Show Notes
In this episode, Derek Vreeland discusses the theme of God’s neighboring presence. He explores how the Bible tells the story of God’s desire to be with humanity, from God walking with Adam and Eve in the garden to the New Jerusalem coming to earth. Derekalso introduces his Bible study series, ‘God’s Neighboring Presence,’ which focuses on the three movements of God: incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. He emphasizes the importance of awakening to God’s presence, believing in Jesus’ sacrifice, and participating in the transformation of new life.
Books mentioned in this episode:
The Message Devotional Bible by Eugene Peterson
Scripture verses mentioned in this episode:
John 1:1-14
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Transcript
Narrator: Welcome to Peaceable and Kind, the podcast where we explore the transformation. Each week your host, Derek Vreeland, will delve into the stories, scriptures, and practical steps that help us embody these essential Christian virtues.
Derek Vreeland: Welcome back to another episode of Peaceable and Kind. I am your host, Derek. Vreeland and thank you for joining me today for this podcast episode. I have so enjoyed creating these episodes and I just got a text yesterday. From someone who was listening and uh heard a particular episode that they enjoyed, and I love hearing that feedback. So, if you are new to Peaceable and Kind, welcome. I’m glad you have joined us. Make sure that you get subscribed And if you’ve been listening to these episodes, leave us a review or rating that helps other people discover the podcast. We love the five stars. So if you want to give us a five star rating, we would appreciate it. And if you haven’t connected with me on social media, let’s be friends. I am at Derek Vreeland on Instagram, Facebook, and the social media platform. Formerly known as Twitter. You can connect with me there and send me feedback that you have about these episodes. We’ve been creating different kinds of content. Some of our episodes have just me talking. Other episodes have me with a guest. And so let me know what you think. I’d love to hear your feedback. And on today’s episode, I want to talk about a topic that is close to my heart and just at the forefront of my mind. I want to talk today about God’s presence with us, specifically God’s neighboring presence. This is forefront in my mind because I have been writing a three-book Bible study series entitled, You Guessed It, God’s Neighboring Presence. I have been a pastor and a Bible teacher for, well, 25 years. And one of the major themes of the Bible that I’ve really paid attention to in the last few years Is God’s presence with us? In fact, you can look at the Bible from Genesis to Revelation And you can see this theme of God’s desire to be with us, God’s desire to be with God’s people. You can see it in book after book in the Bible. Think about it quickly from Genesis to Revelation. When we start in the beginning, after God creates and everything is good, indeed God sees everything that God has made and says it is very good. Then in chapter 3, we see God walking with Adam and Eve in the cool of the garden. So God creates this garden paradise for humanity to live. And there’s Adam and Eve. And where do we see God? We see God walking in fellowship. with the man and the woman he created. So that’s in the very beginning of the Bible. Now of course in Genesis chapter 3 things end poorly It starts acknowledging God’s presence, but because Adam and Eve disobey God, they are exiled from the garden, and then there is this Separation between humanity and God, but all throughout the story that the Bible is telling, we’ll see God communicating God’s desire to be with his people, we see that with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. We see that with Moses, Moses is called to go before Pharaoh. And God says, Don’t be afraid, I will be with you. Joshua, as he’s entering into the promised land, again, God encourages Joshua to be strong and bold and courageous and communicates, and I will be with you. In the wilderness wandering there was a tabernacle where a sacrifice would be made once a year in the Holy of Holies, and that would be where God’s presence would dwell with God’s people all throughout the Old Testament. And then with the coming of Jesus, God moves into the neighborhood. And we see throughout the New Testament, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is evidence of God’s desire to be with us. And then we go all the way to the end, to the very last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. And in the second to last chapter, Revelation 21. There is this beautiful picture of the new Jerusalem, this new holy city coming from heaven to earth. This is symbolic language of heaven and earth coming back together. Often we think about heaven as a far-off place outside of the solar system outside of our galaxy in the furthest reaches of the universe, but in fact heaven is more like a different dimension. I think it’s helpful to see earth as humanity’s space and heaven as God’s space And at the end of our Bibles, Revelation 21, there’s a picture of heaven coming to earth. And it’s in this symbol of this new holy city. And it says in Revelation 21, and God will dwell with his people, God will wipe away all of our tears, death will be no more, sorrow will be no more. And this is the picture of our future. So, in this big overarching story that the Bible is telling from Genesis, God walking with Adam and Eve in the cool of the garden. all the way to the end of Revelation, the holy city, the New Jerusalem coming to earth, and God dwelling with God’s people, we see this beautiful image of humanity and the Trinity together. And we forget this sometimes. As followers of Jesus in our modern world, where secularism is growing all around us I think those of us in the United States who are committed to Christ, committed Christians, we can look at Western Europe We can even look at our neighbors to the north, we can look up to Canada, and we can see that the tsunami of secularism. uh is crashing on our shores. What we’ve seen in Western Europe and Canada, the secularization of those places, is coming here. Indeed, it is here. I think for the West, for Western civilization, Western society, we are living in a growing secular age. And for some people that causes great concern, I acknowledge that it exists, but I don’t allow it to cause fear in me. I recognize that the floodwaters of secularism are rising, and what I look for are those life preservers, those buoys that will cause us to rise above those flood waters. Secularism is not something to be feared, though I think it’s something to be understood Secularism is essentially all of those attempts to do life without God. And it seems more and more in American culture. that our society is being structured in such a way that most people do life without God. And because of those influences, because of the influence of secularism We tend to forget what the Bible wants us to remember, and that is God is with us. Indeed, we live in a God-saturated world. We just forget that sometimes. We forget that God is everywhere present. God has made God’s invisible attributes known even in creation. So for those of us who love the outdoors, and I love to get outside hiking on a trail, backpacking, camping. Often when we get outdoors, particularly when I’m in like the Colorado Rocky Mountains, and I am hiking and I get above tree line and I see this beautiful. mountain vista. I have this overwhelming feeling of transcendence. And even those who would not be Christians, those who would not even call themselves religious uh we’ll say when I stumbled on that mountain range it was the closest thing to God I ever experienced. Well Romans 120 says that God is making God’s invisible attributes known, God’s divine nature and power known in the things that God has made. So, scripture tells this story of God’s presence with us. We can encounter God’s presence if we are alerted to it. We can be aware of God’s presence in the beauty of nature and creation. But I think we need practices that will keep us remembering that God indeed is with us. And so I’ve been writing this Bible study series to do just that. To take a deep dive into at least three Let’s call them movements of God. Three things God has done, the big highlights in the story that the Bible is telling. And they are incarnation, that is God with us in life, that is Jesus coming as God in human form. The second Movement or activity of God is crucifixion, that is, Jesus as God dying for us and for the sake of the world, God joining us in death And then resurrection, God joining us in newness of life. So I’m writing my Bible study series to reflect those three themes. writing three books, and each Bible study book is following one of those themes. So I have one Bible study book on incarnation, a second one on crucifixion, and a third one on resurrection. And one of the unique things that I’m doing with this Bible study is I am using the message translation. I’m using the message Bible by Eugene Peterson. Do you know about the message? This was an original translation of the Old Testament and New Testament into everyday common language and it was done by a man who is one of my heroes, Eugene Peterson. Peterson died just a few years ago, and it was a passing that I mourned. I got to know Peterson because I spent a little bit of time with him at two different conferences, but he became my hero primarily through his books. Eugene Peterson was a pastor in the Baltimore area for a number of years. And when he retired from pastoring, he taught at Regent. college in Vancouver and continued to write. And so his books deeply influenced me as a pastor Uh indeed one of my mantras is WWEPD. What would Eugene Peterson do? And his translation into everyday language called The Message first came out in the 90s. I think maybe he finished it up in the early 2000s. And a few years ago, my kids gave me a copy of the Message Devotional Bible Uh they gave it to me either as a birthday gift or a father’s day gift. Honestly, I don’t remember because I have a June birthday. My birthday is always around Father’s Day, so those gifts kind of get lumped together. But my kids gave me this devotional Bible, the Message Devotional Bible, as a gift, and it had sat on my shelf for almost a year. And then two years ago, I pulled off the shelf and I said, well, I’m going to read every day in the message Bible. And so I’m actually at the end of that two-year cycle with the season of Advent this year. I’ll start reading in a different translation. But for two years, nearly every day, I’ve been reading the message Bible. Now, let me be honest. The message Bible is not a perfect translation. There are those who don’t like the message. They don’t uh like the way Eugene Peterson translates things. And I understand that because reading it every day, I’ll come across passages where his translation seems a little different, like too different. And after doing my morning Bible reading, I’ll mark certain verses and then I’ll get a different Bible and I’ll open it up and I’ll compare the translations. And sometimes Eugene Peterson. uh translates things in a way where I go, yeah, I don’t know if I’m tracking with you on that. But in other places of the message, Eugene Peterson translates things with such poetic beauty That it opens up my imagination to see some nuances in the scripture that I hadn’t noticed before. So while the message Bible is not a perfect translation, it’s still a good translation. And so while the message Bible is not the primary translation I use for study or preaching and teaching It has been a wonderful adventure reading through the message in my morning Bible reading. And because of that, Because of reading every day in the message, I wanted to write this Bible study series from the Message Bible So I pick out what I think are fantastic translations, certain passages that really open up the scriptures. And I write my Bible studies around those, comparing the message to other translations, showing why I think Eugene translated things in the way that he did. And so I’m looking forward to completing this writing project. The Bible studies won’t even come out until uh 2025 and into 2026, so you’ll have to wait. But because I’ve been spending so much time in the message and writing these Bible studies, I wanted to take time on the podcast to share just some snippets. The message has these beautiful little phrases. Some people will know the uh Matthew 11. translation where it says learn the unforced rhythms of grace that’s a good one but the title of the Bible study series, God’s Neighboring Presence, actually came from reading the message. It’s one of the little notes in this devotional Bible from Eugene Peterson. It’s in a comment that Peterson has in Zechariah chapter 2. Zechariah is promising the exiles that God has not forsaken them, that God is still with them. And all through the message Bible, the message devotional Bible, are these little notes from Eugene Peterson Some are taken from books that he has written, but some of the notes in this devotional Bible from Eugene Peterson are actually from unpublished sermons and letters. Again, because I love Eugene Peterson, it’s one of the reasons I love the message and this devotional Bible that uses the message. But in Zechariah chapter two, this is the little note that Eugene Peterson has, where he uses that phrase God’s neighboring presence. Eugene Peterson writes Of course, Israel has never been godless. God has not left. God is returning to Israel’s neighborhood, even as Israel returns to itself Because God is with his people, God’s neighboring presence attends to them. God likewise attends to us, even when we, like they, have lost our way. I read that little note when I was reading through Zechariah. I think it was last Christmas. Maybe it was the Advent season. And when I read that little devotional note and I saw that phrase, God’s neighboring presence, I thought this is what I gotta call my entire Bible study series. And the series, God’s Neighboring Presence, is rooted in John chapter one. The opening of John’s Gospel, the very first chapter, his prologue, is beautiful in any translation, but I really enjoyed John chapter 1 in the message. And it was one verse, John 1. 14, that really captured my attention. So I’ll get to that one verse, John 1. 14. and share with you why I love how Eugene Peterson translates John one fourteen. But let me back up to give you the context. Let me just read from the Message Bible, John chapter one, starting in verse one. The word was first. The word present to God, God present to the word The word was God, in readiness for God from day one. Those are verses one and two Now, if you’re familiar with John’s Gospel, you may recall the more common translation: in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And the word was God. But I love how Eugene Peterson translates it here: that the Word is present to God and God present to the Word. Now, by the time we get to verse 14, you quickly figure out that the word is Jesus. So when John is using that phrase, the word, He’s using that as a title for Jesus. Jesus is the living word of God. Let me continue in John chapter 1, verse 3 Everything was created through him. Nothing. Not one thing came into being without him. What came into existence was life, and life was the light to live by. The life light blazed out of the darkness. The darkness couldn’t put it out. So here John is expressing that everything was created through the Word of God, which is Jesus. Everything created. And what God created was life, existence, being. And this life was light. It was a kind of brightness that no darkness could extinguish. Then John continues in verse 6. There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the lifelight He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the light. He was there to show the way to the light. So here, John the Gospel writer is speaking of John the Baptist, who was the forerunner, preparing the way for the Lord, preparing the way for Jesus. I’ll continue in John chapter 1, verse 9. The lifelight was the real thing. Every person entering life, he brings into light He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn’t even notice He, referring to the word who is Jesus, he came to his own people, but they didn’t want him But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, he made to be their true selves, their child of God selves. These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten Then we get down to the key verse, John 1. 14 in the Message Bible The word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one of a kind glory Like father, like son, generous inside and out, true, from start to finish And so this entire Bible study series is rooted in not even one verse, but just the beginning Of John 1. 14 in the message translation, the word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. That phrase moved into the neighborhood is what I love so much. The more common English translation of John 1. 14 is the word became flesh and dwelt among us, or tabernacled among us, which is true But there’s something about the phrase moved into the neighborhood, I think that really captures our attention. This is the great mystery of the Christian faith. That God took on flesh and blood, that God joined us as us to rescue us The word Jesus became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. The God of creation moved into the neighborhoods of our creation. In order to rebuild the neighborhood. I love how this captures our imagination Because God has moved into our neighborhood, we can now see this big theme within the big story that the Bible tells about God wanting to be with us. We see how God has moved into our neighborhood. In other words, God doesn’t only want to be with us, but God wants to be at work in the neighborhood. The word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. This mystery is what theologians call the incarnation. that eternal God, the Eternal One, took on the earthly, that the Infinite took on finite, that immortality took on mortality. It is a mystery that we can’t fully explain, but we embrace. So God comes to be with us in and through Jesus And in these three movements, incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, we see that God wants to be with us in life. God wants to be with us in death, and God wants to be with us in new life. And so for each of these three movements of God, these three moments of activity of God, There is a proper response on our behalf. So let’s look at our response to each of these three movements or activities first. God joins us in life. The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. We call this incarnation. And God joins us in life in order to be with us And the proper response to that is we awaken. There is a specific kind of awakening that happens within our souls when we recognize that we live in a God-saturated world, that God has moved into our neighborhood, and that God indeed is the ever-present God. In Psalm 139, the psalm writer says, If I ascend into heaven, you are there. If I go all the way down into Sheol, the place of the dead, you are there. Where can I flee from your presence? God joining us in life through the incarnation is a sign that God is everywhere present. And there is an awakening that happens. There’s a paradigm shift when we recognize that it’s not so much God popping into our world, doing a bunch of stuff, and then departing. Rather, we live. In a God-saturated world, the God who moved into our neighborhood is here to stay. So God joins us in life and we awaken. Number two, God joins us in death. This is the crucifixion of Jesus Jesus joins us in real human life, and through his crucifixion and death, Jesus joins us in real human death in order to rescue us from death. And the response to that is we believe. We accept it. We put our trust in what Jesus has done for us. knowing that Jesus died for our sins, that Jesus died and went into death, Jesus tasted death that he might swallow it whole, defeating death for us So as we believe in Jesus, there’s no fear in life, and for us there’s no fear in death, because Jesus has joined us there. And then the final movement or activity of God is that God joins us in new life, and that is resurrection. Death is not the end of the story for Jesus, and death is not the end of the story for us. Jesus joins us in death, but doesn’t stay there. On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead, and in that God is joining us in a new life in order to transform us. And our response to God joining us in new life is we participate. We’ve been invited to not just believe in resurrection, but to practice resurrection. And so we participate in what God is doing to transform us through our prayers, through our worship Through our acts of kindness, living rightly and justly with our neighbors. All of this participation Is how we cooperate with what God is doing to transform us, since God has joined us not only in life and death, but in this new life in Jesus. Well this is an overview. I can’t wait to finish up these Bible studies so that you can see them and hopefully you’ll get to participate. In these Bible studies, to take a deep dive into these three movements of God and to see this great promise that Jesus gave us when He said I will be with you always, even to the end of the age. This is the great hope of the gospel, that we are not alone today, and we will never be alone God is with us and God is with you. And if you can hold on to that, which I believe is the great hope of the gospel, that God is with us, that God is with you, if you can hold on to that. Then I believe everything is going to be alright. Well, thank you for joining me for this episode. That’s all we have for today. Thank you for listening. Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.