The Proximity Principle

One at a time story told of a sweet elderly woman from Midwest / who got lost in Central LA / She was lost / found herself wandering down back alley known for its gang activity / She was there on a mission trip with her church / somehow got separated from her group / she had no idea where she was / where she needed to be

That’s when she saw him / A very large man walking her way / unbeknownst to her he grew up in a gang / worked as a hired gun / spent years in prison / was just released earlier that day / What do you do if you are that little old lady?

Turn and run / get on your phone / another pretend phone call with your son / FBI agent?

Sometimes as I read biographies of missionaries / or stories in the Bible / these stories come to life / something in me gets stirred / sometimes through a sermon / moved to go somewhere / do something / problem is / often times I don’t actually go anywhere

Sometimes I wonder if we will get to the end of our lives / look back / realize there were adventures God intended for us / but yet we never experienced them? Purpose / Opportunities / God intended for us / that we never took / Stories we were meant to be a part of / but we turned / ran opposite direction

I desperately don’t want that for me / you / So we need to figure out what it looks like to live out the adventure of God’s will for our lives / Good news / God sent His son / as a road map to show us the way

John 13:34

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

I. God’s Will Is...

1. On Night of Jesus’ Arrest

Jesus spent time with closest followers / those we some of His final words / A new commandment I give to you

Not a suggestion / idea / proposition / recommendation / comes as a command / but why call it New?

It’s not new / lived His life this way / loving others was central to His being

What He said next made it new / just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

Disciples were hearing these words with freshly washed feet / Jesus had just finished getting all the grime from between their toes!

This calling was to put others needs before their own / doesn’t consider yourself better than others / doesn’t insist it’s own way / or keep record of wrongs

If there was One word Captures love of Jesus best / PROXIMITY

At Christmas / we celebrates his love / that He came to be with us / Emmanuel “God with us”

His incarnation / makes it clear/ the way He loves requires proximity

It’s hard to love someone / if you have determined to keep your distance

2. Proximity Principle

Ever know someone with a good sense of direction? They could get you out of o forrest if you were lost / they know it all / latitude / longitude / always know right way to go / how many people while driving / one is the navigator / while other person drives / always goes great! Right!? Wrong! As I look back on my own life / I think God has to get a lot of amusement from us / Our instincts aren’t always right / we get lost looking for our car in the parking lot!

a. If we’re more honest / our natural instincts / don’t lead us toward opportunities to love others either

Left to our own devices / we won’t love people God wants us to love / more like Jonah / going opposite direction

Our instinct is not proximity / more like distance / Why?

Because there are all kinds of people out there / difficult / draining /different / even D&D players

Something I have learned / loving people as Jesus did / requires me to be pointed in a direction that doesn’t always feel natural / even comfortable

Required to be a follower of Christ

II. Going Far To Get Close

Remember story of Jesus and the naked / bloody guy in the graveyard / you know / the guy we were definitely avoid? (Mark 5)

In Mark 4 / Jesus is with crowds / always crowds / He leaves them / tells disciples / let’s go to other side

This would have been surprising / other side was Gadarenes / place people normally avoid

They get in the boat / leave crowds behind / Disciples did not know it yet / But Jesus was leaving the many / once again for the ONE

A storm arises / they feel as if they will drown / would make sense to turn around… but they didn’t!

Apparently Jesus HAD to go to the other side

Funny / only spent a few hours there / only one thing happened there / headed back across the lake

Guys were probably confused / we almost lost our lives to get here / only spent a few hours / risked everything for one thing / what was that one thing?

A man / ONE man

A man’s life who was in turmoil / so evil / kept locked up / outside of town / cut himself with rocks / lived in graveyard / a MONSTER

Jesus didn’t see a monster / saw a man / in misery / no one would get close to / better yet / avoided at all cost

Want to know when you know Jesus is directing your life? One of ways is you will find yourself in close proximity to one person at a time

One difficult / one draining / one difficult person at a time

Risky Proximity

To often / what stops us from getting to close / is fear

One of my favorite places to preach / has always been the jails / not always true / I can remember the fear / there are bad guys in there! / Bad people who do bad things! / You get locked in there with no guards / I’ve been locked in there before where I thought they forgot about us!

I can remember a man who came up one service / listened / after service came up / showed me a picture / said it was him when he was younger / picture was taken from house / you could see the street behind him / he was holding a beer / tattooed arms visible /working on motorcycle / he said he lived there 7 years / asked me what I noticed about the picture? Took a minute / then I realized / in the background was a church / not our church / but I knew where this was going / He said I lived there 7 years / never once did someone come over / knock on my door

Sunday’s he would be working on motorcycle / watching as they showed up for church / watch as they left / always careful not to make eye contact / only interaction was an occasional letter left in his mailbox letting him know his grass was too long / needed mowed / He said why didn’t someone come tell me about Jesus?

He was not angry / more confused / every week / people with the answers to live / walked right past him / He said maybe / maybe not / but maybe my life would be different / if someone would have just noticed me / walked across the street / again he asked / WHY?

Only answer I had was / you were so different / they were afraid / He was not angry / more sad / as he said “that is not okay”

He is right / I wasn’t shaking my fist at that church / jumping on board with him / how could they!

I was silent / because I know me / I wondered if I would have crossed that street

There is something in us / wants to follow Jesus / but we don’t want to cross the street / we want to do God’s will / but not if it leads us out our comfort zone

3. Following Jesus to the ONE

a. Book of Acts tells of 1st Jesus followers / one is Philip / he was having church / revival!

Acts 8:12 (TLB)

But now they believed Philip’s message that Jesus was the Messiah, and his words concerning the Kingdom of God; and many men and women were baptized.

i. Many = God was using him in great way / then in midst of this / angel appears tells Philip to go

Acts 8:26–27 (ESV)

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. And he rose and went.

1. Why would God send someone making so much impact / to a lonely desert road? / A man / ONE man

b. Philip didn’t ask why? Bible says / He arose and went / didn’t object / didn’t even ask questions

i. If we want to experience God’s will for our lives / we need to things / listen / obey

If we do these two things / we will walk right into an amazing story God is writing / wants us to be a part of

c. Philip meets Eunuch (no need for explanation) / For sure / people would look at a Eunuch differently / He was “different”

i. Not for God / He doesn’t see people / way we see people

Eunuch was sitting in his chariot = Rolls Royce / he had a lot / but was searching for more (we make some bad assumptions at times don’t we)

I wonder if God has put people in YOUR life / who have a lot / so you assume they would not be interested in hearing about Jesus

Secret = they too are still searching for more!

There was no way Philip could influence this man / without being in close proximity to him

The chariot you chase might be at gym you work out at / grocery store you shop / cafe you frequent / for sure your neighborhood & workplace

What if all along / God designed to have them placed next to you “divine appointments” / you just have to show up for them!

What if we stopped assuming people around us / were just random accidents

Server at your table / passenger next to you on plane / stylist cutting your hair / person next to you at child’s game

Acts 8:30 (ESV)

So Philip ran to him!

4. Steps Philip Took

a. We like to tell people up front how much we know / don’t we? / carry the conversation?

Acts 8:30 ESV

So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

Started with a question / he was ready to listen! (PREACH)

After he listened / he shared good news about JC / not his views / political stance / not morality / told him about JESUS

As He did / something happened / Eunuch wanted to get right / even get baptized! What a story!

God has stories just like that planned for you!

But to step into these stories / we can’t simply stay where we are / going to have to get out of the house

There will times your gut says run away / Jesus will say run toward!

III. The Potential Reward

To do God’s will requires risk / risky for Jesus to walk into graveyard / talk to naked bloody lunatic

Risky for Philip to leave Revival for lonely desert road

Feels risky to talk to co-worker / server / neighbor / but we must overcome fear / take the risk!

Know how to staring down fear? Staring at potential return

Your willingness to risk / always based on potential reward

Example: On any given day / you wouldn’t just run into a burning house / why? / Dumb / risk would be too great / But what if your child / sister / mother was in that same home? Same risk / but now you would take it / because of the potential return / saving your loved one / WORTH IT!

b. Easier to stay away from people far from God / avoid draining / difficult / different people / because there is risk

i. We might be rejected / we could look stupid / might now know all the answers

But when we see that person way Jesus sees them / we will see the potential return

Each person in close proximity / is a child of God / God’s will is for you to love them / way God loved you

John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

Instead of being scared of risk / we should be scared of regret

Let’s not get to the end of our lives / realize we missed real purpose / adventures / stories God planned for us to be part of

2. Crossing the Alley

Remember story of little old lady in Street of LA? What do you do if you are in her shoes? Scary / just released prison gang member walking your way? That man’s name is Alfred Lomas / Spent 29 years in a gang from age 12 / lived life of violence drugs / He tells story from his point of view / Recalls that day / laughing to himself as this elderly lady walking his way / he was more confused than anything / she said hello / asked if he was hungry / He was / although he was still confused / She said I am lost / if you help me find figure out where I am at / I know a place you can go / get some food

He went with her / she took him to Christian ministry called Dream Center / he got not just some food / spent a year in their program / learned something he never knew / new kind of love / unconditional love

This man / short time later was bringing food to his rival gangs / once sworn enemies / he did something the city of LA could not accomplish after years of trying / brokered a truce between 3 main gangs in the area / violence dropped dramatically

One paper wrote about him / saying how city spent 10’s of millions of dollars / passed all kinds of laws / trying to do what this one man did with a little food / lot of love

a. Almost Unbelievable story / but it’s true

Do you know the star of it?

A little old lady / with no sense of direction

But she did know / to live out God’s will / you must overcome fear / walk across the alley / get close to someone who was far from God

I wonder where we fit into God’s story? someone else’s story?

Do you know the star of it? hrs / to overcome our fears / you never know who you might meet / how they might be the one who’s story you were meant to change forever!