Meeting Jesus - Extraordinary Encounters
I was in my second year of college in 1996 when the comet named Hyakutake (ya-koo-ta-kee) filled the night sky. Around 10 o’clock at night, my friend and I hopped in my car to get away from the city lights to get a good look at it. Outside the city limits, we made lefts and rights down some backroads until we finally were far enough away from the city lights to get a good view. We were surrounded by thick trees, the sky was black, and once we found a little clearance at the top of a hill, I pulled my car into a dirt road. My headlights hit a house with boarded windows and doors…
We jumped out of the car, left the doors open, the headlights on pointing toward the woods across the road, and the engine running (because my car usually didn’t start the first time I turned the key) and turned to look at the comet.
It was stunning. The huge ball of fire, the streaming brilliant tail that went on for thousands of miles….it was incredible.
But…something felt off. It felt like I was being watched. Something did not feel right. It felt like that the moment I jumped out of the car…and it built up. I couldn’t shake it. After driving 45 minutes to get out of town, I spent less than a minute looking at the comet. As awesome and brilliant as the comet was – something didn’t feel right. I turned to my friend and asked him if he wanted to go. Quickly, he said “yep.”
I turned to get in the car, and in the headlights just at the edge of the road, a man was walking directly toward me! He had on dark clothes, a hat pulled down over his head, and was moving silently through the leaves toward me. I jumped into the driver’s seat. Yelled to my friend, “Get in the car!” He saw the guy, jumped in. We slammed the doors, put the car in drive…and as I pulled out past the man, he glared at me through the driver side window and KICKED the back of my car as hard as he could.
I did not stop at one stop sign or red light until I pulled back onto campus. Once on campus, we both leaped out of the car and quickly looked underneath to make sure this guy wasn’t hanging on. That was the strangest encounter of my life! We had questions like, “Why couldn’t we hear him?” “Why was he coming toward me?” “If we were trespassing, why didn’t he just yell at us?” I had no answers. It was a bizarre, strange, and weird encounter.
Sometimes we encounter things in life that we are unable to explain. Maybe you have had a bizarre experience in your life as well. Some people make claims that they have seen Bigfoot. Or abducted by aliens…
It’s crazy that in light of all the technology that we carry around in our pocket on our cell phones, most of these strange encounters are blurry and out of frame. Luke recorded a very strange encounter that the disciples had with Jesus. Two dead prophets and Jesus would hang out together on a hill, and Jesus clothes and appearance would turn to radiant white. It was strange and bizarre, but I believe there are some great take-aways in the passage for us.
Luke 9:28-36 (NLT2)
28 About eight days later Jesus took Peter, James, and John up on a mountain to pray. 29 And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was transformed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30 Then two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared and began talking with Jesus. 31 They were glorious to see. And they were speaking about his exodus from this world, which was about to be fulfilled in Jerusalem. 32 Peter and the others had fallen asleep. When they woke up, they saw Jesus’ glory and the two men standing with him. 33 As Moses and Elijah were starting to leave, Peter, not even knowing what he was saying, blurted out, “Master, it’s wonderful for us to be here! Let’s make three shelters as memorials—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 34 But even as he was saying this, a cloud came over them, and terror gripped them as the cloud covered them. 35 Then a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, my Chosen One. Listen to him.” 36 When the voice finished, Jesus was there alone. They didn’t tell anyone at that time what they had seen.
This was a bizarre and strange encounter. Men who had died hundreds of years before…Jesus appearance being changed. The voice of God booming from within a cloud. For Jesus, this was a public affirmation from God that he was going to save the World from our sins…that he was the chosen son of God…and that we should all listen to him and do what he says to do.
And It is interesting that in this moment,
JESUS DID NOT SEEK VALIDATION FROM INFLUENCERS
This was the most significant moment in his life to date...yet he did not bring in the heavy hitters with political or religious influence to see it. Jesus did not contact the local news team. He didn’t gather together the heads of the tribes of Israel, He did not invite Kings, scholars, philosophers to observe this moment of validation. He didn’t invite people from different arenas who would tell others about what they saw, and about who He was. He did not seek out the popular people among the Israelites. So many people in our culture today seek out validation from INFLUENCERS in social media.
We have many Social Media Influencers in our church. Let me ask you to use your influence to shine the light on Jesus and to point others to Jesus.
Be informative. Be witty and clever. Be funny. But periodically, point them to something greater than you.
The greatest influence you could ever have is to lead somebody to a life-changing relationship with Jesus. Many people today want to be recognized on social media – they want their opinion to matter more than others. They want the recognition. They build revenue through LIKES and HEARTS and COMMENTS. If enough people like them – sponsors will pick them up.
But some people who want to be an influencer have it wrong. They want to be important and they want to matter. Some people who try to be an influencer aren’t seeking revenue or cash, they are building their view of self. They think, “The more people that like my posts, the more important I will be.”
And, “If people do not like my posts, apparently I do not matter.”
Let me say this right now – you are important. You do matter. Your self-worth is not found online. If you seek out validation from other people to feel important, stop it.
Jesus has given his life for you – you matter. There may be absolutely nothing exciting or incredible about you. You may not have any talents whatsoever. Your checking account may make a homeless person feel rich…
You may be absolutely NORMAL, like Jesus demonstrates in this passage:
GOD INVITES NORMAL PEOPLE TO EXPERIENCE THE ABNORMAL
Jesus took regular ordinary people to the top of this mountain to experience something abnormal. Something unexpected. Something unheard of. Peter, James and John were all regular uneducated, untrained, fishermen. They were mediocre fishermen at best. When Jesus first called them, they had been fishing all night and did not catch one fish. They weren’t the best or most skilled in their line of work.
They were ok. They were adequate. They were normal, everyday people that he called to experience the abnormal. That is what God continues to do today. If you want to experience the abnormal in a life-changing relationship with Jesus – you can be wealthy, or poor, you can be be attractive, or ugly. You can be a nobody or a somebody. You can be married. Divorced. You can be single.
You can bring all your flaws, all your faults, they way you are, surrender your life to Jesus, and experience an abnormal life. I know normal quite well, because I am normal. In many ways, I consider myself below average. God has gifted me as a teacher. I love teaching his word and helping people experience the abundant life He has for them…
On the stage, I teach pretty transparently. In fact, one of my core values is to live transparently…I often share my own struggles with applying God’s Word to my life…and often my own failures.
I acknowledge that I am a guarded individual. I am very guarded when it comes to who I let in my life. I have experienced a lot of hurt in my childhood, and a lot of hurt in ministry. Because I am guarded, I may come across as uncaring. Normal people have problems – but we should not let our problems stand in the way of experiencing the abnormal.
So – what are your barriers to growth? What are the areas of your life that needs to experience healing? Besides Jesus, Peter is the only other man that speaks in this passage of scripture – and essentially he is a blubbering idiot. He doesn’t know what to say, so he rambles.
33 …Peter, not even knowing what he was saying, blurted out, “Master, it’s wonderful for us to be here! Let’s make three shelters as memorials—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
In the presence of Jesus, Moses, and Elijah – Peter felt a need to say something – so he just blurted something out. That was Peter’s personality. He often did or said things that were dumb things to say.
He jumped out of the boat to walk on water and sank. He rebuked Jesus and told him he was wrong. He blurts something out here just to say something. Like you and I, Peter was a normal ordinary guy. He had a lot of rough edges. He had to make a lot of apologies…
But Jesus knew that…
GOD TRANSFORMS ORDINARY INTO EXTRAORDINARY
After Jesus rose from the dead, God took this man named Peter, a normal ordinary man and transformed him into a preacher and leader. In the Book of Acts, under Peter’s preaching – thousands and thousands of people surrendered their lives to Jesus and experienced forgiveness of sins and were made brand spanking new. God took the man that smelled like fish and made him a fisher of men.
God took the man with no communication skills, and transformed him into one of the most gifted and honest speakers of his time.
Acts 4:13 (NLT2)
13 The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus.
Both Peter and John were Ordinary until God grabbed ahold of their lives. So, how can you let God transform you? How can you as a follower of Jesus, become extraordinary. At Beach Church, our mission is to lead people to a life-changing relationship with Jesus. We not only lead people to Jesus…we lead people to a life-changing relationship with Jesus. That means, all those in Jesus continue to be changed by Jesus. Let me give you a little glimpse of what we will be incorporating into our Next Steps classes.
Our Next Step classes are designed to help people learn more about our church, and to help followers of Jesus transform into people who become more like the person God created them to be. I have developed 7 Questions called Anchor Points that will be incorporated into our Next Steps course, but for now, I want you to have these questions that you can ask yourself on a regular basis. These Anchor Points are questions designed to help an “ordinary” follower of Jesus become an “extraordinary” follower of Jesus:
Here are the Seven Anchor Points for a follower of Jesus to ask themselves on a daily basis: