It's Personal-Too Many Questions Series

Title: It’s Personal-Too Many Questions

Place: BLCC

Date: 9/17/17

Text: John 1.43-49

CT: We are to know Him.

[Screen 1]

FAS: While staying alone in her convent, an 85-year-old Catholic nun got trapped inside a broken elevator for four nights and three days. She tried pushing the inside elevator door, but the electricity went off. She had her cell phone with her, but there wasn't a signal. Fortunately, she had carried a jar of water, some celery sticks, and a few cough drops into the elevator.

At first she said to herself, This can't happen! But then she decided to turn her elevator into a personal prayer retreat. "It was either panic or pray," she later told an interviewer for CNN. She started viewing the experience as a "gift." "I believe that God's presence was my strength and my joy—really," she said. "I felt God's presence almost immediately. I felt like he provided the opportunity for a closer relationship."

LS: Would we take being trapped in an elevator as a gift from God. Maybe that is what we all need if it gets us closer to God?

Starting a 4-week series today. In this series I am going to try and show what an adult who decides to follow Christ goes through to get there. I am talking about someone who truly follows Jesus, who makes Him first in their life and gives it all to him. My goal for this series is to bring anyone who is hanging on the edge on over to following Jesus. This may sound a bit arrogant on my part. You are not going to come to Jesus unless you are ready. I understand that. But maybe you are more ready than you think.

You probably have some good reasons why you are not following Jesus. I am not going to tell you that you are crazy and these reasons you have don’t need to be dealt with. There are many reasons people give for not following Jesus.

Here are a few reasons you may give me if we got together to discuss your salvation.

Too much suffering…How could I follow someone who allows such bad things to happen all over the world.

Know too many Christians…Don’t know if I want to be like them.

Raised in a different religious upbringing.

What about all the other religions? Aren’t they good and can get us to heaven? I don’t know if I could follow this Jesus as the only way to God stuff.

My family doesn’t buy into this Jesus stuff. Am I going to tell them they are all wrong? Am I going to tell uncle Bob and aunt Sue they are wrong.

Maybe you just don’t care. You have no desire to follow Christ. Just don’t feel the need.

So maybe I am being a bit naïve thinking I could change your mind on all these issues and get you to become a Christian and follow Christ.

But don’t get me wrong you have some big questions to get answered. You can’t ignore them.

Then something happens and these questions don’t seem so important. A tragedy comes into your life. It hits and the questions don’t seem quite so big anymore.

It becomes personal.

Huge obstacles to God get small all of a sudden.

God becomes larger and you may even find yourself talking to him or at least fussing at Him.

It gets personal.

You may even start to read the Bible because someone said you should.

Wish we all did more of that.

You start to develop a relationship with God. For some reason there is a tension there that makes you push back against God, but yet you can’t push Him completely away.

Lets look at it this way.

Going to talk to married men first. Do you remember why you didn’t want to get married? [Screen 2]

Freedom

Commitment

Money

Other married people.

Too young

What if I meet someone else afterwards?

How many of you work through these and get them out of the way before you give in and got married. [Screen 3]

SEX. No wait a minute. [Screen 4]

LOVE. You met somebody. No longer were talking about marriage you had someone to marry. It gets real personal.

All the obstacles get real small. You want to marry this person who meets all the things you ever dreamed of…

That’s what happens when we become Christians. It becomes personal and obstacles we have keeping us from following shrink.

Ladies…Why would a woman want a baby. It is dangerous, it messes with your body, and it takes over your life. But something takes over and shrinks all the obstacles keeping you from having a baby. It is “your” baby. It’s worth it.

It’s personal.

You have got to keep your objections to Christianity. They won’t go away but they will get smaller and smaller.