1. What Will They Find?
The story that I begin with today is a true story. A woman named, Helen, lived in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. They found her body one night at the door of Emmanuel Pentecostal Church. Helen had been trying to get into the church. But she never got further than the door.
John Harris was the caretaker and security guard who lived in an apartment in the church. He heard what he thought was a scratching or clawing at the door of the church that night. He quickly got dressed and made his way carefully to the front door where he heard the noise.
First he looked out the little window in the front door and he didn't see anyone there. Then he quietly began unlocking the door. Thinking it was perhaps a stray animal you can imagine his surprise when he opened the door and found the body of a woman lying there. In fact, she fell into the church as the door.
At once he recognized the blood that seemed to be everywhere from obvious stab wounds on the woman's body. She was still breathing but just barely. John immediately made his way to the telephone and alerted the police and emergency personnel. Then he called the pastor and told him what was going on.
The police arrived on the scene quickly and began to assess the situation. The emergency personnel showed up and tried to help the woman but she had already lost too much blood and she died.
This was an easy crime for the police to solve however, because all they had to do was follow the trail of blood that led to where the crime had taken place. It led them to her second floor apartment just around the corner and about three blocks away from the church, where she lived with her boyfriend. He was still there with knife in hand sitting on the floor of the apartment in a pool of blood. The police immediately arrested him.
But there were still some questions that were unanswered. The police wondered as they followed the trail of blood back to the church why Helen had come here to this church. Why didn't she pound on her neighbor's door for help? Why not to the little convenience store on the corner of the street that was open 24 hours a day. Why did she pass the phone in front of the store? If she had gotten help sooner there was a real good chance that she could have been saved before the loss of blood became too great.
The trail of blood went from her apartment down the stairs onto the sidewalk. It didn't stop at any house along the way. It kept going for three blocks and they could tell that Helen, at times, had drug herself along the sidewalk. There were places where there was more blood than others as she stopped along the way to, no doubt, regain strength. If she had just turned into one of the houses, but she didn't and Helen kept crawling along to the church. She dragged herself around the corner of the third block and headed to the church. At the bottom of the steps to the church she must have laid there for a long time until she finally gained enough strength to climb the stairs. Up the stairs she went to the front door, where she had tried to open it up and that was where John, the caretaker, found her.
When the Pastor arrived he was able to identify the body as that of a young woman that he and his wife had taught a Bible Study to about a year ago. "So she is a member of your church," the policeman said. "No, she doesn't attend any church to my knowledge," replied the Pastor. She had shown so much interest when they talked to her about the Lord. But she had never made it out to church. All she knew about the church was through that one Bible Study. So it was a mystery to the police why she did what she did.
‡” Why did she struggle for three blocks and around the corner to the church?
‡” Why was she trying to get into the church?
‡” What did she expect to find there?
‡” What did she expect to see?
‡” What could getting into the church do to help her in the condition that she was in?
Those were the questions that were in the minds of the police officers that night.
With that story fresh in our minds, my question to you and the subject of my message is this: When people open the door of our Church on any given Sunday, "What will they find?" The very first thing that I hope people see when they open the door of this church is Jesus Christ.
2. John 12.20-36
3. Seeing Jesus involves perception with eyes; inspection; examination; discernment; discovery
4. Jesus is unafraid of our inspections -- Luke 24.39; John 5.39/Luke 24.26-27
I. People WANT to See Jesus:
A. In His Mystique
1. Mystery and Revelation
2. Who is the Jesus who changed the world? Even our calendar reflects Him
3. Who is this healer? Who is this Teacher?
B. In His Authenticity -- John 15.1 (True vine)
C. In His Glory -- Lifted up
1. On Cross
2. To Heaven
3. In hearts of men
D. In His Victory -- Resurrection
1. Tradition that Messiah will come to the Mount of Olives and begin resurrecting the dead -- some of the most expensive property in the world is the cemetery on the Mount of Olives -- was this why Jesus raised Lazarus in Bethany (on the Mount of Olives)?
2. At his death graves were opened; the resurrected presented themselves in Jerusalem on the day of the feast of firstfruits
3. His resurrection proves that ours will come
E. In His Disciples
A history professor at a state university was a Christian. He would go down to a local nursing home and visit with the elderly men and women there on a weekly basis. Though some were lovingly visited every day by their families -- having been sent there because they needed care that couldn't be provided in a home environment -- for many it was a place where they had been dumped so that their children wouldn't have to bother with them. They were sad, and they were lonely.
One day, after this professor had made his weekly home visit to those elderly people, a student stopped him and told him how wonderful it was that he had the love and gift for "that sort of thing."
The professor was taken aback at the compliment. "A love for it? A gift for it? Do you think I enjoy smelling urine, stepping over bedpans, or talking with someone who drifts off into senile daydreams in the middle of a sentence? Enjoy it? You've got to be kidding!"
Now was the student's turn to be stunned. "Then why do you go out there every week?"
"Because," the professor answered, "that is where Christ would be, and that is what Christ would do. And I am a follower of Christ."
1. We are to imitate the Master (1 Corinthians 11.1)
2. With sacrificial lives -- John 12.24-26
3. As imperfect and dissatisfied (with imperfections) people
4. Realizing we are known by our fruit -- Matthew 7.15-20; Jude 12-13
5. We have made church too convenient and too easy in many ways -- has become a social exercise; a matter of fire insurance instead of a walk with God
II. People NEED to See Jesus
A young preacher went to a new church as pastor. He thought the people wanted to hear intellectual preaching, so he filed his sermons with these things. His church's attendance began to fall off. The young people left the church. Then one day, when he came to his pulpit, he found a card with the words, "We would see Jesus," written on it. He was angry at first but soon began to realize he had been giving his people the wrong messages. He promised the Lord that from that time on, he would preach "Christ and Him crucified." As he did this, his congregation began to grow, and the young people returned to the church. Christ crucified -- 1 Corinthians 2.2
A. We Need to See Jesus in His Context
1. A Jewish Rabbi
2. Celebrating the Feast of Passover
3. Giving an Allusion to Wheat and Pentecost
B. We Need to See Jesus in Our Condition
1. In the Midst of Our Sins --
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin. Psalm 51.1-2
2. In Our Sorrows -- Man of sorrows -- Isaiah 53.3
3. In Our Brokenness
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34.18
4. In Our Departure from this World -- 2 Timothy 4.6
III. People WILL See Jesus
Christ, Unexpected Return of
C.R. Smith was one of the founders of American Airlines, and he once made a stopover in Nashville, Tennessee. When he did, he found two desks in the American Airlines corridor of the airport. On one, a phone was ringing away. Sitting at the other, with his feet propped up, was a man reading the newspaper.
Smith walked up to him and said, "Your phone is ringing."
That's reservations. I'm maintenance," the man replied.
Furious, Smith walked over to the desk, picked up the phone, and began talking to a man who urgently needed to get to California. Smith rattled off the schedule from memory to the man and hung up. The man from maintenance couldn't believe it!
"Say, that was pretty good!" he said. "Do you work for American?"
"Yes, I do," Smith answered. "And you used to."
It's important to learn what to take seriously --and who. Nothing should be taken more seriously than God, and giving God His proper respect starts with His name, because His name represents who He is. There is a time coming when we all will be in the presence of our Lord to give account for our lives. (2 Peter 3.10)
A. Reality of the Second Coming
Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. Revelation 1.7
B. Revealing of King and Judge -- "Immanuel" -- God with us can be good or bad. . . .
1. We have devices to help us see better; to investigate more intently -- Glasses; Telescopes; Microscopes
2. [Football -- Replay for the review of a referee's call
3. We would see Jesus
