My message this morning is titled “Deep End of Your Heart,” which also happens to be a song by Joel Houston. And I want to start with a traumatic experience from my childhood.

When I was about seven or eight years old, I was at my uncle Blake’s condo, which had a pool. That was the only pool I had access to growing up, so I did not learn to swim until I was about eight. I was terrified of water back then. It was one of my biggest fears as a kid. I would wake up from nightmares, and the whole nightmare was me standing close to a pool with the numbers painted on the edge. You know how public pools show you how deep the water is. If I saw a four or a five, I was in trouble. There was a part of that pool marked eight, and I could not even go near it. I had dreams about pools marked one hundred, and I’d wake up terrified that I’d been that close.

But I was also always trying to venture out a little further. That day I was seeing how far I could go, and I discovered that between the shallow end and the deep end there was a ledge you could slide right off of. And off I went. I could barely push my head above the water. I thought, this is it. I’m drowning. This is how I go. Looking back, all I had to do was float or paddle. But I didn’t know that. I could hear people laughing nearby, and I thought they were watching me drown. They didn’t see me. And then I felt someone grab my arm and rip me up out of the water. It was my mom.

That deep end was a big, big fear of mine for a long, long time. So let’s talk this morning about the deep end of Father God’s heart.

Draw Near

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded” (James 4:7-8 NIV).

We read that and we hear it, but do we truly understand it? Do we study it and work out what it actually means to come near to God? What are the steps? It is easy to read something. It is much harder to take the next steps of interpreting it and putting it into action.

When we take our plumbing test, it is over the code book. There are versions of the code book with commentary, which is great, because you will read things in the code and think, “I have no idea what that means.” The commentary breaks it down, gives you examples, sometimes even a picture. It helps you ask the real question: How do I apply this? Where do I go from here?

I took a programming class once where the professor asked us to give him the steps to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Someone says, “Get the bread.” Where do I get bread? “From the store.” How do I get to the store? And when he picks up the knife, he grabs it by the wrong end on purpose. The point was that a computer has to be told every little detail. Something that seems so simple becomes very complicated for someone with no idea how to start.

How meticulous are we with God’s Word when we study it? It’s easy to read “draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” How do we actually do it?

Leaving the Shallows

“Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so.

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.

Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are convinced of better things in your case, the things that have to do with salvation. God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, ‘I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.’ And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised. People swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:1-20 NIV).

Melchizedek alone is a character we could spend a whole other Sunday studying. Many believe Paul wrote Hebrews because of the writing style and the depth of knowledge, but whoever wrote it, the letter is directed to the Jewish people, God’s chosen people, essentially saying: things have changed, and you are going to miss something if you are not careful. A Jewish reader brought up in the tradition would know exactly who Melchizedek was: the priest who blessed Abraham, one of the first priests in all of Scripture. And Jewish law kept king and priest separate. Priests came from the tribe of Levi. Kings came from the tribe of Judah. The two could never be the same person. Hebrews is saying that someone has finally come who is both. What was once separated has been made one. That should arrest your soul.

So what does this chapter mean? It starts by urging us to leave behind the basic building blocks, to leave the shallows. It’s time to learn how to swim. It’s time to move off of milk and onto something with substance. It’s time to grow into spiritual maturity. It would be strange for any of us to stay in our infancy our entire lives, still with a bottle in our mouth. Part of maturing is no longer relying on the faith of others and making that faith our own. That was my journey. I was raised in the church, I saw revival, church on Sunday was normal, and I didn’t know anything else. And then came the moment where this had to become my own personal walk with God Almighty.

This chapter calls us to do more than the basics: to come sit in church, sing some songs, get into His Word, and then go home and enjoy the rest of the week. It is calling us to learn to walk and talk with Him, and to start doing the things He did when He was here among us. How many of you are laying hands on people? Hopefully you are.

God Is Not Done

I interact with a lot of customers through the week, and it’s a unique thing to pop into someone’s life for a moment, leave, and come back later to see what has changed.

Years ago I went to help a customer with a coworker of mine. He seemed inebriated when we arrived. The second we got there he was showering us with love and praise. “Look at you young guys! I’m saved, this is so awesome!” We told him we were happy to help, just young guys trying to learn a trade. And then, out of left field, he started into ugly, hateful talk about people of another race and how everything had gone downhill. Just like that, the shower of love became a shower of hatred toward everything in life he was unhappy about.

This week I saw that same name and address come up again. My coworker from that first visit did not want to go back. I said, “Well, I’m going. If you want to come help, that would be great.” He said, “If you’re going, I’ll go.”

The man was as nice as could be, and clearly sober-minded. We visited and talked, and it was good the whole time. Then he told us, “God delivered me from drinking.” Within five minutes my coworker leaned over and said, “He’s different.” Before we even heard the story, we could tell. He told us he had begged God to help him stop drinking. He’d been diagnosed with stage four liver disease, with no transplant option. He stopped drinking and he hoped. And then the doctor told him, “I don’t know how, but your liver is perfectly fine.”

Christ the Lord does amazing things like that. We can easily write people off. This man is in the later stages of his life, and the Lord is still not done with him. He was not so far down the road of destruction that he couldn’t come back.

Grow Roots

Hebrews also warns us about the danger of stagnation, of being stuck on the milk of basic doctrine, which leaves believers vulnerable and drifting rather than building a resilient, lifelong faith. If you want to be a tree that survives the storms, you’ve got to put down deep roots.

Verses four through six describe people who have shared a moment with Father God. That arrests me, because I’ve seen it happen at camp. People come, they get into that spiritual presence of God Almighty, and they aren’t sure what to do with it. They saw something real, and then they drifted away. And Hebrews says that turning back from that is like crucifying the Son of God all over again and putting Him to public disgrace.

How true is that? How many of us know a fellow Christian we’ve almost had to say to, “You’re tarnishing who He is by the way you’re acting. You know better. If you truly understood the freedom of Christ, you wouldn’t be doing this.” People watch that and think, “So this is the product you’re trying to sell me?”

That’s why it is so important to dig deep, to grow roots, to find the deep end of His heart, and to leave the shallows and start drifting out into the deeper water, learning how to swim and how to survive there.

There are arguments about whether this passage describes a loss of salvation, or whether someone can be saved again, or “once saved, always saved.” I’m not getting into that today.

An Anchor Behind the Veil

What we are reading about is the hope he describes, an anchor for the soul, firm and secure, held by Jesus, who entered behind the veil as an eternal High Priest. That should be an amen.

We are ushered into a place we don’t deserve and could never earn the right to enter, the Holy of Holies. We needed someone to go behind the veil for us. That is why the veil was torn in two. Tearing the veil did not remove the deep end of God or the innermost holy place. What it removed was the barrier, the curtain reportedly six inches thick, that kept us out. We now have our way in through our High Priest, Jesus Christ.

Surrender Without Strings

So how do we get into the deep end of His heart? How do we draw near to God so that He draws near to us?

I keep coming back to my friend Oswald Chambers. In Mark 10:28-29, Peter says to Jesus, “See, we have left everything and followed You.” And Jesus answers that this leaving was “for My sake and for the gospel’s.” As Chambers points out, it was not for the purpose of what the disciples themselves would get out of it.

That is a key to understanding Father God. Beware of surrender that is motivated by the personal benefits that may result. “I’m going to give myself to God because I want to be delivered from sin, because I want to be made holy.” Those sound like good reasons. But deliverance from sin and holiness are the results of being right with God, not the reason for surrendering to Him. Our motive for surrender should not be personal gain at all.

How often do we approach His throne with something already in mind that we want to get?

Being a husband, and now a father, has given me windows into the relationship between Jesus and Father God. I have two boys and I love them to death. They are the greatest thing I could ever have hoped to achieve. And I can be so hard on them.

One night my son Gideon came out of his room, which is a big no-no, and I immediately jumped on him. “What are you doing?” And all he wanted was a hug. I felt so small. He was absolutely genuine. He wasn’t stalling or trying to buy time. Lying in his bed, he had just been moved by love for me, and he wanted to express it. I melted. I thought about that moment for the next six months, because right there it came to me: How often do we approach our Father God like that? Out of absolute, desperate love for Him, no strings attached. Not “I need healing,” not “I’m scared.” Gideon wasn’t scared. He wasn’t after anything. He just wanted to come to me with his love. He isn’t even five years old, and he already understood something of the deep end.

That’s where I want to be. Not surrendering because I’m scared of death. Not because I’m worried about life, or because finances are rough, or because I want to do great things and be a great person. Surrendering because You are Father God Almighty.

The deep end of His heart should be intimidating, just like the deep end of a pool, because we are fragile human beings and we realize how frightening total surrender is. Frank Herbert, who wrote the Dune books, built his stories around one idea: as long as you are dependent on something, you will be controlled by it. Surrender means letting go of everything we depend on except Him.

Total Separation

Consider what Jesus said to the one who would not turn to Him. Absolutely nothing. No reproof. No correction. No reply at all. He had nothing to say.

We describe hell as a fiery furnace, and you see that picture all through common literature and media. But hell is complete and total separation from Father God Almighty. No connection. And you’d better believe a taste of that can be found here on earth. I know people living their lives completely separated from Him. No correction. No tug on the heart. No tap on the shoulder. No voice. No words. No hope, none of that hope that anchors the soul.

That truly is a hopeless world. How frightening is that?

Deeper Grace

But it is amazing what we find when we go into the deep end of His heart. We find His grace, and we keep finding it.

The closer you get to God, the more you realize how unworthy you are to be close to Him. That’s the irony. The further out into His water you go, the more you realize, “I’m not even supposed to be here. Who am I to be near You? When I see who You are, it humbles me.” I know people who can’t come near Him for that very reason, because it reminds them how far short they fall.

We are perfectly imperfect. And the longer you stay in the deep end of His heart, the more ways you see how He loves us, and how His grace keeps finding us and carrying us through each day. Because we will keep running. We will keep chasing things we’re not supposed to. So we have to keep surrendering our will to Him.

We’ve watched the disciples slowly surrender their lives to Him. Last week we talked about how Peter’s life ended, crucified upside down. But consider what tradition says happened just before that. Peter was being hunted in Rome and had to get out of the city. He made it out, and as the old story goes, he met Jesus on the road. And Peter turned around, went back, and gave himself up.

That’s surrender. He let go of his own will and his desire to escape something terrifying, and he went back to do what he had told the Lord Jesus he would do. Feed My sheep. He’d said it three times.

Come Out of Your Room

I hope each of you will slowly move from the shallows into the deeper water. Some of you have been in the shallows a long time. You’ve been watching and looking. One of these days you’re going to have to decide: Is this real or not? Am I going to do this or not?

I know a lot of young men who grew up around all of this, and as their own will grows stronger, they find surrender harder than they expected. They start looking for reasons to turn away from the deep water. I encourage you to keep your eyes on the deep end. Wade out slowly if you have to. You might hit a ledge and slide in.

The only way I know to draw closer to God is through surrender. Let go. And that is really hard to do: to approach His throne with nothing in mind that you want to gain.

How many of you have a routine of prayer? Make it more than routine. Don’t come to Him because “this is my routine, I have to do this.” Make it your want. Make it your desire. “I’m approaching Your throne because I miss You. I want to talk to You. I want to be close to You. I want to hear from You.”

Don’t misunderstand me. All the other reasons to draw near to Him are not bad reasons. If you’re scared, He wants you to come to Him scared. If you are weary, He has a blessing for you. If you are weak, He has a blessing for you. As a father, I want my sons to bring me their problems, their pains, their boo-boos, their hurts, and their desires. But I also want them to just come out of their room for a hug.

So after you’ve asked Him for things, after you’ve thanked Him for things, I hope you find yourself praying simply: “I love You. I miss You. I want to be near You. I want to understand You and learn more about You. I just want to be close to You.”

I slid off a ledge into the deep end once, and I thought it was the end of me. I couldn’t swim and I couldn’t save myself. But someone saw me, grabbed my arm, and pulled me up. The deep end of Father God’s heart is frightening too, because it asks for everything. But no one goes under there alone. The anchor holds behind the veil, our High Priest has already gone in ahead of us, and the hand that reaches for us has never missed. So come out of your room. Leave the shallows. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.