“5”
Part 5 – You Need The Invisible Man
I. Introduction
The Invisible Man is a 1897 science fiction novel by H.G. Wells. In the 1933 Universal film adapted the book to screen. Since then there has been television series with the same title in 1958 and in 1975. There have been countless other movies made including The Invisible Man Returns, The Invisible Man’s Revenge, Abbott and Costello Meet The Invisible Man, Memoirs of an Invisible Man and the clips I showed you from the most current version called Hollow Man 1 & 2. There is a new feature film called The Invisible Man slated to hit the theaters in 2010.
5 – Who’s in your five? I have told you that in your life you need 5 relationships. You need a friend. Someone who will carry you when you can’t carry on by yourself. You need a person who will kick your rear when you are doing wrong. You need a Big Black. Someone to cover your back and your character. And last week I told you that you need someone to push you. I hope you did your home work and wrote an encouraging note this week!
As badly as you need those 4 relationships and as crucial as they are to your health and well being the truth is they will all fail you at one point or another. A Samwise will miss the mark or become distracted by their own life and situations. A butt kicker will let their guard down and not say anything because they will have a momentary onslaught of fear. A Big Black will forget to pray. A pusher will think of the right word and refuse or miss the opportunity to speak it. That is why this week’s relationship is so important. The 5th relationship is the most important of all of them and in many ways is a conglomorant of all the relationships into one person. You need the Invisible Man! The good news about this relationship is that the invisible man will never fail you. Never forsake you! Never leave you.
II. Text – Psalms 121:3-8; Hebrews 13:5; John 1:14
3He won’t let you stumble, your Guardian God won’t fall asleep. 4Not on your life! Israel’s Guardian will never doze or sleep. 5GOD’s your Guardian, right at your side to protect you— 6Shielding you from sunstroke, sheltering you from moonstroke. 7GOD guards you from every evil, he guards your very life. 8He guards you when you leave and when you return, he guards you now, he guards you always.
5Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
14The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish.
The Invisible Man has been manifested from the Father and His name is Jesus! He has moved into our neighborhood in flesh and blood. I want to remind you this morning that you need Jesus in your life. I realize that there may be some folks here today who have never had an encounter with The Invisible Man, but you need to do so. Your life will not be complete or healthy without Him. I also recognize that most of you in here have at some point had such an encounter. However, I also recognize that normally once we have had that encounter we often forget why He is so important to our lives. We encounter Him and experience salvation and then we seem to come to the conclusion that we can handle life from here on out by ourselves. We need Him!
I want to tell you 2 reasons why we need Him and then 2 truths about Him that we must recognize today.
III. We need The Invisible Man because:
1. He walks through walls.
John 20:26 - 26Eight days later, his disciples were again in the room. This time Thomas was with them. Jesus came through the locked doors, stood among them, and said, “Peace to you.”
He came through the doors! I realize that the disciples were sitting behind literal walls and doors. However, I would submit to you that they were also sitting behind different kinds of walls. They were sitting behind walls of fear, confusion, doubt, anger, and depression. The one they had given up everything for is now dead. The one they had placed their trust in is now gone. The one they risked their lives for is taken away. They were enclosed by walls! But The Invisible Man came right through their walls as if they weren’t even there!
The reason you need to have The Invisible man in your life is that He can walk right through your walls too! What walls close you in? Pain, brokenness, despair, disease, heartache, divorce, abuse, defeat, mistakes, past . . . what wall keeps you from living a healthy, successful, thriving life? My second question to you is what makes your wall more impenetrable than theirs? What makes your walls Fort Knox? What makes you think that the same Jesus who walked through their walls can’t handle your walls just as easily?
Quit hiding! He is able to get past our walls and once He does He will
empower you and release you to take a world with His presence and help! You can’t keep Him out! You can’t get away from Him! Therefore you might as well let Him in and let Him deal with your walls once and for all. Once you do you won’t be able to stay behind walls ever again.
2. He gives you heartburn.
Luke 24:13-17, 25-26, 28-32
13That same day two of them were walking to the village Emmaus, about seven miles out of Jerusalem. 14They were deep in conversation, going over all these things that had happened. 15In the middle of their talk and questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them. 16But they were not able to recognize who he was. 17He asked, “What’s this you’re discussing so intently as you walk along?” They just stood there, long-faced, like they had lost their best friend. 25Then he said to them, “So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! Why can’t you simply believe all that the prophets said? 26Don’t you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer and only then enter into his glory?” 28They came to the edge of the village where they were headed. He acted as if he were going on 29but they pressed him: “Stay and have supper with us. It’s nearly evening; the day is done.” So he went in with them. 30And here is what happened: He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. 31At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him. And then he disappeared. 32Back and forth they talked. “Didn’t we feel on fire (Did not our heart burn within us) as he conversed with us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?”
Wrapped in despair. Overcome by defeat these 2 men begin the 2 hour journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They suddenly seem to have an uninvited guest who is not only uninvited but uninformed. They tell all that has happened. How their leader and their Lord has been killed. It is then that Jesus over a 2 hour period exposes the truth of what has happened and then at the end of the journey vanishes into thin air! The 2 disciples give us a glimpse into what was going on inside of them while Jesus had been talking to them. They go from heartbroken to heart burned. They state our hearts burned within us.
The Invisible Man will give you heart burn. You will live a passionless life without a renewed, daily relationship with Jesus. Your heart may burn momentarily when you get a new car, a new house, a new pair of shoes. However, the only way to have constant heartburn is to live in relationship with Jesus! Apathy will overcome you. Callousness will overtake your soul. The cares of life will weigh you down. The stress of living will take its toll. However, if you will walk with Him and talk with Him your heart’s passion and fire is renewed. If you have no passion you haven’t been walking with The Invisible Man! It is impossible to come into contact with Him and not feel heartburn!
John Wesley once said, “I ask God to set me on fire and then I let people watch me burn!”
We need a relationship with the Invisible Man so that we will be a people of passion! Without fire there is no passion and without a daily walk with The Invisible Man there is no fire!
Is your heart burning this morning? Can anyone tell your burning?
IV. There are 2 things you need to know about The Invisible Man!
1. Just because you can’t see Him doesn’t mean He isn’t there.
May I remind you this morning of his promise? He will never leave us. He never sleeps! He is with you always even unto the ends of the world.
Mary and Martha had to learn this lesson. They didn’t see Him.
John 11:17-21
17When Jesus finally got there, he found Lazarus already four days dead. 18Bethany was near Jerusalem, only a couple of miles away, 19and many of the Jews were visiting Martha and Mary, sympathizing with them over their brother. 20Martha heard Jesus was coming and went out to meet him. Mary remained in the house. 21Martha said, “Master, if you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.
Martha said if I could have seen you this wouldn’t have happened! If I could have acutally laid eyes on you everything would be OK. But even though Jesus wasn’t there to be seen by Martha’s eyes He already had inside information. Notice if you go back and read the verses prior to the ones I just read to you that they sent Jesus word that Lazarus was sick. Then 2 days later Jesus somehow knows that Lazarus has gone to sleep/dead. How did He know? Jesus steps in and teaches us that even when you can’t trace Him you can trust Him. Even when He is not physically present He is still aware and able to act on our behalf!
One night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. The father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son, “Jump! I’ll catch you.” He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see, however, was flame, smoke, and blackness. As can be imagined, he was afraid to leave the roof. His father kept yelling: “Jump! I will catch you.” But the boy protested, “Daddy, I can’t see you.” The father replied, “But son I can see you and that’s what matters!”
You might not always be able to see The Invisible Man but that doesn’t mean He isn’t there and that He isn’t in place to catch you when you are falling! The powerful news is that He sees us! David found this out! He speaks to the constant presence of The Invisible Man in Psalms 139:7-12.
7Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight? 8If I climb to the sky, you’re there! If I go underground, you’re there! 9If I flew on morning’s wings to the far western horizon, 10You’d find me in a minute— you’re already there waiting! 11Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I’m immersed in the light!”
12It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.
Out of sight, but not out of reach! You will catch glimpses occasionally. However, in the times when you don’t see Him don’t make the mistake of thinking that He is out of place. He is always present. He is an ever present help in the time of need.
2. He longs for and needs skin.
In every movie the invisible man is trying to get back to “skinny”. Although the idea of being invisible is novel at first the excitement wears off and The Invisible Man realizes that without skin he isn’t normal and he cannot be productive in society. In most cases he is feared or at least shunned.
The same is true about Jesus. Unless we give Him skin He is shunned, overlooked, and misunderstood. We can gather together and just talk about Him, but if we don’t SKIN Him then He can’t impact society and is considered abnormal, useless, and He remains unseen. Not only does He long for skin He needs skin! And the truth is that He relies on us to provide that skin. He can’t provide touch without skin. He heals best with skin. He provides best with skin. He produces change best with skin!
One Sunday on their way home from church, a little girl turned to her mother and said, "Mommy, the preacher’s sermon this morning confused me." The mother said, "Oh? Why is that?" The little girl replied, "Well, he said that God is bigger than we are. Is that true?" The mother replied, "Yes, that’s true honey." "And he also said that God lives in us? Is that true, Mommy?" Again the mother replied, "Yes." "Well," said the little girl, "if God is bigger than us and He lives in us, wouldn’t He show through?"
Jesus wants to show through us!
Following World War II some German students volunteered to help rebuild a cathedral in England, one that had been badly damaged by the Luftwaffe bombings. As the work progressed, they weren’t sure how to best restore a large statue of Jesus with arms outstretched and bearing the familiar inscription, "Come unto me."
They were able to repair all the damage to the statue except for Christ’s hands which had been completely destroyed. Should they even attempt to rebuild these?
Finally, the workers reached a decision that still stands today. They decided to leave the hands off and changed the inscription to read: "Christ has no hands but ours."
I Corinthians 12:27
27You are Christ’s body—that’s who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your “part” mean anything.
I am here to tell you this morning that The Invisible Man wants your skin. He wants to use you. He wants to use you as a friend, as a butt kicker, as a Big Black, and as a Pusher. He wants to use you to reach people that only you can reach. He wants to use your skin to touch those in need.
The question is will you skin Him this week while you are at work? Will you skin Him while you are school? Will you skin Him when you talk to your family?
V. Close
Prayer for those who have walls, who need heart burn, who haven’t seen him and to skin him.
