Part 4 - Sacred Grace Series

Everything we do needs to connect people to that message. We need infrastructure and the infrastructure needs to be great. The building, the music, the classes, the programs. But the infrastructure does not replace the message.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16)

III. A Message of Repentance is Best Understood from Recipients of God's Mercy

And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. (Jonah 3:5)

Before we go, I want you to consider one more important point. Jonah came to Nineveh with nothing. In fact, he came to Nineveh after being in a storm at sea, thrown overboard, swallowed by a whale, sitting in its stomach for 3 days before being vomited upon the shore. What do you think Jonah looked like? Some would say his skin was bleached or burnt from the stomach acids. His clothes tattered, torn and stained. He would have smelled and looked horrible. I think this contributed to the believability of? God's message through him.

I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power (1 Corinthians 2:3-4).

If you want people to see the real Jesus, let them see the real you. Often we think that we need to have it all together, look great, sound great, be polished in our looks or presentation. I think that is one of the greatest mistakes of today's church.

What people want more than anything else is to be touched. Emil Brunner says that just as the touch of a King’s sword on the head of a soldier makes him a Knight; so does the touch of the cross on the life of a sinner make him a child of God.

Joseph Damien was known as Damien of Molokai. Molokai is one of the most beautiful parts of the world. But Damien, who was Belgian, came there because he wanted to minister to the inhabitants of that island. It was a leper colony. Here is a land of great beauty contrasted with this dreaded disease and the people were exiled and imprisoned by the world's tallest sea cliffs.

Joseph Damien poured his life into those people. He embraced them. He loved them. He literally gave his life for them. One morning as he was pouring some boiling water into a cup, the water swirled out of the cup and fell onto his barefoot. He was rudely awakened to the fact that when the boiling water fell on his foot he did not feel it. He took some more boiling water, poured it onto the other foot, and there was no sensation at all. He too was now a leper. He got ready that morning, went behind the pulpit. He always began his sermon by saying, "My fellow believers." This morning, however, he began by saying, "My fellow lepers." He was now one of them.

Never forget who you were before you came to Christ. The situation in our world is not very different from that of Nineveh. The warning call is the same too. Our goal must not be to impress but to share the same kind of love that God shares. A message of warning and hope. Bad News and Good News. And let our touch be so filled with love, grace, and mercy that we come with humility, "my fellow sinners."