Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey, friends, I'm in beautiful Jackson, Wyoming, where I just flew in for an event. Man, you gotta check out this view from the airplane window, Right?
[00:00:16] Listen, the heights have always made people think of God.
[00:00:19] The mountains, the highest places. I went to preach one time. I was really honored to preach in Ireland, and I visited Croakpatrick. It's a pilgrimage spot that St. Patrick made really famous. But before him, it was famous among the pagans, you see, because it was a high mountain peak that stretched above the ocean, and the mountain kind of disappeared into this mist and they thought, that's the high place. Well, that's where our gods live. So the pagans were terrified of this mountaintop and they would never dare to go there, obviously, because their gods were all mean and angry, just as were all the gods before. Well, before Jesus reveals that God is love.
[00:00:54] Anyway, St. Patrick, in an incredible manly Irishman move, starts his ministry by going up to this forbidden, terrifying spot and camping out there and fasting and praying and claiming Ireland for Jesus Christ before coming down from the mountain.
[00:01:11] Guys, it's always the heights. If you go to Greece, you know what the highest peak is in Greece? Mount Olympus. That's right, the highest peak. That's where their gods were. That's where they lived. And why?
[00:01:23] Well, because, guys, why would a God, why would a deity want to come down into our messiness in our junk? It makes perfect sense. In fact, the Greek word for happiness, the happiness of the gods specifically, was makarios. And it really meant an untouchable, otherworldly. They're so blessed that all the pain and suffering of his life can't touch those guys.
[00:01:49] Jesus turned that word on its head, by the way.
[00:01:52] That's the word he used to describe the meek, the poor in spirit. Makarios.
[00:01:58] That's the word used in the Bible.
[00:02:00] Whoa. How cool is that, guys? Jesus turns everything on its head.
[00:02:05] Here's the first time where we kneel before a God who isn't found just in the high places, but a God who comes to the low places, the place where Jesus was baptized. And I'll circle back to the low places and how this ties in in just a minute. The place where Jesus was baptized is a mind blowing, amazing, beautiful place on the Jordan River. We know where it happened, where John the Baptist was baptizing and Jesus came up to him and John said, there is the Lamb of God.
[00:02:33] By the way, I'm leading a pilgrimage to the Holy Land this June. Come with me. We'll go to this very spot. But, dude, Location, location, location. God put so much thought into the location that each of these biblical stories cold here by way that each of these biblical stories would happen in.
[00:02:48] And this is the spot we're right near there where Elijah was assumed up into heaven. Now John the Baptist is called like the new Elijah. How cool is that? So here he is standing in the place that the guy who prefigured him went up into heaven. It's also the spot on the Jordan river where God's people crossed from the wilderness into the promised land.
[00:03:11] Which is a pre figurement of what baptism is all about. Think about that. In baptism we're not just escaping from a pharaoh and coming into, you know, a land flowing with milk and honey. We're escaping from the dominance, the pharaoh, that is death and coming into the promised land of heaven with the people of God.
[00:03:32] So all these things were prefigured and then fulfilled with John the Baptist, with Jesus being baptized and showing us we have to go into the waters of baptism to enter into the new promised land. But guys, here's the beautiful significance of this.
[00:03:47] The place where all this stuff happened with so much biblical significance, the geographical significance of this spot. It is the lowest spot on earth right before the Jordan river spills out into the Dead Sea.
[00:04:05] Literally the lowest place on the planet.
[00:04:09] Because we think we're only going to find God in the high places. And you know what? He's also there. It's not hard to see why people would think that he's there. Because it's glorious, it's beautiful, makes us think of his majesty and frankly it points to heaven really effectively.
[00:04:24] We know that he's in the high places and the joys and the successes and the times you kick butt in the wedding day, all those places, man, he is there.
[00:04:34] But dude, mystically and perhaps even more so, he's there in the lowest places.
[00:04:42] The time that you're waiting for that call that might be a bad medical report when you're between jobs and you don't know what's going to happen next.
[00:04:52] See, those are the times that we want to run away and get back to the high point.
[00:04:56] And we think maybe we're abandoned by God.
[00:05:00] Listen, maybe you're one of those times right now watching me.
[00:05:04] God is right there with you.
[00:05:08] We don't have a God who stayed hidden behind clouds. We have a God who entered our darkness so profoundly that when you find yourself in those moments on the crosses of your own life where you want to say God, where are you? You know where he is. He's right in the cross next to you saying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So that you wouldn't have to say it alone.
[00:05:27] He's right there.
[00:05:29] So, yeah, work to get back to the mountaintops. It's part of human nature that will do so.
[00:05:34] But don't forget that in the midst of that tough time you might be having, which I wouldn't wish upon anybody, I look back at a lot of my tough times. Like, dude, I wouldn't want that. Wouldn't want to go back.
[00:05:46] But they're also some of the greatest times of growth in my entire life.
[00:05:50] And if I have any regrets, it's not doing some of those times better.
[00:05:55] Whether there were times with a health scare or maybe just times where I'm just so stinking stressed out because there's so much going on in life, you don't get to go back and redo.
[00:06:07] So if you're in it right now, do it right. Lean into the grace that's available. Say, come, Holy Spirit, show me what you have for me in this moment. A friend texted me the other day, and he's having a hard, hard time in life right now. I've been friends with him for years. Good dude. And he almost died of cancer a few years ago.
[00:06:25] But he's having a hard time in his marriage right now.
[00:06:28] And what he said just blew my mind. He said, pray for me, Chris.
[00:06:31] He said, there's joy in death. I know it.
[00:06:35] I've seen it. I felt it. Dying of cancer.
[00:06:38] Thank God he didn't. There was so much joy. One day I'll share about this, but see, right now, my marriage is just another thing that looks like dying.
[00:06:47] And there's joy.
[00:06:48] Joy.
[00:06:50] There's joy because my faith stays like a rock, as it did with my cancer. St. Michael's here. My godly mother's holding my hand. And like I did with cancer, I'm doing it now in my marriage. I'm walking barefoot on glass, the path I need to walk. And it's painful, but there's a light, and I could see it.
[00:07:11] Guys. It's in those moments that grace means the most.
[00:07:15] Because joy in a moment like that, it just makes no sense unless the grace is real.
[00:07:21] Lean in, friend, and you will find it is real every time.
[00:07:24] Every time. Dude, don't grab the bottle. Grab that rosary.
[00:07:30] And when you're at the end of your rope and you feel like, dang, I got nothing left, this is such a hard time. It's so dark. I'm down low, dude. When you're in that spot, that's the only time that unconditional love actually means anything. Because it's easy to love you when you got it all together. But let me tell you what the Father says over you when you're in the lowest spot on earth.
[00:07:52] And it's the words that when the heavens were opened when Jesus was baptized, the people who heard the voice of the Father speaking about the Son, he says those words over you when you're in the lowest spot.
[00:08:06] After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were open for him. And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him. And a voice came from heaven saying, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.
[00:08:28] Close your eyes for just a second.
[00:08:31] I want you to imagine you're there, maybe on a high point in your life, or maybe in the lowest spot.
[00:08:41] And picture the sky opening above you and the Father looking down and saying those very words.
[00:08:49] This is my beloved Son.
[00:08:51] This is my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased.
[00:08:57] Right where you are.
[00:08:59] Right in the lowest spot on earth.
[00:09:01] There he is.
[00:09:03] Jesus, give us the grace to see it.
[00:09:07] Love you guys. Thanks for listening.
