Close Enough To Feel His Heart Beat

Hey, everybody, how are you doing? Good, good, good to see you. So glad you're here. I want to just start today by celebrating Ethan, and Pastor Andrew, and Pastor Chancellor, and Travis, and Pastor Sam for the incredible messages that they all preached last weekend on Fresh Voices. I think often about what the Apostle Paul said in Philippians when he said, it's just a TV, you guys. It'll be OK. It's what he said in Philippians when he looked at that church and those people that were a product of his ministry, and he said, you are my joy and my crown. And it was such a good reminder for me last week that the joy of life and the crown of life is not achievements, and it's not results, and it's not success. It is the people. And it's the people that you build your life into. And so I just felt like a proud dad. Not that it's all because of me, but sitting on the front row, just cheering for them, and seeing God work in and through their lives. And so it's just a great, great thing, and just proud of them. Also, I'm very proud of a girl named Janae, because today she officially has tolerated me for 12 years. So happy anniversary to my wife. And we are not perfect people with a perfect marriage

or who have a perfect life, but I am so grateful for the gift of marriage, for the discipleship that comes through marriage, for the ability to be loved, and to love, and to grow in commitment to each other. And she put it on social media. I'll say it from here, but I'm so glad we chose each other, and that we get to do this together, but we also get to do life together. And just so grateful for you. Love you. And happy anniversary. It was good. Thank you. Thank you. I told her I was like 12 years, because it feels like 25 with everything that's happened. So let me give you a summary. This is us on the day we got engaged. She didn't know we were getting engaged. It was a sneak attack. And you can tell she's not getting older, but I am. It's happening. And my hairline is becoming a little discouraging. This is the day we got married. It's amazing. And then we were pregnant a year later. We started leading the church that year. A lot has happened. I would say this is a summary of the current situation

right here, just hanging on, hanging on for dear life to each other. And so just fun. What I want to give you today, the title of the message is Close Enough to Feel His Heartbeat. And I'm going to come to you at a different speed today, partly because I think the message requires it, and also partly because some of our friends, a sister church to us, celebrated their 100 year anniversary yesterday, which is pretty cool. And so I drove to Fargo and back five hours to spend three. Have you ever done one of those trips and got back late last night? But man, we will celebrate 100 years as a church in a couple of years. So I was there to support them and also steal all their really good ideas. So the challenge for me today, even like explaining a marriage and a love relationship, is explaining the love relationship that I want to focus on today that existed between a couple of people in Scripture and really I want to come to you with one passage right now for us to kind of sit in that's written by a man named John. He said it this way, we love because he loved us first. Another translation says, we love because he first loved us. But can you just sit in that for a moment? We love because he loved and he went first. We love because he loved. You know, when I was, I got the opportunity

to go to Israel several years ago and we went up a little hill. And I remember there being like a barbed wire fence. And at my farm growing up on the other side of the barbed wire fence was somebody else's pasture. And on the other side of this barbed wire fence was Syria. So that was a different experience. And I remember kind of looking down off that hill and our guide said, you know, right down there, we can see the Sea of Galilee and, you know, Jesus, the ministry of Jesus really took place. We think about it as this massive ministry, but it really took place in a pretty small area. All these stories that we read about. And we looked down off this hill in the Northeast corner of the Sea of Galilee where the Jordan River flows in. And then on the other side, it flows out. And he said, there's, we believe in the earth right down there is a small. a little town. And since then, in the last six or seven years, they have excavated that town. And he said, that town is a small fishing village called Bethsaida. And it's in Bethsaida, where a lot of Jesus' ministry happened, a lot around that area, but it's also in that small fishing village that Jesus called many of his disciples to follow him.

In between there and some of the towns around it, but even born in Bethsaida were disciples like Peter and disciples like Andrew and Philip, and likely born in that same area, or that same village even, was a disciple named James and his little brother, who was the youngest disciple to follow Jesus, who at the time when he was called to follow Jesus was probably barely 13 years old, was a young man named John. And John has a compelling story. Peter preached many messages, Paul planted many churches, but John comes from just like a totally different angle. And when you read his gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it sounds different than what Matthew, the tax collector wrote, or what Luke, the doctor wrote, or what Mark wrote. It's marked in a different way when it comes from John. But before we get to that, to John's later years, where he actually writes down the stories of Jesus in John and first, second, and third, John, we meet John in a very different way. As a teenager, and how many of you know, the teenage version of you can be very different than the 60 or 70 year old version of you. And John was no different. He's very different from a teenage year

to his latter years. In his teenage years, he and his brother James are kind of this little duo. And the family system probably of James and John and their father Zebedee and their family was that they were a little bit like, say it like it is, maybe a little bit rash in some of their actions. Maybe lovers of truth, like they wanted to know the truth. They wanted to speak the truth. They weren't worried about telling you the truth. They had, it was kind of a family that had like a fiery zeal to them, a passion, a boldness about them. In fact, it was that same commitment to truth and boldness that caused many scholars, believe John and James, to literally step out of their father's boat, leaving Zebedee in the boat, and going and following a rabbi, leaving behind not only their father, but their father's business, when Jesus said, hey, come follow me. And they did, they got out of the boat, waded through the water, and walked away with this teacher, this rabbi named Jesus. It would be in those early years of following Jesus that in Luke 9, 49, John and James, while the other disciples were silent, would rebuke a man for trying to cast out demons like Jesus,

calling out what they saw as true in that moment. It's later in that chapter that John and James look at Jesus and they said, hey, see these Samaritans, they're refusing you. They're mocking you, Jesus. We talked about it, Jesus. And you know what we think? We think we should, like you and us, we should call down fire from heaven on those guys. Like you wouldn't do that to some people in your life, right? But John and James, they're bold, they are strong in what is true and what is right, and they're, at the beginning of the story, low in mercy. And Jesus looks at them and he lovingly gives them a nickname and he says, I'm gonna call you two the sons of thunder. Which some of the men in the room are like, I'll take it. Becomes their identity that they're sons of thunder. John loved truth. He loved to call out truth. He loved to record truth. When he discovered that Jesus was the truth, he wrote it down. He always would love truth. He was quick to share truth with people. He was quick to speak the truth as he saw it. What was in his heart often came out. It was James and John that went to Jesus one day and said, Jesus, we're so excited about this kingdom that you're telling us about. We're so excited about this kingdom that you're building.

And we were talking to mom, and the three of us had a really good idea, Jesus, about what you should do, Jesus. When you get to your kingdom and you're reigning, we would love to sit at your right and your left side. All the other disciples are like, who are these guys? And in their hearts, they're like, I hope it's not first come, first served because they thought about it before we did. And Jesus has to deal with that in John and in James. You know, really the moral of the story here is you meet a young man named John who is likely ambitious. who is quite reactive, who was probably longing for power and position so much that he was willing to approach Jesus and ask for it. But what's happening behind the scenes is while John wants to direct his life around power and position, Jesus begins to form his life around something different. And he begins to form his life around love. What it means to love and what it means to be loved. See many of us come to Jesus in the same way John came. We come maybe with our achievements. We come in a very performative way like God look at what I've done for you in the way that I've lived. We come with a lot of truth but very little mercy. We come with our striving or with our achieving or being a little bit reactive to the situations of life. Or maybe we don't come to Jesus at all because of the same things. Because we're so caught up in our own performance that we miss what he's done for us. Or maybe we don't come to Jesus because we're too busy and the worries of life and the busyness of life just kind of drowns out that primary relationship of our lives. Or maybe it's out of our shame that we don't feel worthy to come to Jesus. I mean at the end of the day at the core of our being everybody has to ask ourselves this question. What keeps Jesus at an arm's length in your life? What causes us to live in such a way that Jesus is over here or Jesus is on Sunday and I live

independent from him? And really if you're wondering am I living that way the evidence of it is your spiritual rhythms. I mean I really wanted to ask you the question today when's the last time that you came to Jesus? Not for an answer, not for an SOS call, not because it's religiously and legalistically what you ought to do, but when's the last time that you came to Jesus just for Jesus? I really felt compelled this week to invite you into something deeper and different than maybe the relationship with Christ that you've been living. Maybe you keep Jesus at an arm's length because of busyness or because of shame or maybe you keep Jesus at an arm's length because of a lack of belief. Like if I actually pray does it really move the needle? If I actually talk to Jesus does it really matter? If I actually know him does it actually make a difference? But what I would appeal to you today, what I would present to you today is that this man that we meet as a teenager who's called the son of thunder in scripture in his later years of life is not known as a son of thunder. He becomes known by an entirely different name. He becomes known as the apostle of love. And what transforms a young man into an older man who's not known by his thunder or his ambition or his grit or his truth-telling but he becomes known instead by his love? I mean you know people who are 13 and don't show a lot of love and are 30 and don't show a lot of love and are 70 and don't show a lot of love it's not something that just naturally happens with age. Like something changed in John that moved this son of thunder from a son of thunder to the guy who in his latter years would write we love because he loved us first. I think John at 14 would have written we win because Jesus won. We're the best because Jesus is the best. But John writes something entirely different and it happened because he came to Jesus and something shifted in his identity from a son of thunder to an apostle of love and John actually writes about it himself a little bit earlier in first John 4 15 he says if anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God God resides in him and he in God. John discovers that by coming to Jesus not only do we get to dwell with God under the shadow of the Almighty as the Bible says but also God comes and makes his

dwelling in us. That is a profound truth that is worth just staring at and saying, God, help me understand. Help me to see. He continues, we have come to know and to believe the love that God has in us. God is love, and the one who resides in love resides in God and God resides in him. I'm asking God to give you a deeper truth today of really what this love relationship is all about. And what it actually means to be in a relationship with Jesus where he resides in you and you live a life that resides in him. I'm asking the Lord to give you a spiritual shovel today to where you would start to dig and that there would be a well in your soul that would not be filled with the junk of life and the wealth of life and the lusts of life and the things of culture, but there would be a well of living water that flows from heaven into the depths of your soul that reminds you, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for he is with me. A different kind of relationship where you know I dwell in him and he dwells in me. Something more intimate, something more vulnerable, something more real, something that you don't just give your time to, but you give yourself to.

That changes you from a son of thunder to the apostle of love. It's this transformation that we see in John where he's describing not just good theology, God resides in you and you reside in God because your theology and your knowledge and your logic and your understanding will only take you so far. John is describing a journey, not just a theology, but a journey of understanding the love of God. Even the love that Jesus himself would declare in John 15, when you abide in me and I abide in you, there is something different. John doesn't just hear about Jesus' love. He doesn't just have somebody else talk to him about Jesus' love. John experiences the love of Jesus. It resides in him. And my prayer for you today is not that you would understand a doctrine, but that you would have an experience with the love of God. And I know some of you have. Some of you have come up to me with tears in your eyes and say, God met me in this place. I experienced Jesus today. I sensed his presence in a way that I never had before. See, eventually, as I said, Peter would preach more messages, Paul would plant more churches,

but John would become an expert in the presence of Jesus and the love of Jesus. You can be known for a lot of things. And I'm not prescribing to you what it has to look like for you, but I am asking you, what does it look like for you to become an expert in the presence of Jesus, to become an expert in not just knowing about the love of God or reciting the scriptures about the love of God, but to experience in the well of your own soul, in the caverns of who you are, in the depths of your own nature, what it means for God's spirit to come together with your spirit and for something in you to say, Father, like a love relationship that would be opened up. Why? Because you will be transformed by what you're closest to. That's what they say. If you're married long enough, you start looking like each other. You begin to be transformed into what you're the closest to. If you're the closest to your money, it will show up in your greed. If you're closest to a political figure, it will show up in what you say and what you do. If you're closest to Jesus, you'll start to act and respond and become like Christ. Whatever you're close to will transform you into its image.

So what image are you being transformed into today? The defining characteristic of John's life is that he got close enough to Jesus to be transformed by him. Somebody wrote it this way. Judas and John both went to church, but there was something different about John. He experienced something different. Why? Because he wasn't just in a friendship with another guy. You can read scripture and go, oh, John and Jesus, they were buddies. They were bros. They were best friends. A couple of guys going fishing. No pun intended. Worked out. But John wasn't just developing a friendship with another human. He was developing a friendship with the God of all creation. It was John who would write in John 1, the word was with God in the beginning, and the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. John wasn't just building a relationship with a friend, with another man, he was building a friendship with God. With the Word that was at the beginning, with the Word that came and was incarnated, who became human, he was building a relationship

with the creator of his soul, with the creator of all creation. And it causes me to ask, what can I do to put myself in the position John put himself in? How can I build a relationship, not just with another person to meet my needs, but how can I build a relationship with the creator? How can I put myself in places where I can experience the love of God? And I don't think it came because John was more disciplined than all the other disciples, or because he was more fruitful in ministry than all the other disciples. I think John, out of all the disciples, slowed down enough in his everyday life to notice Jesus. I think he and Jesus had some side conversations that the other disciples were out doing all the disciple things. And John was the one who would look across the crowd and go, I know there's a lot of activity, but where's Jesus? How can you slow down your life and notice Jesus? You can go through a church service thinking about what time it dismisses. It's pretty predictable around here, it's about 65 minutes and you're out. Or you can come to church and you can slow down and you can say, but I wanna see Jesus today. Where is Jesus? How do I get close enough to feel his heartbeat? How do I receive his love personally?

I wanna show you just for a moment how John did this, and I wanna talk to you a little bit about how I've done this in my own life. Along with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, he wrote the gospel that bears his name. We believe he did this in the latter stages of his life, maybe started following Jesus between, I don't know, 10 and 18, it's really debatable. But then in his 60, 70 years later, he sits down and he begins to write about what Jesus did. He begins to write about what Jesus has revealed to him. He begins to write about what all this means. And he's still a truth teller, isn't he? If you read 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, he's talking about like, here's what false teaching looks like. Here's what this looks like. I mean, he's still a truth teller, but there's something different that marks his life. And out of all the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all the other gospel writers introduced themselves. Matthew, an apostle of Christ Jesus. Mark places himself in the story. Luke, the doctor, writes about being there. In his experience, he identifies himself in the book, but it's only the book of John where the author fails to mention his own name. He doesn't even identify himself. And then finally, I believe it's in chapter 13, the first time that John mentions himself,

and he writes, and he says, the disciple whom Jesus loved. Was this the ego of a young, ambitious man? Was this the boldness of the house of Zebedee? Or was this a guy who had matured a little bit, saying, this is the gospel, not of John, but of Jesus. Is this a guy saying my whole identity and all of my humility, it's not my part in this story, but I'm the one who used to have ambition and ego, and now I'm writing to you, declaring that you can write me out of the story entirely. You don't even have to remember my name. The most important thing you need to know about this author is that he's loved by Christ. Imagine such a relationship with Jesus that you say, write me out of the story and may Christ be magnified. It's this disciple whom Jesus loved that at the last supper was reclining at the table with Jesus. You know, there's the last supper image that you have hanging on your wall is not accurate, sitting in one line in chairs. They're likely sitting on the floor, sitting low on benches or something like that. And they lean back, they're reclining together, having conversation after the meal. And John is reclined back right next to Jesus. As Jesus drops this bomb, you ever had somebody just drop a stick of dynamite

right in the family meeting? And Jesus goes, one of you is gonna betray me. You know what the disciple's reaction was? His disciples stared at one another. What are they doing? They're sizing each other up. Thomas, he's been a doubter this whole time. It's for sure him. They stare at one another at a loss to know which of them he meant. That is, I mean, can you just put yourself in the seat for a moment? That is awkward. After everything they've seen, everything they've been through, there's this obvious thing happening. Jesus has done all this teaching. He's warning them about what's to come, and then all of a sudden, the dynamic of all their relationships shifts. People don't know what to do. And then you know who breaks the ice, right? It's the same guy. One of them, the disciple who Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. Simon Peter, motion to this disciple. And he said, ask him which one he means. Here's how I picture this. They're all sitting around the table. Nobody knows what to do.

They're sizing each other up, and Peter goes, John, he tells you everything. Ask him. Ask him. John's leaning back next to Jesus. This discussion is happening. The debate's happening. Peter's asking questions. John's reclining next to him. What does John do? John leans back into the breast, into the chest of his Savior, of his friend. When's the last time you had a really big question in your life? Really, God, why did that happen? God, why is my kid going through that? God, I don't understand what you mean. God, where were you? And instead of trying to figure it out, you just lean back into the chest of Jesus. You say, Lord, I have a question. I don't understand. Who is it? Can I just invite you in to a different kind of relationship with Jesus that has less to do with where the group's at and what the group thinks and large church gatherings and is the type of relationship where you lean into the chest of the Savior close enough to feel his heart beat.

You say, Lord, I have a question. John only did that because he had put himself in proximity to Jesus the whole time. And when the critical moment came, there's debates about this. Some scholars believe it's because John was the youngest that he had the right to ask the rabbi the first question. There's a reason that John is reclining at the table and he leans over and he says, Lord, who is it? I gotta be honest. I read this passage of scripture and I thought this feels awkward to preach to an American crowd of people who are so individualistic and have so many views of intimacy, especially intimacy between male friends. I mean, you read some of these things and you're like the disciple whom Jesus loved was reclining next to him, leaning back against Jesus. It's like uncomfortably intimate language and people would pervert it. But a culture? That is so starved for intimacy will see the intimacy they desire and judge it because they don't understand it. And I'm trying to help you understand today the intimate relationship that Christ has invited you into. Because Jesus said, I'm gonna leave, but I'm not leaving you as orphans. I will be with you.

Is that a with you? Like the spirit of God is here somewhere. Or is that a with you? Like lean back into the presence of Jesus close enough to feel his heartbeat and let him minister to your soul. Let him put some living water in the well of your life. Let him pour something into your heart that only he can give. I think of this picture of John leaning against Jesus. If I were to go to my 10 year old son and say, Avery, dad wants to give you a hug. And give him a nice little side hug. Would that touch his heart? Maybe. What if I said, Avery, I want to give you a hug and I bent down and he's kind of like doing the hugging the 6'4 dad. Kind of uncomfortable. I said, or dad can come down on your level. I can, dad can put his arms around you and why don't you just let your cheek touch dad's cheek and maybe you're close enough that I can feel your heartbeat and you can feel mine. See, we judge it and we don't understand it, but when you think about a father relating to his son it makes sense. And the father of all creation, come on, do you see where I'm going? He got down on your level. The Bible says he made himself lower than the angels so that he could put his arms around you so that you could live in a relationship with him that's not over here. But even if you were to betray him you could get close enough to him to kiss him on the cheek. This is the invitation. It was this Tuesday night that saying, Lord, I don't have anything on the preaching calendar. I don't even know what I'm talking about. And even before asking that question I was about to lay down in bed. It was, I

don't know, nine o'clock. You know you're getting old when nine o'clock sounds like a good time to crawl under the blanket. I felt this like gnawing in my soul. I don't know how to explain it except for those moments where the King of Kings says, I'm summoning you to my throne room to have a conversation. Got up out of bed, trudged down the hallway. It's hard as a man to even share this with you. It's hard for me to share this with Janae sometimes because it feels so vulnerable. Shut the door to our family room, open my journal, open scripture. Lord, I don't know what you want to say to me. I don't know why I'm here but I can feel a gnawing in my soul that you're summoning me. So I started where most of us start and I opened my journal. I started writing down all the problems and challenges in life that I wanted to pray for. And then as I prayed for them I would circle them. When the Holy Spirit stopped me I just felt this nudge that I was supposed to make another column. And next to every problem that I listed God showed me his provision. Josh, put your cheek against mine. One of my mentors used to say I go into my prayer closet my problems are this big and then I spend time with Jesus and they come back into perspective. I really, as your pastor, more than serving and doing all the activity for Jesus and going to heart and soul and doing outreach in the community, we just got to do the first thing first. Let's just get in close enough to feel his heartbeat. One of the corrections that Jesus issues later on in Scripture that John would record in the book of Revelation is you've done all these things for me but you've forgotten your first love. I believe there's an invitation today from the Holy Spirit summoning many of you to get close enough to feel his heartbeat. I'm not saying that the experience I've described to you has to be the prescription but I am asking you what does this look like for you? You know the difference? John said it in 1st John 4. He says those that confess the Son of God, God resides in them and he resides, God resides in them and they reside in him. So the inflection point here is whether you confess Jesus as the Son of God and there was another guy at the table named Judas and just real quickly do you know the difference between Judas and John? This moment happens and John

says, who is it Lord? What is he declaring by calling Jesus Lord, he's declaring you're the son of the living God. Judas says, is it I, teacher? Is it me, rabbi? I don't know where Judas was at that moment in his faith, but I know there's definitely a difference between calling Jesus Lord and calling him teacher. John has this revelation that becomes symbolic of his life that we love because he first loved us. In chapter 21, John would write and he would say, I'm the disciple. This is the disciple who leaned against Jesus' chest. If you look at what marked his life, it's these impactful moments with Jesus. I was close enough to hear his heartbeat. John's time on earth, or Jesus' time on earth, culminates really at the cross. And the Bible says all the other disciples deserted him. There was one male disciple who was there to witness it. The one close enough to hear his heartbeat. It was on the cross that Jesus looked at John and he said, I am entrusting my mom, Mary, to your care. You want to talk about trust and friendship and intimacy? Say, look after my mom. It was John who, when he heard that the tomb might be empty, outran Peter, not again bragging, but saying, I knew that Jesus would do what he said. John came into the crucifixion and the resurrection, eyes wide open, why? Because he was close enough to hear his heartbeat.

John writes the whole book of Revelation. Can I just, the last book of the Bible, it's a crazy book. And it's not a revelation of cataclysmic events or a revelation of the end of the world or a revelation of what's going to happen to humans. You know what it is? It's the apocalypse of Christ. The unveiling of Jesus to all humanity. It is not to be dreaded. It is to be sought after. And John, the one that Jesus loved who leaned back to feel his heartbeat is the one that saw him with eyes of fire and white hair and fell down on his face to worship him. It was John who receives this unveiling of Jesus in the last days by Jesus, about Jesus. The greatest reality of this present moment is not, is Jesus coming back soon? Is the world going to get worse? Are there going to be more wars? What's going to happen? Do you know the greatest reality of this present moment? Am I close enough to Jesus' heartbeat to sense him in the middle of all of it? And to take reassurance that he's in the middle of all of it. You will only see this present moment accurately if you are close enough to Jesus to feel his heartbeat and to be transformed by him. If you get close to anybody or anything or any other way,

more than Jesus, it will be a distorted view. John was introduced as a son of thunder and he's now known as the apostle of love. And that transformation happened because of his closeness to Jesus. And there's some people here today that feel far from Jesus, but you need to know he loved you first. Knowing everything, he chose to love you first. There's some others in this place today that I'm just asking you, when's the last time that you rested under the shadow of the Almighty? When's the last time that you came to Jesus, not for anything or for any answer, but you came to Jesus just for Jesus? I'm not saying it has to look like it looks like for me, but I am asking you, what does it look like for you? Because God has given you the gift of his presence and he's offering you the embrace of his son to bring you into a transforming, different kind of relationship than many of us have been experiencing. I was just talking to a friend in ministry last night and he said, man, this job is hard. There's a lot of demands. There's a lot of stress. I know what it is to not be connected to Jesus and to try to do it all in my own strength. And then I know what it is to be connected to Jesus. And it all just happens and flows out of a different place.

It's the difference. It's the difference between trying to make yourself right, make yourself holy, make yourself figure out the path for your life, make yourself have direction versus seek him first and all these other things will be added onto you. and we just take a moment to slow down So Jesus, we come to you now. and notice that you're in the room. Come on, friend, take a deep breath, lean back into the chest of Jesus and ask Him your questions. Give Him your anxieties. Ask Him for His transformation. Pour your love on Him today.