When Christ came to earth the first time, the Jews who had been waiting for his coming failed to recognise Him. Could this be the case with you? Could false expectations, culture or anything else be a blind spot as you are seeking to come to Christ? Daniel Pel presents a way to help us experience Christ more fully.

GYCE Focus 2016: Coming to Christ

<p>When Christ came to earth the first time, the Jews who had been waiting for his coming failed to recognise Him. Could this be the case with you? Could false expectations, culture or anything else be a blind spot as you are seeking to come to Christ? Daniel Pel presents a way to help us experience Christ more fully.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

GYC Europe

Daniel Pel

Would You Recognize Him

Well, I had a good trip coming from Norway yesterday.

I live in Norway together with my Norwegian wife and son, even though, as was mentioned, I was born in New Zealand, Dutch parents.

So when people ask me where I'm coming from, then I say, how long do you wanna go back?

I pastor a church in Norway in the city of Bergen, which is the second largest city in Norway, the coastal city, and enjoy doing that at the present time.

I look forward to my message this morning, but before we get going, I would like to have another word of prayer, so I just invite you to bow your heads as we invite the Holy Spirit to guide us in His Word this morning.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much that we can be gathered together here on your beautiful Sabbath day.

We ask for your Holy Spirit to inspire us, to move us, and to teach us this morning.

Thank you, Lord, that we in all freedom can open your word.

As we know there are many places in the world where this is no longer possible.

Bless us and speak to us we pray in Jesus' name.

And let all of God's people say Amen, amen.

The title for my message this morning is, Would You Recognize Him?

Have you ever experienced that you heard about a person and you started thinking about what that person would look like, and you have this imagined picture, and then you meet the actual person and the reality is very different.

You know, as I've been traveling in ministry, Many times I get picked up at the airports and on many occasions the people that pick me up, they will know me or they have seen me perhaps on a picture or seen me on a sermon.

But it has also happened that I've been picked up by people that have not seen me previously, and they had a picture of me, and not always that picture has matched with what they expected.

I remember very well that I was visiting 1 country here in Europe, and a young couple was going to pick me up from the airport, And the only thing that they had heard is that I was a missionary.

And when they heard that I was a missionary, there was this picture that they had in their minds.

They had a picture of an old man with a long beard and sandals.

And so when I actually came, As you can see, I had to disappoint them.

But it's interesting because we have perceptions, we have our thoughts, our thinking of what a person could be like or look like, but then sometimes we are faced with a very different picture.

And my question this morning is, do you know what Jesus looks like?

Now I'm not talking about the physical looks, I'm talking about his character.

Well when Jesus came the first time to our earth for 2, 000 years ago, the Jews did not recognize Him.

And I hope you have your Bibles with you because this is going to be a little bit of a Bible study.

I invite you to turn to the book of John, the fourth gospel book in your Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, turn with me to John chapter 1.

As we explore the topic, would you recognize him?

Did they recognize him for 2, 000 years ago?

And if they didn't, then why did they not?

And could we fall into some similar situations today?

John chapter 1 is we're going to start our time together, and I'll be reading from verse 6.

John chapter 1 beginning in verse 6, and if you're there you can say amen.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

Now John is writing here, but he's actually writing about another John.

So he's writing about John the Baptist, and he says the following about John the Baptist, verse 7, this man came for a witness to bear witness of the light, capital L, that's talking about Jesus, that all through him might believe.

He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light that was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world.

John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus Christ.

And so you can just imagine hearing the preaching of John the Baptist as he would describe the 1 that would come after him that was greater than him.

He was to prepare the world to recognize Jesus when he would eventually come.

The gospel of Mark actually tells us that all the land of Judea and those in Jerusalem, they went out to meet him.

So we're not talking about a couple of people that are standing there on the banks of River Jordan and listening to John the Baptist.

We're talking about multitudes of people that are under the hearing of His voice.

They are listening to His preaching as He is describing the 1 that is coming, the promised Messiah.

But then we come to the very moment where Jesus appears on the scene.

And listen to what John, the disciple John, tells us about how Jesus was received.

We're gonna continue in John chapter 1 and look at verse 10 and 11.

And the Bible says, he was in the world and the world was made through him and the world...

He came to his own and his own, what does it say?

After all the preparation of John the Baptist, after all the preaching of John the Baptist as he prepared the way for the coming of the Messiah of Jesus, when Jesus actually came, the Bible tells us that there were few that recognized Him.

They did not receive him." Not only do we have the preaching of John the Baptist, but we also have the entire Old Testament.

And the Jews of those days, they had access to the Old Testament.

Many of them knew the Old Testament very well.

Some of the Pharisees, they knew the Torah, the first 5 books by heart.

And so they knew the Old Testament, they read the Old Testament, they heard the preaching of John the Baptist, and yet the Bible tells us that they did not know Jesus when He came.

Why did they not recognize Jesus when He came?

That's something that we want to talk about this morning.

Have you ever been in traffic and you've been driving and suddenly there's a car that appears and you didn't see that car before and you're about to change lane but then you have to change back quickly because that car was in your blind spot.

Or perhaps you can reverse that and you have experienced that you have been in the blind spot of someone else, in the blind zone.

And so you just realize that this car is not seeing me.

You know, I want to talk this morning about spiritual blind spots, because obviously the Jews in the days of Jesus' first coming were living with this gigantic blind spot.

They were living in a blind zone where they could not identify Jesus for who He was.

Now turn in your Bibles to the book of 2 Corinthians.

You're in the book of John, but turn with me to the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 3.

And let's look at a description that Paul gives us of What the problem was with the Jews and why they did not recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah.

Second Corinthians chapter 3, and we're going to begin reading in verse 14.

And the Bible says, but their minds were blinded.

He's talking about the Jewish nation here.

Their minds were blinded, for until this day, the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament because the veil is taken away in Christ, verse 15.

But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.

Isn't that amazing that they could not recognize Jesus even though they were reading the Old Testament.

Jesus Himself said that the Scripture testifies of Him.

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Would You Recognize Him

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