When People See Me - What Do They See?

When People See Me – What Do They See?

Scripture: Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43; John 13:34-35

Good morning Strangers Rest. The title of my message today is, “When People See Me – What Do They See?” Now of course the obvious answer is they see us right? But is that true? Do they see “us,” or do they see the image that we want them to see? I have recently learned that when I first arrived here people saw me differently than how I truly am – and that is normal when you meet someone you do not know for the first time. We naturally make assessments about a person based on how they present themselves. But this is what I want you all to consider. In my mind, I was presenting a conservative, positive view of who I am, but some of that was lost and never truly came across. The way I phrased some things and some questions that I asked raised some alarm bells. And because of that, it took some time for some of you to reexamine your initial impressions of me so that you could get to where you are in your relationship with me. I own how I initially came across and I do wonder if it would have made things easier in some ways if maybe I had said less and let you figure me out over time. Like many of you, this has been a learning and growing experience for me.

Now, let me tell you why I am sharing this with you today. Last week, we hosted our Church on the Block, and it was an enormous success. I want to wholeheartedly thank the 99th Church anniversary committee who unselfishly worked many hours to pull it off. You planned, donated money and your time and then came out on Saturday evening to prepare for the day. If that was not enough, many of you showed up again at six o’clock on Sunday morning to get everything set up and ready. Some of you even talked your friends into getting up early and helping, which was needed. And if that was not enough, once everything was done, you stayed to break everything down and clean up the area. You did all of this to make the event a success proving that a few motivated people who love Jesus can indeed do remarkable things! I want to personally thank each one of you who gave of yourself to make last week a success!!!

And I want to say one more thing, and it is the most important thing. All of heaven saw you shine a light on Jesus for everyone to see. You really blessed your Heavenly Father on Sunday because you wanted people who did not know Jesus to know Him! To God be the glory! There was a total of 232 participants, members included, who came out for the event. The live stream service was viewed almost six hundred times on our Face Book page. There were people who used to attend this Church who are now thinking about returning after what they witnessed last Sunday. There were people in the neighborhood who had never visited Strangers Rest who are thinking about checking us out because of the open arms we extended to them that made them feel welcomed and valued. That was the purpose of the event, and you all pulled it off.

I know that God was pleased with our Church on the Block event! I hope this will be an annual event for Strangers Rest moving forward. For those of you who interacted with someone you did not know, they now have a positive impression of this Church because of you. For those of you who remained on the sidelines for whatever reason, you missed an opportunity to touch a person for Jesus, but you will get another chance. My point with all of this is simple: we had an opportunity to make a positive first impression and we accomplished that goal. People felt the love of God! You showed up and showed out – from the food to the music! So where do we go from here? How do we continue what we started last Sunday? This will be the focus of my message this morning.

When I enlisted into the military my first assignment was basic training at Lackland Air Force Base (LAFB) in San Antonio, TX. When I and the other new recruits arrived at LAFB, everyone knew we were the new recruits because of how we were dressed. Because we were new and had not been issued our uniforms for the first couple of days, wherever we marched in formation on the base, the recruits who were wearing their green fatigues or dress blues called us “rainbows.” When they marched by us they would sing in cadence “Rainbows, rainbows, don’t be blue, we were once rainbows too, sound off……” This went on for several days until we were issued our green fatigues. At that point we were promoted from rainbows to pickles. So those who were wearing their dress blues would sing “Pickles, pickles don’t be blue….” you get the picture. This was consistent across the base. We were recognized by what we wore. But what was funny was that once we were pickles, we got to call the other new recruits rainbows.