As I thought about Sunday's message -- both before and after its delivery -- the phrase "exegetical joy" came to me. Huh? Exegesis is the art and science of drawing the meaning out of a biblical text (as opposed to eisegesis which is reading a (foreign) meaning into the text). And exegesis done even remotely well is a thrilling experience, full of wonder, discovery, and, yes, joy. My preparation with the Peter-walks-on-water story in Matthew 14:22-36 had all those elements.  My own study was productive.  My insights were confirmed and improved upon by the scholars whose work I researched.  I was able to connect the water-walking story with Matthew's larger narrative purpose and then able to celebrate some of Matthew's phenomenal attention to detail that makes Peter's character come to life. So my prayer in advance was that the people of the church would share in the delight of biblical discovery with me on Sunday . . . that when they saw my appreciation for the artistry and theology of the story, they'd be more able to enter into the life of the text. Really, I wanted my exegetical joy to be contagious. I'll let you decide if it was.  Here's the message.  Called Daredevil, it landed at this bottom line: To get close TO Jesus you have to risk something FOR Jesus.   -------------------------------------------------------------------------- So in just a little bit, as part of Week 1 of Movementum, we’re going to take a look at a story in the Gospel of Matthew where Peter ever-so-briefly walks on water. It’s a story a lot of you have at least heard of if not read directly. It’s also the source of my wife Julie’s process for evaluating candidates she interviews for a job. It the person is really good: “he’s a water walker.” If not – you guessed it: “she’s no water walker, that’s for sure.” But before we actually look at the story, is it OK if I tell you Jesus’ “name,” his designation in the overall Gospel of Matthew? It’s Immanuel, which means “God with us.” It’s given to him in the Christmas story – you shall have a son and his name will be Immanuel – it’s the source of the Xmas hymn, O Come O Come Immanuel, it’s even where the Charleston church where the massacre happened got its name. And it is such a steady, comforting promise of a God who is and remains, with you. Which is why the beginning of the water walking story is so great. Peter, if you remember, is a part of a large posse, an entourage as we will see next last week, of people who follow Jesus together. Scripture typically calls this group apostles. And what makes this story so interesting is how it starts in 14:22-23: ²² Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. ²³ After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Ah! See that?! This is the first time in Matthew that Jesus, the God with us, the Immanuel, is now apart from them. Not only does he separate from his posse, but he made them do it. By design and choice and force. The people hearing and reading Mt for the first time would have been like “Whoa! The God with us guy has become the God abandoned us guy.” And the disciples? When Jesus “made them go” for the first time . . . they must have been like “Immanuel is now Ain’t Near You All." And some of you know what that’s about. For some, you had at one time a kind of closeness where you felt tight with Jesus – maybe it was at a campfire, on a youth retreat, in the middle of a service project, or even in a church service that felt especially powerful. In fact, you felt so good, so close, you considered going into the ministry Some kind of ministry. Because what you felt was so close to him and you wanted to share that with people you know. And now? Crickets. You don’ know if it’s you or it’s him but it’s gone. (Righteous Bros clip?) And honestly, that earlier connection feels so distant you wonder if it was even legitimate. But then others of you never had that earlier moment of closeness. You’re like that young friend of mine who I heard say in a meeting “I grew up thinking church was just something you DID or a place you GO; I never realized there could be more.” You’ve always thought of it as an activity, an obligation, and never as a connection. And so the thought of referring to Jesus as some sort of God with us has never made sense because you’ve never really felt anyone or anything with you at all. And then a few of you just have those traumas to deal with. How can you feel God with us when the house burned, the marriage ended, the job vanished, the kid went AWOL? You spent so much time trying to restore what God allowed to fall apart that you can’t imagine any kind of closeness, thank you very much. So it was the guys on the boat in Matthew 14 and it’s us now & today: the promised God with you has become the Ain’t Near You. Which makes the next turn of events so interesting: Later that night, he was there alone, ²⁴ and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. ²⁵ Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. ²⁶ When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. There’s always a storm! And then there comes Jesus, and he’s a water walker which freaks the guys out. I love how they are much less scared of the storm, because they’ve seen them before, and much more scared of the Savior, who they are seeing in an all new light. So Jesus attempts to calm them in 14:27: ²⁷ But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” See that “It is I”? Same basic language that occurs throughout the Gospel of John when Jesus repeatedly says I AM – his unique way of claiming to be God (and of giving us a church name!). So we’re alerted that this story has a whole lot to do with Jesus’ identity and his authority . . . like most other stories in the Gospels do. Anyway, Peter, the movementum guy, issues a challenge to Jesus in 14:28: ²⁸ “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” Now: you’re NOT SUPPOSED to test the Lord your God, remember? But Jesus lets that one slide. Instead, he allows Peter to put him to the test in 14:29a: ²⁹ “Come,” he said. And then – here’s what I want you to notice. Because this series is called Movementum, right? And it’s called that because we see Peter the man and Peter the author as a perpetual motion machine. Well, look how 14:29b says it: Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. See that?! GOT DOWN WALKED ON WATER CAME TOWARD JESUS. Three clear motion phrases: getting down, walking, coming toward. That kind of language, word choice, and repetition is not by accident! It’s designed! Brilliant design by a brilliant author! Conveying a constantly kinetic character!!! And – even better – notice where Jesus is during the water walking. He is no longer with Peter. He is in front of Peter! The Immanuel has become the In Front U El!!! And I can’t help but think that’s where we most often find God – not by my side, in my pocket. Not my homeboy. Instead, way ahead of me, beckoning me with that simple Come of 14:29a! It makes sense now why Jesus left them at the beginning of the story. He had to! He had to in order stop being so with them and instead move ahead of them! I love the bible! By the way . . . he is likely ahead of you as well. You want him here, in your pocket, making you feel comfortable. And he’s moved beyond, calling you to leave comfort for the unpredictable. Which Peter has done. Then in v. 30 there is the hilarious failure: ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” How do you see wind? I love that. But this is the part most people remember! Peter failed because he took his eyes off his Savior and put them on his situation. Very common preaching line! (Unless I just invented it!) But you know what is more true? 11 weenies are still in the boat! One leaped! Eleven sniveled! Only one moved! And only one came toward Jesus. Eleven shriveled up and hid from him. Peter is the only one that night who got remotely close to the Emmanuel who had become the In Front U El. And so you know what that tells me? To get close TO Jesus you have to risk something FOR Jesus. That’s it. Some of us who had that closeness and now want it back . . . but we have never ventured from safety and security. Others who’ve never had it and are vaguely curious about it but want some spine tingling experience simply to drop from heaven. It so rarely happens that way. More often closeness to, intimacy with, the Savior FOLLOWS and does not precede risking for him.  To get close TO Jesus you have to risk something FOR Jesus. I’ve seen this on a small scale for sure. Most of you don’t know this, but I am scared of dogs. Never been bit, but I have this irrational fear of them. Like simply hearing dog tags shake (Audio clip?) outside in public and I am sure Cujo is right behind me (AV!!). Yet I am part of (OK, I started it & do it about every week) this ministry called BTH where we knock on doors of newcomers and give them a welcome, a magnet and an invite. In fact, there is a pretty good chance I knocked on YOUR door! But anyway, do you know what happens with increasing frequency? We ring a doorbell and this is the response I get: (Audio of vicious dog!) And every time I’m like THIS!!! But yet I keep going. Why? (Because if a dog’s not there . . . ) Because when I’m done on Thursday evenings there has invariably been at least one of those incredible visits where I’m like, “ah, this is why I got into ministry. This is what it means to invite all ppl into living relationship with Jesus Christ.” To get close TO Jesus you have to risk something FOR Jesus. But more. And bigger. My Indian friends (AV). I was speaking with one of the pastors a few years ago and he mentioned – casually – that he’d been beaten up and jailed because he is a Xn. And I asked him if he’d considered – you know – shying away from to save his own neck. “No,” came the simple answer. “Why not?” I asked. “Because Jesus is God.” Which you know especially well when you’ve been beaten up and jailed on his behalf.  To get close TO Jesus you have to risk something FOR Jesus. Man, if in your life Jesus seems distant or uninvolved or like an activity you do or a place you go … that’s because you’re with the 11 wienies in the boat! There is something about risk and adventure for Jesus that breeds connection with Jesus like nothing else. Because when you venture out, when you are raw and exposed and you KNOW that if he does not intervene and provide you’re sunk … well then you discover how good and faithful and powerful he really is. And this intersects your life in so many ways. You risk for him with your money – by becoming a person of regular, planned, percentage generosity – and you will discover that he really is the ultimate provider and that what you give away was never yours to begin with. To get close TO Jesus you have to risk something FOR Jesus. You risk your reputation at work by walking away from the gossip-fest – a gossip-fest that you have been in the middle of and that you love for its delicious-ness – and you will learn first hand that when you priority is the kingdom your reputation will more than take care of itself. To get close TO Jesus you have to risk something FOR Jesus. When you risk your comfort and spend at night in RITI or a Sat lunch in CRM you will discover your life is not your own. Get this: I’m not going to promise you that old cliché they will minister to you more than you minister to them because by & large that DOESN’T happen. What will happen is that you will know and understand that simply in investing time in the life of another, you free yourself of relentless self-absorption. To get close TO Jesus you have to risk something FOR Jesus. You risk a family relationship by honestly sharing the gospel with the toughest nut to crack … and you’ll see that people you love aren’t offended when you care about their eternity even if there is no conversion. And sometimes there is! Through it all you’ll remember that, as RD said, the best you is when you’re sharing him. To get close TO Jesus you have to risk something FOR Jesus. You risk a Sunday convenience by investing your life as one more voice into the life of a child, student, or new guest here and you’ll realize that Lazy Boy Xnty is for the birds and you get so much more out of being a player than a spectator anyway. REF It’s risky obedience and it is so much more of a living relationship that casual faith ever, ever could be. To get close TO Jesus you have to risk something FOR Jesus. Because do you know what is coolest of all about Peter’s foray into water walking. That in the ancient mind, it wasn’t gravity that he conquered; it was chaos he overcame. The sea for the ancients was not a place of study & exploration; it was a place of utter chaos. (Sharks, 1900!) So I love that for Matthew and his original audience, Peter’s great miracle was not so much that he didn’t sink; it was very much that he overcame chaos. Listen: your risk will likely hurl you into some kind of chaos – and only in radical dependence can you overcome it. Not your skill or your strength; your trust. To get close TO Jesus you have to risk something FOR Jesus. This matters to me because this is true of entire churches. That early on churches are Risk Takers. And then they get established and have buildings (!) and they become Care Takers. And if they’re not careful and if they get priorities mixed up, they can then become Under Takers. Not us. Not now. Not ever. But that only happens as you in your own life recognize To get close TO Jesus you have to risk something FOR Jesus. Because Jesus is way more in front of you than he is beside you.

Put everything you've got into your preaching, because you never know who is listening. The young woman who wrote this on her Good Shepherd connection card is twelve.

I've been to reasonable number of concerts in my life. Since my very first -- when I was 15 a friend and I drove (well, he drove because he was 16) from Dallas to Fort Worth and saw the Eagles on their Hotel California tour -- I've seen one or two concerts a year. There have been some disappointments -- like when Eric Clapton didn't sing Layla & when the most recent Eagles reunion didn't sing The Boys Of Summer -- but the good moments have far outweighed the bad. So: what are the best moments out of all those concerts I've been to? Not the best concerts, but the best individual moments?  Here they are:   5.  When the Rolling Stones actually turned "Miss You" into a rock song.  The Stones came to Charlotte in 2005 and were actually the first to perform in Time Warner Arena.  So I took Riley (then 13) to see them.  Before one of the songs, Mick Jagger made an innuendo-laden reference to the Stones' role as the "first" in the arena, and let's just say that made for interesting drive-home conversation with a 13 year old boy.  Anyway ...  the highlight of that night occurred during a song I typically don't like:  Miss You.  With guitar distortion and Mick's remarkably robust vocals, they turned a disco wannabe into a rock epic. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuRxXRuAz-I 4. When Bruce Springsteen threw a rose into the first row . . . and we caught it.  When Julie and I lived in Kentucky, Springsteen stopped in Lexington for his Tunnel Of Love tour.  Even though we weren't big fans (then), we still waited in line for a lottery distribution of tickets.  And we won the lottery.  So our seats were literally front and center.  Springsteen came out at the beginning of the show, asked, "Anybody want a date?" and tossed a rose right to us. It's still in a photo album we have from 1988. 3.  When Paul Simon sang "You Can Call Me Al" . . . twice.  In his 1991 Rhythm Of The Saints tour, Simon was in the habit of singing You Can Call Me Al one time through and then immediately saying, "want to heart it again?"  Of course we did.  And speaking of hearing that song twice, how can I miss a chance to give you that one-of-a-kind video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq-gYOrU8bA&list=RDuq-gYOrU8bA     2.  When Don Henley sang "Hotel California."  In 1985, Julie and I saw Don Henley in Philadelphia as part of his solo tour.  For some reason, I was convinced that he was not going to sing Hotel California for us.  I was wrong.  After an intro that sounded nothing like the distinctive opening riff, he launched into "On a dark desert highway . . . "  I was 23 years old, and I was very happy.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAojSAb3vto   1.  When Randy Meisner hit the high note on "Take It To The Limit."  Remember that first concert in Fort Worth in 1977?  Still contains the best moment of them all.  You have to listen to the very end to get the full power of Randy Meisner's falsetto "please!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7hmF_IX9Ic  

We concluded the On The Up And Up series with an old-fashioned yet new-fangled invitation to faith. Psalm 130:3 asks plaintively: If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, who could stand? The answer to the question on the literal level is, of course, no one. And yet simply by asking the question, and then reading what follows in verse four and following, you know the authentic answer is embedded within: But He doesn't! He could count our sins, but he doesn't.  He has the power to do so, but he limits itself.  He chooses soul saving over sin counting. Here it is:  Record Breakers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Every time I do a wedding, I complete and mail in the marriage license, which looks something like this (AV). It is the least picturesque, least romantic piece of wedding ritual imaginable. And then I mail it off to the Register of Deeds in either Meck or York Counties, where I imagine it ends up in a place like this (Clip of closing scene of Raiders Lost Ark). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSJLGAtFyL4   The vast bureaucracy of records that someone, somewhere is maintaining on all of us! Think about it! Someone, somewhere keeps all those records on us – births, deaths, marriages, divorces . . . marriages, divorces. It’s so vast and so complex and then ever decade or so it amps up as census takers find out even more about us and mark it down according to ethnicity, gender, income, and habits. And then you KNOW the IRS is keeping some serious records on what we earn and pay and . . . don’t pay. And every conspiracy theorist in the room is convinced that Big Data is keeping careful record on your cell phone calls, your GPS movements, your, gulp, web searches. There are records upon records upon records and someone is keeping them on us! And in the sports world, isn’t it interesting how you’ve got record keepers & record breakers? You know what sport has the most arcane traditions & records? Baseball! Like did you know in the Baseball HOF in Cooperstown, someone is keeping track of the fact that Tony Gwynn (AV) hit .302 with two strikes on him. Such detail! And someone’s keeping it. Records. Big Date & little trivia. Actually, I shouldn’t be too judgmental on record keeping, I know every year’s average attendance of this church on the top of my head; you call out a year & I’ll tell you our avg. (DO?) Well, you may wonder why this focus on records. Because in this, the last of our psalms that were sung on the up and up drills down at exactly that spot. By way of reminder, Ps 121 is part of what is called The Songs of Ascent, a collection of 15 folk songs (120-134) that people would sing as they trekked from their farms, towns, and villages up to Jerusalem 3x a year for religious feasts: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. They went those three times because the Jerusalem temple was the central religious location for all faithful Jews then. And Jerusalem was (and is) physically at one of the highest georgraphic places in all of Israel. So the journey from those towns, villages, and farms more literally was a climb. A gradual climb but a relentless climb nonetheless. To go to Jerusalem with a crowd of fellow piligrims was, literally, to go on the up and up. They sang their way up w/ these folk songs. And this one, 130, WHEW!, look at how it starts: Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;   Out of the depths. The irony there is why is this guy (or girl!) so low when he is on his way UP? Well, as we’re going to see, this singer is no pop singer, he’s a blues singer. Deep blues. Deep melancholy. But you know what is so great about this opening line of this song? He is open and honest with God about it. I suspect there are people here today who are as low as you can go. You know these depths. Like the mom I knew years ago who just when things couldn’t get worse – divorce, unemployment – discovered her 15 year old son . . . was gonna be a dad. She said to a friend, “When I thought I couldn’t get any lower, it’s like God handed me a shovel and said, ‘Dig!’” You know about that? Things you’ve done, things done to you, ripple effects of your actions . . . you know what these depths are all about. And yet . . . I bet many of you talk about your depths w/ everyone except God. Well, apparently this singer-songwriter of Ps 130 has depths that are primarily self-inflicted. Because he places the focus squarely on his own misdeeds in 130:2:  Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive     to my cry for mercy.   I mean, who asks for mercy except for ppl who have done wrong?! But all that is the build up to the question of questions in Psalm 130:3: If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,     Lord, who could stand?    I love that! Record keeping! Tallying up! Abacus, calculator, iPad, Roman numerals, however! As if he’s saying, “man, what would it look like if I had a sin Hall Of Fame, Lord, and you were the official record keeper?” Whew! A Sin Hall Of Fame! You have one. That weekend with that guy. That drunken rant. That 15 year old pregnancy I mentioned earlier . . . only yours ended in a terminated pregnancy. That uncanny way you have of hurting people you should love the most. That double cross against your good friend. That time you spilled the beans about a (now) former friend. That treasured grudge you hold – why do I call it treasured? Because if you ever gave it up, you couldn’t feel like a victim anymore. That affair you haven’t had – except in your mind. And you’ve had it there so often it’s eating away at you. Yeah, just like this guy in Psalm 130, you have a Sin Hall Of Fame, things done & undone, major & minor, and you realize that if God was like the guy in Cooperstown … OMG. Because look at the question in 130:3 again: READ. The answer, obviously is NO ONE. You’d collapse under the weight of sin. It would be like trying to hold this (anvil?) on your shoulders. You’d stagger, you’d sway, you’d collapse, you’d be crushed. If. If. If. the God on the hill was a record keeper. But the reason Ps. 130:3 is just the greatest question is because the answer is implied: But He DOESN’T! If he did, we’d stay in the depths. We’d have an estrangement with God that would never end. If we served a God who specialized in record keeping we’d find ourselves soul losing. We’d be consumed with the kind of guilt that renders many of you immoveable, we’d live lives of quiet desperation, and then we’d end up in hell. If God was a Register of Deeds, if he was the CEO of Divine Big Data, if he was a baseball nerd in Cooperstown, we’d be sunk.  But He DOESN’T! He COULD, but he doesn’t. He has the ABILITY to count em all up, but he chooses not to. He has the RIGHT to, but he refrains from. He has the POWER to but he restrains his own might. It’s really like what Corrie Ten Boom said that time: “When I bring my sins to the Lord Jesus, he casts them into the depths of the sea – forgiven and forgotten. He also puts up a sign that says, ‘No Fishing Allowed.’” And he follows his own sign & won’t fish! If he kept a record of your sin & mine, we’d collapse. But he DOESN’T! Your suffering, your depth, your guilt will never have the final word; his redemption does.   You know who and what DOES keep a record? Karma. Yep. Equal ratio – what you put out comes back in precise and equal measure. We joke about karma getting other people; we rarely consider in our flippancy what would happen if we got ours. Every religion in some form embraces karma – you get what you deserve, your reward stems from your record, you’re measured on your performance. Every religion . . . except the one the bible. Except grace. He could give you what. He could give you what you deserve – body collapsing, soul quenching, record keeping – but he gives you better: that’s grace. He’s too busy loving you to keep counting. Apparently, God is not all that great at statistics. But He DOESN’T! But wait wait wait. I can’t let you think Ps 130 means that all ppl get this kind of sin erasure regardless of their response. Because I think this is great by RC Sproul: God’s grace is not infinite. God is infinite and God is gracious. We experience the grace of an infinite God, but grace is not infinite. God sets limits to his patience and forbearance. He warns us over and over again that someday the ax will fall and his judgment will be poured out. As a rabbi once said, there is coming a time when people will wish they had either been born again or not born at all. Yikes. With the whole of biblical revelation, I very much believe that outside of a change in location, many, many people are now and will in the future live into the awful reality of collapsing under the weight of their counted up sin. To ask Psalm 130:3’s question without the assurance of a grace-filled answer is just a foreshadow of the awful, eternal, Christless eternity called hell. So: how. How do we move from despair to celebration? From OMG if he keeps records I’m sunk to the euphoria of But He DOESN’T!  so I’m saved! Look at 130:4: But with you there is forgiveness,     so that we can, with reverence, serve you.  Ah, with you there is forgiveness. and then 130:7-8: Israel, put your hope in the Lord,     for with the Lord is unfailing love     and with him is full redemption. ⁸ He himself will redeem Israel     from all their sins. The journey from the despair of v. 1 to the calm assurance of v. 8 is a journey from ME to WE. Note: all Israel, all sins, full redemption. He goes from self-absorbed to self-aware to self-emptying. He’s changed location . . . moved from the depths to the top of the mountain. A different location. And for you? You will have that euphoria of But He DOESN’T! not by improving your performance but by changing your location. By moving to a place the NT calls “in Christ.” What I’m talking about is less “Christ in you” – which the NT talks about sometimes and more you moving “in Christ” – which it talks about all the time. Moving from that place where the self is the king to the place where, as a friend of mine said once, you acknowledge that “I stink but he saves.” You move your soul, your life, your breath out of the heat and under the protective canopy of his grace. His kingdom, his Lordship, his ownership of your life. You do that and you’ll experience the eternal grace of an eternal king. Every time guilt gets you, you can shout it out: But He DOESN’T! Maybe what I’m talking about is like the young woman who came to a healing service awhile back. She was worried about herself and some trauma she’d caused her family. Like most people at healing services, she wanted her symptoms healed. But for some reason, our little prayer circle asked her about the core: Have you ever given Jesus your life? Have you received the ultimate healing from which all subsequent healings flow? “Not yet.” Would you like to? “Yes.” So we did. And she changed location that night. Weight lifted because no. records. kept. Slate clean. Start fresh. But He DOESN’T! And since he doesn’t, we CAN STAND. We couldn’t if he did, but we can since he doesn’t. So I’m wondering who’d like to change locations by standing today . . . Come to Jesus, STAND UP, invitation to close.  

On Wednesday, I had lunch with a new Good Shepherd friend who grew up in Angola. My friend connected with Good Shepherd about ten months ago and has been a faithful attender ever since.  His young adult daughters are some of the best volunteers we have in our K-Zone children's ministry as well. Here are a few things I discovered during our lunch:

•  People like to talk about their home country.  I did not know, for example, that Angola had been colonized by the Portugese and as a result about 20% of the population today is light-skinned.
• Angola was ruled by a communist regime from 1975 - 1991.  That system fell at the same time the Soviet Union disintegrated.
• The land is rich in oil and in diamonds.
• Angola shares a long border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo AND the Angolans & Congolese regard each other much like Candians & Americans.  Without all the "eh" jokes, I guess.  Good Shepherd has a number of people from the DRC and the way they have welcomed my Angolan friend into our church family has been a sight to behold.
• Though my friend has been in church most of his life, I am the first pastor he's ever shared a meal with.  (Wha-what?) 
• Angolans like fish better than beef.  "I eat fish every day!" he said.  So we both ordered Oregon Cedar Salmon!
• He appreciates that a service at Good Shepherd makes a point and lasts an hour.
• When I asked him about serving in a ministry, he said, "Of course.  It's for God who has given me everythng."
• Amen.