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Encountering Jesus
June 07 2010
I have encountered Jesus is some strange and unusual places, but none more than those I encountered him a few summers ago. While driving down I-75 on Saturday morning, I was listening to my Father’s Day present from my boys, Toby Keith’s CD “Shockin Yall”. I gotta tell you, I was shocked. In the midst of songs about bars, and soldiers, and Willie Nelson, I heard a song entitled “If I was Jesus”. It’s a catchy tune, but it could have been cats screeching and the message of the song would have been just as clear. The last verse of the song says this:
If I was Jesus
I’d come back from the dead
And I’d walk on some water
Just to mess with your head
I’d know your dark little secrets
I’d look you right in the face
And tell you I love you, with amazing grace.
And I’d lay my life down for you.
I’d show you who’s the boss
I’d forgive you and adore you
While I was hanging on your cross.
Just as strange was my experience at the Pepsi 400 that July. The boys and I were standing at the end of pit row during qualifying. They were waiting for Junior to make his qualifying run and I was waiting on Dale Jarrett. Somewhere in between those two was a John Deere green car with a few stickers on the sides, obviously someone without a sponser. He came out of the pit and I was able to see the sponsor on the hood….it was Jesus! I looked at Joel and said, “That’s the Jesus car!” He looked at me kinda strange and said, “No, that’s the John Deere car.” The car came around, and all 4 of us stood there and read as well as you can at 190 mph the name “JESUS” emblazoned on the hood.
The question is obvious….what is Jesus doing on a Toby Keith CD, and what in the world is he doing on Morgan Sheppard’s stock car? The answer is just as obvious, That’s where people are and so that’s where Jesus is. Some are offended by the very idea of seeing Jesus in either of those places….good. The gospel is offensive and it needs to be put in language where people realize they are being offended. Jesus came to earth because God loved us with reckless abandon. It’s a love beyond self preservation. The incarnation means that God became a man in the person of Jesus. You could even say that God was obsessed with love and passion over losing us. How obsessed? God became a human being, came after us, and was even willing to die on a cross. God showed us a go for broke, willing to be hung out there, with everything you’ve got kind of passion, without regard for life or limb. That’s God’s love for you and me.
This is really the essence of the Gospel…the fact that God loves you and he loves me and we have thousands of years of history to prove it. We have our own experiences and our own stories to prove that God loves us and nothing will ever change that fact. Ruth, Naomi, Boaz, Jesse, David, Esther, Mordecai…..all have an incredible story that we are able to read about, but none are as real as the story that you are telling right now with your own life and testimony 8:31 What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 8:32 Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things? 8:33 Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 8:34 Who is the one who will condemn? Christ is the one who died (and more than that, he was raised), who is at the right hand of God, and who also is interceding for us. 8:35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 8:36 As it is written, "For your sake we encounter death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 8:37 No, in all these things we have complete victory40 through him41 who loved us! 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, 8:39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul wrote to the church in Rome, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us!” Believe it or not, there was a sinner driving that F150 down the interstate, and there were plenty of sinners at the Pepsi 400. I would imagine there are a few reading these words….. and I know that Jesus is too, right in the midst of us all.
If I was Jesus
I’d come back from the dead
And I’d walk on some water
Just to mess with your head
I’d know your dark little secrets
I’d look you right in the face
And tell you I love you, with amazing grace.
And I’d lay my life down for you.
I’d show you who’s the boss
I’d forgive you and adore you
While I was hanging on your cross.
Just as strange was my experience at the Pepsi 400 that July. The boys and I were standing at the end of pit row during qualifying. They were waiting for Junior to make his qualifying run and I was waiting on Dale Jarrett. Somewhere in between those two was a John Deere green car with a few stickers on the sides, obviously someone without a sponser. He came out of the pit and I was able to see the sponsor on the hood….it was Jesus! I looked at Joel and said, “That’s the Jesus car!” He looked at me kinda strange and said, “No, that’s the John Deere car.” The car came around, and all 4 of us stood there and read as well as you can at 190 mph the name “JESUS” emblazoned on the hood.
The question is obvious….what is Jesus doing on a Toby Keith CD, and what in the world is he doing on Morgan Sheppard’s stock car? The answer is just as obvious, That’s where people are and so that’s where Jesus is. Some are offended by the very idea of seeing Jesus in either of those places….good. The gospel is offensive and it needs to be put in language where people realize they are being offended. Jesus came to earth because God loved us with reckless abandon. It’s a love beyond self preservation. The incarnation means that God became a man in the person of Jesus. You could even say that God was obsessed with love and passion over losing us. How obsessed? God became a human being, came after us, and was even willing to die on a cross. God showed us a go for broke, willing to be hung out there, with everything you’ve got kind of passion, without regard for life or limb. That’s God’s love for you and me.
This is really the essence of the Gospel…the fact that God loves you and he loves me and we have thousands of years of history to prove it. We have our own experiences and our own stories to prove that God loves us and nothing will ever change that fact. Ruth, Naomi, Boaz, Jesse, David, Esther, Mordecai…..all have an incredible story that we are able to read about, but none are as real as the story that you are telling right now with your own life and testimony 8:31 What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 8:32 Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things? 8:33 Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 8:34 Who is the one who will condemn? Christ is the one who died (and more than that, he was raised), who is at the right hand of God, and who also is interceding for us. 8:35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 8:36 As it is written, "For your sake we encounter death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 8:37 No, in all these things we have complete victory40 through him41 who loved us! 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, 8:39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul wrote to the church in Rome, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us!” Believe it or not, there was a sinner driving that F150 down the interstate, and there were plenty of sinners at the Pepsi 400. I would imagine there are a few reading these words….. and I know that Jesus is too, right in the midst of us all.