Closer – How to Get Closer to Jesus

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

I want to set the stage for this whole year.

The theme for this year is closer.

That God's desire is for us to be as close as we possibly can to Him and to get us started today.

Seven years ago, I had one of my favorite memories in my whole life.

Now, to understand this, you need to understand some stuff about my family.

Every family has traditions that are special to them.

One of my things as a dad is I want to turn every boring moment into a moment of adventure.

Things that seem like insignificant, like running to the grocery store.

I want to turn it into a moment that my kids will remember.

So many years ago, I started something fun with my two older boys.

We do something every year to this day called man cation.

Man cation is when the men go do manly things.

So we'll go to the beach.

We'll go, uh literally last year we went to Iceland and we had an adventure together.

It's just so fun being their dad, and as they're getting older, I want to make sure to count every single one of these moments as special.

Well, seven years ago, my wife and I, we had the two boys, and my daughter Ella was three years old.

And there was a random weekend where Liz was going out of town, my boys were going to my in-laws' house for a few days, and it was just gonna be me and Ella at home for just a couple days.

And I was like, oh no, no, no.

We gotta turn this into something awesome.

Now, in my family, another weird tradition is we name everything, like our cars have names, my refrigerator has a name.

I have a pillow that is over, probably it's over 30 years old.

Liz gave it a name.

The name is a communicable disease, but it still has a name.

Everything gets a name in my family, and so these trips, like Man Cation is named Man Cation.

So in that season, my daughter Ella, I wanted to help her name this thing, and so she called, like, she called her mom Mommy Snuggles, and she started calling me something beautiful, something just so special.

She started calling me Daddy Handsome.

And so that's like an awe moment, not a laugh moment.

Okay, whatever.

And so Ella named our daddy-daughter trip the Daddy Handsome Elocation trademark.

She named it, and to this day, seven years later, we never skip one.

So on this year, seven years ago, Ella's three years old, and I said, Well, baby, where do you want to go for daddy handsome ellocation?

She said, I want to go to a Disney hotel.

If you've ever stayed at a Disney hotel, here's what it is: it's a regular hotel that costs three times as much, and the food's not good.

That's what it is.

And so I was like, baby, let's go.

And so I booked the cheapest Disney hotel you can possibly get because she wasn't gonna remember it anyways.

We did a day or two of Disney stuff, and then the last day before we came home, we went to this place in Orlando.

You've probably driven past it.

It's where the they have the big Orlando eye, the big Ferris wheel.

We did that, and then there was an aquarium.

And I said, Baby, do you want to go to the aquarium?

She goes, Yeah.

I said, Do you want to see the fish?

He says, I want to see all of them.

I said, Do you want to see the sharks?

She goes, Oh, I want to see sharks.

I said, Do you want to touch?

Maybe you can touch a fish?

She goes, I want to hold them.

And I was like, Okay, we'll see.

And she was so amped, so fired up to go into this aquarium until we walked in.

And the moment she saw the fish and how close you could get to the fish, she had a little bit of a panic attack.

In fact, this is the only picture I have of her from that day.

Look at the fear in her eyes.

And she was so scared.

She was so worried.

She just like, I just don't want anything to do with any of this stuff.

They at this aquarium, they even have some fish tanks where you can get under the tank.

And there's like a little bowl-shaped cutout where you can stick your head up in, and you can get just literally inches away from the fish.

I was a grown man.

I got up underneath that thing and tried to get her.

She would not come with me because the proximity and the closeness scared her.

The thing she thought she wanted when she had the opportunity to pursue it, it scared her and it caused her to push back from it.

I wonder how many of us, when it comes to our relationship with God, that feels how we feel.

I don't really want that.

What we want is we want the blessings and we want the benefits from God.

But we don't really want to be super, super close because we're scared of what it might do to us.

But all through scripture, the narrative of the Bible is we serve a God who hung the sun, the moon, and the stars.

We serve a God who spoke the world into existence.

We serve a God who made water and water buffaloes.

We serve a God who made the birds of the air and those creepy fish at the bottom of the seas.

We serve a God who made every cell, every fiber of your being.

We serve a God who made all of it, but at the end of his creation, he formed two people, Adam and Eve, and he breathed his breath of life into them.

Here's why.

So he could be close to them.

Keep reading through scripturally.

Think about the story of the prodigal son.

The son blows his father's inheritance.

He blows half of everything the father had worked his whole life for, and he finds himself at the bottom of rock bottom.

He goes walking back to his home, thinking, if I can just get my dad to take me in as a servant, maybe I can spend the rest of my years working for him.

And Jesus tells this story about as the boy's walking towards his father, his father is standing on the stoop of his house.

It says, when he sees his son, his heart is filled with compassion, and he takes off running after his son.

Why?

Because his son took a step towards his father, but the father's goal and his delight is to be nearer and close to his son.

This is the narrative of scripture.

God made you for closeness with him.

And here's what I want you to understand: the brilliant theologian Oswald Chambers said this.

He said, We are as close to God as we choose to be.

Now I want you to hear this because a lot of us think that it's up to God.

God's already made more than the first move.

God has made like every possible move by sending his son for us, by creating us.

God's done everything, and we get to determine how close we are to him.

So I want to challenge you with this.

What would it look like if 2025 was the year that you stopped playing games?

What would it look like if 2025 you just made this decision on the first Sunday of the year for the next 52 weeks?

Jesus, I'm all in.

No more games, you get all of me.

So here's the questions I want you to wrestle with to start today.

Number one, how close are you to Jesus?

As you look back at last year, and as you maybe you've taken some reflection time this last week, as you look back at 2024, how close were you to Jesus?

And here's the harder question.

2025, how close do you want to be?

If it's true, and I believe with all of my heart that it is, that we're as close to Jesus as we choose to be, then you need to start making some choices.

You need to make this decision that this is the year that I go all in with him.

In John chapter 13 through chapter 17 or so, John, who was close to Jesus, recounts the moments, the days, the hours leading up to Jesus' crucifixion and his resurrection from the dead.

John 13 · chapter mention

And I love John's account for a bunch of reasons, but right in the middle of those chapters, we have a moment that many people call the Last Supper or the Lord's Supper.

Or maybe depending on your tradition of faith that you were raised in, it could be called the Lord's table.

And Jesus gathered his disciples together.

Da Vinci painted a famous painting of this.

It hangs in a chapel in Milan to this day.

And over the years and over time, it's kind of like denigrated a little bit.

It's kind of broken down with the many years.

And scholars like to argue over this.

People who understand art, they like to argue about like what does it mean?

Like, why are the disciples in groups of three?

What does it mean with the posture of their hands or the way that they're looking?

Does the direction of their face matter in the story?

Which one is which?

And I've got lots of questions too, like question one, why are they all on the same side of the table?

Makes no sense.

But he paints this picture as a reminder of what happens.

And in the context of this story, John recounts something Jesus said.

This is a really, this is the setup for how we can be closer to Him.

John chapter 15, verse 12.

John 15:12

Jesus said, My command, not my suggestion, my command, the thing you have to do if you're gonna be my follower, my command is this.

Ready?

Love each other.

Now that sounds really good.

You ready?

Until you have to actually do it the way Jesus did it.

Here's the funny thing: our culture has co-opted the word love to mean all different kinds of things.

You need to understand that Jesus defined love.

It's not subjective, it's objective.

Jesus defined love, and if we're gonna be like him and if we're gonna follow his command, we need to learn to love the way Jesus loved.

You're like, what does it mean?

Well, Jesus defined love in lots of ways, and they're all practical.

Like Jesus said, you'll know you love when you want to feed those who are hungry.

You'll know you want to love when you want to give a drink to those who are thirsty.

You will know you love when you begin to pray for those who hurt you and you bless those who persecute you.

This is what love is, according to Jesus.

And I'm gonna be honest with you for a moment.

I wish I had it figured out.

Like I wish I had it nailed.

Uh Christmas time.

We're like literally two or three days before Christmas, and my daughter Ella needed one last gift.

So we were on our way to the magical wonderland that is Target, everybody.

And on the way, we were driving through the North Lakeland parking lot, and we're together, and we come up to a stoplight, and there's a man, there's like an aisle or two in the road separating us, but there's a man with the sign that's a homeless, I have three kids, no job, no income.

Please help.

Can I just confess to you?

It's best to confess in front of a lot of people.

Can I confess?

I didn't want to make eye contact because it would make me responsible.

And I was trying to distract my daughter.

She's 10 years old and she's got a heart the size of Texas.

And I was trying to distract her, and she goes, Oh, wait, Dad, his sign says he's homeless and he has three kids.

Do you have any money?

And I thought I could like taunt it off on her.

I thought I could just get rid of it by saying this.

Um, I always carry a hundred dollar bill on me all the time.

It's something I started doing years ago.

Because when God gives me the opportunity to bless somebody, I like to do it in a way that's significant.

But I'm gonna be honest with you, and I'll tell you this: I felt the pressure of all the bills from Christmas, and I didn't want to do it this day.

But my dad said, I mean, my daughter said, but Dad, do you have any cash?

And I thought I could put it off by saying, maybe all I have is a hundred dollar bill.

I thought she'd be like, okay, that's too much.

But instead, she goes, Dad, can we give it?

I'll pay you back.

So I give her the money and she gives it to the man, and you can tell it was folded up.

The man didn't know how much it was, but he said, Thank you, and Ella goes, God bless you.

And he walked away.

And as soon as he walked back and the light turned green, we took off.

Ella leaned back in her seat and she goes, I love to love people.

Okay.

Your boy gets it wrong sometimes.

I think we all do at times.

Jesus said, My command is this, that you love each other.

And then if it's like that's not clear enough, he says, As I have loved you.

Now Jesus says this.

Jesus starts the crucifixion process in John chapter 18.

John 18 · chapter mention

He says this before he's crucified, but he knows what's coming.

He knows that real love can't be said, it has to be demonstrated.

And so Jesus goes on to clarify it.

This this story he tells is all words, but then he's going to give us a picture.

If there was an epitaph of Jesus' life, it would be this next line in verse 13.

He says, Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's who?

Friends.

Jesus says this, and I want you to get this detail.

Who he's talking about is you and me, and who does Jesus, the Son of God who was there at the beginning of creation, who does he say we are?

We're his friends.

I want you to understand this.

Friendship is about closeness.

Friendship is about intimacy.

It's about how close can we actually get to each other.

So here's the question to start this year.

Are you ready?

How close can we come to Jesus?

Like how close can we actually get?

If we're his friends, how close can we get?

And here's the truth.

As I was thinking through this, I thought, you know, I bet you people will think one of two things when I ask this question.

They'll think it means one of two things.

It means that I can know him, or I can know about him.

Now the truth is a lot of us think that knowing about Jesus is what closeness is all about.

So we study and we read the Bible for information's sake, not for transformation.

Knowing about is good.

In fact, um, maybe you know a lot about certain celebrities.

For whatever reason, my wife and my two brothers, they know everything there is to know about pop culture.

There is no room in my brain for who won celebrities dating or who broke up with who.

I don't know nothing.

I know I watch award shows and I'm like, huh, the whole time.

I know nothing about it.

They know a lot of information about them.

They don't know them.

I know a lot about the Dallas Cowboys.

For example, I know that they're trash this season.

Um, that's my team, God's team, also my team.

And you could ask me a lot of questions.

I know their stats, I know where they went to college, I know like what their performance is, I know how many years are left on their contract, I know lots about them, but I don't know them.

Knowing about is good, but it lacks intimacy, it lacks proximity, it lacks closeness.

Jesus doesn't just invite us to know about him, though nothing wrong with that.

He invites us to know him close, friend to friend, to have a relationship, a friendship with him.

This is Jesus' intention for us.

And if we're gonna get closer, I want to make it very practical today as we kick off this series.

And over these next few weeks, this to start this month, I want to really give you some practical handles on how you can make 2025 your best year by making it the year you go after Jesus with everything you've got.

As I read the life of Jesus in the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it appears to me that there are six levels of people following Jesus, each one getting closer and closer and closer.

I'll almost think of it like this: think of it like concentric circles, each one getting closer and closer to the target in the middle.

To help you understand it, here are the six different levels of people as they get closer to Jesus.

The first level is the crowds.

These are the multitudes of people.

These are the people who watch Jesus from a distance.

Some people are like, well, that's that's like not very close at all.

Let me say this to those of you who might be in this position today.

Every relationship starts with a spark of curiosity.

There was groups of people who just wanted to see what Jesus was going to do.

Then there was the 5,000.

These were those who Jesus fed and blessed and took care of.

Then as they got closer to Jesus, there was a group called the 70.

These were the people who followed Jesus everywhere.

They went before him and prepared for his ministry to come, and they were the ones who stayed behind to take care of things after Jesus left.

Then as you get closer, there's the 12.

These are Jesus' disciples.

They were with him everywhere, they saw everything.

Think about how cool this would be.

Uh, the book of John, at the end of John, it says that if all the miracles and stories and teachings of Jesus were written down, there wouldn't be enough room on earth to contain it.

Now, certainly this metaphor is exaggerative in nature, but the point of it is Jesus did so much more than we have access to in Scripture, and they got to see all of it.

Then there was the three.

The three were from Jesus' twelve disciples, but these were Peter, James, and John.

These were his boys.

These were his go-to, these were his closest friends.

But then there's one more circle in, and it is the one.

The one was John.

John, who wrote the book of John, often referred to himself as the one Jesus loved.

He referred to him as Jesus beloved.

That's a fun word that we should bring back sometimes.

One of the things you know as you study languages is they say that you know you really understand a language when the humor, the comedy makes sense to you.

I think the Bible's really funny, and a lot of people miss it because they don't fully really kind of engage or get it.

John, who wrote the book of John, often called himself the one Jesus loves.

In the book of John, chapter 20, I think it's John 20, verse 4, it says this that the disciples had just heard that Jesus had risen again from the dead, the tomb was empty, and it says that Peter, one of Jesus' inner three, and the one Jesus loved, took off running for the tomb, and the one Jesus loved got there first.

John 20 · chapter mention John 20:4

This, my friends, is a double burn.

Number one, it's just Peter and the one Jesus loves.

And then there was a foot race, and guess who won?

Your boy, the one Jesus loves.

Sick double burn.

I love it so much.

I want you to see this, and I want you to do this as I go through these six different layers of circles of relationships with Jesus.

I want you to ask yourself the question, which one am I in?

And my challenge to all of us is I want all of us to take a step closer to Jesus.

Here's the first one, it's what I'd call the crowds or the multitudes.

These were the people who lived in the place of watching and listening from a distance.

And maybe this is you.

Maybe you're here today because someone begged you to come to church, or they said, if you'll come, I'll leave you alone forever.

Maybe you came because someone promised you brunch afterwards, and I get it, get you some extra bacon, like do it.

But every relationship starts with a spark of curiosity.

Say, what does it mean?

Think about any dating relationship you've been in, any friendship you've been in.

Every relationship starts because something about that person intrigued you.

These were the people who followed Jesus, but they just wanted to see what he was going to do.

They were curious about who he was.

Then getting a little closer, there were some who committed themselves to hearing his teaching.

They were called the 5,000.

Remember the story it's found in four of the Gospels?

It's the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000.

These were the people who lived in the place of feeding and healing.

These were the people who asked, What's in it for me?

These were consumers.

These were people who ask, what can I get out of this new relationship with Jesus?

And I'm gonna be honest with you, a lot of Christians, and specifically a lot of American Christians, never get past this.

It's all about me.

It's all about blessing me and meeting my needs and me making me happy.

Can I tell you something?

If that is your relationship with God, will he bless you?

Sure.

But you are missing out on one of the greatest adventures of your life.

Church and God were never asking about what can it, what's in it for me.

It'll come alive for you when you understand you get to ask, what can I bring and what can I give.

So there's the the multitudes, the crowd, and then there's the 5,000, and then there was the the 70.

These were those people who were just with Jesus.

They were kind of the forerunners and they stayed behind to clean up after him.

These people lived in the place of working and serving.

This is a pretty big jump because this moved from consuming to giving, from taking to serving.

These people ask the question, Jesus, what can I do for you?

And maybe you've been a consumer for a really, really long time.

This would be a great step for you to get off the bleachers and the nosebleeds and to get in the game, to start serving and working for Jesus, to start giving to make a difference with everything you have.

This is a great move, but it's not a great place to stop.

You see, even closer to Jesus than the 70 were Jesus' disciples, the 12.

They were with them everywhere, saw all the miracles.

Can you imagine being in a room with Jesus and watching a dead child breathe again?

Can you imagine the tears in a grateful mother's eyes when her baby came back to life?

Can you imagine the joy in a person's life when cancer was healed in a person or when eyesight was restored in a person?

And they saw all of it, and it was awesome.

But they lived in the place of leaving everything to follow Jesus.

This is a great place to be, and all of us need to take this step.

But then, even closer than the twelve was the three, Peter, James, and John.

These were his boys.

These were the people who loved him unconditionally.

And these guys, Peter, James, and John, lived in the place of joys and sufferings.

Can I say this to you?

Just in your regular life, you need people who celebrate your best moments and who can cry with you in your worst moments.

You need people in your life who are there in your mountaintops and in your valleys.

You need people who you can celebrate stuff with without fear of them judging you, and who you can share your darkest moments with without them going and talking behind your back.

And that's who they were for Jesus, and he invites you to that level, but there's one step closer.

There was John.

He was the one Jesus loved.

He was the beloved.

And John lived in the place of sacrificial love.

And here's what I want you to understand about love love is only love when it's sacrificial.

Like I don't care.

Like, let me talk to the young ladies in the room.

If you're dating a boy and he's like, Oh, I love you, love you, love you, and he makes you feel a certain way when he plays his guitar and sings a song that he wrote for you.

Awesome.

Happy for you.

Wonderful.

But until he demonstrates his love, it's only words, it's only talk, it's only error.

It means nothing.

Love is love when it's demonstrated and when it's sacrificial.

So when you understand that, you understand what John was about.

And I want to challenge us to make the move from wherever we are to this.

How do we do it?

Okay, you ready?

Everybody, do me a favor, wiggle your toes for a second, because I'm about to step all upon them.

But but it's not me.

These are Jesus' words towards the end of Matthew, Matthew chapter 16, Jesus said this.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

Jesus said to his disciples, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

This is what it means to follow Jesus.

This is what closeness, intimacy with Jesus looks like.

So here's what I want you to get.

The closer call is three different things.

The first one is this the closer call to Jesus is a call to intimacy.

Intimacy is an inner closeness.

Jesus wants to have an intimate, close relationship with you, where you spill your guts, where you're honest and vulnerable, where you don't hide anything with him.

Jesus said it like this in the verse.

Jesus said, Whoever wants to be my disciple, the one close to me, with me everywhere.

That's a call to intimacy.

Number two, the closer call is a call to surrender.

Let me say this to you.

I think a lot of people think they're Christians because they believe that God exists.

That's not a Christian.

Christianity isn't an intellectual exercise.

Christianity is a posture of your heart saying, I surrender full control of my life to you.

And this is hard.

You ready for this?

Because there's parts of your life you can look at and ask the question, have I fully surrendered it to him?

My time, my giftings, my energy, my money.

Have I given it all to him?

Have I said, God, all of this comes from you, so I give it all back to you gladly.

It's a call to surrender.

Jesus said it like this: whoever wants to be my disciple, you ready?

They must deny themselves and take up their cross.

Are you ready?

Following Jesus is putting selfishness to death.

Because selfishness and love can't coexist.

Number three, the closer call is a call to loyalty.

It means till death do us part.

It means that I'm all in, ride or die, I'm with you.

Jesus said it like this whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.

This is what it means to really follow Jesus.

This is what it means to be closer.

It means that Jesus, I'm all in.

I want to be close, I want to be your friend.

It means that I'm willing to sacrifice for you.

Like whatever it takes, I'm all in, I'm not playing games anymore, and I'm deciding to follow you.

Loyalty, wherever you go, I go.

Whatever you need, I have your back.

Whatever you ask of me, the answer is yes, before you even ask.

So here's the question we're gonna land with.

How far have you actually followed him?

Like how close have you actually gotten?

Earlier we read from John, the book of John, chapter uh 15.

I want to read the next two verses.

Jesus said this.

He says, You are my friends.

Remember, he invites us to be his friends.

If you do what I command, I no longer call you servants because the servant does not know his master's business.

He says, Instead, I have called you friends.

For everything I learned from my father, I have made known to you.

Jesus wants, he longs to be close, he longs to be our friends.

So how do we do this?

How do we become his friends?

You ready?

It's this simple, and here's the step I'm asking everyone to take today.

James, who was the half-brother of Jesus, said this one of my favorite verses in the Bible.

He says, Come near to God, and he will come near to you.

The way I learned this verse was from the King James Version, which says, Draw near to God.

Can I make it easier for you?

Take one step closer.

Make this decision that 2025 is going to be different because I'm stepping closer to Jesus.

And here's what you will find.

Like the prodigal son's father, he'll come running.

If you draw near to God, James promises that he can't help himself, but he's going to come near or draw near to you.

So here's the question: how close can you come to Jesus?

And maybe more importantly, this year, how close do you want to come?

And what would it look like if all of us just made this decision that this year is the year I'm done playing games?

This year is the year I live out the habits that are gonna form me into a follower, a fully devoted follower of Jesus.

This year is the year that I stop keeping my relationship with God at arm's length.

This year I'm coming close.

How close?

Scary close.

How close?

Past your worries, past your fears.

Close.

So here's what we're gonna do.

To end today, I'm gonna ask all of us all across this room, no matter where you're joining us, would you bow your head and close your eyes?

I want you to take a moment and ask yourself, Where am I really in my relationship with Jesus?

How is it actually going?

In a moment, we're gonna pray, and I want to challenge you as I pray for you.

I want to challenge you to say this.

Say, Jesus, I'm stepping closer to you, coming near, drawing close to you.

I believe as we do, he's gonna meet us, he's gonna change us.

This year's gonna be different for you because you've made the decision to come close.

So, Jesus, that's our prayer.

That as we start this year 2025, that we'll start by making the most important decision we can make, which is that we're gonna pursue you with everything we have.

God, I pray that our church will go all in with us this year, that we'll make it a priority to pursue you, that these 21 days of prayer to start the year won't just be something we do, but it'll be indicative of who we are becoming.

We want to become close, near, close to you.

God, forgive those of us who have played games.

Forgive those of us who have kept you at arm's length and said, I only want the blessings and the benefits without the cost of following you.

And may this year be the year that we change who we are by getting closer to you.

God, I'll pray this as the pastor of our church: if just a few people will get a hold of this, we can turn a whole city upside down.

But may it be all of us.

May we grow closer to you, and may we do it on purpose.

Thank you for it, God.

With your head still bowed and eyes still closed, maybe you're here and you don't even know if you've started a relationship with Jesus.

Like on that list of the six circles of influence, you are the farthest away.

But today you want to take the first step, which is the biggest step, which is to let Jesus forgive you of your sins and to make the decision to surrender control of your life to Him.

If this is you, no matter where you're joining us, if you want to start a relationship with Jesus, or maybe restart a relationship with Jesus, would you raise your hand right now?

Because this moment's for you and God, thank you, thank you.

Wow, thank you.

Thank you.

If this is you, would you pray this with me?

And praying a prayer changes everything when you mean it with your heart.

Say, Jesus, today I give you my life for the rest of my life.

I invite you to be my Lord and my Savior.

You being my Lord means you're in charge and I surrender control of my life to you.

But Jesus, you're also my savior.

I believe you're the Son of God who came into this world and died on a cross for me.

And because of your great sacrifice, now I believe my life can be changed.

My sins can be forgiven and my heart can be made new.

So, Jesus, today I decide to give you my life for the rest of my life.

I'm taking a huge step forward, and I'm deciding that you're my Lord and my Savior.

From this day on, I'll follow you.

Jesus, I love you.

From this day on, I'll follow you.

And it's in your name we pray.

Amen.

Church fam, come on, let's celebrate.

Lots of people who made that decision.