Jo Vitale [00:00:35] So welcome to the podcast where we invite you to Ask Away. If you're a verbal processor like me, then sometimes you actually don't even know what's going on inside of your heart until you either speak it out loud or you write it down and suddenly you look at it and you're like, oh, I didn't even that was there. I really realized this about myself back in 2018, when I'd been living in the States for about a year and a half, and it had been like this kind of crazy entry into America, just this really busy season of ministry. And I just felt like me and my husband (we didn't have kids yet) we were on the road all the time just speaking at all these different events, and we were just exhausted, and it was just go, go, and finally we were like we need a break. And so we've been doing some speaking in Victoria on Vancouver Island, so after that event finished, we just kind of drove a few hours up the island to this little place called Tofino, which basically we'd heard it had great surf and no cell reception, which was exactly what we were looking for. And so we went to bed that first night, and I woke up the next morning and I was just hoping that I was going to wake up feeling really rested, like, I'm on vacation. But instead, when I got up in the morning, I woke to this kind of like this fluttering feeling in my stomach. And so I just ignored it, and we went on with the day, went out for a hike. 

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[00:02:00] But as the day went on, my stomach just kept churning and it was getting stronger and stronger and stronger as the day went and I just didn't know why I felt so uneasy. But then it got to lunch time and we're in this small town, there were maybe like three restaurants to choose from so it should have been this really easy decision about where will we have lunch. But I found myself getting really stressed out by the decision, almost arguing with Vince on the first day of our vacation about where to have lunch and the next thing I knew I realized that I was actually having-- I'd never had one before, but I was having some kind of panic attack. And I don't think it was about lunch at all, but it was coming out in that conversation. And so finally we just realized, I'm nearly hyperventilating here. And so Vince kind of ushered me inside the nearest restaurant. We sat down at the table, I rested for a moment, and then he just said, "Hey, what's going on? What do you think's going on?" And I just didn't expect these words to come out of my mouth. But what I said was, "I just really miss Jesus. I really miss, Jesus." And then I burst into tears and all the other diners in the restaurant felt really uncomfortable. 

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[00:03:10] It's kind of a crazy thing to have experienced because it didn't really make sense. People would have looked at my life and said, "Jo, what do you mean you miss Jesus? Your whole life is about Jesus." And yet somehow I had got so busy doing stuff for Jesus that I had completely lost sight of him and all of the chaos and the crowds and just feeling overwhelmed. And to make matters worse, I hadn't even noticed. It took my own body yelling at me to pay attention to the problem. And that's kind of a rookie mistake to make, isn't it? Because the first rule of following someone is that you've got to keep your eyes on them. It's something I've learned at my peril from following young children around a playground. If I take my eyes off my three-year-old for more than a couple of seconds, it is like pandemonium. They are like upside down hanging off the monkey bars. They are like one leg hooked on this giant climbing wall about to fall till their doom, which just proves, I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, that the people who design playgrounds not only don't have children, but I think they don't like them either. But just two seconds with my eyes off my kids, and it all just falls apart. And so the horrors of the playground, they have taught me that once you take your eyes off somebody, then you're no longer well positioned to follow them, are you? You're not where you need to be anymore. 

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[00:04:32] And I think this is maybe something that we've largely forgotten in our culture today, because our understanding of what it means to follow has been radically redefined. Today, when we talk about following someone, what we really mean is we saw something online, we found it funny, we hit follow, and now we're their follower. Which basically boils down to giving them a thumbs up every couple of years when you see their next vacation photo, which, by the way, the next vacation I'm taking is going to be in your green room. So nice in there. Forget about an Airbnb, I'm just coming to stay in your church. But it has to be low investment, low commitment sort of deal when you're following like that? Because there are way too many people for anything else. Apparently, I am following 550 people on Instagram. I checked this week, I was appalled. But can you imagine if I tried to follow every single one of those 550 people with the kind of intensity that I follow my three-year-old around a playground? I mean, not only would that be creepy and it would make me a stalker, but it literally isn't even possible, is it? If what it means to follow is that I can comfortably sit behind a screen and I can just scroll through content and occasionally hit like, yes, I can follow 550 people. 

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[00:05:41] But if you're talking about old-school following, keep your eyes fixed on them following, keep your feet in their path, following their footsteps, that kind of following, well, then actually, I can only follow one. I can be only a follower of one. Even if I try to follow two, as I do, I have a three- and a five-year-old around the playground. As soon as they diverge and head in different directions, I have to make a kind of life-and-death choice about which one I'm going to follow, usually the three-year old. One of the many things that I've come to notice about Jesus Christ is that He is determined to be our fork in the road. He is determined to be the point at which we have to go one way or the other. We cannot have it both ways. He has absolutely zero interest in being one among 550. He is determined to put us into situations where time and again we're going to have to make that decision. Am I going to follow everybody else or am I going to follow him? 

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[00:06:42] Passing along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon, he being Jesus, and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting nets into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." And immediately they left their nets and followed him. You notice just how disruptive Jesus' invitation is to these first followers. That is not exactly normal behavior, is it? You don't just walk into someone's workplace in the middle of their workday and yell, "Hey, forget about putting food on the table and paying your bills. I have a wonderful plan for your life and I'm calling dibs. Let's go." I mean who does that? But then their reaction isn't exactly normal either, is it? I mean surely a more reasonable response would be to say something like, yeah, okay, that sounds like an interesting growth opportunity. Let's exchange contact details, are you on LinkedIn? Let's get a Zoom meeting on the calendar. We can talk about your proposal further and we can go from there. And yet, when the disciples heard this invitation of Jesus, they intuitively understood that this was not the kind of low key ask that he had in mind, was it? It was more like a proposal of marriage or a sudden opportunity to move to another country for a job. It was one of those all or nothing decisions that occasionally come along in your life. 

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[00:08:02] The kind of decision you can't postpone. There will be no, let me get back to you, or perhaps another time, or can I do the job remotely, or how about we start with part-time and we work our way up? You can say yes, or you can say no, but whichever choice you make, the response you give to Jesus' invitation to follow will alter the course of your life forever. And to a 21st century audience, the idea that God might prove so disruptive to our plans or demand such a stark and immediate choice from us, that can seem kind of offensive to us, right? We've all been conditioned to think that self-determined lives are the only ones worth living. At best, I think we're comfortable with a kind of deistic God, the sort of God who is out off there somewhere, really far away. He's thinking benevolent thoughts towards us, and occasionally he'll, like, sprinkle some blessings. But he has the decency to stay well out of the way, right? The notion of God who might interfere or, heaven forbid, actually show up in person at our workplace and make demands of us, that is taking it too far. Most of us do everything we can to squirm out of our civic jury duty. And that only disrupts our lives for a couple of days. 

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[00:09:20] And here comes Jesus asking these men to just abandon their jobs and their responsibilities and everything they've spent their lives working towards and ditch it all to follow Him. If anybody read God the Bill of Rights. Doesn't he understand how we do things around here? And what is an acceptable ask and what isn't? Incredibly, for these first followers, the notion that God might call upon them to get up out of their boats and to drop everything and to literally follow Jesus down the road, it's not as shocking to them as it is to us. I think it's partly because as devout Jewish believers, they weren't confused about who was running the universe and who wasn't. But I also think it helped that from a young age, they've been immersed in the Torah, in their scriptures. And so they already had this framework, this kind of expectation for understanding that their God was a God of journeys. All the greatest stories of their faith involve the movement of God's people at his command, crossing floods, mountains, valleys, empires, seas, deserts, rivers, plains, out front slavery through hostile territory, in and out of warfare across all these battlegrounds. Into exile and foreign empires, and then back home again to Jerusalem. They have been all over the place, God's people, for so much of their history, their identity. It wasn't formed because they stayed in one place. It was forged along the way as they followed God from place to place to place. So why would a move of God in their own time be any different? 

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[00:10:55] And so it was that these first disciples, they immediately got out of their boats, they left their nets and they followed Jesus. And they followed him for three years around the region of Judea. And then when he died, they picked up right where he left off. And they took Jesus at his word that he was being a literal when he commanded them to go and make disciples of all nations. And so central was this concept of following to the DNA of the early church that actually, before they were ever even called Christians, in those earliest years, the followers of Jesus were known as followers of the way. Or they referred to themselves as those belonging to the way. How about that? If you had to categorize your relationship with God, would you instinctively speak about it in terms of being on the way to somewhere? Or does that idea feel a little bit foreign to you? I think one way we can assess whether we're actually following anybody is to kind of stop every once in a while what you're doing and take a look around and ask, has the view changed? Because if you claim to follow Jesus year after year after year, and yet the landscape of your life and your faith never changes, it always looks the same. It begs the question, doesn't it, of whether there's actually been any movement in our faith or whether we're just stagnating. 

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[00:12:18] As I was preparing for our time together, this chapter from the Song of Songs, it just kept coming to my mind over and over. And at first I was like, this has nothing to do with the topic, but the Holy Spirit just kept pressing it on me. So I was, like, okay, I guess we're going here. But we're going to spend a little bit of time in this chapter throughout the conference. The Song of Songs, it's a book of love poetry, and it's found in the Old Testament. And it was written from the perspective, it is kind of unique like this, it's written from both the view of the man and of the woman. And they're referred to throughout the song as the beloved and his bride. But from earliest times, it was also understood that the reason this book was included in Scripture wasn't just because it was great human love poetry, but because it was intended to be read as a spiritual, poetic metaphor of the covenantal love between God and His people. In other words, the Song of Songs presents to us the kind of intimate relationship that God desires with us. So let's pick it up at chapter 5: 2. "I slept, but my heart was awake. Listen. My beloved is knocking. Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my flawless one. My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night. I've taken off my robe. Must I put it on again? I've washed my feet. Must I soil them again?". 

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[00:13:46] Now what's going on here is that here's the beloved and he's knocking on the door of the woman that he loves, desiring nothing more for her to open the door to him so that he can whisk her away out into the night to their garden, which is their private meeting place. And yet, although the bride, she claims that she loves her beloved with all of her heart, that she's faint with love, that she’s totally head over heels for him, she actually hesitates. And her response is, well, I've already had a bath. I'm in bed. I was sleeping. And quite frankly, I don't want to get out of bed. I don't want to get dressed again. I don't want to put my shoes on. I don't want to follow you out the door and into the night. Can anyone relate to that feeling? Anyone ever been there? That is a very real human response, isn't it? Who doesn't like their beauty sleep? Although actually, beauty sleep, that might be a stretch these days. That might be setting the bar too high. With a three and a five-year-old in my life, I'm awake a lot. And so I'm way past aiming for beauty sleep. My hope is just for, like, try not to scare people too much sleep. When it comes to Jesus, I wonder if this is the spiritual disposition that some of us are finding ourselves in this weekend as well. Here is our beloved. He's knocking on the door. He's come calling for his bride and he wants to be close to us. He desires intimacy with us. And the honest response of your heart tonight is God, I fall into bed at the end of every day, emotionally and physically exhausted. I'm at the end of myself. I can barely muster up the strength to drag myself out of bed in the morning. It took me a lot just to get here tonight. And you want me to get up, get dressed, and follow you out the door into wherever you're headed and no one really knows? I don't know if I can do that. I honestly don't know if I can. 

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[00:15:39] I do not know if have it in me to get my hopes up again. I'm just so tired. Just so tried. If that's how you're feeling this evening, the Lord knows, He sees, and He cares. You know He also knows what we need. Jesus Christ loves you too much to leave you lying where you are, not when He could take you with Him to where He's going. And part of what it means to follow Jesus is not just being called to follow where He goes, but to follow when He goes. We may think, not right now, Lord. But we've got to trust that He doesn't just know the way, but He knows the timing, which means we do have a choice to make. As the Christian writer, Henry Blackaby puts it, you cannot stay where you are and go with God. You cannot stay way you are, and go with God. You can pull the covers over your head when He comes to the door, or you can get up and you can go with Him, but you can't do both. And God won't make that choice for you, but He is committed to you making that choice. And if you keep pushing Him off, He will bring the decision to you. He will come to your door and He will knock. Just like He found those fishermen on the beach, he didn't wait for them to seek Him out. He showed up right in their place of work. And you would like to think that if Jesus showed up at my door, that I'd just drop everything and I would just walk out of it without hesitation. But truthfully, I think I know myself a little bit better than that. And I would probably have some questions first. I would have some question. For example, follow you where? Where, Jesus? Where exactly are we going and how far is it and how long is it going to take and should I pack for warm or cold weather and what would be appropriate footwear and should I bring a swimsuit? 

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[00:17:31] All these important decisions about where we're going. In fact, Jesus, I think maybe the best thing would be if you could just draw like a big X on a map or just drop a pin and text it to me, I'll meet you there. Tell you what, I'll meet you there. I think that, let's be honest, that is often what we really want. We want Jesus to give us the final coordinates. When we die, we would like him to open the gates and welcome us home and say, hey, here's the room that I've gone ahead to prepare for you in my father's house. Settle in and get comfortable. I'm so glad you made it. How was your journey? But as for the rest of the journey, we'd rather figure it out for ourselves. We want to plan our own route. We want to take our time, we want to visit some scenic locations along the way. Maybe we can make it a foodie tour. Above all, we want to retain some autonomy and a sense of control. And Jesus makes it abundantly clear that it doesn't work that way. It's not about arriving at a set of coordinates by whatever means, however you want. It's about going where Jesus is going. He's one of those people you say, where are we going? Where I'm going? No, Jesus. Yes, but where are you going? You're going where I'm. He's leading us. Where he's leading us is no place that you can pinpoint on a map. He is the only one who knows the way. And as we go on that journey with him, you're getting there, the journey, it turns out is actually every bit as important as the destination. It's not a case of it is not about the destination it's the journey, or it's not about journey, it's destiny. It's both. 

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[00:19:05] It's actually both. It's a big ask, isn't it? To follow someone like that into the unknown. To walk out the door not knowing where you're going, trusting that they know where they're going and that they won't need you astray. After all, what if it turns out to be like a kind of Forrest Gump situation? What if you follow Jesus for years because you think he's some sort of visionary with a higher purpose only for one day him to come to a halt and turn around and say, I'm tired, I think I'm going to go home. And you're like, you've just abandoned me in Monument Valley and they don't even have cell service here. What was that? Those who know, know. I'm sorry if you haven't seen Forrest Gump. It's a funny movie. But there is nothing funny about that situation in real life, is there? And some of you are wary of following because you have followed people before and it's ended really badly. Perhaps you followed someone into a relationship only to be abandoned by them. Perhaps it was apparent forever making promises and then breaking them. Perhaps it was a leader who you put your trust in, only for them to badly betray it. Putting yourself in that position of following again, it can feel scary because it is a vulnerable place to be. And yet Jesus promises us that He is not the thief who came in the night to steal or kill or destroy, but He is the good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep. He's the one who promises us that to go where he is going is going towards life. I've come that you may have life and have it abundantly. Throughout my life so far, there have been some real highs and some real lows. There have been still waters and there have been death valleys. But if there's one thing that I've learned throughout all of it, it's that there is one person that I can count on no matter what. And that is Jesus Christ. He is the Good Shepherd. [clapping]. Yeah, that's worth a clap. That is worth a slap. He is the Good Shepherd. 

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[00:21:12] If we're called to go where He goes, how are we supposed to do it? That's my next question. Okay, how are we getting there, Lord? And to follow through with the shepherding metaphor. Well, if He's the Good Shepard, well, that makes us the sheep, doesn't it? And if you're not feeling massively sheep-like tonight, then, and you need some kind of visual inspiration to take your cues from, then I have a little viral video for you that a friend sent to me last year that I think can just help us to understand what it means to be a sheep. Did anybody see this? Here they come. This is a video of a woman who is out trail running in the hills in France. Now, as you can see, this entire herd of sheep spontaneously decide that she is their shepherd and they start following her. This is the videos taken by someone she runs into on the trail. Literally, it looks like there are hundreds of sheep. Look at these sheep go. No matter how hard she tries, she tells the person she can't get away. They're just following her. Every time she runs, they run. And every time she stops, did you see in the video? They stopped. They just stopped. And there they are, they're just off into the distance. There they go. Actually, you should watch it online because some genius set the whole soundtrack and they put the soundtrack on it. I will follow him. So funny. 

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[00:22:29] I don't know if you saw, there was a final comment on there that said, she's a shepherdess now. And that cracks me up every time I just imagine her out there somewhere in the French Alps, and she's kind of living life exasperated and bewildered at the surprise turn that it has taken because now she just has this flock of sheep. In all seriousness, that was the image that Jesus had in mind when he talks about following. We would be the sheep right at his heel, sticking as close as we can so that we don't wander off and fall off a cliff. It's not the most flattering of metaphors, is it? I get it, who wants to be a sheep? We want to be leaders. We want be entrepreneurs and innovators and pioneers and CEOs and lady bosses, whatever the phrase is now, I don't know. But we want to be those strong things. We want to be seen as strong, as confident in the world. We don't want to been seen as dumb sheep who are easily led. Do we? Who wants to be a dumb sheep? And yeah, the hard truth is it is actually what we are. We are so easily led, and I think actually part of what makes us susceptible to it is precisely because we're in denial about it. We talk, don't we, about driving under the influence, and when we say that, we're talking about alcohol, But I think the truth is we're always under the influence of one thing or another. 

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[00:23:51] You just think of those 550 people that I follow on Instagram. Where do you think the phrase influencer came from? We're all under their influence. Why do you think social media calls the page where you see your posts and pictures and stories your feed? Why do they call it a feed? Because it's feeding us all the time and we are the sheep like guzzling down the animal feed without ever pausing to think what is going into the feed and is it of any nutritional value at all? What are we being fed? They say you are what you eat. That's a good test, isn't it? Because over time, we will be shaped by what we consume. And if you're wondering, am I too under the influence of something? Well, take a look. How is it forming you? How is it shaping you? What image you've been molded into? I find it fascinating that even in our language, we kind of capture this idea because we don't use the word way just to refer to a literal path, do we? But actually, way has a bigger meaning than that. We use it to refer to the way that we move through life or how we carry ourselves or who we're becoming. So we say things like, oh, she has a way about her. She has a way about her. Or if you're Frank Sinatra, I did it my way. I don't know if any of you guys have seen the movie The Tree of Life by Terence Malick. But it's a bit of a weird film, so maybe not, but it's very powerful. I found the opening quote really, really moving and provocative. This is how it begins. The nuns taught us that there are two ways through life, the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow. Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked, accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too, likes to lord it over them to have its own way. 

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[00:25:48] It finds a reason to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it and love is smiling through all things. They taught us that no one who ever loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end. I'm going to say more about that tomorrow. But one of the clearest indicators of whose way we're walking in will be demonstrated by who we're aiming to please. Ourselves or others? As the apostle Paul describes it in Ephesians chapter five, following God's example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice. The issue is not whether we're being easily led. We are easily led. The issue is, who are we paying attention to? Who's leading us? My five-year-old son, Rafael, he's been teaching me a lot recently about paying attention because every time he wants to share something with me, it's not enough for him if I just kind of absentmindedly tune in while I'm like washing the dishes or getting on with other things. No, he will stop me in my tracks. He actually grabs my face really hard. He grabs my face and he turns it. I have to get down until we're like eye-to-eye and he holds me there until he's sure that I am listening. And we have to be looking eye- to-eye, and then he'll kind of whisper because I think he wants me to lean in, to hear what he's saying. 

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[00:27:16] And then his eyes, as he's speaking, they're just looking at me the whole time. They're watching my face. And I think this is the most important bit for him, that actually he needs to know that he's been heard. And he knows that he has heard when he sees the reaction on my face, like how I react shows him that I listened, that I understood, I got him, that he was seen and heard. And I think that when Jesus says, my sheep know my voice, I think that's the kind of listening that He is talking about, the kind of listening that really pays attention. If it doesn't rush through Bible reading in the morning to dash out the door, but that comes to God's Word with this posture of expectancy and eagerness, you are totally gripped, you are zoned in, you're seeking His face. And you know that God has something important to speak to you today. And you just don't want to miss a word of it. This is too important. What about a heart that stays open to the prompting or the nudges of the Holy Spirit throughout the day, because we know that the Holy spirit is still working, that He is leading us into all truth. That's part of His job. And so we're asking God, give me eyes to see, Lord, how you're moving in the world, how you're working, what you're doing and how I can be involved in it. I think that is why Jesus wants to keep us close, like those sheep right at his heels, because then that means that at any point on the journey he chooses, he can pause, he can take hold of our faces, he can bring us in close, and he can speak straight to our hearts in a way that he knows we're actually able to hear. 

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[00:28:45] It's interesting to me how many times the phrase on the way is used to describe Jesus' teaching and his interactive moments with his disciples. I think it's partly just this reminder of how much they're traveling around. But I also think it signifies something deeper than just their movement. I think this phrase on the way is communicating that actually the real work of discipleship happens along the way. With Jesus, the approach he takes is always see one, do one. See what I'm doing, now you try. You don't go to discipleship school for a few years and then we apply it. No, we learn as we live and we live as we learn. I think some of us, we kind of struggle with this approach because we'd much rather have all of our questions answered first so that we can discern where we're going to have a good time, whether it'll be fun before we get stuck in. Real discipleship, it can't actually work that way, can it? So long as we keep Jesus at arm's length and lean against the wall, just spectating, we're always going to be suspicious of Him because we won't have any actual relational knowledge of Him. Once we get to know Him for us, for Himself, rather than listening to what everybody else is saying about Him. Once we're in the context of following Him and hearing His voice, then I think we discover the most astonishing truth of all, that actually far from limiting us or inhibiting us, walking in His ways and obeying His commands actually liberates us. 

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[00:30:13] It frees us until before you know it, you're not just walking, you're no plodding along or limping, you're not dragging yourself, but you're actually running. You're skipping. You are dancing. Psalm 119, I will run in the path of your commandments because You have set my heart free. Where is He leading us? Where He's going. How do we follow? By listening as we go along the way. And then most importantly of all, my third question, why Him? Why follow Him? Back when I was 15, I went to this very secular high school in London, and I was just one of a handful of Christians. So I decided to start this weekly Christian club just to give space for people to kind of explore Christianity. And I had such high hopes for it, but they quickly nosedived when, during our first ever meeting, someone proposed that actually Christianity is really just about being good. And then somebody else said, yeah, actually, I think it would probably be better and less off-putting if we just stop calling it Christianity altogether because it's just it's not very inclusive sounding, is it? And at which point, it just took me everything I had not just to start banging my head against the table because I couldn't believe it. Like day one of the Christian group, and Jesus Christ was already being kicked out of the Christian club, like day one. The British evangelist called J. John, he humorously puts it this way. He says, if you remove Christ from the name Christian, you're left with Ian, and Ian can't help anyone. 

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[00:31:45] But actually that's kind of the question, isn't it? Can Ian help anyone? Do we need to follow Jesus? Or why not Ian, or one of the many other moral teachers, or gurus, or self-help leaders, or thought leaders that have a wonderful plan for our lives? We have a whole council of influencers out there. So why don't we just pick and choose insights from each of them just to help us carve our own way through life? Ultimately, aren't we all headed in the same direction anyway? As one Eastern proverb puts it, there are many paths up the mountain, but the view from the top is the same. And in theory, it sounds so enlightened, doesn't it? It sounds so enlightening. But the challenge is actually once you start climbing. Now, I have a school friend who's twice now tried to summit Mount Everest, and the first time she had to turn back when she got to base camp because there'd been an avalanche further up the mountains that had wiped out the camps above. And then the second time she tried, it was actually her honeymoon. And they got up to Camp One, above base camp, right when an avalanche hit, and she literally hung on by her ice pick as the snow just came roaring down, and then she spent a week waiting for a helicopter to come and rescue them off the mountain. There are some mountains that are incredibly difficult to climb, aren't there? They're even deadly to climb. Most of us, let's be honest, we can't make it up. I cannot make it Mount Everest, I can't do it. And that's just a physical mountain. What shot then do we have of somehow climbing our way up to God. 

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[00:33:15] A God who is in every way beyond us, whose ways are unsearchable, whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts, who is above all things. He is holy and perfect, a God whose presence is so overwhelming that no one can even look at him directly without dying. If surely if ever a mountain was unscalable, it is that one. David says it in Psalm 24, who may ascend the mountain of the Lord, who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false God. Okay, that's good to know. Is anyone here qualified for that? Is there anyone here with clean hands? Anyone who's never hurt another or dirtied themselves up with something they shouldn't have touched? Or is there anyone with a pure-heart? Anyone who has never had an unkind thought or a selfish impulse or an unloving response to another? And what about idols? Is there anyone here who's never put anything in their lives above God? Anybody? We just need one. Is there any one? Any one of you? No. No wonder Jesus warns us, enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it. But small is the gait and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it. I used to read those words and think, wow, that's going to be a lot of hard work to get through that narrow gate. I'm going to have to really like squeeze through to get to the narrow gate. 

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[00:34:44] Now looking at that list of qualifications, clean hands, a pure heart, no idols or false gods, I realize I haven't got a hope, I've not got a hope of squeezing through the gate or getting up that mountain. There is only one who is worthy, only one with clean hands and a pure heart. Only one who can ascend the hill of the Lord and stand in that holy place. And that is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ who swears by no other gods because He Himself is the Son of God. Jesus Christ who can ascend the mountain of the Lord precisely because He's the only one who descended down the mountain in the first place knowing that we couldn't get to God. God Himself came down the mountain for us to make a way where there was no way. To do for us what we could never do for ourselves. Offering up to God that perfect life of a clean hands and a pure heart, the life we couldn’t give to God. Jesus died that death that we deserved on the mountain. And he traded places with us so that we might receive His gift of perfect life to ascend and stand in that holy place with clean hands and a purified heart. Why do we follow Jesus Christ? Because He is the only reason that anyone is getting through that narrow gate, and that's because He Himself is the gate. He says it in John chapter 10, "I am the gate for the sheep. Whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and they will find pasture. This is why when Thomas says to Jesus, "Lord, we don't know where you're going, so how can we know the way?" Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me." We don't just follow Jesus because He's the only one who knows where we're going. We follow Jesus because He is where we are going. He Himself is the destination. We don't just follow Jesus Christ because He will guide us along the way. We follow Him because He is the way. It's not just that Jesus is showing us this beautiful example of how to live life, it is that He Himself is life. Your eternal life is not going to be some cosmic theme park where we just go round and round on the rides. Eternal life is about stepping into the relationship you were made for with the one who made you. 

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[00:37:03] Now, this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. He himself is heaven to us. When we wake up in the morning in heaven, it'll be Jesus' face that we see. That is eternal life. And over the centuries, people, they've tried to make Christianity about a lot of different things, about a shared religious background or a political cause or a powerful institution or a set of inherited traditions or propositional beliefs or a list of rules to live by or this community to be a part of. But let me just be totally clear tonight. If your understanding of Christianity does not orbit around Jesus Christ, if He isn't the hero of your story, you've missed it. You've missed it. You may have got a hold of something or something may have got ahold of you, but whatever it is, it is not Christianity. A little while after I broke down it at that restaurant in Canada, I was having another difficult week and everything just sort of came to a head. It was a Tuesday morning when I just found myself praying to God, actually in my workplace. I said, "Lord, I know you don't need to prove anything to me because you've already shown me in Jesus that you love me and there's no length you wouldn't go for me. But God, could you just give me some reminder of your steadfast love this week? Just some sign or comfort that I haven't blown it and that you're actually with me in this work and that I'm doing it with you." And then to be honest, I just kind of went about my day and I pretty much forgot that I prayed that prayer. 

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And then three days later, on Friday morning, I received an email sent to the organization that I was working for at the time from someone who I'd never met, I didn't know her, but she listened to our podcast and this is what she wrote in to me. She said, "God has put you on my mind the last few days and gave me an encouraging word for you. I do hope this makes sense and strengthens you. I saw you sitting on a bench in a beautiful and peaceful garden with Jesus. I felt this represented a place of peace and rest between you and God. You were surrounded by the most elegant and vibrant English red roses and the roses represent God's love. And I saw Jesus putting some of the roses into your hair and onto your clothes. And then Jesus handed you a bouquet of roses when you left the garden. And God keeps refreshing the bouquet with endless roses. And when you speak to people, I saw you handing them a rose from the bouquets. And some people took the rose and others did not. But whatever the result, Jesus was with you as you handed out the roses. No matter what happens, they will not forget God's love that perfumes from you. And Jesus is working in you to spread his love and truth to the nations. Peace be with you always. And God bless you with comfort, peace, and even more love that runs through you like a river. Your sister in Christ, Sally." 

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[00:40:02] Wow. Some of you, you came here tonight, and you had that feeling. You had that fluttery, nagging feeling that something wasn't right. And as you've been sitting here this evening, it has hit you. That's what the problem is. You miss Jesus. You just really, really miss. Maybe for others of you, you're sitting here thinking, well, I don't miss Jesus because I didn't even know there was a Jesus like that to miss. I can't miss Him because I never had Him. I've never had him and I've had this idea in my mind of who Jesus is, but as you've been talking about Him tonight, this Jesus who came down the mountain, this Jesus, who is the way and the truth and that life, this Jesus who is my beloved and who comes and knocks on my door, if that is who Jesus Christ is for me, then I would like to know Him. If that's who He is, I would to open that door. I would like discover for myself this God who doesn't just walk in the way of love, but who is love. And whichever one of those it is, if you've never had Jesus, or if you just really miss Jesus tonight, I have good news for you. The good news is that He hasn't gone anywhere. He never left you. Perhaps you feel like you have been sleepwalking through your faith, but tonight the beloved in the song, your heart is awake. Sleeping, but my heart is a wake. And if you listen, your beloved is knocking at the door. And He has come to invite you to the garden. Honestly, I nearly cried when I walked in the door tonight because I just walked in and I saw these banquet tables like a wedding feast. And then I saw the bouquets of roses all over them. And then when I was praying in the green room beforehand, while I was in there, this giant bouquet of red roses was suddenly delivered. And they were actually for Rachel from Derek. 

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[00:42:24] There's this huge bouquet right while I'm sitting there thinking about God's love being like a rose and this huge, bouquet of red roses just came in the door. So I told Rachel, I'm stealing one. I just felt as I was sitting there and praying and looking at this bouquet of red roses, that it was like the Lord was saying, Jo, I need you to hand out my roses tonight. I need you to let my bride know how much I love her. That my desire for every one of these women is to surround her with roses, to lay them on their hair, to cloak them in them, to dress them in roses. Let me just finish by reading it to you again. Song of Songs 5. "Open to me my sister, my darling, my dove, my flawless one. My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night. I've taken off my robe. Must I put it on again? I've washed my feet. Must I soil them again? My beloved thrust his hand through the latch opening, and my heart began to pound for him." There may be 550 people on my Instagram feed. There is only one beloved son of the father. There are thousands of voices that are calling out for you to follow them. There is one bridegroom given to us by our father to be our beloved. And he is the one who is most radiant and beautiful among thousands. There is no name, there is no one else worth following. His is the voice that we hear calling us to follow Him. His is a heart that we long for. His is the love that we were made for and his is the throne that we kneel for. 

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[00:44:15] So I just want to invite you, if you have been missing Jesus or you never had Him, whichever one it is, tonight, before we even get any further into this let's just start as we mean to go on. Let's just say, you know what? I don't want to keep the door shut anymore. I don't just want to be lying in bed with the covers pulled up around my face. If Jesus is standing at my door tonight, then I got to open that door and I'm coming. There's nothing that could stop me. You cannot slow me down. If Jesus is at my door tonight, then I want to say yes to Him. I want to let Him in. If He's leading me out the door, I want follow Him into the night. If He is taking me to the garden, I will go with Him. I don't even care where we're going as long as I'm with Him, as long I'm with Jesus. 

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