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Good Morning!
If you are joining us for the first time this morning, we are in the middle of a series called Love Like That.
We are on a quest to LOVE LIKE JESUS.
We want our relationships to be healthy, not just in our family, but all of our relationships…work, school, even with strangers, maybe even with enemies?
Crazy, right?
But I want to LOVE LIKE THAT.
I want my life and behavior to model that of Jesus.
And so do you.
Our theme passage for this series is:
Today, we’re going to look at just how profoundly “approachable” Jesus was.
So, let me ask you a question:
What would you be willing to do to be included?
Included in anything?
A game, a competition, a party?
Everyone has had an experience similar to this: You’re in elementary school, and your friends are choosing teams for a pick-up basketball game.
You feel the pressure as all of your friends are chosen, but you aren’t.
You can change the age, the situation, the game, but the feeling of rejection and not belonging will linger for a long, long time.
Why is that?
God created us with a drive to be connected.
Often times we call this “fellowship” within the church.
We long to belong and be included.
Could it be that this is the reason Jesus Christ, King of kings, and Creator of all things is so approachable?
Jesus was the most approachable person who ever lived.
Social status, a healthy financial report, race, religion, gender made no difference to Him.
This morning we are going to look at some characteristics of being approachable and then talk about what that means for us.
1. BEING APPROACHABLE IS A LOST SKILL.
I say “skill” but it really isn’t a skill, it’s a decision.
A decision that says, come to me…you have access…you’re on the invite list.
I have found that Matthew 11:28- 29 is a great equalizer passage, mainly because Jesus emphasizes the word ALL.
It was the leper, the tax-collector, the sinner, the hurting, the disenfranchised that got Jesus’ special attention.
Which made all the religious people of the day furious.
People tended to keep the “holy men” of the day at a distance.
But not so with Jesus.
Everyone could approach him…rich or poor, schooled or unschooled, healthy or sick.
“John Wesley is my homeboy”
We have learned to put both others and ourselves up on a pedestal.
What I loved about the shirt is that it equalized students with a great theologian.
It taught them that no one person, no matter how great their contribution to society, is no better than another.
2. BEING APPROACHABLE MEANS LOVING THE REJECTED.
Consider Matthew, one of those disgusting tax-collectors…like Zacchaeus.
In Jesus’ day, tax collectors would add on extra charges to the people in their region and put it right in their own pockets.
They would also send out Roman soldiers to beat up anybody who didn’t pay.
This is precisely why the Jews hated the tax collectors.
Usually, these tax collectors were sleazy, greedy, despicable persons.
Quite worthy of the disgust people had for them.
We don’t know what Jesus saw in Matthew, but He saw something.
He simply approaches the tax collecting booth and said two words: “Follow me.”
And he did.
No doubt Matthew was taken back that Jesus, famous Jesus, holy man Jesus, not only gave him the time of day, but actually requested that he leave everything and become a follower.
Boy did Jesus face ridicule from the religious types.
But being approachable sometimes means facing the rejection of others for the sake of reaching the rejected of man.
It means that we join in the rejections of others.
Jesus made a point to love those that were thought of as lesser and so should we.
3. BEING APPROACHABLE IS RISKY TO YOUR REPUTATION.
Consider how Jesus treated the “sinful woman.”
Luke 7:36-50
Jesus was very approachable, to all classes of people.
We don’t know who the woman was in this story, but we do know she treated Jesus with respect.
She anointed Jesus with expensive oil and her tears of gratefulness.
The Pharisees believed that if they touched the clothing of the common people, they were corrupted.
For that reason, when they walked the streets, they walked on the sides, so that they wouldn’t be tarnished by the touch of ordinary people.
They assumed that Christ should have had the same dislike for this woman that they had and that He should snub her.
He did not.
EVERYONE had access to Jesus.
If we are going to be approachable, people’s value as image-bearers of God has to be of more value to us than our reputation.
WHAT KEEPS US FROM BEING APPROACHABLE?
The biggie is PRIDE.
I heard this story recently...
The lion was proud of his mastery of the animal kingdom.
One day he decided to make sure all the other animals knew he was the king of the jungle.
He was so confident that he by-passed the smaller animals and went straight to the bear.
"Who is the king of the jungle?" the lion asked.
The bear replied, "Why you are, of course."
The lion gave a mighty roar of approval.
Next, he asked the tiger, “Who is the king of the jungle?"
The tiger quickly responded, "Everyone knows that you are, mighty lion."
Next on the list was the elephant.
The lion faced the elephant and addressed his question, "Who is the king of the jungle?”
The elephant immediately grabbed the lion with his trunk, whirled him around in the air five or six times, and slammed him into a tree.
Then he pounded him on the ground several times, dunked him under water in a nearby lake, and finally dumped him out on the shore.
The lion— beaten, bruised, and battered—struggled to his feet.
He looked at the elephant through sad and bloody eyes and said, "Look, just because you don’t know the answer is no reason for you to get mean about it!"
The definition of pride is to exalt or boast in one’s self.
But it is more complicated than that.
This is a clear example of pride for sure.
But pride is not always clear.
Sometimes it masks itself in other ways.
It causes you to think more of yourself than reality justifies.
In this passage in Luke, there is this wonderfully righteous guy.
He keeps the law.
He does what he is supposed to do.
Yet his heart isn’t as right as his actions seem to be.
There is so much pride in this man’s heart that his prayers to God are insulting to the very people that God loves.
This man thinks he is so good because he kept all the rules.
He thinks he is so righteous that he misses out on what prayer is and he misses a chance to connect with God because he thinks too highly of himself.
Look at how the tax collector prays.
His prayer is simple.
It is genuine and real.
This tax collector, for everything he is not, is a much better man than this religious leader whose pride has made his right actions meaningless.
Pride comes when we exalt ourselves, and those who exalt themselves will be humbled.
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