Okay, well, hi everyone. It is good to be together. My name is Angela by, I have the privilege of being the campus pastor at the Grants Trail campus in South County, but it's good to be here with you all today. But I wanna say hi to those actually who are in overflow here at Chesterfield. Those at Fenton and Mid Rivers and special love bomb to Grants Trail. I know Alex is taking good care of you guys. I'll be back next week. So it's good to be together. Uh, like David said, we're here. We are coming at the end of the summer, it appears. Don't get too excited, but the weather's decided to cooperate here in St. Louis. It's cooling off. Hang in there. Um, but I don't know how your summer was. Some of us are really relieved. Summer's over some are, are, are not so relieved. But however, summer was for you. For me. It was really special from time to time, uh, the board of the crossing and our leaders give pastors a little bit extra time off to rest during the summer. Um, I was gifted that this summer. Very grateful. Got to go away and rest. And my husband, uh, we offered a place by a friend on Orcas Island outside of Seattle. A very magical place. We've been there, you need to go. Um, so I spent a lot of time this summer sitting by this lake that's me. Spent a lot of time sitting there. As it turns out, um, it's hard to rest anybody. And I was learning how to rest, how to unplug and rest. But I did that right there. Jim and I took several hikes around. There were lots of hikes to do. So there we did a 2.7 mile hike and just really enjoyed ourselves. And by that lake, I would say this as, as you see that I, I experienced what we see in Psalm 23 where the writer, David says, he leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. And I'll tell you more about that later. But that was just a moment where I understood what David was talking about right there. So, um, what we said earlier, we like to talk to each other. So I want you to think about what was the highlight of your summer? What did you do that maybe was special, hadn't done before? Whatever the highlight and share that with the people around you. Okay, well, let me tell you a little bit more about my summer before I left on my time off, I had a, a coach who kinda mentored me through my time off this summer. And she said, what is something that you've always wanted to do? Um, why don't you do that during your time off? And so I decided on day one, that's what I would do. A picture's worth a thousand words. Lemme just show you what I did on day one. Yeah, I would do it again. And so, and so, some people have known that I did this, and they're like, you're crazy. Some are like, you're so brave. I think after doing it, it's a mixture of both. You have to be a little brave and a little crazy. And so let me talk to Mid Rivers for just a minute before you think I'm too crazy. I had a partner in crime, I convinced a friend to do it with me. And here she is, Lori Mitchell from Mid Rivers. She's their guest experience lead. And she's the wife of their campus pastor Chris Mitchell. And so I talked her into going with me and, um, our hus and let me show you our, my favorite picture. So here we are, getting ready, getting ready, hopefully, you know, gonna land on land. We did. My favorite thing though is we got to go through a cloud. And if you, if you zoom in, you can see, see Lori's in the red and I'm in the yellow. And, and, and we came down, but we did land safely, very calm. But, um, Chris and my husband, Jim and some other friends were there to meet us when we finished and to watch us as we did it. And, uh, Chris Mitchell came up to me afterwards, uh, after his wife landed safely on the ground and he said, okay, we can still be friends now. This is, and I'll be honest, I was very brave until the moment we're up in the plane and we're both in there. Lori's the first by the door and the door opened. And you as you might not know this, you actually fall out of the plane. You don't jump. And when Lori fell out, I had a moment of panic and then I thought, well, I can't back out now. I mean, I talked her into this, so I don't think she knows that. So I had just a, just, just a moment. But anyway, so was I crazy? Was I brave? Maybe a little both. But we make decisions every day. And some of 'em are life changing. Not always like jumping out of a plane, but most of the time it's just simple, everyday decisions that we make day in and day out. Well, at the beginning of this summer, actually, the day before I went skydiving, we baptized over 500 people here. They made the brave decision to walk in the waters of baptism and to say, I'm with him and he's mine. I'm gonna follow Jesus. And that is a life changing decision. Yep. Yeah. You may be sitting here brave step, life changing decision. And we hope it's a moment they will never forget. And in fact, with each one, we pause in the water and we say, don't forget this moment. This is a life changing brave, um, good decision you have made. But what we've learned if we've walked with Jesus very long or at all, and what they will learn is that that's just the beginning. That's just a big decision that's gonna lead to other decisions. They have put the, they've put their foot on a path and we would decide to follow Jesus. We've put our foot on a path and, and we know that now we wanna follow him. But there are a lot of other decisions to come. And the one that drives it all, let me just read you, is that Jesus wants to know us along this path. There are gonna be forks in the road, there's gonna be obstacles, there's gonna be unexpected. Things come as we follow this path. But all along Jesus is saying, there's more intimacy. There's more ways you can be close to me. And I want to be close to you in John Jesus says this, I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me. So this is a path where he's going. You can know me. And every decision leads us closer to him. Jesus prayed a prayer in John 17 and he said, and this is the way to have eternal life, to know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth, this is eternal life to know him. So we're gonna talk about how we take those steps and how we know him, how we draw close to him. But first, let's pray together and invite him to speak to us. So Jesus, we do, we invite you to speak to us this morning. I pray for each person here, each person at the sites listening online. God, I pray that, um, our hearts would be receptive, that you would speak clearly to each one, that we'd be able to leave aside the stress that we had walking in here and whatever waits for us when we walk out, could we be fully present to you and to each other and to what you wanna say to us. And we pray all this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen. Amen. So we find, um, in any relationship that we enter that we do often have decisions to make along the way. Sometimes, sometimes we don't even know that we're making them. So we can know about someone but never know them. Just know about them. We, we can actually know someone but not be close, not not move close to them. Often we can find ourselves in a room full of people, a crowded room and feel alone. I was always amazed when we lived in France that you would get on the metro, the subway to travel. And sometimes at a time, depending on the time of day, you'd be so close that you were shoulder to shoulder with people so close in proximity, but so far, relationally. So in your own world, so you can be close, but far in fact, you can be sitting in church and think, gosh, I don't feel connected at all. I'm here. I'm present, but I don't feel connected. And we would love to talk to you about that, if that's you. There are ways to take steps to move in towards community groups is a great way. Continue to show up, get to know people. We love to move in. You can actually find yourself sitting at a table with your spouse or your child or your parent or friends and feel like strangers. I mean, it's possible that there have been decisions, maybe daily decisions that have been made that has just led you little by little by little away from those you were once close to. And now you're far you can be, can know each other, but be far. And so with our relationship with Jesus, it's the same. We have to be intentional to move close to him. We can find ourselves knowing him and believing him, but not close. And so when we look at the gospels, the story of Jesus when he walked on the earth with people, what we discover is two groups of people that it talks about quite often. One is the crowds who showed up and followed Jesus from a distance. And many of you may say, well, I I could probably relate to them because I am just here checking this out. And if you're here just checking out the claims of Jesus, just wondering if this could be true. We're so glad you're here. We love questions. We love to, to invite you in. But then there were the disciples. So the crowds followed from a distance and stayed far away. But the disciples, they left everything and followed Jesus. They ate with him, they traveled with him, they talked with him. They listened to him. They asked questions when they didn't understand, they went to weddings with him. They did life with him. They were up close and personal. So there's a philosopher who says, um, Paul Moser says, A perfectly loving God makes himself known in ways not fitting for mere spectators. So when we move in close like the disciples, he makes himself known. He, he can be known and he can know us. And we have to be intentional about that. So then we ask ourselves after the step of believing, why, why do some stay with the crowd? And what is it that makes some draw close? Well, that's what I want us to look at. We're gonna look at three stories from the gospels, three stories of Jesus walking with people and see what may be, um, affected, how close they moved in or how far they stayed out and what we can learn about ourselves from that as well. Maybe we'll see ourselves in these stories. So in the first one, Jesus is getting off a boat. He is with his disciples, they're traveling with him. He gets out of a boat and he encounters a man. A man comes to him who the Bible describes as he was possessed with many demons. Now we'll mention this last weekend. The Bible often talks about the supernatural. It talks about the presence of evil. This is, um, the enemy of people. Evil wanted to over overpower people. But what we see Jesus doing over and over is pushing evil away from his people. What we learn is that evil can't stand up to the power of God, not something to be afraid of, but real. And so Jesus addresses this and that. We don't know how this man got in this state. We don't know what happened in his life. We know it had been for a long time. Had he made decisions himself that moved him towards evil, that opened him up to evil. Did he move that way? We don't know. But here's what we do know about this man. We know that he was homeless. He lived among the tombs, uh, naked in a terrible state, away from community, away from family isolated. We learned that the people of that town and area had to walk around where he lived. He was so disruptive to the community. He would often harm himself. He was in a state where sometimes people had tried to maybe help him, but they would put him in chains and he would break the chains. So he was in a place where he couldn't heal himself. Evil had overtaken him. The people around him couldn't help him. It all seemed lost. And then Jesus got off a boat. And this man's life was never gonna be the same. Jesus commanded evil out of him. He commanded the demons to leave. He demanded, what is your name? And he replied, my name is Legion. Because there are many of us inside this man. Then the evil spirits begged him again and again not to send them into some distant place. There happened to be a large herd of pigs feeding on the hillside nearby. Send us into those pigs. The spirits begged. Let us enter them. Now it's already a little weird this place because the presence of pigs, any of the disciples, it would not have gone unnoticed or anyone from first century Jewish, Jewish culture reading this later, as Mark recounted, it would've thought, what are pigs doing there? That's bizarre because in the first century for Jewish people, the presence, the keeping, the raising, even the touching of swine was strictly forbidden. So already the story is, is a little off. Something's off. So Jesus gave them permission. The evil spirits came out of the man and entered the pigs. And the entire herd of about 2000 pigs plunged down the steep hillside into the lake and drowned in the water. Now can you picture that 2000 pigs are running into the water. This man is set free. Evil has been pushed out of his life. And there were people who watched the herdsmen fled to the nearby town, the one keeping the pigs and the surrounding countryside, spreading the news. As they ran, people rushed out to see what happened. Can you imagine this man who for years had been tormented, he harmed himself, he broke chains. He was beyond hope had been set free. I mean, can you imagine the conversation as the herdsman ran around to tell the people? A crowd soon gathered around Jesus and they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons. He was sitting there fully clothed and perfectly sane. Jesus had come close. This man had encountered Jesus and he was completely healed and set free. Can you imagine, as the crowd came around, imagine how we would respond if we saw something as as miraculous as that this man is set free. How would we respond? Well, let me tell you how they responded. They were all afraid. Raid then those who had seen what happened, told the others about the demon possessed man and the pigs and the crowd began pleading with Jesus to go away and leave them alone. They find the man who had been beyond hope, healed, perfectly sane, clothed. And they begged Jesus to go away and leave us alone. Why? Well, I think one reason is the sheer power that they were witnessing. I mean, what kind of power is stronger than demons? What kind of power is among us now that's stronger than evil? Who? Who is this man? It can be overwhelming, but, but evil can't stand up to the power of God. But I think also and mainly even more importantly was the pigs. It says that they were told about the demon possessed man and the swine, Charles Spurgeon says they felt they could not keep both the savior and their swine. And of the two they preferred their swine. And I think if we look a little deeper into each of them, probably what they were afraid of is what freedom might cost them. It just cost us a lot of revenue. A lot of cash went over the hill when those pigs ran into the water. What might freedom cost if we ask him to stay? What might it cost me is if I ask him to come closer, I think they were afraid of what freedom might cost them. And I think we can be the same way. What might freedom cost me? I'm on this path. Yes, I believe yes. But if I invite Jesus closer, what might it cost me? I mean, it might cost me a friendship. I might have to set a healthy boundary that I don't know I can do. What might that cost me? For some of us, we think it might cost me a grudge and I need to forgive someone. Or I might need to humble myself and ask forgiveness for something I have done that's costly. For some of us, it might cost us being honest about an addiction and getting help. It might cost me a change of career. It might cost me a friend group. What might freedom cost? Kenny DeShields, who often leads worship here and at many of our sites years ago, told me a story when his son was about five. They asked him, they said, Hey Shiloh, where does Jesus live? And Shiloh said, all up in my business may. Maybe that's what we're afraid of, right? If I invite Jesus close, he's gonna be all up in my business. That's costly. But let me ask you another question. What might we gain? What might you gain? If you ask Jesus close, when you look at this man saying he gained his life back, you have to imagine that he was reunited with family. You have to imagine that his life was peaceful again and whole. He got his life back. What might I gain if I invite Jesus closer? Like I said, we, we hear so many amazing stories as people make the decision to walk into the waters of bti, of baptism and ask Jesus to be their savior. One of my favorite from this summer, I just wanna show you a picture. My friend Andy, this is my friend Andy. And I don't even have to tell you. You can look at his face and see what he gained. Uh, he, he took steps to move towards Jesus. He was set free of things it cost him. It did cost him. But he would tell you today, but what I gained is so much better. What might we gain if we invite Jesus close? So they ask Jesus to go away. Leave us alone. And what does Jesus do? He gets in the boat and he leaves. He respects their request. He'll respect your request. He'll let you stay at a distance. He doesn't impose himself. He doesn't force us to know him. He doesn't force us to draw close. But the sweet thing right here is the man who had been set free. The man who had been healed comes to Jesus as he's leaving and he says, let me go with you. Like, oh, what I've experienced from you, let me go with you. And Jesus not giving up on those who had begged him to leave, said, no, listen, you stay here and I want you to keep reminding them what I have done for you. There's still hope. Yes, they've asked me to go, but there's still hope. You stay and let's and let's just see if they'll, if they'll come back. So another story. Now we find Jesus at dinner. He's been asked a dinner by a pharisee in the home of a pharisee. Now, in that time, a pharisee was the highly religious Jewish leaders. So he was this highly religious man. Now by religious leaders, what we mean in that day is they followed the rules. Their entire commitment was to the rules, to the law. And they often bumped with Jesus. They were often at odds with Jesus because Jesus is leading towards relationship. And so they were all about the rules. This Pharisee asked Jesus to come to his house. And while he is there, we we find out that a woman, it says a certain woman who was immoral from the city, a certain immoral woman finds out that they're there. And so she comes. And here's what happens. She takes, she shows up with this beautiful alabaster jar full of expensive perfume. And she knelt behind Jesus at his feet, weeping, her tears fell on his feet and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting the expensive perfume on them. Now, in that time again, we have to understand in first century basic hospitality, when someone came to your home was to wash their feet because they walked in their sandals all day. On the dirt, on the dirt roads. There was no concrete. They're walking on dirt roads. But we find out that this Pharisee invited Jesus to dinner but didn't do that common hospitality courtesy of washing his feet. And then this woman comes in with expensive perfume. And what we see here is this beautiful expression of gratitude. When we read her story, we find out that this certain immoral woman before this time encountered Jesus. And she was set free. She was forgiven. She and she moved in close. So what we're experiencing here, what was happening was her overwhelming, her tears wiping what is considered a woman's glory with her hair. She's overwhelmed. She's expressing her, her overwhelming gratitude to Jesus for what he had done for her. He had set her free. And there's that word again. So to really put us in that moment, what she must be feeling. Can you think of a time when you were overcome with gratitude for something someone did for you? Maybe it was something you weren't gonna be able to do for yourself. Maybe it was unexpected. But a time when you were overwhelmed with gratitude, talk again to each other and, and tell each other what that was. That moment of gratitude. Okay, Well I hope you have experience. You know, maybe it was a simple thing, maybe it was a big thing. Just this, this gratitude, when something happens, that's what this woman is expressing as she's, as she's cleaning Jesus' feet. When the Pharisee who invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She is a sinner. So he's pointing out even to himself, what is he doing? I know who she is. How does he not know who she is? Why is he letting her get close to him? And see, I think again, that's what can happen to us here. We can relate to this woman because sometimes I think what keeps us at a distance is we are aware of our own past. We're aware of our own failures, we're aware of our own shame. And what we can do when we're so aware of that is we can distance ourself from community. We can distance ourself even from church out of our shame and regret. And we can distance ourself from Jesus. Dare I Let him see and dare I come up and confess what's really happened in my life? And confession, yes is necessary. Do I dare do that? And we're so aware of it. And the other reason I think is because once we have to face it, we need to heal. And healing can be hard. It can be hard to move towards freedom and forgiveness and to separate our ourself from our path and our sin and to walk a new path. That's why so often we, we recommend that you walk with a pastor or a counselor or a spiritual director. 'cause you may need help. And often in moving close to Jesus means we move in close to each other. It means you find someone you can trust. Often the wisest thing you can do is find one who's where you want to be in your spiritual life and get close to them. And they're gonna lead you to Jesus. Sometimes you need help 'cause you're so aware of it. Well, Jesus knows what the pity is thinking. And here's my paraphrase of what Jesus says then, oh, I know who she is. Oh, I know who she is. I know where she's been. I know where she's what she's done. But she's mine. But she's mine. She's been forgiven. I have separated that from her. That doesn't define her anymore. I know who she is. And you have to think that the woman herself feels it. We know, don't we? When someone's looking at us and judging when someone's got accusing thoughts towards us, we can feel it. She could feel it. I feel sure she could feel it, but she didn't move. She kept her eyes on Jesus. Because what happens when we move close to Jesus is those accusing voices fall into the silence. They fall into the background. And what we hear is his voice telling us who we are. I know who I am because I know you. She didn't just stay at a distance. She knew who Jesus was and she let him tell her who she was. So often we can stay at a distance because we're afraid. We're afraid of what freedom might cost us or we stay at a distance because we're aware of our own sin and shame. We hear the accusing voices, we stay at a distance. But it's also possible that you're listening right now here or wherever you're listening from and you're like, oh, I used to be close. I used to be closer to Jesus. And, and now I find myself distance. I'm like that person sitting in the table looking at the person across the table thinking we used to be close. What happened? And I think it can happen decision by decision, by decision. Sometimes decisions we don't even know we're making where we're stepping back from a relationship with Jesus. Sometimes it's a big thing where we're like, we, we just need to walk away maybe for one of those reasons. But, but for whatever reason today you go, wow, I I used to be close a few years ago. My son was at the park on the playground with his three-year-old daughter, my first granddaughter. And he did something that made her mad. Probably use the word no. I don't know what he did that made her mad. But um, I have to be, um, honest. And as the grandmother, I'm sure it was his fault. I'm sure it wasn't her. But anyway, for whatever reason, he made her mad and she put her hands on her hips and marched away from the playground and left him there because she was upset with him. Well, he actually thought this was pretty cute. And so he got his phone out and FaceTime me and we're following her around the park as she moved away from the playground. And every now and then she would turn around and see that he was still close and she'd go, ugh, and put her hands on her hips and march off to another side of the playground to get away from him. She was upset with him. But then the moment came when she decided, uh, she wanted to be with him again. She was over it. But here's what didn't happen. She didn't have to find her way back to the playground to find her father. He had stayed close. He had kept her within arm's reach. No matter how far she went, he stayed far with her. And all she had to do was turn around and walk into the open arms of her father. And that's what we do when we find ourselves far. You don't have to find your way back there. There are twists and turns in the path and you make decisions where you find yourself far away. And here's the great news. You don't have to find your way back. He's there. You just turn around and you embrace him. You say, yes, he's a loving father, he wants to know you. So one more story in the life of Jesus. So says that the crowds followed Jesus. A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went because they saw the miraculous signs as he healed the sick. So this statement is made. If you know any story in the Bible, you may know the story of where Jesus fed over 5,000 people with just five loaves and two fish miraculous. And so after that, the people keep showing up and big crowds keep coming and they're coming for because they've seen them do all these miracles. And Jesus says, I tell you the truth, he says to the crowd, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs, but don't be so concerned about perishable things like food, spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the son of man can give you, spend your energy seeking, the eternal life that the son of man can give you. He's trying to help them understand, yes, I know you were drawn because of the miracles. Yes, I know you keep coming back because I feed you and people are healed. But it's bigger than that. And often in the Bible, bread is used as a symbol of provision. And as Jesus often does, he speaks in metaphors to them then. And he says, I'm the bread of life. I am the living bread. I'm the bread from heaven. I'm the bread of God. And what he's trying to help them see is to refocus their attention from what he's been doing for them physically and what he can do for them spiritually. He's trying to say, I know you are aware of your physical hunger, but I am here also to meet your incredible spiritual hunger. You need a savior. You need more than your physical needs met. And he's trying to turn their hearts towards him as their savior and make them aware of their spiritual need and they're just not getting it. And they say, show us more signs and, and maybe we'll believe, just keep showing us more signs. And he uses the metaphors and he's trying to turn it there and then actually pointing towards what's gonna happen on the cross. He says this, he says, you won't have eternal life unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood. And they start wondering, he's talking literally here like we're gonna eat his flesh. And, and they're confused and it doesn't make sense. And this statement, at this statement, many of them became offended and they just couldn't understand what he was trying to say. And so many of them, it says at that point, walked away that they were done too confusing, too hard. I don't understand that. Now if we're honest, many of us were drawn, we were part of the crowd and we were drawn to Jesus for what he could do. I mean, look at the picture of my friend Andy. Yes, there's freedom. Jesus answers prayer. He does do miracles. We've been, we've seen him. We sang today, I cried out. He heard me. He answered, yes, he gives us freedom and peace and healing. But then sometimes it can get confusing as we're on this path and the fork in the road happens, or the obstacle shows up or something unexpected happens. We get confused. We don't understand. Wait a minute, where's the joy? I felt in the beginning? Where's the answer to prayer that I need today? Why didn't God intervene? Why didn't he provide what I needed? Why is my heartbroken, I am not sure I need to stay on this path at all. I'm not sure I ever should have gotten on this path. What is happening? And we too can walk away because we don't understand what he's trying to say. So Jesus turns to the 12, his 12 disciples, and he says, are you gonna walk away to? And Peter answers for the disciples. And he says, to whom would we go? Where would we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the holy one of God. We believe and we know we saw from a distance, we made the decision to believe. And we now know you. We know who you are. Where would we go? I know I have been in that place where I didn't understand. And even Peter we're told later, we're told that Peter, when Jesus is arrested, what are the words that you describe what Peter does? He follows at a distance. Now he's afraid. And just before that he tells Jesus, I would die before I would die deny you. I would die first. And now hours later it gets scary. Jesus has been arrested. They don't know what's gonna happen. And Peter follows from a distance and three times from a distance. He denies even knowing Jesus. I don't know him. So the beautiful thing about Peter's story, going from following to leaving it all to I know you, I would die for you denying Him, is in John 21. We see him fully restored. He turns around and his savior is there fully restored. He encounters the resurrected Christ and he's fully restored and a strong, brave leader in the church after that. So in my life, I've been there. We've had hard things happen. I've been confused. I've wondered if it was the right path. I'm gonna take you back to sitting by the lake where I felt like God took me beside quiet waters. I've sat there for hours just talking with Jesus. Some of it was about hard things that have happened that I don't understand. Some of it is, but I've seen you come through. I sat there and remembered, and I understood what it means to heal and restore my soul as remembered, I remembered. But he has shown up. But wait a minute, I'm confused. But I know you listen to what Peter did not say. What Peter did not say is, no, Jesus, we're not gonna walk away because we understand, oh, we're not gonna walk away. We fully get it. No. He said, no, I, I I just know you. I'm staying. I know you. I'm gonna stay close. And so for me sitting there, I thought, no, here are things we need to talk about. Here are the questions I need to ask. Here's the heartache I need to express. Here's the confusion. But I know you, I remember, I remember who you are. And we draw close. And I and I drew close. So I would love to sit you in front of water today and say, remember, pour it out to him. Be honest. Instead, I'm gonna put you by the water that I looked at. And I'm gonna ask you, we're gonna move into a time of communion in just a minute. Now listen, if you're not ready for communion, if you're still just checking out the claims of Jesus, if you're here just to see if it might be true, you don't have to do that. But please don't leave. Please don't leave. Let this moment, um, we'll be done in just a few minutes. Let this moment just settle in your own heart and your own mind. And I want us, I want you as we sit by the water and listen to this and prepare our hearts for communion, to ask yourself a question, have I kept Jesus at a distance because I'm afraid of what it might cost me? Have I kept Jesus at a distance because I'm aware of my sin. I'm aware I'm full of shame, I'm full of regret. Have we kept him at a distance because we're confused, we don't understand? Is there a place where you need to spend a couple of minutes just expressing to him where your heart is.