What Does Jesus Look Like?
Art Good
(For “Mirror Image” Series March 25, 2007)
If you could use a single word to define Jesus what would it be? Love comes to mind, maybe forgiving, merciful, kind? How about the Word “grace”?
Great word – grace.
I have said a number of times that I long to pastor a “supernatural church”. Sometimes I say things, and then ask myself later, “What did you really mean when you said that?”
I have thought about that statement, “I want to Pastor a supernatural church”. And here’s what I believe I meant by that:
I want to pastor a church that is built on grace.
Not just grace in general; but the grace of God that has been expressed in the life and teaching and death and resurrection of his son Jesus Christ.
A church where Jesus Christ is the head - never any person or human personality. And the primary gift that church has to offer our world isn’t programs or services or ministries or facilities or resources, it’s grace. It’s the grace we receive from God that we have to give.
In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 Paul has been writing about some extraordinary spiritual experiences that he’s had.
Then he says this: "To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness so that Christ’s power might rest on me. That is why for Christ’s sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships and persecutions and difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
Paul says there was given to me a thorn in my flesh.
When you came in today you were each given a thorn. I am going to ask everybody take your thorn and hold it in your hand.
I want to talk to you about thorns for a moment.
A thorn is something that causes pain. If you have ever had a thorn in your flesh, it is something you’d like very much not to be there.
The Greek word that Paul used for thorn could be translated as stake and some New Testament scholars think that’s he’s using a very striking image of a stake that’s being driven into his body.
At any rate, Paul says he’s got this real painful deal that he’d like to get rid of - it’s a thorn.
Over the centuries there have been many theories about what exactly Paul’s thorn consisted of because he doesn’t actually say. Luther and Calvin thought it was certain temptations that he suffered.
Some people think that it stands for the persecutions that Paul had to go through.
Some other theories are more physical – that he suffered from epilepsy or malaria or a speech defect. Some believe that Paul suffered from an eyesight defect.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians that some of his opponents would say this about him: “Paul’s letters are real deep. His letters are weighty and impressive but in person not so much. His physical appearance, his body, is very unimpressive.”
The oldest physical description we have of Paul goes back to the 2nd century. It may or may not be accurate but it’s the oldest one we have. This is how the writer describes Paul: “Paul was small in stature, bald headed, bow-legged, a vigorous physique with meeting eyebrows” (The term ‘unibrow’ mean anything to you?) and a slightly hooked nose.”
Paul had a thorn. It was embarrassing and it was humiliating and he desperately wanted to get rid of it.
Maybe the reason what the thorn is isn’t spelled out here is so that we can all identify with Paul. We can all think maybe his thorn is like our thorn.
Because here’s the truth – everybody has a thorn.
Your thorn is that place in your life where you feel most vulnerable or broken or defeated. You’d like to pretend it’s not there.
•Maybe it’s a difficult marriage or a broken or damaged relationship.
•Maybe it’s a physical disability that’s endured by you or somebody in your family.
•Maybe your thorn is an addictive desire you or some has.
•Maybe it’s a struggle with depression or loneliness.
I don’t know what it is, but I know you have one, I also know that nobody gets to choose their thorns.
Recently I read about a Pastor who had a thorn. He had just started - getting involved in teaching and preaching and sensing that it might be some area of calling for him.
It was on a Sunday morning at this church and five minutes into his message he started to get dizzy and woozy and the room started to spin around and the next thing he knew he had fainted dead away on
the floor in the middle of his own message.
Now it’s a bad thing when you’re preaching, and the people who are listening to you fall asleep while you’re talking.
It’s bad when the choir is sitting behind you when you’re preaching, And with everyone looking at them, they are trying really hard to keep from nodding off.
But, when you’re the one preaching, and you fall asleep, that’s a really bad thing.
He figures, it was a fluky deal. Soon after that he left for a year of study abroad.
A year later, he is invited to share a sermon at another church and it happens again.
Ten minutes into the message he gets woozy, dizzy. The next thing he knows he’s laying on the floor again! And the worst part about it was this is a Baptist church not a charismatic church.
At some point it dawned on this guy that if you are called to preach, but you keep fainting in the middle of the message, people get nervous.
Well, he wanted this thorn removed. It was embarrassing and difficult for him. But, even though people were nervous, attendance was up.
It’s a little like people driving by an accident, They don’t really hope someone crashes, but if they did, they don’t want to miss it.
Today, this guy is a preacher of a large, strong congregation. But every time he steps into the pulpit
he remembers and thinks about it. And he is reminded of his need for God’s strength.
Paul says I begged God to take that thorn away. He uses a real strong Greek word, parakaleo. That would not be used for a casual request, it was not like asking, “Would you please pass the Salt?” That was a term that would describe pleading for something with desperate urgency. And Paul says in verse 8: Three times I pleaded with the Lord.
Remember in the garden where Jesus is facing the cross and he’s praying to God and he asks God to do it some other way?
Three times he prays. It’s an indication in scripture of a prolonged period of desperate pleading with God.
What Paul is saying here is I’ve poured my heart out to God. He says: for a long period of time, I cried out, “God look at the way I’m trying to serve you, I’m trying to do what’s right in my life. I’m traveling around the world on your behalf. I’m facing
beatings and stoning. I’m going to prison and I have this thorn. God why do you leave me in pain?”
And heaven is silent. The thorn is not removed.
And then finally God speaks, these unbelievable words
"Paul, I have something for you – it’s not thorn removal it’s better than that. It’s not pain elimination, it’s stronger than that. I have something for you Paul and it’s called grace."
It’s real important we understand about grace – “Grace is the offer of God’s ceaseless presence and irrational love that cannot be stopped.”
Grace is not just the forgiveness of sins.
We sometimes get a little confused about that. Grace is the promise of forgiveness but it is not just that.
Grace is the flow of God’s power and presence and favor in your life from one moment to the next moment to the next moment to enable us to do whatever it is that God wants us to do. God says: I’ll give you grace. You may have a thorn, you may be in some pain but I’m going to give you my grace, my presence, my power, my love, my mercy, my forgiveness. My grace is sufficient for you. Whatever it is you are going through, my grace is enough. My grace will be sufficient.”
2 ½ decades ago, I grabbed onto that truth like somebody drowning grabs onto a lifeline. I am very keenly aware that on my own power I can’t even guarantee that I’ll get through a message on my own. I may not faint in the middle of a sermon, but I still need Him to do what I am doing.
But with grace, life is another story. Before Paul met Jesus, he was not known for grace. He was known for zeal and devotion and he was fanatically religious but not much for grace.
But all that changed when he met this man Jesus. He became like a grace machine.
It was all he could talk about. In this letter to the church at Corinth, his first words to them in chapter 1 was to wish them grace and he does that in his letters all the time because that’s the best thing he has to give. So the first thing he says in his letters is just "Grace to you".
His last words to them in chapter 13:14: "May the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ be with you all."
His testimony about himself was "God’s grace is sufficient for me". His assurance to the people that he loved was: "God will make his grace abound, overflow to you."
Paul just never, never, got over grace. And the really cool thing is that after he got blindsided by grace he stopped praying for God to take his thorn away.
Your thorn starts to look a little different to you after you’ve let it lead you to grace. I read for you the earliest description we have of Paul. It contained one more phrase in it.
The writer says: “Paul was small in stature, bald headed, bow-legged, a vigorous physique with meeting eyebrows and a slightly hooked nose.” And then one more line, “full of grace”.
And full of grace. Now how is that for a makeover?
Before Paul met Christ he was small, bald headed, bow-legged and unibrowed. After he met Christ he was small, bald headed, bow-legged, unibrowed and full of grace.
As a matter of historical record, whether or not you believe in the scriptures, whether or not you are a follower of Jesus, as a matter of sheer historical record this small, bald headed, bow-legged,
unibrowed man carried this grace everywhere he went, and he just happened to turn the ancient world upside down.
And if God did that with him, if God did that with one little, bald headed, bow-legged, unibrowed guy, what might God do through you?
Or the bald headed, bow-legged, unibrowed person sitting next to you right now? Please, if I just descrobed your spouse, don’t look at them. But, what might God do through anyone of us in this church?
How do we put that kind of grace at the heart of our lives? How do we make sure that it’s the heart of our community or of our church as God brings us into the future?
I want to give you two challenges this morning to put grace at the heart of our lives and of this church.
1. The first challenge: Own your thorns.
Because this is a community for people with thorns, for people with weaknesses and brokenesses and vulnerability and problems.
And if you’ve got no thorns, if everything in your life is put together then you came to the wrong place. The reality is there are really no people without thorns, there are just some thorny people in denial.
Everybody has thorns. Valley View Wesleyan Church is not a house for saints, we’re a hospital for sinners. This is a place for people who’ve got thorns.
I long for the day when our mission, really, our mission, our reason for existing is to reach out to the most sin filled, messed up, junked up, thorn prone, dysfunctional, grace needing, mistake making people in the Roanoke Valley.
This is a place for thorny people because grace only gets released in a community where people have the courage to take off their masks and talk about their thorns.
And it’s a strange thing, when you take that risk, when you do that – people who know you well will not be shocked. They will not say, “You have a thorn? I had no idea, I’m shocked and appalled.”
They’re more likely to say, “I know you have a thorn. I know about thorns in you that you don’t even know you have yet. And I love you anyway. And I’ve got some thorns too.”
So just as a very small, very easy step in that direction right now I want to invite you to turn to the person next to you, just hold that
little thorn up and say to them: “I have some thorns.”
Would you do that right now? Just say to them “I have some thorns.” You don’t need to comment on their thorns.
Real important – the bible says, the writer of the Gospel of John says,“ Jesus was full of grace and truth” - and they always go together.
We become available to grace only to the extent to which we step into the truth.
Take your thorn with you and put it some place you’ll see it this week – put it on your desk, put it at work or tape it to the mirror in your bathroom or something. Let it just remind you of the truth about your life – you’ve got a thorn. And talk to God about it and let some other people know. Stop trying to hide it.
2.My second challenge: Ask God to make you individually, and us as a church, a dispenser of grace.
Peter and Paul both use that image and I love it that all of us who follow Christ ought to be dispensers.
Grace ought to flow out of us. I want to give you a picture of that – a parable.
This is one that Jesus originally told and Phil Yancey writes about it in his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace? It’s a picture of what our church is, can be, will be, should be.
One of the pictures Jesus often uses of grace is of a wedding banquet. So this is what Yancey writes:
Accompanied by her fiance, a woman went to the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Boston to order what was supposed to be their wedding banquet. They poured over the menu, made selections of china and silver, pointed to the pictures of flower arrangements they liked. They both had expensive tastes and the bill came to $13,000. After leaving a check for half that amount as a down payment, the couple went home to flip through books of wedding announcements.
The day the announcements were supposed to hit the mailbox, the potential groom got cold feet. “I’m just not sure,” he said, “it’s a big commitment. Let’s think about this a little bit longer.” And he dumped his fiancee. When his angry fiancee returned to the Hyatt to cancel the banquet, the Events Manager could not have been more understanding. “The same thing happened to me, honey,” she said and told the story of her own broken engagement. But about the refund, she had bad news. “The contract is binding. You’re only entitled to $1300 back. You have two options, forfeit the rest of the down payment (thousands of dollars) or go ahead with the banquet. I’m sorry, really I am.” It seemed crazy, but the more the jilted bride thought about it, the more she liked the idea of going ahead with the party. Not a wedding banquet, mind you, but a big blow-out. Tens years before, the same woman had been living in a homeless shelter. She’d gotten back on her feet, found a good job, set aside a sizable nest egg. Now she had this wild notion of using her savings to treat the down and outs of Boston to a night on the town. And so it was in June of 1990 the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Boston hosted at party such as it had never seen before. The hostess changed the menu to boneless chicken in honor of the groom, she said. She sent invitations to rescue missions and homeless shelters. That warm summer night people who were used to peeling half-mud pizza off the cardboard, dined instead on chicken cordon bleu. Hyatt waiters in tuxedos served hors d’oeuvres to senior citizens propped up by crutches and aluminum walkers. Bag ladies, vagrants and addicts took one night off from the hard life on the sidewalks outside and instead ate chocolate wedding cake and danced to Big Band melodies late into the night.
Jesus said if you can see that picture, you get some idea of what the Kingdom of God looks like and what I want my church to be. He said it’s like a banquet in my father’s house and my father’s house is real big and it isn’t full yet, so compel them to come in. Go the highways and the byways and find people, and especially find people who thought they were a million miles away from God and make them come. Make it a place where Grace just flows.
I want to tell you I am so proud to be pastoring a church that is becoming more every week a grace-dispensing church.
Sometimes people forget. Sometimes even churches forget their call to be grace-dispensers and they start to think of themselves as grace consumers.
We receive Grace only as we are willing to give it to others. If you want it for you, and you never have any intentions of giving it out to others, you will find God’s grace an elusive thing.
Don’t think for one minute you can be given grace and then hold others to the law. We follow one who went to a cross who died to dispense grace for us. There’s no way we’re going to quit dispensing grace just because it gets a little inconvenient, or is tough.
Let us be a grace dispensing church. We’ll do that, we’ll pay whatever price that costs. We’ll do that gladly. We follow one who went to the cross. We’ll pay that price.
This week ask God for this, not “God make my life free of thorns” But “God make my life full of grace. Let me forgive somebody or encourage somebody or accept somebody or include somebody instead of shutting them out.”
God, make our whole church like that. We’ll pay any price to be that kind of church.
I don’t know what your thorn is, I just know this. Jesus knows all about thorns, because he wore a crown full of them.
Our God wore a crown full of thorns. He took your thorn, whatever it is, your weakness and your pain on himself at the cross. I’m here today to tell you God’s grace is sufficient for you and you can be a dispenser of grace. God says his power is made perfect, complete in weakness.
Amen?
Let’s pray!
