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Our scripture today is
from John chapter 1; I want you to see in the scripture this idea of
inviting. I think sometimes when we think about inviting others, say to
church or to be a Christian, it has to be like Billy Graham or it has to
be some big deal that thoroughly frightens us to death. But it is really
just about people inviting others to do something. From John chapter 1,
beginning at verse 35:
The next day John was
there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he
said, “Look, the Lamb of God.” When the two disciples heard him say
this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and
asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher),
“where are you staying?” “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.” So they
went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was
about the tenth hour. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two
who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing
Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found
the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus
looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called
Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter). The next day Jesus decided
to leave for Galilee. Finding Phillip, he said to him, “Follow me.”
Phillip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Phillip
found Nathanael and told him, “we have found the one Moses wrote about
in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth,
the son of Joseph.” “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?”
Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Phillip. When Jesus saw Nathanael
approaching, he said of him, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is
nothing false.” “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered,
“I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Phillip called
you.” Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are
the King of Israel.” Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw
you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that.” He then
added, “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels
of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
This is the word of
the Lord.
Admittedly,
invitations are difficult at times. I remember when I first invited a
girl to our junior/senior prom. Her name was Sandra Shepherd. And I was
thoroughly frightened of the whole prospect. She said, “Yes.” Or the
time when I asked Cyndi to marry me; I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone
but it was over the phone. I’m not sure whether it was because I was
frightened of doing it or because we were separated by several hundred
miles. Sometimes it is difficult because we don’t necessarily want a
person to accept. There’s an old story about a woman and man sitting at
the table. She said, “Honey, I just received a call from Mom. You know
how we were supposed to ask her to come over and she acted like we
didn’t want. You did call her and tell her that she could come at her
own convenience?” He said, “Well, I couldn’t spell convenience, so I
said ‘Come at your own risk.’” Invitations…they are powerful things in
our lives. I asked you earlier to consider some of the times you have
been invited to do things or times when you invited someone. Some things
are life-changing experiences, like when you ask someone to marry you.
The consequences of that are astounding; children, living together,
having a life together, making decisions together, all kinds of
wonderful and difficult things. Or just simply asking someone for coffee
can be a life-changing thing because maybe someone is lonely or maybe
they just need to talk. Like Mary Ann shared just a little while ago
about the Stephen’s Ministry; just sitting around having a conversation
with someone and that’s all it really is. Now you are trained to do that
and are given those tools; all it really is though is sharing time,
inviting someone to share time with you. This sermon is about
invitations and it is in connection with the 40 Days of Purpose. I want
to encourage you to be an inviter. I will also want to encourage you to
accept an invitation, now particularly, to participate in our small
groups. But I want to say some things to you about this first. Inviting
can be difficult but not always. For example, when you invited someone,
not everyone will come willingly. If you look in the Scriptures, it
doesn’t say much about it, but I imagine when Andrew went to talk to his
brother Peter, it may have gone something like this: “There you go
again, Andrew, following around all these prophets. You have been
hanging around with that Babbas fellow, why should I come see this Jesus
guy? You are always following somebody.” But Andrew probably just said,
“Well come see for yourself.” Or maybe he was persistent about it. I
know sometimes we have to watch out for how many times we invite people
to things. Sometimes if we continue to invite them, they say “Go away
and leave me alone.” At the same time, we are persistent. I suspect – it
doesn’t really tell us, but I really believe that Andrew had to go
travel back home, which took him a few days, and then go back so it took
him a while to get Peter back to Jesus. But in the end, he did. He got
him there and said, “See for yourself.” That encounter changed Peter’s
life. And then Peter was issued an invitation by Jesus; we don’t look at
it like that. But He said to Peter, “Your name is no longer Simon, it’s
going to be Cephas or Peter.” That was an invitation, sort of veiled.
You see Simon means something like “little stone” and Cephas means “big
rock” and so Jesus was inviting him to be a big rock instead of a little
rock. But it was going to take a process. And then Jesus finds another
who goes and invites Nathanael, another skeptic. In this case, “Can
anything good come from Nazareth?” “Well, come and see,” he says. We run
into people like that all the time though the context is very different
– skeptics of one sort or another. “Can anything good be found at
church? Can anything be good at all?” Yet, people come when invited. And
that story has been played out thousands of times in history. You have
all heard about John Westley; he was invited to a small group. He didn’t
want to go. He was invited to go to a small group and he went because
his friend asked him. When he was there and listening to theology read,
he was hearing someone read Martin Luther – you can imagine going to a
small group and having someone read Calvin to you. And yet, Westley said
that as he heard this, he felt his heart strangely warm. Which leads me
to another thought…I really believe it is our responsibility to invite
people to come but it’s not our responsibility to change their lives or
to make them even come. We just invite. It does take courage to do that.
I want to encourage you to invite. Now you have these two cards in your
bulletin; some of you have been asked to be small group leaders. But not
everyone is cut out to be a host or leader. I would also ask you to
think about being a participant. If you do become a participant, also be
an inviter; invite your friends and others. Who do you invite? Well, a
lot of us have these cell phones and if you press a button, it suddenly
says “List contacts.” I have at least forty in here; some of them are
family of course. But that is the first place you can go; ask some of
your family. Or ask some of your friends, people you have always wanted
to have coffee with. What do you say to them? Well, I think you should
say something like this: “We are having a six-week discussion group.”
You want to let them know it’s only six weeks; anyone can do something
for only six weeks. Then tell them the context – what our purpose in
life is – using The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren and a lot of
people will have seen him on TV. What you really want to say is, “Come
and see for yourself.” It’s not that hard. I love what Susan said about
being invited to a birthday party; a lot of times we give the wrong
message to people who need something else. We heard two sides of it
really. There was a conference of pastors and missionaries about twenty
years ago that really struck me. They asked both groups what they think
of when they tell people about coming to Christ. The pastors mostly
thought about a bunch of hurting people who needed to be healed. For
them, finding people out there to invite was like snatching folks from
the fire. Part of the reason for that is probably because, as a pastor,
you run into all the hurts of the world. You know everybody’s “dirty
laundry” in some ways. Your world is about people who are hurting and
need to be healed often. So that was very natural for these pastors to
say that. On the other hand, the missionaries looked at themselves as
emissaries, ambassadors if you will, of God’s Kingdom. Their message was
“Come and find something that maybe you’ve never seen before. Come into
God’s joy.” That was the message that they had. Now though I’m a pastor,
I like the second message better. On the other hand, I’m very much aware
that there are so many hurting people out there. But I would just
encourage you to tell people to come to something that is fun and you
will be right. I want to close with a bit of a challenge to you. I
didn’t read this scripture to you because we are short on time, but in
II Corinthians, chapter 5, Paul talks about how we as Christians are
ambassadors and how we go out into the world with this message of
reconciliation between God and human beings. He says that we are the
ambassadors that carry this message, but then he says something very
curious. He says, “Take this message out to others,” but then he says,
“I appeal to you to be reconciled to God.” What he means by that is that
we can’t give to others something that we don’t have ourselves. We can’t
give to others something we haven’t done ourselves. So my challenge to
you is not necessarily to be a small-group host. I want you to take
these six weeks and be a participant. You can do it any way you like;
you can sign up on this card and we’ll place you. Or there are lots of
groups out there and we’ll have a list of who they are and you can join
one that already exists. Be a participant and then go and invite others
to help. We really do want not just folks from Faith Church but we want
folks from outside our church to come to these groups. I think a lot of
people will come to a home before they will come to this sanctuary. We
don’t realize it how different a cultural experience it is for people to
go to different churches. If you have been raised one way, to come in to
this foreign thing called Presbyterianism, it’s difficult. It really is.
Think of going to a Hindu temple or something, how odd that would be to
you. It is for other people coming here. But they will come and have
coffee and maybe watch a tape. I’d like to also challenge you to be
reconciled to God. You might say, “I’ve been a member of this church for
thirty years.” Billy Graham likes to say that it doesn’t matter how long
you’ve been a member of a church. You may be a Christian, but you may
have issues with God and today is a day to deal with those issues.
Before we get into this, deal with your issues with God. I love the
movie Forrest Gump; you remember Lieutenant. Dan and how he lost his
legs and he was just totally mad at God. I love the scene when they are
out on the shrimping boat and they can’t catch any shrimp and Lieutenant
Dan says to Forrest, “Well where is God?” And Forrest says, “It’s funny
he would say that because just about then, God showed up and there was a
huge hurricane.” And you remember the scene of Lieutenant Dan up on the
mast of the boat saying, “You call this a storm?” He was mad. A lot of
things happen to us in life whether we like it or not and sometimes we
wonder where God is. Wherever you are in life, if you need to, be
reconciled to God. Accept His invitation to be healed and to be made
whole and to return. And then go out and tell others about this
invitation. You don’t have to know everything, you just have to have an
inviting heart. I’d like you to sign this card today and put it in the
offering plate. There is a challenge for those of who are doing a small
group to list a few people that you might invite. Get out your cell
phone or your address book and see who you can invite. We are only three
weeks away from one of the most exciting things, I think, our church can
do – a spiritual growth campaign and invite others to come and be with
us.
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