you were angry, and we sinned; in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved? We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.” (Is. 64:5b-7) God has hidden his presence from his people and has given them over to the power of their sins.

We have sinned. This truth is painful to hear. We are quick to blame others. We easily say, yes, God has left America, and then we point fingers at the sins of others, the government, the politicians, the unbelievers, the foreigners, the immigrants, the other party, the other group, the liberals, the conservatives, the socialists, the capitalists, and so on. Everyone else has sinned, except us.

We don’t see the log in our own eyes. We do not see how we as God’s people, have turned away from God’s will, God’s ways, and God’s Word. And consequently, we are being separated from God’s presence. Very few are truly worshipping and calling on God. Very few are rousing themselves, striving, to take a hold of God. Instead we are striving to take a hold of worldly things. God gave us over to our sins. He left us alone to pursue our selfish desires, dreams, visions, plans, all of which have little place for God. Our sins have blinded us so much that we don’t see anymore when and where God is showing up.

In many churches worship services have become entertainment services. The Word of God is no longer preached, only a humanistic pop-theology to make people feel good. A few Bible verses are plastered onto the teaching to give it a Christian and biblical veneer. The gospel of grace and truth is no longer proclaimed. Only grace, and then cheap grace without repentance. For the sake of love, unity, and harmony, we are silent about and condone sins in our midst, attitudes, words, behaviors, and actions that are unbiblical and unChristianly. The majority of Christians no longer read and know the Bible. How can we know God if we are not living in and from his Word?

We cry, “Sin, sin, wrong, wrong, bad, bad,” only when it is the other person, the other group, the other party, the other leaders. When we ourselves, our group, our party, our leaders, sin, do wrong and bad, the sound of silence is overwhelming. We have become hypocrites.

We have placed our culture, our country, our politics, our economics, our individual rights above God. As long as our policies, political leaders, government, and business practices achieve these goals, we are conveniently quiet about, overlook, even condone, their sinful practices and behaviors. The goals justify the means, even if those means are unbiblical, sinful, and opposed to God’s will.

We have become very good at playing religion and church on Sundays, but for the rest of the week and our lives we follow our own ways. Do we not get Jesus’ very clear teachings and commands? He is Lord of our whole life. He has bought for us the new, eternal life at a terrible price. He calls us to live this life already know, in all areas of our lives and all the time.

We have sinned, and that is why God is not showing up, and we are not experiencing his presence.

4. God shows up all the time

Is all we want for God to show up? Then we must repent. We can pray for God to show up, pray for revival until we are blue in our faces, but without repentance, God will not show up, will not pour out his Holy Spirit afresh on his people.

We must believe, repent, and ask the Holy Spirit to search and know our hearts, to test us and know our thoughts, to see if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Ps 139:23-24).

If we repent, truly repent, God will show up and answer us: “Here I am, here I am.” (Is 65:1). God will not despise a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart (Ps 51:17). God promised, “this is the one to whom I will look; he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” (Is 66:2)

When we repent God will show up because we are his people, the work of his hand. When we repent God will show up because he shows up all the time.

From the very beginning God showed up in powerful ways. We know the awesome things God did in the past. He created the universe. He sent the flood and saved Noah and his family. He called Abraham and created his people to be a blessing to the nations. He saved his people from slavery in Egypt, and with powerful deeds brought them the promised land. Throughout Israel’s history God showed up again and again. He promised that he will show up. He will send a Savior, the Messiah.

And so he did. God showed up in a big way. God came down from heaven. Jesus the Christ was born. He is Immanuel, God with us. God the Father revealed Himself in the God the Son. Jesus showed us God the Father. Jesus was crucified, and died. Through Jesus, we now have direct access to God our Father. Because of Jesus we can receive forgiveness for all our sins. Jesus was resurrected so that we can have new, eternal life. All we have to do is to believe and repent. Turn to Jesus, and receive Him as our Lord and Savior.

Then God showed up again in a very big way. He sent and poured out his Holy Spirit on his people. The Holy Spirit gives us and empowers us to live this new life we have in Jesus. Through the Holy Spirit Jesus now lives in us. God is now with us every day. He shows up every day.

Since that time, throughout the history of the church, God has shown up consistently in powerful ways to be with his people, to help them, and empower them for His kingdom purposes. I believe that every one of us here can give powerful testimonies of how God has shown up in our lives. How he has changed our lives. When things seemed dark and lost, when we turned to him, he showed up, and help us through those times of suffering and pain.

And God will show up in the final act. God will show up when the Lord Jesus Christ returns on the Day of the Lord. On that day “the hand of the Lord will be made known to his servants, but his fury will be shown to his foes.” (Is 66:14-16, NIV) On that day “the former troubles are forgotten and are hidden from my eyes. For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.” (Is 65:16-17)

God shows up all the time.

Do you want God to show up in your life? Do you want God to change your life? Then believe in Jesus Christ. Receive him as Lord and Savior. Repent, and all your sins will be forgiven. You will receive the Holy Spirit. You will receive and experience the new, eternal life in Christ through the Holy Spirit. Believe in God the Father. Believe in Jesus Christ. Believe in the Holy Spirit. Repent. Turn back to God, and He will show up. You will hear God say to you: “Here I am, here I am!”