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Pastor Josh: to all who are weary and
need rest, to all who mourn and long

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for comfort, to all who feel worthless
and wonder if God really cares, to all

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who fail and desire strength, to all
who sin and need a savior, to all who

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hunger and thirst for righteousness, and
to whoever will come, this church opens

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wide her heart with a welcome from Jesus
Christ, the befriender of his enemies, the

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defender of the guilty, the justifier of
the inexcusable, the friend of sinners.

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In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
welcome, welcome in this Place…

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The title of the sermon
is called My Last Sermon.

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Mark 6:30-32

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And I'll read it.

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the apostles returned to Jesus, told Him
all that they had done and taught, and

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He said to them, "Come away by yourselves
to a desolate place and rest a while."

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For many were coming and going, and
they did not have leisure even to eat.

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Even to eat.

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This is the word of the Lord.

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Bless your word, Lord.

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I'm gonna do…

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break this up into two sermons, because
it just got too big and too unwieldy.

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'Cause sometimes, I don't know, kind
of my heart was just poured out.

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I've been working, as I had posted,
probably on this for 10 years.

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I've preached this at different
points and different times.

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but, like I said, it's titled My Last
Sermon, and that's a little clickbait-y.

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because it's a title I would have
hated in another time, but this was

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the last sermon I ever gave as lead
pastor, as the man who planted Reality

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Stockton, though I understand it's
called Reality Church of Stockton now.

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A change of branding after I made myself
obsolete or after they made me obsolete,

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depending on who's telling the story.

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It's true, this was my last sermon,
not because the tank ran dry, but

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because I left the tank at the mercy
of those who always wanted it emptied.

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The community that had been my family…

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FYI, this gets a little
personal, so bear with it.

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Please, I know you don't-- some
of you don't know me very well,

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but here I am baring everything.

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the community that had been my family,
the chosen family that I believed

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impossible to lose, managed to cast me
out by the oldest and ugliest of methods.

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Soft exclusion, hard exclusion, whispers,
group texts, passive-aggressive coffees,

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and finally what felt like the full shun.

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There's nothing so fierce as a holy mob.

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I was naive the first time I preached
this, hopeful even, believing that

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if I stood before them and bared my
wounds, they would see the blood and

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do what Christians are supposed to do.

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Bring bandages and bread, weep
and pray, and carry me home.

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I forgot that in modern churches,
sometimes even ones you start, wounds are

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mostly for hiding, and public lacerations
are met with collective wincing in the

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empty space that used to be fellowship.

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I was not just sent away, I was unmade a
son, unadopted, as if the legal paperwork

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of my soul could be burnt at the same
altar where I had burnt my thirties.

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They made sure I felt it too, all
the rituals of excommunication.

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No gentle confrontation, just a slow
bleed into the cold desert beyond

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the reach of the announcement list.

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I was a broken prodigal, and when I tried
to limp home, the elder brother met me

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at the perimeter of our property, arms
folded, eyes already scanning the horizon

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for the next threat to his inheritance.

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"There's something wrong
with you," he said.

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"You're not useful in this family.

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In fact, your weakness has weakened
the structure of the whole house."

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Then, in the silence of cruelty and
ambition, he whispered something under his

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breath, and all I could make out was, "The
father doesn't wanna see you anymore."

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Of course, he couldn't tell
me what I'd done, only that

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I was broken beyond repair.

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A contaminant, a hazard to
the salvation of others.

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There's a special heresy that
only the wounded can invent.

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You come to believe not just that
you're lost, but that those who

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toss you aside have found the secret
exit hatch to the Father's love.

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They inhabit a parallel universe
in which the cross is a velvet

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rope and you're the stanchion.

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The elder brother wrote the
narrative for the rest of the family.

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He took my name off the mailbox
and crafted a letter to all

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the cousins, the aunts, all the
anonymous people in the pews who

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only knew me, by sermons and sermons.

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He wrote about transformative moments
of vulnerability, but only the

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vulnerability, not the transformation.

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He removed my pictures from
the family photo album, deleted

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forever the home videos I was in.

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I became a warning, a byword, someone who
had been up close to holy things, but had

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been found wanting, unworthy, and unsafe.

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They baptized their cruelty as concern,
dressed the wound in love, but made

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sure it festered just enough to keep me
from ever coming near the table again.

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The father's house, which was, once
had been a sprawling manor with room

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after room of misfits, now shrank to a
single airless chamber, and I was not

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even allowed to peer through the window.

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So I did what the shunned always do, I
ran from the Father, from his children,

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from the siblings who had once built
forts with me in the backyard of faith.

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I excommunicated myself
from the rest of the story.

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I stripped off the borrowed robes, the
signet rings, the sandals, and left

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them in a heap in the city landfill.

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I felt naked and publicly shamed,
flogged for a crime I couldn't even name.

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Maybe that's the most exquisite
torture, not being condemned for

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something you did, but for a deficit
you don't know how to measure.

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The charges were in a different
language, and everyone else

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seemed to have grown up bilingual.

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All I knew for certain was that my voice
was unwelcome, my prayers unanswered,

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my soul surplus to requirements.

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In the aftermath, the only time I prayed
was to tell God what I really thought.

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I told him I would gladly trade my
salvation, I was the anti-Paul, if

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he would put the men I used to call
brothers in hell right next to me.

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Because what I had learned from those
relationships, what had been demonstrated

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over the past year, confession and
retraction, was that I was their hell.

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I wanted them to know how it
felt to be shunned, to be a ghost

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in the house that you built.

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I wanted them to see their own
faces in the flames, to have their

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sermons echo back to them with
the hollow ring of guillotines.

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Maybe this is the truest
legacy of spiritual wounding.

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You become unable to imagine any grace
that is not accompanied by judgment.

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There were months when I did not attend a
single service, where the mere sight of a

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church sign would make me physically ill.

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I avoided the sacred in all its forms:
wine, bread, worship music on the radio.

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Even the light through a stained
glass window I thought might burn me.

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But the longer I stayed away, the
more I realized that absence is a

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demon that feeds on its own tail.

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The loneliness became
kind of a second skin.

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I could not tell if I missed the presence
of God or if I missed the ritual of

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presence, the elaborate song and dance
of being seen and heard in a community.

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Some mornings I woke up and felt a
hunger that was not for food or for

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love, but for the discipline of meaning.

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I wanted to be needed again, but
more than that, I wanted to believe

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that I could still stand in front of
people and not be a cautionary tale

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I tried to fill the void with the
distractions that are so abundant now.

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I binge-watched shows about
murders, and cults, and tiger kings.

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I listened to podcasts that deconstructed
faith with surgical precision.

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I read novels about lost men who
wandered deserts and deltas and

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found nothing but their own shadows.

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For a time, I convinced myself
that this was healing, that to

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ignore the wound was to cure it,
but I was haunted all the same.

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Haunted by every word I had ever
preached about forgiveness, about being

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with God in the wilderness, about the
possibility of resurrection after death.

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Not the big death, but the small
deaths you die every time you're

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ignored by those you love.

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I remember the lines I had so often
quoted about Christ suffering outside

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the city gates, about the necessity
of being misunderstood, about the

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promise of newness on the far side of
disgrace, and those lines which I had

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thought were for other people came
back piercing me as sharp as arrows.

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Why should you be any different, Kaylor?

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Why should you get to skip the
cross and go straight to the garden?

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It was then in the depths of that
spiritual famine that I started

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to see the outlines of hope

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Not the hope to the
restoration of my old life.

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By now I knew that was gone forever.

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But the hope that perhaps even my
exile could be a place where God still

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lingered, That maybe, just maybe, the
lonely place was not just a holding cell

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for the damned, but a secret meeting
ground for those who had been discarded.

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A place where the pain could serve
as a doorway, a kind of negative

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space into which grace could
come rushing when least expected.

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But I wasn't ready for that grace,
which is a crazy thing to say.

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Not ready to be healed?

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I think of the lame man at the pool
of  Bethes- Bethesda, and Jesus's

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question, "Do you want to be healed?"

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And honestly, not yet.

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I was still angry, still waiting
for the fire to fall on my enemies

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like Elijah calling it down.

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I wanted to be right or at least
righteous in my bitterness.

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I clung to my anger like a relic, the
last proof I had that it meant something,

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that what happened to me was real.

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So I prayed again, if you can
call it prayer, and I told God,

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"I would rather have nothing
than have to forgive those men."

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I said that I would not return,
not even to Him, until my suffering

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had been accounted for, until
the scales had been balanced.

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"Let me be Judas," I prayed, if
it means they have to feel this

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emptiness e v e n for only a day."

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I imagined them wondering what had
become of me, and I debated whether it

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was better to be forgotten or hated.

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I reasoned if you're hated, you're
at least still tangible and present

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on the outskirts of imaginations,
drawing some emotion, even negative

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ones, to satiate the well of relevance.

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What I feared, though, was being
forgotten, a ghost who couldn't

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even haunt those he loved.

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The truth was, I barely had the
energy to get dressed some mornings.

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The most radical thing I did during
that time was survive until morning

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I wasn't alone.

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The darkness itself became a
kind of presence, a companion

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more honest than any I had known.

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I waited for the voice of God to rebuke
me, perhaps to confirm everything that the

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older brother and his chorus of supporters
had declared, that I was unworthy, unfit,

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beyond the reach of the father's house.

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But the silence that followed
was neither punitive nor cold.

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It was the silence you get in the last
pew of a cathedral at midnight when

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the echo of your own thought ricochets
off the carved stone and finds you

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still breathing and still alive.

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There, after the rage, after the
bargaining had burnt out, I began to

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notice that the father didn't listen
to the older brother's logic and the

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reasoning of why I should be tossed
out, to be sent away to boarding school

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until I resembled the older brother.

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The narrative of exile and rejection,
the one I most feared and most despised,

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was not the only story being written.

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He, the father, ran after me hard,
not stopping, not breaking stride

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until he found me wallowing in a pit.

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I didn't realize at first that I had
dug the pit myself and decorated it

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to look like a bunker, stocked with
sarcasm and old wounds, lined with

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the insulation of my best arguments.

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I thought if I bunkered down deeply
enough, if I became unreachable, there

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would be no more surprise meetings,
no more staged interventions, no more

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half-hearted forgiveness that left
me feeling more infected than healed.

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But the father, a presence as terrifying
as it was gentle, didn't lower a

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branch or a rope to pull me out.

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He jumped right into the pit with me,
getting just as dirty in the process,

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sliding down the walls with a barely
dignified abandon , as if there was

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nothing more important in the universe
than being with me in my self-made misery.

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He landed hard, but when he looked
at me, there was only joy and relief

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on his face, like I was a treasure
he'd been searching for all along.

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He gently lifted me to himself and
held me against his chest, and we both

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cried, my tears making little scars in
his flesh, his tears washing me clean.

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It was not a transactional exchange.

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it wasn't the negotiation I had
grown used to where grace was

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offered as a kind of spiritual
bailout with interest accruing daily.

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This was the kind of grace that ruined
you for anything less, the kind that

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left you shattered and emptied out, but
somehow more alive than you'd ever been.

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We stayed there a long time.

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I don't know how long, because time
is strange in the bottom of a pit.

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It stretches and folds
and sometimes reverses.

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I told him the charges that had been
brought against me used the very

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language the older brother had taught-
He taught me I rehearsed my failings,

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my shame, my inability to heal or
fix or even explain disintegration.

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He listened without flinching.

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Once or twice he laughed, but never at me.

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Only at the absurdity of the lies I
still believed about who I was and who

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he was His hands never left my back.

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His arms never loosened.

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00:14:58,467 --> 00:15:02,327
Eventually, he lifted me out of the
pit, and in a feat of physics or love,

219
00:15:02,327 --> 00:15:04,927
managed to get himself out as well.

220
00:15:06,047 --> 00:15:09,047
We stood at the edge, breathless,
the air impossibly clean.

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00:15:09,227 --> 00:15:12,317
My arms were weak, but he held me
upright, whispering that I could lean

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00:15:12,317 --> 00:15:17,457
on him for as long as I wanted, years
if necessary, or even better, forever.

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00:15:18,297 --> 00:15:19,317
I think I believed him.

224
00:15:19,317 --> 00:15:19,917
I wanted to.

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00:15:19,917 --> 00:15:23,497
Without warning, he went right to work
gardening, sowing, planting flowers

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00:15:23,687 --> 00:15:25,327
all around the mouth of the pit.

227
00:15:25,447 --> 00:15:29,277
He didn't ask my permission, just
began to dig and till and tend,

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00:15:29,487 --> 00:15:33,677
turning something wretched and
despicable into something beautiful.

229
00:15:34,167 --> 00:15:39,427
The place of my failure became a memorial
of sorts, a patch of riotous color in

230
00:15:39,427 --> 00:15:44,587
the desert of my despair, a witness
to anyone passing by that even the

231
00:15:44,737 --> 00:15:47,827
ugliest wounds could become a garden.

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00:15:48,877 --> 00:15:53,157
I watched him work, baffled and
embarrassed and grateful in equal measure.

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00:15:53,977 --> 00:15:57,587
I wondered if any of the old
congregation would ever see this place

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00:15:57,587 --> 00:16:02,267
or recognize it, if they would be able
to reconcile the scars on my soul with

235
00:16:02,267 --> 00:16:04,234
the wil-wildflowers now growing there.

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00:16:04,954 --> 00:16:07,654
I doubted it, but he didn't seem to mind.

237
00:16:08,194 --> 00:16:12,834
He was content to make beauty for its
own sake, not as some kind of social

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00:16:12,834 --> 00:16:18,334
proof, but because beauty was his
nature, and he couldn't help himself.

239
00:16:19,224 --> 00:16:22,924
All of this pain was a megaphone to my
soul and shattered how I thought about

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00:16:22,924 --> 00:16:25,404
church and specifically church culture.

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00:16:25,994 --> 00:16:29,954
I preached a theology of grace
but had not been vigilant to

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00:16:29,954 --> 00:16:31,634
cultivate a culture of grace.

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00:16:31,634 --> 00:16:36,544
I was a vendor of words and not a, a
purveyor of the atmosphere in which

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00:16:36,544 --> 00:16:38,444
those words could become flesh.

245
00:16:39,014 --> 00:16:41,464
Remember, culture is
not something you see.

246
00:16:41,654 --> 00:16:43,534
It's how you see everything.

247
00:16:43,964 --> 00:16:48,044
I'd spent years building sermons,
policies, programs, each one calibrated

248
00:16:48,044 --> 00:16:51,984
to present the full force of the gospel,
but none of them able to test whether it

249
00:16:51,984 --> 00:16:54,404
had been metabolized at the bone level.

250
00:16:54,844 --> 00:16:59,494
I got to experience firsthand a culture
that celebrated success but despised

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00:16:59,494 --> 00:17:04,894
weakness, and in doing so, I realized I
had unwittingly contributed to it myself.

252
00:17:05,394 --> 00:17:08,394
Even with all the learned lessons,
the broken education I took into

253
00:17:08,394 --> 00:17:13,204
planting house churches, there remained
a kind of hardening, a sinew of

254
00:17:13,204 --> 00:17:17,534
pride wrapped around the old wound,
protecting it from air and light.

255
00:17:17,794 --> 00:17:22,164
I can honestly say there was a part of me
deep down hidden that wanted to show those

256
00:17:22,164 --> 00:17:26,964
who I used to call family who had become
judge, jury, and executioner that they

257
00:17:26,964 --> 00:17:32,034
were wrong about my sentence and I put
ungodly energy into proving them wrong.

258
00:17:32,604 --> 00:17:36,684
Every time I gathered a new community,
every time someone called me pastor again,

259
00:17:36,924 --> 00:17:42,584
I felt a pulse of vindication and a secret
F you to the ones who had written me off.

260
00:17:43,194 --> 00:17:48,334
It was a feverish attempt to erase
the record by creating a new one.

261
00:17:49,834 --> 00:17:53,264
As if I was still on the same cultural
treadmill of justifying my existence

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00:17:53,284 --> 00:17:55,894
by my idea or their idea of success.

263
00:17:56,824 --> 00:17:59,804
As if I could out-preach my own expulsion.

264
00:18:00,774 --> 00:18:05,564
I kept running, gathering new disciples,
building fresh models, each time promising

265
00:18:05,564 --> 00:18:07,464
myself that this time would be different.

266
00:18:08,224 --> 00:18:10,904
This time I would never become
the older brother, but the logic

267
00:18:10,904 --> 00:18:14,254
was flawed, the operating system
still corrupted by the old virus.

268
00:18:15,184 --> 00:18:19,204
This text that closed my mouth, the
one that saw me leave the pulpit with

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00:18:19,214 --> 00:18:23,314
trembling hands and a voice raw from
tears and dust, calls me back now as

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00:18:23,314 --> 00:18:26,004
if my name is woven through the verses.

271
00:18:26,974 --> 00:18:30,324
I return to this passage not as a
preacher desperate for redemption,

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00:18:30,574 --> 00:18:34,994
nor as an outcast trembling, before
the scrutiny of former brothers and

273
00:18:34,994 --> 00:18:39,094
self-appointed judges, but as a man
slowly, painfully learning to breathe

274
00:18:39,094 --> 00:18:41,104
outside the economy of performance.

275
00:18:42,524 --> 00:18:44,154
I am raw, but not ragged.

276
00:18:44,754 --> 00:18:48,074
I'm battered, but no longer
defined by what's been done.

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00:18:48,524 --> 00:18:54,954
For the first time in memory, I'm
not returning to prove something,

278
00:18:55,944 --> 00:19:00,114
neither to vindicate myself nor
justify the scandal of my wounds.

279
00:19:00,814 --> 00:19:07,634
I'm here present because the Father is
breaking through and teaching me through

280
00:19:07,644 --> 00:19:12,104
all the distance and silence that his
love does not operate on the metrics

281
00:19:12,104 --> 00:19:17,334
of productivity or the calculus of
the culture I once sought to impress.

282
00:19:17,984 --> 00:19:24,834
It took a wilderness to teach me to
live as a son And not the good son,

283
00:19:26,124 --> 00:19:29,834
not the one with the flawless record,
the pressed clothes, and the tidy

284
00:19:29,834 --> 00:19:34,594
resume of moral victories, the one
who will never give up because he's so

285
00:19:34,594 --> 00:19:40,084
dedicated, but the prodigal who fell
short, who fell hard, whose greatest

286
00:19:40,084 --> 00:19:45,944
achievement was collapsing at the
feet of a father who ran, not walked,

287
00:19:46,014 --> 00:19:48,174
to meet him at the edge of despair.

288
00:19:49,384 --> 00:19:53,234
I used to preach about this love as if it
was a doctrine to be expounded, a theory

289
00:19:53,234 --> 00:19:55,934
to be debated, a truth outside of myself.

290
00:19:56,344 --> 00:19:57,194
Man, guys

291
00:19:58,694 --> 00:20:03,034
possesses me or I possess it,
scalding and real, unmanageable.

292
00:20:03,074 --> 00:20:06,684
I'm ruined for all lesser loves,
all institutional affections,

293
00:20:06,694 --> 00:20:08,174
all conditional acceptance.

294
00:20:08,514 --> 00:20:12,314
I'm not fit for the icy slope of
spiritual striving any longer.

295
00:20:12,474 --> 00:20:13,604
I've no taste for it.

296
00:20:13,654 --> 00:20:17,784
I want only to lean into the embrace
that does not let go, to linger

297
00:20:17,784 --> 00:20:22,434
shamelessly even forever in the arms
of God who lo- no longer needs me to be

298
00:20:22,434 --> 00:20:27,644
exemplary, just unguardedly, fully His.

299
00:20:28,874 --> 00:20:33,494
I come to this text now, these ancient
words that once seemed so familiar and

300
00:20:33,494 --> 00:20:38,624
now shimmer with the light of a new world,
ready perhaps for the first time to let

301
00:20:38,624 --> 00:20:40,984
them read me as much as I read them.

302
00:20:41,844 --> 00:20:45,304
I do not come as a teacher,
nor even as a survivor.

303
00:20:45,824 --> 00:20:47,194
I come as a son.

304
00:20:47,734 --> 00:20:52,454
I come because I'm called and because the
calling is no longer complicated by the

305
00:20:52,454 --> 00:20:54,624
need to impress or persuade or perform.

306
00:20:54,624 --> 00:21:00,844
I come because the words are for me and
for all those who have been exiled by

307
00:21:00,844 --> 00:21:05,884
themselves or by others or both from
the table they were born to sit at.

308
00:21:06,544 --> 00:21:11,244
So let's revisit the passage together
as if we are all orphans for the moment,

309
00:21:11,254 --> 00:21:13,554
waiting at the threshold of home.

310
00:21:13,934 --> 00:21:18,474
Let's let the text do work, not as
a tool for self-justification, but

311
00:21:18,474 --> 00:21:23,084
as the gentle, persistent voice
that says, even to the most wayward

312
00:21:23,084 --> 00:21:26,544
and bruised among us, "You belong.

313
00:21:27,034 --> 00:21:29,194
You've never stopped belonging."

314
00:21:30,204 --> 00:21:33,844
It is a call to enjoy being a
child and linger long, maybe

315
00:21:33,844 --> 00:21:35,554
forever, in the arms of our Father.

316
00:21:35,774 --> 00:21:39,534
A Father who is not ashamed to jump
into our shame, who delights to be

317
00:21:39,534 --> 00:21:43,014
with us even at our lowest, and who
knows how to make a garden out of

318
00:21:43,094 --> 00:21:44,834
the places we most want to hide.

319
00:21:46,054 --> 00:21:51,704
So how does Jesus rescue His disciples
and us from the busyness of life

320
00:21:51,704 --> 00:21:56,354
and all its demands, all that we're
doing, everything that's going on,

321
00:21:56,604 --> 00:22:00,594
and grab us and make us come away?

322
00:22:01,014 --> 00:22:03,664
We'll look at that this evening.

323
00:22:05,364 --> 00:22:11,494
and I wanna look at it under
these, uh, simple, headings.

324
00:22:12,064 --> 00:22:18,624
Come away by yourselves to a
desolate place and rest a while.

325
00:22:19,034 --> 00:22:19,464
Now

326
00:22:20,964 --> 00:22:23,104
I told you we're just
gonna get to come away.

327
00:22:24,214 --> 00:22:27,124
and we'll do the rest the
next time we're together.

328
00:22:28,934 --> 00:22:29,624
Come away.

329
00:22:30,564 --> 00:22:33,094
Little bit of background 'cause
what's going on right now?

330
00:22:33,104 --> 00:22:37,184
Why is Jesus pulling his disciples
away in the midst of, like, this crazy

331
00:22:37,194 --> 00:22:38,914
awesome ministry that's going on?

332
00:22:38,944 --> 00:22:41,634
like, mega church stuff
is happening right now.

333
00:22:42,004 --> 00:22:45,614
Verse 30, "The apostles returned
to Jesus and told Him all that

334
00:22:45,624 --> 00:22:47,494
they had done and taught."

335
00:22:48,414 --> 00:22:50,434
That word apostles, stop right there.

336
00:22:50,444 --> 00:22:50,954
Boom.

337
00:22:51,604 --> 00:22:52,654
Let's go there first.

338
00:22:52,704 --> 00:22:53,754
The apostles.

339
00:22:54,244 --> 00:22:55,854
Consider the weight of this moment.

340
00:22:56,574 --> 00:22:59,174
Of all the ways Mark could
have told the story, he chooses

341
00:22:59,174 --> 00:23:00,884
to use the word apostles.

342
00:23:00,884 --> 00:23:03,014
A word that in his gospel
only appears twice.

343
00:23:03,044 --> 00:23:07,274
Nearly always they're called disciples,
the learners, the followers, the

344
00:23:07,274 --> 00:23:10,434
ones eager, bumbling or both.

345
00:23:10,984 --> 00:23:16,094
But now this hinge of the narrative,
they're apostles, the sent ones it

346
00:23:16,094 --> 00:23:20,054
means, the bearers of authority,
emissaries of the kingdom.

347
00:23:20,424 --> 00:23:22,984
Their identity has shifted,
deepened, matured through

348
00:23:22,984 --> 00:23:24,874
obedience and risk and return.

349
00:23:25,224 --> 00:23:29,964
But Mark wants us to see that even as
their mission intensifies, their status

350
00:23:29,964 --> 00:23:35,144
as those who return to Jesus is never
superseded by any public accomplishment.

351
00:23:35,654 --> 00:23:41,634
The glory of the office is not in
the mission, it's in the returning.

352
00:23:42,734 --> 00:23:45,674
Where else is this word
apostles employed in Mark?

353
00:23:46,194 --> 00:23:48,944
Only in chapter three, verse
14 and 15, and I'll read it.

354
00:23:49,284 --> 00:23:53,614
"And He appointed 12 whom
He also named apostles."

355
00:23:55,554 --> 00:23:56,554
And guys, this is like…

356
00:23:58,014 --> 00:24:01,534
could spend a million years on
this n- these next couple words.

357
00:24:01,844 --> 00:24:04,134
"So that they might be with Him."

358
00:24:05,634 --> 00:24:09,204
And he might send them out to preach
and have authority to cast out demons.

359
00:24:10,384 --> 00:24:14,764
Before anything else, before
public preaching or spiritual

360
00:24:14,764 --> 00:24:22,644
confrontation, their primary calling
was that they might be with him.

361
00:24:24,144 --> 00:24:28,434
And my whole thing tonight is,
it's the whole game, folks.

362
00:24:28,744 --> 00:24:29,754
It's the whole point.

363
00:24:29,944 --> 00:24:32,694
It's the whole enchilada,
as some people might say.

364
00:24:33,314 --> 00:24:34,094
I don't know who says that.

365
00:24:34,094 --> 00:24:34,734
Nobody says that.

366
00:24:35,564 --> 00:24:36,844
Maybe wise people say that.

367
00:24:38,235 --> 00:24:39,405
The rhythm is clear.

368
00:24:40,095 --> 00:24:42,975
Withness precedes witness.

369
00:24:43,515 --> 00:24:45,065
Withness precedes witness.

370
00:24:45,365 --> 00:24:48,455
Communion gives birth to commission.

371
00:24:49,205 --> 00:24:51,095
The order isn't accidental.

372
00:24:51,495 --> 00:24:54,925
It is the fundamental
architecture of Christian calling.

373
00:24:55,315 --> 00:24:59,665
The being with, the intimacy,
is not a prelude or a means

374
00:24:59,665 --> 00:25:01,655
to an end, but the end itself.

375
00:25:02,065 --> 00:25:05,905
The mission flows from it,
but it never replaces it.

376
00:25:06,535 --> 00:25:10,835
Before they were ever healers or
heralds or exorcists, they were beloved.

377
00:25:11,905 --> 00:25:15,305
The call to ministry is not a
conscription of laborers, but an

378
00:25:15,305 --> 00:25:17,395
adoption of sons and daughters.

379
00:25:17,845 --> 00:25:24,725
Jesus does not save us to populate his
workforce, but to fill his table, to

380
00:25:24,725 --> 00:25:30,545
share his presence, to draw us into the
gravitational center of divine friendship.

381
00:25:31,415 --> 00:25:36,405
And from the very beginning, this is to
be the priority, and yet paradoxically,

382
00:25:36,595 --> 00:25:40,545
friendship with Jesus sweeps us into
the world's suffering and needs.

383
00:25:40,765 --> 00:25:45,385
If you love what Jesus loves, you cannot
avoid being drawn into the flood of pain

384
00:25:45,575 --> 00:25:48,345
and need that he himself wades into.

385
00:25:48,765 --> 00:25:52,985
Part of being with Jesus is being
caught up in his mission, his ache and

386
00:25:52,995 --> 00:25:58,955
heart for the lost, his furious joy in
recovering what is broken or stolen.

387
00:25:59,505 --> 00:26:01,005
So yes, he sends them out to preach.

388
00:26:01,005 --> 00:26:03,355
He gives them authority
over unclean spirits.

389
00:26:03,525 --> 00:26:07,015
He turns them loose on villages
and towns, giving them only a staff

390
00:26:07,015 --> 00:26:08,345
and the clothes on their backs.

391
00:26:08,825 --> 00:26:13,565
For days or weeks, they're an
extension of his very own presence,

392
00:26:13,925 --> 00:26:19,365
replica of his own compassion and
courage, conduits of his power.

393
00:26:19,555 --> 00:26:21,065
Imagine the intensity.

394
00:26:21,665 --> 00:26:24,505
Strangers are healed at their hand.

395
00:26:24,755 --> 00:26:26,505
Demons are banished.

396
00:26:27,325 --> 00:26:32,615
Whole households upended by the
shockwave of kingdom news, adrenaline,

397
00:26:32,725 --> 00:26:37,885
exhilaration, the occasional beatdown
and rejection, the constant surprise

398
00:26:38,065 --> 00:26:39,785
that any of this works at all.

399
00:26:40,995 --> 00:26:44,205
And in verse 30, they come back and
they report about their mission.

400
00:26:45,235 --> 00:26:48,205
Can you feel the elation in their voices?

401
00:26:48,605 --> 00:26:53,345
The apostles tumble back to Jesus
in a flurry of stories, barely

402
00:26:53,375 --> 00:26:55,165
able to contain themselves.

403
00:26:55,485 --> 00:27:00,385
"Jesus, we're just like you, casting out
demons, making the sick stand up and walk,

404
00:27:00,565 --> 00:27:02,925
exposing the hollow places in men's souls.

405
00:27:03,085 --> 00:27:05,845
Even the wind seemed to listen to us.

406
00:27:06,225 --> 00:27:08,045
The message was unstoppable.

407
00:27:08,065 --> 00:27:09,085
People repented.

408
00:27:09,275 --> 00:27:11,525
We saw whole communities transform.

409
00:27:11,735 --> 00:27:14,325
The world is changing
right before our eyes.

410
00:27:14,365 --> 00:27:15,595
What's next?

411
00:27:15,965 --> 00:27:17,515
Should we organize a rally?

412
00:27:17,705 --> 00:27:18,675
Launch a movement?

413
00:27:18,675 --> 00:27:22,245
Should we fan the flames
and keep the fire going?"

414
00:27:22,965 --> 00:27:26,145
If you strain your ear, you can almost
hear the caffeine in their voices

415
00:27:27,403 --> 00:27:31,283
The edge of spiritual bravado, the
well-meaning assumption that the next

416
00:27:31,283 --> 00:27:34,103
step must be bigger, louder, more kinetic.

417
00:27:34,553 --> 00:27:40,433
Kingdom logic, after all, is so often at
odds with the momentum of human ambition.

418
00:27:41,863 --> 00:27:44,683
We also might miss what's going
on right now in Jesus' ministry.

419
00:27:44,973 --> 00:27:46,693
He was at his most popular.

420
00:27:46,983 --> 00:27:51,143
Crowds were flocking to him and
despite his own hometown rejecting

421
00:27:51,143 --> 00:27:55,873
him, in this chapter we're told
in, John in this context, "When the

422
00:27:55,873 --> 00:28:00,503
people saw the sign that he had done,
they said, 'This indeed is of the

423
00:28:00,503 --> 00:28:02,413
prophet who is coming to the world.'

424
00:28:02,643 --> 00:28:05,483
Perceiving then that they were
about to come and take him by force

425
00:28:05,513 --> 00:28:10,533
to make him king, Jesus withdrew
again to the mountain by himself."

426
00:28:11,063 --> 00:28:13,283
Things were never better ministry wise.

427
00:28:13,373 --> 00:28:14,833
The ministry was growing.

428
00:28:15,093 --> 00:28:16,663
The crowds kept coming.

429
00:28:16,993 --> 00:28:21,243
Though there were real difficulties
and painful realities, John the

430
00:28:21,243 --> 00:28:26,173
Baptizer had just been beheaded,
uh, and the needs were never ending.

431
00:28:26,433 --> 00:28:30,093
And verse 31 even says, "For
many were coming and going, and

432
00:28:30,093 --> 00:28:32,363
they had no leisure even to eat."

433
00:28:32,623 --> 00:28:32,923
busy.

434
00:28:32,923 --> 00:28:33,903
And what does Jesus do?

435
00:28:35,133 --> 00:28:36,413
They come back, they report.

436
00:28:36,443 --> 00:28:36,763
What does…

437
00:28:36,773 --> 00:28:38,013
W- let's get this.

438
00:28:38,013 --> 00:28:40,793
Let's have a, let's
have a strategy meeting.

439
00:28:40,793 --> 00:28:41,543
What does he do?

440
00:28:41,543 --> 00:28:45,853
Does he immediately commissions
the apostles for a grander campaign

441
00:28:46,523 --> 00:28:50,253
or call them to capitalize on the
surge of the spiritual momentum?

442
00:28:51,113 --> 00:28:55,613
No, he turns the logic upside down and
he says to them, "Come away by yourselves

443
00:28:55,613 --> 00:28:58,213
to a desolate place and rest a while."

444
00:28:58,953 --> 00:29:03,603
The word in Greek for desolate
or wilderness is eremos.

445
00:29:03,603 --> 00:29:06,263
It's wilderness, solitude
or the emptiness.

446
00:29:06,313 --> 00:29:07,543
The empty place.

447
00:29:08,233 --> 00:29:12,963
In the midst of explosive growth, Jesus
calls his friends into silence and rest.

448
00:29:12,963 --> 00:29:17,313
He gently pulls them back from the brink
of burnout, from the subtle temptation

449
00:29:17,313 --> 00:29:24,623
to swap achievement, from the reflex
to build something for God without

450
00:29:24,623 --> 00:29:30,767
being built by God But there's another
layer to this that must not be missed.

451
00:29:31,487 --> 00:29:36,237
Jesus, who was himself constantly pursued
and pressed by the needs of the multitude,

452
00:29:36,827 --> 00:29:39,377
models the very pattern he commands.

453
00:29:39,937 --> 00:29:44,627
Again and again, Mark tells us that Jesus
would withdraw to lonely places to pray.

454
00:29:45,187 --> 00:29:48,337
Even the Son of God would not
attempt to sustain ministry

455
00:29:48,337 --> 00:29:51,967
apart from the life-giving sap
of communion with his Father.

456
00:29:52,887 --> 00:29:56,337
Mark 1:35, "And rising very early
in the morning, while it was still

457
00:29:56,337 --> 00:30:00,537
dark, he departed and went out to a
desolate place, and there he prayed."

458
00:30:01,047 --> 00:30:04,767
If Jesus required solitude, maybe us.

459
00:30:05,737 --> 00:30:05,997
Maybe.

460
00:30:07,317 --> 00:30:12,407
And if he, having poured himself out
in teaching and healing, would retreat

461
00:30:12,417 --> 00:30:16,797
for rest, might be a little arrogant
to believe we can do otherwise.

462
00:30:16,807 --> 00:30:18,317
So Jesus says, "Come away."

463
00:30:18,317 --> 00:30:20,757
Leave the noise, the
acclaim, the urgent needs.

464
00:30:20,787 --> 00:30:23,697
Come away from the villages
and the cheering crowds and

465
00:30:23,697 --> 00:30:24,937
the swelling reputation.

466
00:30:25,147 --> 00:30:26,787
Come away by yourselves.

467
00:30:26,867 --> 00:30:29,737
no entourage, no audience, no performance.

468
00:30:30,007 --> 00:30:34,767
Jesus is not opposed to mission,
but he's opposed to anything that

469
00:30:34,767 --> 00:30:39,077
supplants the love and presence that
is the beating heart of discipleship.

470
00:30:40,457 --> 00:30:44,617
This command, "Come away," is not
a footnote or an afterthought.

471
00:30:45,097 --> 00:30:46,407
It is a rescue.

472
00:30:47,017 --> 00:30:47,967
It is a rescue.

473
00:30:48,197 --> 00:30:53,717
It is Jesus' way of protecting
his followers from the lethal side

474
00:30:53,717 --> 00:30:56,187
effects of unrelenting success.

475
00:30:56,517 --> 00:30:59,677
For the human soul, especially when
entrusted with spiritual authority,

476
00:30:59,927 --> 00:31:05,577
there's a hidden danger in constant
momentum, the eclipse of identity

477
00:31:05,577 --> 00:31:11,367
by utility, the slow drift from
being with Jesus to doing for Jesus.

478
00:31:11,657 --> 00:31:16,597
Ministry can become a narcotic, a
low-grade addiction to significance.

479
00:31:16,897 --> 00:31:21,427
The applause of crowds, the stories
of lives changed, the very real

480
00:31:21,477 --> 00:31:23,127
evidence of the Spirit's power.

481
00:31:23,567 --> 00:31:29,940
But over time, these the quiet, private,
unglamorous work of abiding in Christ

482
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:33,230
But why does he call us to come away?

483
00:31:34,570 --> 00:31:34,970
Why?

484
00:31:35,890 --> 00:31:36,690
What's the point?

485
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:42,370
Maybe we're like Teslas and he's
just gotta charge us up, right?

486
00:31:42,450 --> 00:31:44,700
So that we can go the distance.

487
00:31:44,860 --> 00:31:46,010
I think we think like that.

488
00:31:47,130 --> 00:31:53,530
I think like that I think I should
get time with the Lord so I'll

489
00:31:53,530 --> 00:31:55,720
be better in doing for the Lord.

490
00:31:57,190 --> 00:31:58,370
That misses the whole point

491
00:31:59,870 --> 00:32:00,270
Why?

492
00:32:01,270 --> 00:32:02,450
Why call a stick 'em away?

493
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:04,240
Why, why?

494
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:05,060
What's the point

495
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:12,470
Here's the reason, and it's so
simple that we can become numb to it.

496
00:32:13,970 --> 00:32:20,490
God the Father, Jesus the Son,
and the Holy Spirit loves you

497
00:32:21,990 --> 00:32:28,280
God the Father, Jesus the Son,
and the Holy Spirit likes you

498
00:32:29,780 --> 00:32:32,900
If we really sat with it, this is the
most audacious and beautiful claim ever

499
00:32:32,900 --> 00:32:34,910
made by human lips or divine tongue.

500
00:32:35,530 --> 00:32:38,860
One of the most stunning and shockingly
clear things we learn from the Bible

501
00:32:39,570 --> 00:32:43,490
when we take the lid off its words and
let it out, when we actually allow it

502
00:32:43,500 --> 00:32:50,440
to speak and not merely confirm our
suspicions, is that the Almighty God, the

503
00:32:50,450 --> 00:32:55,190
eternally divine sovereign, the creator
and sustainer of all things visible and

504
00:32:55,190 --> 00:33:02,210
invisible, has determined to love you,
to seek you, to redeem you, and to make

505
00:33:02,210 --> 00:33:04,580
you the very object of His gladness.

506
00:33:05,970 --> 00:33:06,000
What?

507
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:10,250
This is not a generic Hallmark
sentiment that dilutes itself

508
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:12,860
on contact with reality.

509
00:33:13,300 --> 00:33:17,060
It is at once cosmic and
particular, transcendent and

510
00:33:17,100 --> 00:33:19,530
intimate, internal and immediate.

511
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:23,130
Let it be plainly said, you are wanted.

512
00:33:23,830 --> 00:33:25,170
You are sought.

513
00:33:26,100 --> 00:33:27,810
You are pursued.

514
00:33:28,010 --> 00:33:30,320
You are named, and you are known.

515
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:34,750
And you are loved, not as a
number in a cosmic ledger, but

516
00:33:34,750 --> 00:33:37,380
as a child in a cosmic rescue.

517
00:33:37,780 --> 00:33:40,780
Don't let this truth become a
footnote in your spiritual biography.

518
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:44,480
do not let it, for the love
of all things holy and pure,

519
00:33:44,630 --> 00:33:49,560
let it be reduced to paper-cut
theology or domesticated doxology.

520
00:33:50,010 --> 00:33:53,890
This is the marrow, the bloodstream,
the pulsating center of the gospel,

521
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:57,430
that from all eternity you have been
conceived in the mind and heart of

522
00:33:57,430 --> 00:34:02,150
God, that even before your first
breath you were the anticipated

523
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,340
recipient of unimaginable grace.

524
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:10,889
Hear the words of the apostle in
Ephesians 1:4-5, words that if we really

525
00:34:10,889 --> 00:34:14,600
let them, will unmake and remake us.

526
00:34:15,820 --> 00:34:23,230
"Even before He made the world, God
loved and chose us in Christ to be

527
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:25,860
holy and without fault in His eyes.

528
00:34:26,150 --> 00:34:32,239
God decided in advance to adopt us
into His own family by bringing us

529
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:34,850
to Himself through Jesus Christ.

530
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:41,120
This is what He wanted to do,
and it gave Him great pleasure."

531
00:34:41,659 --> 00:34:46,770
Do not hurry past that Every
phrase is an explosion of meaning.

532
00:34:47,460 --> 00:34:51,850
Even before He made the world, before
the first cause from the uncaused

533
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:56,989
one, before the birth of the stars,
before the first atom quivered in the

534
00:34:56,989 --> 00:35:02,140
primordial cosmos, before the ancient
trees spread their roots, before the

535
00:35:02,140 --> 00:35:07,470
first human heart thundered in the
dark, you were loved, you were chosen.

536
00:35:07,620 --> 00:35:09,530
The plan was already in motion.

537
00:35:09,540 --> 00:35:15,090
God, in the sheer creative effulgence of
His love, spun the cosmos, not as a cold

538
00:35:15,110 --> 00:35:20,520
machinery to be wound and left alone, but
as a garden, a dwelling, a place of beauty

539
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:24,570
and delight, where the highest resonance
of its purpose was to be found not in

540
00:35:24,580 --> 00:35:28,000
order, not in law, but in relationship.

541
00:35:28,380 --> 00:35:34,060
He formed us not as sterile figurines to
be set adrift on existential currents, but

542
00:35:34,060 --> 00:35:39,370
as living beings fashioned for closeness,
for the gentle press of intimacy, for

543
00:35:39,370 --> 00:35:45,320
the wild joy that springs only from
deep, unguarded knowing and being known.

544
00:35:45,750 --> 00:35:50,480
The ache we carry for connection, the
thirst for meaning, the restless energy

545
00:35:50,700 --> 00:35:55,830
that drives us to create, to love, to
search, and to worship, all of these are

546
00:35:55,830 --> 00:35:59,970
the fingerprints of our origin, echoes
of the voice that called us forth.

547
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:04,640
God loved us and chose us in Christ,
not by accident, not by necessity,

548
00:36:04,860 --> 00:36:08,470
not because of foreseen merit or
potential, but freely, graciously,

549
00:36:08,470 --> 00:36:12,410
prodigally, recklessly, to be holy
and without fault in His eyes.

550
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:16,740
Not in your own eyes, not in the
eyes of your critics, not even the

551
00:36:16,770 --> 00:36:20,210
eyes of the church or the world,
but in the eyes of God, you are,

552
00:36:20,210 --> 00:36:22,510
in Christ, radiant and beautiful

553
00:36:24,010 --> 00:36:27,290
God decided in advance to
adopt us into his own family.

554
00:36:27,290 --> 00:36:33,200
You are not on probation You are
not a guest or a tenant or a foster

555
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:35,540
child awaiting permanent status.

556
00:36:36,390 --> 00:36:43,320
You are adopted, named, claimed, and given
an inheritance beyond your comprehension.

557
00:36:45,250 --> 00:36:48,560
By bringing us to himself through
Jesus Christ, the gospel is not a

558
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:51,370
travel brochure to a distant paradise.

559
00:36:51,590 --> 00:36:58,730
It is a summons home into the arms of your
father made possible at infinite cost.

560
00:36:59,700 --> 00:37:02,200
This is what he wanted
to do, and it gave him…

561
00:37:02,240 --> 00:37:04,890
This is one of my favorite verses,
and it gave him great pleasure.

562
00:37:05,710 --> 00:37:10,670
The logic of love is not utility, but joy

563
00:37:12,170 --> 00:37:16,660
God doesn't just have a
biochemical reaction and loves you.

564
00:37:16,700 --> 00:37:22,140
He's not just a makeup and
responding But because of joy.

565
00:37:23,240 --> 00:37:25,000
It is his delight to love you.

566
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:29,390
It is to his delight to make
his face shine upon you, to

567
00:37:29,390 --> 00:37:31,150
lift up his countenance on you.

568
00:37:31,450 --> 00:37:37,170
It is his joy, his pleasure, his
delight is to adore and to love you,

569
00:37:37,860 --> 00:37:44,070
to love you to the uttermost It is not
grim duty or or reluctant tolerance.

570
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:48,730
It is pleasure, joy, celebration,
the kind of laughter and weeping

571
00:37:48,730 --> 00:37:52,370
and singing that comes only from
the deepest wells of passion.

572
00:37:53,110 --> 00:37:54,330
Sit with this church.

573
00:37:54,950 --> 00:37:57,390
Let it well up and drown the
little voices that tell you

574
00:37:57,390 --> 00:38:00,430
otherwise, 'cause it, it can.

575
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:06,390
The voices of condemnation, the voices
of shame, the voices of, comparison,

576
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:10,790
the voices that count your every failure
and make it into the black book of your

577
00:38:10,790 --> 00:38:14,040
inadequacies, those voices are lies.

578
00:38:14,430 --> 00:38:18,760
The only voice that matters has
spoken, and he says, "Loved,

579
00:38:18,940 --> 00:38:21,320
chosen, adopted, and delighted in."

580
00:38:21,500 --> 00:38:23,170
That's what's over your life.

581
00:38:23,210 --> 00:38:25,460
That's the voice that
you should listen to.

582
00:38:25,970 --> 00:38:30,960
And God loves you not just in a general
way, not just as a member of the species

583
00:38:31,050 --> 00:38:35,340
Homo  sapiens, but you here today sitting
in these seats in this specific time

584
00:38:35,580 --> 00:38:38,310
in this unrepeatable moment in history.

585
00:38:38,610 --> 00:38:38,630
Yeah.

586
00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:42,570
God ordained, like, this happening
right now, which is such a trip.

587
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:43,240
It is.

588
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:51,000
The you that is tired The you that is
anxious, the you that is distracted,

589
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:56,060
the you that is raw, the you that is
haunted by regrets and paralyzed by fears,

590
00:38:56,320 --> 00:39:00,710
the you that wonders if you will ever
measure up, the you that has secretly

591
00:39:00,710 --> 00:39:07,290
given up, the you that does not even
know how to want to be loved, that is

592
00:39:07,330 --> 00:39:12,760
the you that he loves with a love that
is more durable than your doubt and

593
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:14,950
more relentless than your wandering.

594
00:39:16,240 --> 00:39:19,370
He loves you lavishly and radically,
fully and completely in ways

595
00:39:19,570 --> 00:39:23,220
that beggar the imagination and
scandalize the logic of religion.

596
00:39:23,860 --> 00:39:27,030
He loves you to the uttermost,
not just when you're at your best,

597
00:39:27,300 --> 00:39:32,150
please hear that, but especially
when you're at your worst.

598
00:39:32,650 --> 00:39:35,780
Not just in the light,
but in the darkness.

599
00:39:35,930 --> 00:39:39,030
Not just in your victories,
but in your failures.

600
00:39:39,230 --> 00:39:42,240
Not just at the altar, but in the alley.

601
00:39:42,770 --> 00:39:46,040
Not just in the clean and the
ordered, but in the mess, in

602
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:47,680
the chaos, in the heartbreak.

603
00:39:48,060 --> 00:39:51,230
No matter the week you've had, no matter
the mess you are or the mess you've

604
00:39:51,230 --> 00:39:55,310
made, no matter the shadows that trail
you or the burdens that crush you, no

605
00:39:55,310 --> 00:39:59,920
matter the secrets you carry or the
wounds that do not heal, Jesus loves you.

606
00:39:59,920 --> 00:40:00,960
Jesus loves you.

607
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:03,190
Let the words become flesh in your soul.

608
00:40:03,750 --> 00:40:08,020
From the very beginning, you've been
built to be with God, to know God,

609
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:12,090
and for him to know you, to be loved
by God, and to love God in return.

610
00:40:12,230 --> 00:40:16,600
The deepest thirst of every human heart
is not for achievement or pleasure

611
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:21,910
or even meaning, but for love, a love
that will not let us go, that will not

612
00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:27,090
bargain or fade, that will hold us in the
earthquake, in the exile, in the grave.

613
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:28,950
A love that is yours.

614
00:40:29,020 --> 00:40:31,200
That love is him.

615
00:40:31,270 --> 00:40:35,580
But even that's not the full measure,
for if God's love is the melody,

616
00:40:35,580 --> 00:40:37,490
you're invited to join the symphony.

617
00:40:37,740 --> 00:40:42,200
The invitation is not to be a s- a
spectator, but a participant, a singer

618
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:44,490
in the choir, a voice in the harmony.

619
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:46,800
The love of God is not a monologue.

620
00:40:46,810 --> 00:40:50,250
It's a call and response, a
dance of giving and receiving

621
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:54,170
That's how the universe was
made, and that's how we flourish

622
00:40:54,330 --> 00:40:55,700
when we join him in that.

623
00:40:55,700 --> 00:40:56,380
Do you see it?

624
00:40:56,710 --> 00:41:01,400
It's not just theology, not just
doctrine, it is the oxygen of the

625
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:03,910
soul, the bread and wine of existence.

626
00:41:04,170 --> 00:41:08,550
It is the only story that explains
everything else and the only story big

627
00:41:08,550 --> 00:41:10,350
enough to bear the weight of our lives.

628
00:41:11,010 --> 00:41:15,110
God designed us to flourish best
not in independence or solitary

629
00:41:15,110 --> 00:41:19,860
achievement, but in communion with
him, with creation, with each other.

630
00:41:20,250 --> 00:41:24,200
When he made humans in his own image,
he was crafting beings who would best

631
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:30,470
reflect his own relational nature by
walking side by side with him, living

632
00:41:30,470 --> 00:41:32,330
in radiant warmth of his presence.

633
00:41:32,540 --> 00:41:36,890
In the earliest pages of Genesis, we
find this breathtaking phrase, "And they

634
00:41:36,900 --> 00:41:41,080
heard the sound of the Lord God walking
in the garden in the cool of the day."

635
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:45,810
The Almighty Creator of the galaxies,
the weaver of DNA delights not

636
00:41:45,810 --> 00:41:49,840
in distant admiration, but in
the nearness of companionship.

637
00:41:50,240 --> 00:41:53,360
This walking is not a
matter of mere locomotion.

638
00:41:53,990 --> 00:41:56,780
It is the sacred rhythm of presence.

639
00:41:57,070 --> 00:42:03,400
To walk with someone is to match steps,
to pause at the same wonders, to speak

640
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:05,590
and to listen, to know and to be known.

641
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:07,330
Lovers walk hand in hand.

642
00:42:07,340 --> 00:42:10,080
Friends share a stroll beneath the trees.

643
00:42:10,350 --> 00:42:15,550
A parent walks with the child, gently
guiding and sharing the world's marvels.

644
00:42:15,720 --> 00:42:21,390
So it was, and so it should be,
and so it's been restored too.

645
00:42:21,650 --> 00:42:24,120
The garden was meant to be a
place of shared experience,

646
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:26,680
of laughter, of vulnerability
and trust, a place of worship.

647
00:42:26,910 --> 00:42:28,600
But the story is not static.

648
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:33,900
Even after our forebearers tried to
hide from God, even after the tragic

649
00:42:33,930 --> 00:42:38,360
fracture of relationship, the divine
longing to walk with us didn't diminish.

650
00:42:38,670 --> 00:42:41,380
It simply took on new forms
of passionate pursuit.

651
00:42:41,720 --> 00:42:45,750
The sacred history of humanity is studded
with figures who rediscover in their

652
00:42:45,750 --> 00:42:48,530
generation what it means to walk with God.

653
00:42:48,990 --> 00:42:51,230
We see Enoch and Noah walking with God.

654
00:42:51,410 --> 00:42:52,820
One of my favorite verses…

655
00:42:52,910 --> 00:42:53,690
I keep saying that.

656
00:42:53,690 --> 00:42:53,800
Mm-hmm.

657
00:42:54,530 --> 00:42:55,380
This verse is fine.

658
00:42:55,570 --> 00:42:59,330
Uh, is Genesis five twenty-four,
"Enoch walked with God and he

659
00:42:59,330 --> 00:43:00,800
was not, for God took him."

660
00:43:01,150 --> 00:43:05,280
See Enoch, whose entire biography
is distilled into a single

661
00:43:05,460 --> 00:43:08,110
hauntingly beautiful sentence.

662
00:43:08,410 --> 00:43:11,900
Enoch walked with God and he
was not, for God took him.

663
00:43:12,358 --> 00:43:12,968
Listen to this.

664
00:43:13,138 --> 00:43:17,408
Little is said of his deeds, of
his accomplishments, of his wisdom.

665
00:43:17,548 --> 00:43:21,158
What is remembered is
his intimacy with God.

666
00:43:22,278 --> 00:43:26,778
Enoch's life was so entwined with the
divine that the boundary between Earth and

667
00:43:26,788 --> 00:43:29,698
Heaven blurred and then faded altogether.

668
00:43:30,998 --> 00:43:32,358
Joshua, the son of Nun.

669
00:43:32,428 --> 00:43:33,668
I love this, my namesake.

670
00:43:33,858 --> 00:43:37,548
Exodus 33:11, "When Moses turned
again to camp, his assistant,

671
00:43:37,558 --> 00:43:41,278
Joshua, the son of Nun, a young
man, would not depart from the tent.

672
00:43:41,378 --> 00:43:43,298
He would not leave the presence."

673
00:43:45,138 --> 00:43:46,518
It's dinner time, Joshua.

674
00:43:47,208 --> 00:43:48,098
I've already eaten

675
00:43:49,598 --> 00:43:55,628
Moses, Exodus 33:11, "Thus the Lord
used to speak to Moses face to face,

676
00:43:56,288 --> 00:43:58,008
as a man speaks to his friend."

677
00:43:58,768 --> 00:44:02,838
Numbers 12:7-8, "Not so
with my servant Moses.

678
00:44:03,068 --> 00:44:04,828
He is faithful in all my house.

679
00:44:05,218 --> 00:44:08,568
With him I speak mouth to mouth."

680
00:44:09,468 --> 00:44:09,878
Whoo.

681
00:44:10,658 --> 00:44:13,738
And then in the New Testament, we're given
the picture of the vine and the branches.

682
00:44:14,078 --> 00:44:17,698
John 15:4-5, "Abide in me, and I in you.

683
00:44:18,078 --> 00:44:21,438
As the branch cannot bear fruit by
itself, unless it abides in the vine,

684
00:44:21,448 --> 00:44:24,198
neither can you, unless you abide in me.

685
00:44:24,278 --> 00:44:25,208
I am the vine.

686
00:44:25,218 --> 00:44:26,158
You are the branches.

687
00:44:26,158 --> 00:44:30,568
Whoever abides in me and I in him,
he it is that bears much fruit.

688
00:44:30,598 --> 00:44:35,238
For apart from me, you can do nothing."

689
00:44:36,108 --> 00:44:40,358
To abide, that's kind of a weird
word to our, our English ears.

690
00:44:40,358 --> 00:44:44,268
It means to be at home
with, to be at home with

691
00:44:45,768 --> 00:44:48,638
You know when you go to somebody
else's house for dinner and you wonder,

692
00:44:48,678 --> 00:44:50,008
"Am I supposed to take my shoes off?

693
00:44:50,028 --> 00:44:50,928
Do I keep them on?"

694
00:44:50,948 --> 00:44:52,138
Do you use napkins?

695
00:44:52,138 --> 00:44:55,978
Or in my house growing up, we just had
a shared family towel, and we didn't

696
00:44:55,978 --> 00:45:00,208
realize how weird and hippie-ish that
was until, we started having girlfriends.

697
00:45:00,988 --> 00:45:05,298
But man, there's nothing like at the end
of a long day, you sit on your favorite

698
00:45:05,298 --> 00:45:11,970
chair when you get home Everything's where
it's supposed to be, and you're at rest.

699
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:12,340
Why?

700
00:45:12,350 --> 00:45:13,280
Because you're at home.

701
00:45:14,050 --> 00:45:16,840
And what abide means is
it means you're at home.

702
00:45:17,550 --> 00:45:18,260
You're at home.

703
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:21,390
Be at home with me, is what he's saying.

704
00:45:21,390 --> 00:45:25,030
It's a picture of living intimately
with God from one moment to the next,

705
00:45:26,250 --> 00:45:27,930
and then the fruit comes inevitably.

706
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:31,930
One of the most profound and devastating
tragedies, and so we're gonna shift a bit

707
00:45:31,930 --> 00:45:36,740
here, to befall a human life is to find
oneself perpetually surrounded by the

708
00:45:36,740 --> 00:45:42,020
language of faith, the symbols of rituals
and religion, and the well-worn paths

709
00:45:42,020 --> 00:45:47,350
to holy places, and yet remain entirely
untouched by the living presence of God.

710
00:45:48,340 --> 00:45:53,980
It is possible, it turns out, to brush
daily against divinity and never be

711
00:45:53,980 --> 00:45:58,950
ignited by his fire, to live under the
constant drizzle of sacred words and

712
00:45:58,950 --> 00:46:03,810
never drink a drop, to memorize great
swaths of scripture and yet remain a

713
00:46:03,810 --> 00:46:08,360
stranger to the very God who authored
them, to teach, to sing, to prophesy, to

714
00:46:08,360 --> 00:46:12,610
lead, to serve, even to heal, in short,
to be so near to the things of heaven

715
00:46:12,620 --> 00:46:15,030
and yet so far from heaven's heartbeat.

716
00:46:15,890 --> 00:46:20,430
Jeremiah 2:8 writes, "And the priest
did not say, 'Where is the Lord?'

717
00:46:20,430 --> 00:46:24,820
Those who handle the law did not know me."

718
00:46:26,410 --> 00:46:30,250
And that may seem like a weird verse,
but what he's saying in that word

719
00:46:30,250 --> 00:46:35,340
there, did not know me, is yada
in Hebrew, and here's the word.

720
00:46:36,710 --> 00:46:42,210
And Adam knew his wife Eve, and
she conceived and bore a son.

721
00:46:42,230 --> 00:46:46,620
And Adam yada'd his wife Eve,
and she conceived and bore a son.

722
00:46:47,460 --> 00:46:49,740
And the priest did not yada me.

723
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:53,870
They did not, they were not intimate
with me, is what God is saying.

724
00:46:54,020 --> 00:46:57,840
The ones who handled the scripture,
the pastors, the preachers, the, the

725
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:00,820
ones, who it's their job to do that.

726
00:47:02,670 --> 00:47:04,040
They knew all the facts.

727
00:47:04,720 --> 00:47:08,460
They c- to answer all the
questions, but there was no

728
00:47:08,460 --> 00:47:11,640
intimacy, is what he says here.

729
00:47:13,210 --> 00:47:17,540
The very people who were, by vocation
and calling, were to be the custodians

730
00:47:17,540 --> 00:47:21,820
of divine intimacy, yet they settled
for a knowledge of the law's details,

731
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:25,590
the letter and the ritual, but never
stepped through the veil into the wild

732
00:47:25,590 --> 00:47:27,860
and holy knowing that God desired.

733
00:47:27,860 --> 00:47:32,850
Judas Iscariot, one of the 12, a man
who heard every parable, who also was

734
00:47:32,850 --> 00:47:37,850
sent out on this mission doing awesome
things, witnessed every miracle, tasted

735
00:47:37,860 --> 00:47:42,380
the bread multiplied by Christ's own
hands in this chapter, proves that a

736
00:47:42,380 --> 00:47:45,910
man can be in the inner circle, brush
against the very love of the universe,

737
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:48,380
and still die of spiritual thirst.

738
00:47:50,260 --> 00:47:56,120
And thirst, in the end, is the key Every
soul from the pulse of Adam's heart in

739
00:47:56,170 --> 00:48:02,060
Eden to the last desperate breath of the
dying thief on the cross was crafted to be

740
00:48:02,060 --> 00:48:08,920
with God, and our souls are tormented by
restlessness until they collapse into the

741
00:48:08,950 --> 00:48:11,100
arms of the one for whom they were made.

742
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:16,010
Every soul was built to be with God,
and it is restless until it has him.

743
00:48:16,590 --> 00:48:19,810
The testimony in the Bible is
not that humans are spiritually

744
00:48:19,810 --> 00:48:24,700
indifferent, but that we are
ravenous for meaning, for beauty, for

745
00:48:24,700 --> 00:48:28,340
connection, for peace, for wholeness
beyond what this world can supply.

746
00:48:28,670 --> 00:48:32,550
The testimony of the Psalms is
the confession of insatiable

747
00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:34,400
hunger and unquenchable thirst.

748
00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:37,270
Psalm 63:1, "O God, you are my God.

749
00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:39,080
I earnestly search for you.

750
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:40,970
My soul thirsts for you.

751
00:48:41,090 --> 00:48:44,590
My whole body longs for you
in this parched and weary

752
00:48:44,590 --> 00:48:47,050
land where there is no water."

753
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:51,610
This is not the polite
longing of a lukewarm heart.

754
00:48:51,890 --> 00:48:57,250
This is a man dying in the desert, clawing
the sand for even a hint of moisture.

755
00:48:58,330 --> 00:49:01,230
Psalm 143:6, "I lift my
hands to you in prayer.

756
00:49:01,530 --> 00:49:04,940
I thirst for you as in a
parched land thirsts for rain."

757
00:49:05,450 --> 00:49:08,820
Psalm 42:1-2, we love this one, right?

758
00:49:08,900 --> 00:49:14,670
"As the deer longs for the streams
of water, so I long for you, O God.

759
00:49:14,810 --> 00:49:16,990
I thirst for God, the living God.

760
00:49:17,170 --> 00:49:19,240
When can I go and stand before him?"

761
00:49:19,240 --> 00:49:23,170
Imagine for a moment a deer staggering
through the underbrush, tongue swollen

762
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:27,910
and lolling, every step driven by
the hope, perhaps the madness, that

763
00:49:27,910 --> 00:49:31,700
somewhere ahead there is a stream
and that to reach it is to live.

764
00:49:32,340 --> 00:49:35,580
That is the ache built
into every human soul.

765
00:49:35,940 --> 00:49:39,070
We are not merely people
who sometimes want God.

766
00:49:39,270 --> 00:49:41,820
We are people who will perish without God.

767
00:49:42,060 --> 00:49:46,250
It is the great lie of our time, and
perhaps every time, that anything

768
00:49:46,290 --> 00:49:51,090
else can satisfy that hunger
and that thirst and that ache.

769
00:49:51,250 --> 00:49:56,160
And when a soul finally does taste the
water of God's presence, it's transformed.

770
00:49:56,380 --> 00:49:58,770
The language of the Psalms
becomes the only language left.

771
00:49:58,770 --> 00:50:04,610
Psalm 63:3, "Because your
steadfast love is better than

772
00:50:04,610 --> 00:50:06,910
life, my lips will praise you."

773
00:50:06,910 --> 00:50:10,400
Notice that, not merely better than death.

774
00:50:11,900 --> 00:50:17,240
Better than all the living we could
ever do, better than all the brightest

775
00:50:17,250 --> 00:50:20,220
joys that Earth could ever offer.

776
00:50:20,630 --> 00:50:25,730
Your love is better than life itself.

777
00:50:26,230 --> 00:50:29,490
Psalm 16:11, "You make known to
me the path of life, and in your

778
00:50:29,490 --> 00:50:32,000
presence there is fullness of joy.

779
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:34,130
At your right hand are
pleasures forevermore."

780
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:37,200
There are pleasures in this life,
real ones, but they are shadows,

781
00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:40,490
rehearsals, and appetizers to the feast.

782
00:50:41,080 --> 00:50:44,420
And God is constantly pursuing
us to this wonderful end.

783
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:46,210
He's been pursuing me.

784
00:50:46,580 --> 00:50:49,190
Even this evening, He's calling to you.

785
00:50:49,720 --> 00:50:53,220
All of scripture is the extended
narrative of God's pursuit of

786
00:50:53,230 --> 00:50:55,240
this kind of relationship with us.

787
00:50:55,520 --> 00:50:59,140
The whole redemptive history is the
story of a God who keeps coming closer,

788
00:50:59,340 --> 00:51:03,230
who keeps making Himself vulnerable,
who keeps breaking down the barriers we

789
00:51:03,230 --> 00:51:05,240
build out of fear and pride and shame.

790
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:10,230
Even now, even in the quiet longing
of a Sunday evening, even as you hear

791
00:51:10,230 --> 00:51:12,480
these words, the invitation is open.

792
00:51:13,020 --> 00:51:14,000
God is calling.

793
00:51:14,040 --> 00:51:15,210
He is seeking.

794
00:51:15,260 --> 00:51:20,130
He is not content to be a theory or a
memory or a distant sovereign on a throne.

795
00:51:20,330 --> 00:51:24,920
He wants to pull you into the wild current
of His life, His love, and His joy.

796
00:51:26,060 --> 00:51:28,740
So let me ask you a question,
and let God ask you a question.

797
00:51:28,980 --> 00:51:30,850
Let's go back to the garden for a moment.

798
00:51:32,450 --> 00:51:36,180
You remember when they ate of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil,

799
00:51:36,180 --> 00:51:40,140
and they were, they were like, "Uh-oh,
we're naked, and we should get clothes."

800
00:51:40,140 --> 00:51:44,260
And then they heard God coming
for His daily walk, and they hid

801
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:47,110
And God asked him a question.

802
00:51:47,890 --> 00:51:48,940
He says, "Where are you?"

803
00:51:50,440 --> 00:51:56,380
He knew, of course, being God,
exactly where they were physically.

804
00:51:57,170 --> 00:51:59,700
The question was never about geography.

805
00:52:00,700 --> 00:52:02,490
It was always about relationship.

806
00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:06,220
Where are you in relation to me?

807
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:10,300
It is a question God still asks.

808
00:52:11,570 --> 00:52:15,140
Where are you tonight in relation to God?

809
00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:21,460
What comes between you and
that real intimacy with God,

810
00:52:21,550 --> 00:52:23,230
joining that divine dance?

811
00:52:24,730 --> 00:52:28,490
It is the oldest and most persistent
ache of the human heart, and yet we

812
00:52:28,500 --> 00:52:31,170
chronically misdiagnose its origins.

813
00:52:31,230 --> 00:52:31,900
We all do it.

814
00:52:31,900 --> 00:52:32,650
I've done it.

815
00:52:33,130 --> 00:52:35,390
Some of us maybe even this very evening.

816
00:52:35,780 --> 00:52:40,290
Some of us, maybe as these words are
hitting your ears, we feel the vast

817
00:52:40,300 --> 00:52:43,990
bottomless emptiness within us, the
hunger for purpose and belonging,

818
00:52:43,990 --> 00:52:47,550
and like lost children rummaging
through an unfamiliar house, we

819
00:52:47,550 --> 00:52:52,340
reach for whatever lies nearest, most
glittering, most instantly gratifying.

820
00:52:52,950 --> 00:52:56,460
We turn to the pleasures of sin,
not always the lurid and dramatic,

821
00:52:56,900 --> 00:52:58,740
but the ordinary and the mundane.

822
00:52:59,830 --> 00:53:04,690
The comfort of a bitter remark
savored, the lazy indulgence of

823
00:53:04,690 --> 00:53:10,830
a small lie, the fleeting thrill
of a private grudge, the numbing

824
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:13,710
seduction of a screen's blue light.

825
00:53:15,400 --> 00:53:18,480
We try to fill the void with anything
and everything that might, for a single

826
00:53:18,520 --> 00:53:21,190
hour, hush the insistent cry of the soul.

827
00:53:21,750 --> 00:53:24,940
But what do these things leave us
with except the taste of brine on

828
00:53:24,940 --> 00:53:28,870
our tongues, that's saltwater, the
parch craving that only deepens, the

829
00:53:28,870 --> 00:53:30,870
salt in the wound we hope to cure?

830
00:53:31,150 --> 00:53:36,620
It is the great mercy of God that we
are forever unsatisfied by lesser loves.

831
00:53:37,930 --> 00:53:40,480
There is a thirst in us so
deep and so profound that

832
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:41,820
nothing on earth can quench it.

833
00:53:42,450 --> 00:53:46,380
But I wanna suggest a much more
subtle, much more insidious danger

834
00:53:46,380 --> 00:53:48,940
to intimacy with God this evening.

835
00:53:49,500 --> 00:53:51,720
The enemy has grown clever with centuries.

836
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:58,170
If we cannot be seduced by scandal,
we may be destroyed by distraction.

837
00:53:58,910 --> 00:54:04,290
If we cannot be ruined by rebellion,
we may be eroded entirely by routine.

838
00:54:05,280 --> 00:54:09,000
The far greater threat to our souls,
at least in these sanctuary walls

839
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:13,160
among these familiar faces, is that not

840
00:54:13,393 --> 00:54:18,623
We'll plunge headlong into sin, but
that will wash our robes so fervently

841
00:54:18,623 --> 00:54:22,923
that we never once look up to see
the face of the God who gave them.

842
00:54:23,613 --> 00:54:26,243
Here's the paradox at the
heart of the Christian life.

843
00:54:27,843 --> 00:54:31,993
We can be so busy doing things for
Jesus that we forget to be with Jesus,

844
00:54:32,693 --> 00:54:35,873
and in forgetting him, lose everything
that made our doing worthwhile.

845
00:54:37,483 --> 00:54:43,283
We can mistake the work of the king for
a relationship with the king himself.

846
00:54:44,043 --> 00:54:50,193
Let me confess with trembling and yet with
hope, I have found this true in my life.

847
00:54:51,553 --> 00:54:55,533
There's a dangerous undercurrent, a
subtle riptide always present in the

848
00:54:55,533 --> 00:54:59,133
current of religious life, always
threatening to pull me away from the

849
00:54:59,133 --> 00:55:01,663
quiet shore of intimacy with my Savior.

850
00:55:01,853 --> 00:55:04,863
It is easier for me to write a
sermon than to kneel in prayer

851
00:55:06,363 --> 00:55:13,513
It is easier to construct an argument for
the gospel than to rest soul and sinew in

852
00:55:13,513 --> 00:55:16,173
the presence of Jesus, who is the gospel.

853
00:55:17,793 --> 00:55:21,083
It is easier to do than to be.

854
00:55:22,943 --> 00:55:26,373
To be crystal clear, don't get
me wrong, doing good things

855
00:55:26,373 --> 00:55:27,783
for God is not a bad thing.

856
00:55:28,393 --> 00:55:29,153
Quite the opposite.

857
00:55:29,153 --> 00:55:32,563
Jesus himself says, "The Son of Man
came not to be served, but to serve."

858
00:55:33,123 --> 00:55:36,793
and his entire life is a tapestry
of acts of mercy, of service, of

859
00:55:36,793 --> 00:55:38,703
healing, of teaching, and blessing.

860
00:55:39,383 --> 00:55:42,903
But, and this is the hinge upon
which everything turns, the works

861
00:55:42,903 --> 00:55:44,093
are the fruit, not the root.

862
00:55:45,393 --> 00:55:48,763
The works are the overflow of a life
steeped in the presence of Jesus, so the

863
00:55:48,763 --> 00:55:54,423
by-product of intimacy so rich, so vital,
that it cannot help but spill out into

864
00:55:54,423 --> 00:55:58,073
loving acts for neighbor and enemy alike.

865
00:55:58,763 --> 00:56:02,353
Christian loving and living must flow
from intimacy with Jesus, or else it's

866
00:56:02,353 --> 00:56:07,393
just another form of self-salvation, a
busy idolatry draped in church clothes.

867
00:56:08,013 --> 00:56:10,953
But here's the warning, as old as
Mary and Martha, and yet as modern as

868
00:56:10,953 --> 00:56:16,453
our latest app notification: intimacy
is never to be a means to an end.

869
00:56:18,253 --> 00:56:19,213
It is the end.

870
00:56:20,983 --> 00:56:26,773
Yes, ministry flows from intimacy, but the
goal of it is intimacy for its own sake,

871
00:56:27,493 --> 00:56:31,773
the delight of the beloved in the presence
of her lover, the rest of the child in

872
00:56:31,773 --> 00:56:36,233
the arms of his father, the joy of the
friend who has found his truest friend.

873
00:56:36,473 --> 00:56:41,253
We do not cultivate intimacy with
Jesus to be more productive or

874
00:56:41,253 --> 00:56:43,973
more admired or even more moral.

875
00:56:44,243 --> 00:56:51,133
We cultivate intimacy because that's the
point of everything, the whole enchilada,

876
00:56:51,143 --> 00:56:54,628
as a wise person once said Joking.

877
00:56:55,908 --> 00:56:59,898
Union with our maker, communion with our
redeemer, the unbroken fellowship with the

878
00:56:59,898 --> 00:57:02,528
one who loved us before the worlds began.

879
00:57:02,868 --> 00:57:07,358
How then does Jesus rescue his disciples
from the tyranny of busyness and the soul

880
00:57:07,358 --> 00:57:10,118
splitting demands of life in ministry?

881
00:57:10,118 --> 00:57:12,778
How does he rescue us today
right now in this moment?

882
00:57:12,948 --> 00:57:15,998
How does he invite us back into the
garden where the breeze of the spirit

883
00:57:15,998 --> 00:57:19,518
rustles the leaves and the sound
of the Lord walking is the sweetest

884
00:57:19,518 --> 00:57:21,428
music our ears could ever know?

885
00:57:22,048 --> 00:57:23,298
"Come away.

886
00:57:23,838 --> 00:57:26,138
Come away," Jesus is saying.

887
00:57:26,228 --> 00:57:28,978
Jesus is creating a buffer,
doing something that they didn't

888
00:57:28,978 --> 00:57:31,028
know how to do for themselves.

889
00:57:31,608 --> 00:57:36,248
PassCall once wrote that most of the
disorders and evil in life are the result

890
00:57:36,248 --> 00:57:39,848
of man's inability to sit still and think.

891
00:57:40,588 --> 00:57:40,618
Oof.

892
00:57:41,578 --> 00:57:46,388
In incredibly busy time, Jesus and the
disciples are in great demand with the

893
00:57:46,388 --> 00:57:50,018
crowd pressing around their face with
endless needs and they had been learning

894
00:57:50,138 --> 00:57:51,848
how to face those needs with Jesus.

895
00:57:51,848 --> 00:57:54,538
But now they have to learn
something else, how to walk

896
00:57:54,538 --> 00:57:56,208
away from those needs with him.

897
00:57:56,878 --> 00:57:58,468
Our culture is one of busyness.

898
00:57:58,478 --> 00:58:01,838
What do we say when we greet
someone and ask them, "How are you?"

899
00:58:03,208 --> 00:58:06,604
Busy I'm so busy.

900
00:58:07,534 --> 00:58:08,444
I do it all the time.

901
00:58:08,444 --> 00:58:09,224
It's our default.

902
00:58:09,224 --> 00:58:10,484
It's normal for our culture.

903
00:58:10,804 --> 00:58:14,804
That is the difficulty when we find
ourselves busy and doing good things

904
00:58:14,804 --> 00:58:16,644
for God that we're not with God.

905
00:58:17,044 --> 00:58:20,344
So Jesus is doing for the disciples
and teaching them that they're

906
00:58:20,564 --> 00:58:23,704
are absolutely not indispensable.

907
00:58:24,014 --> 00:58:25,334
Come away.

908
00:58:25,954 --> 00:58:28,894
Jesus is doing for them what they
would never do for themselves.

909
00:58:28,894 --> 00:58:31,664
He wants to keep them from the
addiction to busyness and feeling

910
00:58:31,674 --> 00:58:36,364
indispensable, from feeling important,
so he says to them, "Step away from

911
00:58:36,364 --> 00:58:38,174
all the good you're doing for me.

912
00:58:38,184 --> 00:58:39,184
Be with me.

913
00:58:39,204 --> 00:58:40,024
Come away."

914
00:58:40,354 --> 00:58:41,994
Th- it must have jarred them.

915
00:58:42,044 --> 00:58:45,944
The expectation was for a
rallying cry, a doubling down and

916
00:58:45,974 --> 00:58:47,594
unrolling the, the battle plans.

917
00:58:47,794 --> 00:58:51,164
Instead, an invitation to
withdraw, to become less, to

918
00:58:51,164 --> 00:58:53,144
let the urgent slow to a crawl.

919
00:58:53,374 --> 00:58:57,654
Jesus interrupted the momentum,
not with a critique, but with care.

920
00:58:58,034 --> 00:59:02,264
Care for the very ones who thought the
only way to matter was to keep moving.

921
00:59:03,044 --> 00:59:06,754
What we find so remarkable about Jesus,
and perhaps unsettling to the point of

922
00:59:06,754 --> 00:59:11,864
offense, is the way he holds both the
urgency of his mission and the slowness

923
00:59:11,874 --> 00:59:15,254
of his pace in irreconcilable tension.

924
00:59:16,294 --> 00:59:21,864
Never in a hurry, never it seems,
seduced by the tyranny of the next thing.

925
00:59:23,054 --> 00:59:25,514
How often we're in a hurry,
busy in the very service of

926
00:59:25,514 --> 00:59:26,924
the one who is never rushed.

927
00:59:27,304 --> 00:59:30,464
There's a flavor of busyness that
tastes like faithfulness, but really

928
00:59:30,464 --> 00:59:35,614
it's anxiety, a refusal to believe
that God can do more in our resting

929
00:59:35,814 --> 00:59:37,504
than we can do in our striving.

930
00:59:37,974 --> 00:59:40,824
We suppose that if the needs
are unending, the supply of

931
00:59:40,824 --> 00:59:42,994
ourselves must be unending as well.

932
00:59:43,364 --> 00:59:46,844
We say yes to the next obligation,
the next sacrifice, the next service

933
00:59:46,844 --> 00:59:50,214
project, not only because the needs
are real, but because somewhere deep

934
00:59:50,214 --> 00:59:54,664
down we believe that if we stop being
useful, we will stop being loved.

935
00:59:56,344 --> 01:00:00,464
What's amazing is he seems almost
indifferent to their reports of success.

936
01:00:01,244 --> 01:00:04,864
Or rather, he receives them
only as further proof of the

937
01:00:04,864 --> 01:00:06,564
need for their withdrawal.

938
01:00:07,014 --> 01:00:10,094
It is as if he's saying, "All you're
doing, all your achievement and

939
01:00:10,094 --> 01:00:13,944
effectiveness counts for nothing if
it's not rooted in being with me.

940
01:00:14,344 --> 01:00:18,334
The measure of your fruitfulness is
not your output, but your intimacy.

941
01:00:18,574 --> 01:00:21,714
Come away with me."

942
01:00:22,984 --> 01:00:26,874
So hard to believe that.

943
01:00:27,354 --> 01:00:31,314
It was not just an invitation It was
at its core a declaration of love.

944
01:00:31,314 --> 01:00:32,564
I love you.

945
01:00:32,834 --> 01:00:37,454
I care about you more than the
ministry, more than all these

946
01:00:37,454 --> 01:00:39,014
hungry crowds and urgent tasks.

947
01:00:39,204 --> 01:00:44,344
You are not valuable just for what
you do, for the demons you cast out,

948
01:00:44,344 --> 01:00:47,324
for the sermons you preach, or the
way you multiply loaves and fishes.

949
01:00:47,554 --> 01:00:52,224
I saved you to have you,
not your output, but you.

950
01:00:53,384 --> 01:00:56,114
It's hard to believe that God
just loves us because he loves us.

951
01:00:56,674 --> 01:01:00,434
It's even harder to believe he might
love us when we're doing nothing at all.

952
01:01:01,934 --> 01:01:05,094
But in the face of all this, Jesus
speaks softly and without condemnation.

953
01:01:05,144 --> 01:01:05,694
"Come away.

954
01:01:05,694 --> 01:01:06,344
Rest a while.

955
01:01:06,344 --> 01:01:08,274
Let me love you in your uselessness.

956
01:01:09,554 --> 01:01:12,004
Let me delight in you when you
have nothing to offer but your

957
01:01:12,014 --> 01:01:15,264
tired self, your hungry heart,
your confusion and smallness.

958
01:01:15,334 --> 01:01:19,734
Let me show you that your value to me
is not a function of your usefulness,

959
01:01:19,914 --> 01:01:23,984
but of my joy in calling you mine."

960
01:01:25,484 --> 01:01:26,844
So I'll close just with the gospel

961
01:01:28,344 --> 01:01:31,254
And with that question, where are you?

962
01:01:32,754 --> 01:01:38,374
We were made, designed even, down to
the sinews and synapses, to be with God.

963
01:01:39,364 --> 01:01:43,854
This is our native environment,
our elemental context.

964
01:01:44,894 --> 01:01:48,114
As essential to our thriving
as water is to a fish or air

965
01:01:48,114 --> 01:01:50,084
to a newborn's first howl.

966
01:01:51,284 --> 01:01:54,184
But almost from the
beginning, we chose otherwise.

967
01:01:54,904 --> 01:01:58,884
Self-assertion and self-protection,
then self-deception.

968
01:01:59,674 --> 01:02:03,334
The terrible logic of sin worked
its way down through the strata

969
01:02:03,334 --> 01:02:06,904
of our hearts until separation
became the only thing we knew.

970
01:02:07,384 --> 01:02:09,904
We lost the memory of
Eden, but not the ache.

971
01:02:10,464 --> 01:02:13,454
We forgot God's voice, but
not the craving for it.

972
01:02:13,854 --> 01:02:17,564
Somewhere inside, the echo of our
original belonging pulsed in our veins

973
01:02:17,564 --> 01:02:22,574
and haunted our dreams, but our hunger
for Him, for togetherness, was always

974
01:02:22,584 --> 01:02:24,934
greater than our capacity to reach Him.

975
01:02:25,114 --> 01:02:29,254
We built towers, shrines,
laws, philosophies, but all

976
01:02:29,254 --> 01:02:31,174
our best efforts were Babel.

977
01:02:31,904 --> 01:02:36,094
A confusion of grasping, striving,
longing, never quite enough.

978
01:02:36,464 --> 01:02:39,984
Our attempts at reunion
made the absence more acute.

979
01:02:40,004 --> 01:02:44,744
Every ritual, every sacrifice, every
page of poetry, every bloodied altar

980
01:02:44,744 --> 01:02:49,404
was a flare sent up from the darkness,
a signal to say, "We're still here,

981
01:02:49,404 --> 01:02:51,314
still waiting, still wanting you."

982
01:02:51,794 --> 01:02:56,174
But the gulf remained and the generations
passed, and the ache calcified

983
01:02:56,464 --> 01:03:05,884
until, "And they will call his name
Emmanuel," which means God with us.

984
01:03:06,144 --> 01:03:10,314
Not God above us, or against
us, or merely for us.

985
01:03:10,504 --> 01:03:14,154
God startingly, stubbornly,
dazzlingly with us.

986
01:03:14,484 --> 01:03:19,194
God compressed into a
single pulsing infant body.

987
01:03:19,364 --> 01:03:22,413
God who would get dust on His
feet and hunger in His belly

988
01:03:22,574 --> 01:03:24,134
and grief behind His eyes.

989
01:03:24,354 --> 01:03:27,824
God who came not to grade us on
our attempts at proximity, but

990
01:03:27,824 --> 01:03:30,094
to close the distance Himself.

991
01:03:31,654 --> 01:03:38,663
To run to the pit, and to jump
in He came for us, not at our

992
01:03:38,663 --> 01:03:41,954
invitation, but by his own compulsion.

993
01:03:42,134 --> 01:03:47,314
His love refusing to be barred by any
barricade, least of all the ones we

994
01:03:47,314 --> 01:03:49,134
nailed together with our own hands.

995
01:03:49,314 --> 01:03:52,904
And he didn't come as a tourist,
a spiritual anthropologist

996
01:03:52,913 --> 01:03:57,184
jotting down oddities of a broken
species for heaven's amusement.

997
01:03:57,254 --> 01:04:01,214
He came to make a new way where
there was no way, and the road he

998
01:04:01,214 --> 01:04:05,244
paved was not the straightest or the
safest, but the only one wide enough

999
01:04:05,244 --> 01:04:09,834
to carry, to hold every lost and
limping soul, the way of the cross.

1000
01:04:10,084 --> 01:04:13,374
The Father called the
Son to a lonely place.

1001
01:04:13,634 --> 01:04:16,663
The loneliest place in the
history of the world, not merely

1002
01:04:16,663 --> 01:04:18,284
a wilderness, but an unmaking.

1003
01:04:18,564 --> 01:04:23,034
A cosmic abandonment that no other
creature has ever truly experienced.

1004
01:04:23,394 --> 01:04:25,294
We taste loneliness as a flavor.

1005
01:04:25,294 --> 01:04:27,144
He drank it to the dregs.

1006
01:04:27,364 --> 01:04:29,924
We hide from unrest with
distractions and noise.

1007
01:04:29,994 --> 01:04:34,384
He met it head-on, stripped of every
comfort, nailed to a question mark,

1008
01:04:34,434 --> 01:04:36,324
my God, why have you forsaken me?"

1009
01:04:36,564 --> 01:04:41,054
There, every atom of our alienation
was gathered into one body, the

1010
01:04:41,054 --> 01:04:44,184
sin substitute, the scapegoat,
the single point of pain

1011
01:04:44,394 --> 01:04:48,094
through which all the universe's
separation funneled and fractured.

1012
01:04:48,304 --> 01:04:51,714
In that empty, echoing
space, he became our unrest.

1013
01:04:51,924 --> 01:04:54,534
He became the wound,
the breach, the exile.

1014
01:04:54,694 --> 01:04:59,604
He took on himself every act and
echo of our running, every failed

1015
01:04:59,604 --> 01:05:03,574
attempt at reunion, every secret
suspicion that we had been left

1016
01:05:03,574 --> 01:05:05,614
behind, unloved and unchosen.

1017
01:05:05,624 --> 01:05:07,944
The cross was not merely pain.

1018
01:05:07,954 --> 01:05:12,484
It was the absence of all presence,
the bottom of the chasm between God

1019
01:05:12,484 --> 01:05:17,244
and man, but he endured it so that we
could, for the first time since Eden,

1020
01:05:17,404 --> 01:05:19,944
experience the rest of being with him.

1021
01:05:20,374 --> 01:05:23,394
The rest that is not the
absence of responsibility,

1022
01:05:23,394 --> 01:05:25,484
but the return to true home.

1023
01:05:25,734 --> 01:05:29,494
The rest that comes when the striving
is stilled, when the question of

1024
01:05:29,494 --> 01:05:33,814
our belonging is settled, when the
ache is met and answered and healed.

1025
01:05:33,984 --> 01:05:38,163
In his resurrection, the reunion
is made possible again, not as an

1026
01:05:38,163 --> 01:05:43,094
abstraction or a future hope, but
as a present, pulsing reality.

1027
01:05:43,264 --> 01:05:50,514
We can be with him not as guests or
servants, but as beloved sons and

1028
01:05:50,514 --> 01:05:58,174
daughters, as those for whom the distance
has been permanently, eternally erased.

1029
01:05:59,104 --> 01:06:03,224
And so the ancient rhythm, the
hunger, the heartbreak, the

1030
01:06:03,224 --> 01:06:06,034
hope deferred is transformed.

1031
01:06:06,324 --> 01:06:11,564
The story that began in longing ends in
communion, and every moment of our lives,

1032
01:06:11,844 --> 01:06:17,264
even the most ordinary, becomes ashot
through with the possibility of presence.

1033
01:06:17,534 --> 01:06:24,364
God not just above or beyond, but here,
now with us as he always intended.

1034
01:06:25,864 --> 01:06:30,464
I think of Isaac, and I think that
Jesus is the true and better Isaac

1035
01:06:32,288 --> 01:06:36,028
Remember Abraham takes him up on the
hill and is gonna offer him, and then

1036
01:06:36,028 --> 01:06:37,798
there's a ram, or in the thicket.

1037
01:06:37,838 --> 01:06:38,938
God says, "No, no, no, don't.

1038
01:06:40,298 --> 01:06:41,148
Don't kill your son.

1039
01:06:41,958 --> 01:06:44,208
The Lord will provide
himself a sacrifice."

1040
01:06:44,648 --> 01:06:49,848
But he tells Abraham, he says, "Man,
Abraham, because you gave your son, your

1041
01:06:49,848 --> 01:06:53,778
one son whom you love, now I know that
you love me more than anything else."

1042
01:06:55,268 --> 01:06:58,278
I think of Jesus, the true and
better Isaac, the beloved son on

1043
01:06:58,278 --> 01:07:00,088
whom all hope seemed to hinge.

1044
01:07:00,938 --> 01:07:05,098
The child of the inconceivable promise
who was not simply offered up as an act

1045
01:07:05,098 --> 01:07:09,668
of faith or obedience, but who walked
the long and lonely road to the altar

1046
01:07:09,988 --> 01:07:15,378
knowing that the knife would fall and that
there would be no last-minute angel, no

1047
01:07:15,378 --> 01:07:20,358
ram in the thicket caught to spare him
from the loss, the fire, and the wood.

1048
01:07:21,718 --> 01:07:26,328
Where Abraham climbed, trembling, still
above, the hope against hope, Jesus

1049
01:07:26,328 --> 01:07:29,898
climbed resolute, knowing that the
Father's love for the world demanded

1050
01:07:29,898 --> 01:07:33,758
not a gesture, not a rehearsal,
but the real and bloody thing.

1051
01:07:34,818 --> 01:07:39,878
His binding was not on the top of
the mountain in the distant past,

1052
01:07:39,878 --> 01:07:43,858
but on a skull-shaped hill outside
the city, in full view of enemies

1053
01:07:43,858 --> 01:07:48,358
and strangers and those who loved him
most, who were powerless to intercede.

1054
01:07:49,008 --> 01:07:51,828
Abraham, knife poised, heard
the cry to stay his hand.

1055
01:07:51,828 --> 01:07:56,668
His father's heart spared the grief,
but the father of Jesus, the God whom no

1056
01:07:56,668 --> 01:07:59,218
one has seen, did not stay his own hand.

1057
01:07:59,218 --> 01:08:03,068
He let the blow land, and he
let the judgment pass through

1058
01:08:03,068 --> 01:08:04,838
his own heart like a sword.

1059
01:08:05,098 --> 01:08:07,408
The wood on Isaac's back was a foreshadow.

1060
01:08:07,918 --> 01:08:11,258
The crossbeam on Christ's shoulders
was its fulfillment, and where Isaac's

1061
01:08:11,258 --> 01:08:16,028
story ended in reprieve, the father and
son reunited, laughter and sacrifice

1062
01:08:16,058 --> 01:08:21,627
intertwined, the story of Jesus ended in
absolute aloneness, abandonment, silence

1063
01:08:21,638 --> 01:08:24,428
so deep it split the sun from the sky.

1064
01:08:25,098 --> 01:08:28,858
God said to Abraham, "Now I know that
you fear me because you have not withheld

1065
01:08:28,858 --> 01:08:30,688
your beloved son, your only son."

1066
01:08:31,058 --> 01:08:34,758
The test was the proof of devotion,
yes, but it was a proof only because

1067
01:08:34,788 --> 01:08:36,928
the cost was unthinkably high.

1068
01:08:37,188 --> 01:08:39,377
Now in the Gospel, the tables are turned.

1069
01:08:39,658 --> 01:08:41,207
Moriah's replayed.

1070
01:08:41,468 --> 01:08:45,497
The, place of the skull is replayed,
uh, but the roles are reversed.

1071
01:08:45,508 --> 01:08:46,948
It is God who offers.

1072
01:08:46,957 --> 01:08:48,788
It is the son who does not protest.

1073
01:08:48,978 --> 01:08:52,008
It is the knife that falls
unflinching, the father who

1074
01:08:52,008 --> 01:08:53,868
bears the unimaginable grief.

1075
01:08:54,087 --> 01:08:58,848
And if Abraham's faith was counted as
righteousness, what name can we give

1076
01:08:58,858 --> 01:09:00,917
to such a love, such self-spending?

1077
01:09:01,028 --> 01:09:05,417
What algebra of mercy could ever
account for the willingness to sever

1078
01:09:05,428 --> 01:09:10,148
heart from heart for the sake of those
who have done nothing to deserve it?

1079
01:09:10,827 --> 01:09:14,798
The point is not simply that Jesus
is a better sacrifice, but that

1080
01:09:14,808 --> 01:09:16,778
he is the end of all sacrifice.

1081
01:09:17,008 --> 01:09:20,058
That in him, every beloved child,
every parent, every wanderer,

1082
01:09:20,087 --> 01:09:25,278
every homebody, every seeker, every
cynic, every trembling hand, every

1083
01:09:25,278 --> 01:09:29,388
clenched jaw, finds shelter from the
necessity of endless self-offering.

1084
01:09:29,598 --> 01:09:34,456
The altar is satis- The voice from heaven
speaks a second time, "It is finished.

1085
01:09:34,566 --> 01:09:36,095
The knife is sheathed."

1086
01:09:36,816 --> 01:09:40,496
And so we, the children of Abraham,
the inheritors of this laughter

1087
01:09:40,765 --> 01:09:44,595
and his doubts, trace the line of
that story through the centuries.

1088
01:09:44,595 --> 01:09:49,756
We see at last what Abraham could only
glimpse, that the ram was never enough,

1089
01:09:49,756 --> 01:09:54,666
that every lamb, every goat, every bull,
every dove was a provisional mercy,

1090
01:09:54,846 --> 01:09:56,676
a shadow waiting for its substance.

1091
01:09:56,686 --> 01:10:01,886
We see that every story whispered toward
this one, that here at the intersection

1092
01:10:01,886 --> 01:10:06,786
of our deepest need and God's deepest
ache, the logic of love runs out of words.

1093
01:10:07,216 --> 01:10:08,516
God did not withhold.

1094
01:10:08,666 --> 01:10:10,686
He set no price, no limit, no caveat.

1095
01:10:10,686 --> 01:10:16,756
He loved, and in loving, He gave the only
Son, the one in whom all the promises of

1096
01:10:16,756 --> 01:10:19,446
God are yes and amen, given up for us all.

1097
01:10:19,646 --> 01:10:24,516
And so now we say back to Him with
trembling and awe, if we dare, with

1098
01:10:24,526 --> 01:10:30,986
gratitude, "Now we know that you love us
because you did not withhold your Son,

1099
01:10:31,846 --> 01:10:35,606
your only Son, whom you love, from us."

1100
01:10:37,106 --> 01:10:41,596
Only on these terms does the soul
finally rest, for it no longer

1101
01:10:41,596 --> 01:10:43,596
fears the exposure of its needs.

1102
01:10:44,206 --> 01:10:49,606
It has no reputation to defend, no
mask to maintain, no secret terror

1103
01:10:49,946 --> 01:10:52,006
that is unlovable if found out.

1104
01:10:52,276 --> 01:10:57,206
Instead, it learns to be found out
daily, hourly, sometimes in the most

1105
01:10:57,206 --> 01:11:01,856
humiliating ways, and to greet each
exposure not with panic, but with praise.

1106
01:11:02,446 --> 01:11:08,316
Need is no longer the enemy, but
the means by which grace gets in.

1107
01:11:10,086 --> 01:11:14,296
We are not merely resigned
to this, but grateful for it.

1108
01:11:14,936 --> 01:11:17,796
Each new fall, while bitter in
the moment, is sweetened by the

1109
01:11:17,796 --> 01:11:22,406
certainty that it will usher in a
new tenderness, a deeper knowledge of

1110
01:11:22,406 --> 01:11:24,666
the mercy at the heart of all things.

1111
01:11:25,466 --> 01:11:33,396
Grace is not the permission to sin, but
the permission to need, and in needing,

1112
01:11:34,226 --> 01:11:41,466
to discover that every lack is already
anticipated, already met, already healed

1113
01:11:41,726 --> 01:11:44,806
by the love that has always been waiting.

1114
01:11:45,086 --> 01:11:52,356
We then revel, yes, revel in the glad
humility of being perpetually supplied by

1115
01:11:52,356 --> 01:11:56,366
another, and this finally is his glory.

1116
01:11:56,376 --> 01:12:00,516
Not that he has eliminated his need,
but that he has learned to want

1117
01:12:00,526 --> 01:12:05,246
nothing but Christ and to receive
everything as a gift from his hand.

1118
01:12:06,116 --> 01:12:06,636
Let's pray.