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1/4, Rachel Smith, "God's presence, our good things, and God's good plan"

January 5, 2026·31 min·2 clips

Rachel Smith, a published author and Hebrew nerd with an MDiv, unpacks God's presence and good gifts.

1. Rachel Smith delivers a guest sermon at Church of the Cross on Psalm 84 and Ephesians 1:3-14. 2. Smith is introduced as an MDiv holder, current doctoral student, and published author who has written a book on the creation account and various Bible studies; she leads a Sunday Supper group at the church with her husband Brian. 3. The sermon argues that the 'good things' God promises and the presence of God are the same plan, unfolding from Eden to the new creation through the tabernacle, temple, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in believers. 4. Smith opens with a warm childhood memory of driving from Minnesota to Jackson, Tennessee every other Christmas to visit her grandparents, using her homesickness for that house as an analogy for the psalmist's longing for the temple. 5. Psalm 84 describes the temple not as 'church' but as 'where God lives,' and Smith highlights the safety imagery — vulnerable sparrows nesting at the altar, the inner courts designed like a garden echoing Eden. 6. The psalmist's journey through the 'valley of misery' in verses 5-8 is described as evidence that God's presence and blessing are not limited to the temple: 'His influence is not limited to one space.' 7. Smith addresses Psalm 84:11's promise that God 'withholds no good thing from those who walk uprightly,' directly asking the congregation: 'Does that verse bother anybody else?' 8. She lists specific lacks faithful people experience — mental and physical health, food, jobs, housing, longed-for marriages or children — and argues it is 'not biblical to treat God like a genie.' 9. She redefines 'good things' as what the psalm actually lists: God's presence, sustenance in miserable seasons, going from strength to strength, defense from attack, grace, and honor — 'bigger than I could find here on earth and more eternally minded than I would know to ask for.' 10. Moving to Ephesians 1, Smith describes the passage as a 'theological word salad' — one long run-on Greek sentence — in which Paul lists blessings given to anyone who believes: blessed, chosen, predestined, adopted, redeemed, sealed with the Holy Spirit. 11. She emphasizes the plural 'y'all' in the original Greek, arguing that the identity is both individual and corporate — 'a church group calling.' 12. Smith describes reading 'Spiritual Parenting' by Michelle Anthony, which pointed her to Ephesians 1, and watching second graders recite a school pledge with machine-like efficiency — triggering the idea for a daily identity statement with her own children. 13. Every morning before school, her three children recited an Ephesians 1 identity at the door, ending with 'Don't mess with me,' often at high speed while grabbing jackets and backpacks. 14. Smith traces what she calls the 'presence plan': God's presence with Adam and Eve in Eden, then in the portable tabernacle in Exodus, then in Solomon's temple for 400 years before departing in 592 BC due to Israel's idolatry. 15. In John chapter 1, God 'tabernacled' with humanity in the person of Jesus — 'not a tent to be approached with holy fear, but a man full of grace, a friend and a counselor, a healer, a miracle worker.' 16. When believers receive the Holy Spirit, their bodies become the temple per 1 Corinthians 6:19, and the presence plan reaches its current stage: 'The presence of God travels just like it did in the desert — this time, he travels in each of us.' 17. A 2020 mental health study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society is cited: the mere physical presence of another person reduces human autonomic stress responses to averse sounds — used to ask 'how much more so does the presence of the Holy Spirit in a believer impact a space?' 18. Smith argues the Spirit is 'not a respecter of style,' listing diverse carriers: the messy frazzled mom, the tidy CEO, a child, the prodigal, an immigrant — all carrying the same Spirit. 19. The sermon closes with N.T. Wright's 'The Vision of Ephesians' quoted: 'The point of the church is to be so visibly indwelt by the Spirit of the God of love and grace that people will see it and give praise to God.' 20. Christians who have felt dismissed by prosperity-gospel readings of blessing verses, or who want a biblical-theological framework for the Spirit's presence in ordinary life, will find this sermon directly useful.

As heard by us

A steady sermon on identity, belonging, and the God who includes you.

Rachel Smith treats Ephesians as a quiet, personal argument that God's good gifts are not random favors but signs of belonging. She stays with blessed, chosen, and predestined long enough to give them weight, and she keeps the passage from feeling remote by insisting that God…

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Why you'd press play

For when you want Ephesians to feel personal, clear, and quietly reassuring on a slow walk or commute.

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