Lee, a 24 year old lad who has already been in prison for four years and was released about a year ago has been living on the street since his release.
He has a little boy who he gets to see only now and then.
He misses him badly.
Lee is a lad whose life history from birth to now is just a tangled mess of rejection and trouble. It's a history that pains you to even hear.
He is anti-establishment, can be violent and has a number of addictions.
Strip away all of that?
He is a really likeable lad.
The S21 staff love him like son.
He is a massive part of our family and community.
One of the street homeless workers we have based at S21, Donna, was responsible for getting lee into a bedsit. I witnessed a conversation she was having with Lee in S21 the other day.
She was letting him know in no uncertain terms that this was a chance for him to change his life around. She was telling him that he had to stop fighting. She said to him,"What happens when your son says I want to be like my daddy?" Donna was telling him that he had to become a good role model for his son, and that if his little son saw his daddy fighting then he would more than likely get himself into fights too.
As I listened to Donna giving Lee all she had got, I suddenly thought about my own relationship with Jesus.
I want to be like my daddy?
Do I?
Now at the expense of sounding like I use that highly cheesy preaching technique of quoting lines from songs! I so dislike that, it really irritates me!
But the line of a song, a blast from the past, a song I probably haven't sang, heard or thought about for about twenty years came singing into my ears out of thin air.
The song?
To be like Jesus this hope possess me. (I think it's an old Salvation Army song or something?)
I had this horrible flashback to when I was a young Salvationist but with absolutely no relationship with Jesus.
I would sing those words then go out of the doors and be anything but like Jesus!
And as for the "This hope possesses me" bit? Well I don't think I even gave being like Jesus a second thought.
Right now I'm in a rich vein of relationship with Jesus.
Yet when I heard those words "I want to be like my daddy," I had a complete surge of urge to get to know him yet deeper, and then deeper, and then deeper still.
Am I like him?
Wow! Now there is a question.
Does that hope possess me?
O boy! There is another question!
I so so so so so so hope so!
My mind wandered off to scripture.
Matthew 16: 13-20
13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter,[b] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[c] will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[d] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[e] loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
So here Jesus is challenging the disciples with "who are the people outside of this group saying I am?"
Then he zooms the question around to them. "So, who do you say I am."
And we know Simon Peter presses the right answer button. "You are the Messiah the son of the living God."
I love the fact that as Simon Peter says with assurance that Jesus is the messiah, Jesus then is able to do something with him, in fact he goes as far to say that on him, Peter, he would build his Church.
And I think recognition of who Jesus is is the first step to becoming like him.
And from there God can do extraordinary things through us like building his church.
I spoke on this in our S21 service yesterday morning. And as I looked at the sea of broken lives sat on the couches and round the tables as I whacked a sermon out, drug addicts, people who have been used and severely abused, homeless, desperately needy people, I saw the potential earthquake of church building that could happen through these amazing people.
I was telling them that similar to Jesus asking the disciples "who do people say that the Son of man is?" The world today is the same, some people say Jesus is a mythical character, some say he is a concept, some say he is an inconvenience, some say he is an outright problem, some come right out and say he is just nothing really.
But Jesus turns the question to his disciples.
"Who do you say I am?"
And I felt God nudge me and say Just put that question out this morning on your blog will you please Gaz?"
Do we wanna be like your daddy?
Does that hope possess us?
I pray today that Jesus ain't just a concept, a myth, an inconvenience, or a pain in the neck to us.
I pray that we can say with assurance.
You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.
Then yeah, on us he will continue to build his church.
Blessings today.
