We Want To See Jesus

Sunday's message will be a continuation of the series, "We Want to see Jesus!"

A rather well-built young man saw an advertisement for a job at the zoo. When he went there, he was horrified to find that the only job they had open was for somebody to play the part of a gorilla. A lot of children were coming in the next few days, and the zoo, having no gorilla, needed someone to impersonate one. Since money was tight, the man decided he would take the job. He arrived before sunrise, got into the gorilla outfit, and slipped into his cage. Finally, day dawned, and the children came. All he had to do was pensively pace the floor, look rather adept at swinging between trees, and eat the peanuts and bananas whenever they were fed to him. After eight or ten hours, he became thoroughly exhausted. The bananas were getting the better of him. As he swung from one tree to another, rather nauseated, he slipped and fell into the lion’s den next door. He shouted, "Help! Help!" The lion leaned over and said, "If you don’t shut up, we’ll both lose our jobs."

What is the moral of the story? Just because it looks like a gorilla and swings like a gorilla doesn’t necessarily mean that it is one. The same applies in the church. It may look like a Christian and sound like a Christian but that does not necessarily mean that it is one. Too often people wear masks which conceal their true identity. Jesus had very little tolerance for this.

Theologian Karl Rahner once said: "The number one cause of atheism is Christians. Those who proclaim God with their mouths and deny Him with their lifestyles. That is what an unbelieving world finds simply unbelievable."