The Power of Proximity

So I brought something with me this morning. I brought my ping-pong ball again this week. If you were here last week you know that I used one of these or a lot of these to teach our our children in the children's moment about the power of proximity.

If you missed that or any of the sermons that Ryan's preached so far in this practicing presence sermon series I I would encourage you to to check those out online and kind of review that because we're going to be talking about this throughout 2026 as a church together. And look at that I made my basket all right. Now throughout the series we've been also using this book, The Practice of the Presence of God by a guy named Brother Lawrence, a 17th century monk.

We've talked about this guy for a couple of weeks now but who was (2:51) this Brother Lawrence? Well he was a young man who was originally born by the name of Nicholas Herman in a place called Lorraine which was at the time a part of France. He was a simple unlearned kind of peasant guy who once described himself as a great awkward fellow who broke everything. You know my dad used to during my awkward teenage years my dad used to say that I was an accident looking for a place to happen.

Maybe that's Brother Lawrence as well I don't know. Well he was a little bit older a middle-aged man by the time he entered the monastery and initially for him it was all about following the rules. The rules for that monastery included things like abstaining from meat and absolute poverty, extensive solitary meditation, and long sessions of prayer.

(3:42) Lawrence dedicated himself to this way of life, this practice, and he was determined that if he did so and worked really hard at it he would get closer and closer to God. He discovered though that as he as he went on and he tried and he tried harder and harder, dedicated himself to all of these practices, that he ended up feeling no closer to God no matter how hard he tried. And that's when a change kind of happened in him.

(4:12) He began to understand that the only way to really experience simple faith in God was to believe in God and trust in his forgiveness through Jesus Christ. That effort no matter how hard he was trying, no matter what he was doing, that none of that was working and so he became increasingly dependent upon God's grace alone. There's a quote that's on the wall of my office that's right in my sight line when I'm sitting at my computer working on a sermon or a Bible study or anything else and a quote on that wall says this, it says, "Beggars of God seek his hand, lovers of God seek his face." Now for me that quote means the same thing as Brother Lawrence learned after trying hard to seek God's favor, to seek God's hand.

There is just simply a power that comes from loving God and seeking to be in God's presence. Simply being in the presence of God is powerful. There is power in proximity.

Now one of my favorite moments in the Gospel of Mark is the reading that we just heard from Pastor Rebecca a few moments ago. It's the time when Jesus selects his disciples and if we read a little bit farther we would have got the names of those disciples but it simply says that Jesus went up on a mountaintop and he called those he wanted and they came to him and from that story as those twelve were in place it says that he would send them out to preach and he would give them authority to drive out demons. Now we're drawn to the end of that kind of statement there because when the Apostles ministry comes into focus Jesus appoints his followers, sends them out to preach, gives them authority to drive out demons.

How exciting is that? I mean what kind of authority is that? (6:03) What power must that have been like? And maybe that's what you feel like whenever you think about Jesus calling people to serve him and do the things that he would want you to do and that scares you just a little bit. You look at all the amazing things that these guys ended up doing with their lives and you figure that God could never use someone like me because I could never do anything like that. But don't miss the brief mention of the purpose that precedes the power.

Jesus appointed twelve Apostles it says to be (6:45) with him. That's what it says first. Do you see the focus on the proximity to Jesus? Jesus summoned those he wanted and appointed them first and foremost to be with him.

Don't miss the beauty of that order. As a follower of Jesus no matter what you are worried about what God might ask you to do with your life remember that he has called you first and foremost to be with him. Yes he sends disciples out to preach and yes he gives them authority to cast out demons and yes that's awesome.

But before power comes proximity. Before the power comes (7:26) the person. This is vital to our understanding of ourselves as disciples of Jesus.

In the third letter of this book, Practicing the Presence of God, (7:37) Brother Lawrence encourages a reader to think of God as much as they can. And he goes on to say that you should accustom yourself by degrees to small but holy exercises. See the challenge of discipleship is not merely to try harder to be present with God but to practice presence in small yet holy ways.

(8:07) For Brother Lawrence that included things like washing dishes and cooking and other small ways that he learned around the monastery to focus on love and not the rules. For us this might look like making worship a priority, singing praise, reading our Bibles, being in a small group, having a conversation with someone else, and many other small yet holy ways things that maybe you can do with a coffee mug in your hand. Now worship is really the exercise of putting ourselves in the presence of God.

Worship is fundamentally the (8:48) privilege of being in God's presence and so we must begin by prioritizing it. And other intentional activities that may seem like small things, no big deal, but they can be holy and they deepen our relationship with God and with others as we are molded more and more into the image of God. We don't do these things to get something from God or to impress God or to seek his hand to prove how spiritual we are or to get ourselves all amped up spiritually but so that we can be with God and being present with God we might then be changed.

Making the most of God's presence should always be our priority. (9:41) Remember Jesus invites us first to be with him, to be in his presence. Now sometimes, I don't know about you, but sometimes I can get so busy with doing all the right things, the right kind of spiritual activities.

I can make sure I (9:58) I've been to church and I've read my Bible and I've witnessed and I've served the way I'm supposed to serve and I've done all these things that doing them leaves me in a place where I forget to just be simply be in the presence of God. Proximity to Jesus is the key. Your relationship with him is most important.

(10:22) There is simply power in that proximity. There was once a missionary by the name of Herbert Jackson who was assigned at his mission post a car and he found out when he got there that the car would never start unless it was pushed and then he would pop the clutch and it would fire up. Some of you are old enough to remember how that used to work.

He got an idea and he went to a (10:46) school near his home and he got permission to ask some of the students to get out of class early in the morning and they would push his car to get it started in the morning and then as he went about his rounds he would either park with a car going downhill or he would leave the engine running and he went about this for a couple of years as he was in this mission post. Well, sooner or later his health got a little bit bad and he had to go home and so they sent another missionary to replace him and when Jackson proudly started to explain his process for getting the car started, before the explanation was complete, the new missionary popped the hood and looked under the hood and said, "Well, Dr. Jackson, it seems like the only problem here is that there is a loose connection. This battery cable is not close enough to the post and he wiggled that battery cable, jumped in the car, turned the key and it fired right up.

For (11:36) two years needless trouble had become routine for Jackson. When the power was (there all the time, only a loose connection kept Jackson from putting it to work. Maybe you're tired of push starting some things in your life and you don't know what you need to do about it.

Maybe we can just check our (11:58) connection and make sure that there is that power in the proximity of us being closer and closer to God. I've been teaching this class on holiness on Wednesday mornings and one of the things that has become abundantly clear as I prepare for this class is that holiness is not about an absence of sin, but about the presence of God. We need more of God's character, God's grace, God's joy, God's purpose in our lives.

When we are in God's presence we begin to take on his character. The more time I spend with God, the more I can become all that God has created me to be. The way of discipleship is to be present with God and with others and learn to do life together.

When I practice the presence of (12:52) God, I can better be by myself and be comfortable with who I am. I can better be with someone else, with the person maybe sitting next to me in the pew this morning. I can be better the person I need to be when I run into somebody going about my business through the week ahead.

When I recognize the (13:10) grace of God in my life and what that grace means for me, how can I do anything else but extend that grace to someone else? When I consider all that God has forgiven me for in my life, how can I do anything but extend that grace to someone else? Our greatest opportunity to be present with God is the chance for us to recognize the change in our lives and then be able to extend that grace to someone else, because there is power in proximity. And proximity is all about relationships. It's about meeting our needs by being close to God and close to others.

And so as we gather today in the presence of God, may we indeed find power (13:56) in proximity. May we recognize that power in our lives and learn to share it with others as we continue to practice being present with them. Thanks be to God.