Illustration: You've heard the expression, "Something got lost in translation." I don't know if you've seen the new machines they've can do this on the I will translate English into whatever language you want. Type in a phrase and push a button, and it will translate it into French or Spanish or German or whatever. I've always been curious: How do you know the translation is good?

A guy had a similar question and did something fun. He took the song "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," typed it into the computer, and translated it into German. Then he translated it back into English to see if anything got lost in the translation. You know the song "Take Me out to the Ballgame":

Take me out to the ballgame.

Take me out to the crowd.

Buy me some peanuts and Crackerjack.

I don't care if I ever get back.

Let me root, root, root for the home team.

If they don't win, it's a shame.

For it's one, two, three strikes you're out

At the old ballgame.

He translated it into German and then back into English. Well, something got lost in the translation. It sounds a little militant, like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Execute me to the ball play.

Execute me with the masses.

Buy me certain groundnuts and crackerstackfusig.

I'm not interested if I never receive back.

Let me root, root, root for the main team.

If they do not win, it is dishonor.

For there are one, two, three impacts on you

At the old ball play.

Something got lost in the translation. The same is true about Jesus. Something through the centuries gets lost a bit. I don't mean the translation of the New Testament text; I'm talking about the way people perceive Jesus. Often Jesus ends up a caricature of who he really is.

Today I want to talk about the Jesus I know, the Jesus I've known for 18 years, who has changed my life. I want not only to provide you information about Jesus; I want to help you experience Jesus today.

The way I conceptualized this was, if I had a friend investigating C he wanted to know about Jesus and we were at Starbucks one day, and he said to me, "Lee, you've been a Christian for 18 years now. Who is this Jesus?" what would I say to my friend? I would tell my friend three true stories that illuminate a different aspect of who Jesus is.

A story of adoption

The first story is sad. It took place in Korea shortly after the Korean War. A Korean woman had an affair with an American soldier, and she got pregnant. He went back to the United States, and she never saw him again. She gave birth to a little girl, and this little girl looked different than the other Korean children. She had , curly hair. In that culture, children of mixed race were ostracized by the community. In fact, many women would kill their children because they didn't want them to face such rejection.

But this woman didn't do that. She tried to raise her little girl as best she could. For seven years she tried to do that, until the rejection was too much. She did something that probably nobody in this room could imagine ever doing. She abandoned her little girl to the streets.

This little girl was ruthlessly taunted by people. They called her the ugliest word in the Korean language, tooki, alien devil. It didn't take long for this little girl to draw conclusions about herself based on the way people treated her.

For two years she lived in the streets, until finally she made her way to an orphanage. One day, word came that a couple from America was going to come adopt a little boy. All the children in the orphanage got excited because at least one little boy was going to have hope. He was going to have a family. So this little girl spent the day cleaning up the little them baths and combing their wondering which one would be adopted by the American couple.

The next day the couple came, and this is what the girl recalled:

It was like Goliath had come back to life. I saw the man with his huge hands lift up each and every baby. I knew he loved every one of them as if they were his own. I saw tears running down his face, and I knew if they could, they would have taken the whole lot home with them.

[Then she said,] He saw me out of the corner of his eye. [Listen to her description of herself.] Now let me tell you. I was nine years old, but I didn't even weigh 30 pounds. I was a scrawny thing. I had worms in my body. I had lice in my hair. I had boils all over me. I was full of scars. I was not a pretty sight. But the man came over to me, and he began rattling away something in English, and I looked up at him. Then he took this huge hand and laid it on my face. What was he saying? He was saying, "I want this child. This is the child for me."

When I heard this woman tell her story, my mind froze on that scene because that's like the Jesus I know. That is what Jesus would do, because Jesus peers beneath the ugliness of our sin and the scars of our failure, and looks all the way down to a soul that's made in the image of God Almighty. Jesus wants to take your face in his strong but gentle hands, and he wants to cup your face and look in your eyes. He wants to say to you, "I want this child. This is the child for me. I've waited since the foundations of the world were laid for this moment to cup this face, to look in these eyes, and to say, 'I want to adopt you.'"

That's the first thing I'd want my friend to know about Jesus. If you're like me, you come to church and see people who maybe have been Christians for a long, long time, and they seem to have their act together. You know the truth about yourself. They don't know what's going on inside of you. They don't know the secret sins. They don't know the secret fantasies you have. If they knew the real you, you fear they would reject you every bit as much as that little girl was rejected in Korea.

But the amazing thing about Jesus Christ is that Jesus doesn't see you that way. Jesus knows everything already. He's aware of all the secret sin in your life, and knowing all of that, even still he wants to reach out and cup your face in his hands and say, "I want this child."

Then something shocking happened with that little 9 girl. As that man reached out to her, she said later, "The hand on my face felt so good, and inside I said, 'Oh, keep that up. Don't let your hand go.' But nobody had ever shown that kind of affection for me before. I didn't know how to respond. So I yanked his hand off my face, and I looked up at him and spit on him. I turned around and ran away." Can you imagine? Her window of opportunity is open. Here is hope. What does she do? She spits in his face.

When she said that about herself, I thought, how is that possible? Then I stopped. Wait a minute. I've done the same thing with God. You probably have too.

Have you ever turned your back on Jesus? Let me tell you something amazing about the Jesus I know. He is a lot like the American couple at the orphanage, because they returned the next day. They understood the suffering she'd gone through, the trauma she had experienced. Despite her initial rejection of them, they went back to the little girl with lice in her hair and boils all over her body. They said, "We've got to have this child. This is the one we want to adopt." And they did. They named her Stephanie, and they got her the medical attention she needed. They loved that child just like their own. She grew up and became a follower of Jesus Christ. She got married, and she has children now. She lives here in the United States.

I would say to my friend who asked me about Jesus, "If you have ever turned your back on him, if you've ever let that window of opportunity close, God has not given up on you." I would say, "If you're asking me about Jesus because something inside you is stirring, the Spirit of God is starting to do something in you and draw you toward him. Don't let that window of opportunity shut. Pursue God because he's already pursuing you. The danger is not on his side of the equation. He will be there for you." That's what I'd tell my friend about the Jesus I know. He wants to adopt you because he loves you.

In fact, the Bible even uses that term adoption. Romans 8:23 says, "We wait eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters of God." There is something inside of us that longs to be adopted into the family of God.

A story of forgiveness

There is something else my friend would need to know about Jesus, and so I would tell him a second story. It happened in the church I was part of. We were doing a baptism service. We told people before they came up to the platform to be baptized to take a piece of paper, write down a few of the sins they've committed, and fold the paper. When they come up to the platform, there's a large wooden cross on the stage. Take that piece of paper, take a pin, and pin it to the cross, because the Bible says our sins are nailed to the cross with Jesus Christ, and fully paid for by his death. Then turn and come to the pastor to be baptized.

I want to read you a letter a woman wrote who was baptized in one of those services. She said:

I remember my fear. In fact, it was the most fear I remember in my life. I wrote as tiny as I could on that piece of paper the word abortion. I was so scared someone would open the paper and read it and find out it was me. I wanted to get up and walk out of the auditorium during the service, the guilt and fear were that strong.

When my turn came, I walked toward the cross, and I pinned the paper there. I was directed to a pastor to be baptized. He looked me straight in the eyes, and I thought for sure that he was going to read this terrible secret I kept from everybody for so long. But instead, I felt like God was telling me, I love you. It's okay. You've been forgiven. I felt so much love for me, a terrible sinner. It's the first time I ever really felt forgiveness and unconditional love. It was unbelievable, indescribable.

Do you have inside of you a secret sin that you wouldn't even want to write down on a piece of paper out of fear somebody might open it up and find out? Let me tell you something about the Jesus I know. Not only does he want to adopt you as his child, he wants to lift the weight of guilt off your shoulders. The Bible says over and over again the complete forgiveness of our sin is available through Jesus Christ. The Lord says in Isaiah 43:25, "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more." Psalm 103:12 says, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."

A story of redemption

Then I would tell him a third story about a guy named Billy Moore. Billy Moore grew up in a tough city in Ohio to an impoverished family. He got involved with crime when he was young. They'd smoke dope and get drunk and break into taverns and steal cash registers, or they'd break into cigarette machines, all kinds of petty theft. Then he joined the army, got married. His wife left him, took their kid with her. He was broke, and he was desperate.

One night he and a friend were drinking, smoking dope, and talking about how broke they were. His friend said, "I know about a guy who lives not too far from here, and the word is, he doesn't trust banks. He keeps all his money in his bedroom."

Billy said, "Is he some big, tough guy?"

And the friend said, "No, he's an old guy. Wouldn't hurt a fly."

So the plot hatched in Billy's mind. He went back to the barracks, got his gun, and loaded it. He drove to that man's house, broke in, and started ransacking the house.

Put yourself in the position of this elderly gentleman. He's 77 years old. He's in the bedroom as Billy breaks in the front door. He hears the noise, and he's afraid. He doesn't know what to do. He had a shotgun he used for hunting. As Billy Moore broke through the bedroom door with a gun in his hand, this elderly gentleman pointed a shotgun, pulled the trigger, and a blast went off. The buckshot went over Billy's shoulder, missed him completely. Billy took his gun, pointed it at the old man, and he pulled the trigger twice. The elderly gentleman fell dead. Billy rifled through his pockets for any cash, ransacked the bedroom, and he walked away with $5,600. He fled to his trailer in rural Georgia.

It didn't take long for the police to track him down. He wasn't a clever criminal. They arrested him and took him to jail. You can just imagine the first night in a jail cell, he realizes his life is over. That's it. He's charged with capital murder. There's an electric chair waiting for him.

Well, Billy Moore's mom was a Christian, and she knew a Christian couple who lived not far from the jail in Georgia. She called and said, "I got a son, and he's charged with a death penalty case. He's on death row. Would you please go visit him?" They went to visit Billy Moore, and they sat down with him and told him about Jesus. They said to Billy, "Jesus is willing to give you a fresh start and a new chance at life."

Billy looked back at them dumbfounded and said, "You got to be kidding me. Don't you realize my situation here? I murdered an old grandfather. I am charged with a death penalty case. My life is over. There are no new beginnings for me." But that Christian man looked back at Billy Moore and said, "No, you don't understand. Jesus Christ loves you so much he wants to adopt you as his son. He wants to lift the burden of guilt off your shoulders. Jesus Christ loves you so much he wants to find a way to make your life count." Billy not only heard these words from this man and woman, but he saw Jesus in them. He said later, "Nobody ever told me that Jesus loved me. Nobody ever told me Jesus had died for me." He says, "It was a love I could feel. It was a love I wanted. It was a love I needed."

And so Billy Moore, as hopeless and broken an individual as you're ever going to see, got on his knees in his jail cell and said, "God, are you telling me you want to adopt the likes of me, you want to forgive me? If you are willing to do that, Jesus, then have at it. I'm sorry for all I've done, and I want to live for you. If you would adopt me and take me to heaven, that would just be the best." And then, "I don't have much time left, but if you could do something to make my life count, it would be like icing on the cake."

Jesus heard that prayer. There was a bathtub there on death row. They got permission from the guards to fill it up with water. Billy Moore knelt in the bathtub, and they dipped him backward into the water to baptize him.

God began to change that man from the inside out. Billy went to court and pleaded guilty. He said, "How can tell you I didn't do it when I did?" They found him guilty and sentenced him to death. But the criminal justice system is slow. It took 16 years of living in a cage waiting to die, but during those 16 years Billy opened his life up to God. God changed him from the inside out.

Billy Moore became a model prisoner, so much so that the guards had a nickname for him. They called him "the peacemaker." Death row was an ugly, forsaken, violent, hateful place until Billy Moore got there. Billy had Bible studies with the other inmates, and one by one they found hope and redemption and new life in Jesus Christ. The place that had been awful and violent became a place of hope where people cared for each other.

So I would say to my friend, "The issue has never been whether God would forgive you for what you have done. The Bible makes it clear. First John 1:9: 'If we confess our sins to him, he can be depended on to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.' That's not the issue. The issue is, will you let God forgive you like Billy Moore did? If Billy Moore can be forgiven by God for murdering a defenseless old grandfather, then what in the world have you done in your life that you think would disqualify you from the forgiveness of God?

"The issue has never been can God make your life count. The issue has never been, will God transform you? The Bible makes it clear. Second Corinthians 5:17 says when someone becomes a Christian he becomes a new person. He's not the same any more. The question is not, will he change you? The question is will you, like Billy Moore, open your heart to God? Will you invite him to change you? Will you invite him to give you a purpose for living beyond eating and drinking and going to work every day?"

If God can use a guy like Billy Moore living in a cage, then think what he could do with your life. Think what he could do in your family, with your children, in your neighborhood, and in this church.

In August of 1990 the court system finally caught up with Billy Moore. The Supreme Court said that's it, time to die. The hours were ticking down to August 22, when they would kill him. He was put in the death watch cell, which is where they put the guys in the last hours of life. His lawyers would call him, and I had an opportunity to talk to one of those lawyers. "What was it like to call this guy who was facing death in just a few hours?"

The lawyer said, "It was the strangest experience I've ever had."

"What happened?"

"We would call to console him, but he ended up consoling us. Billy would say things like, 'Are you guys okay? Are you coping? I know this is difficult for you. Can I pray for you? It's going to be okay.' We were trying to reach out to him, and he was reaching out to us. Why?"

Why? Because Billy Moore was not afraid to meet Jesus Christ face to face. Why wasn't he afraid? Because he knew, If God loves me so much, if Jesus wants to adopt me, if he wants to forgive all my sins, then I can trust that when I close my eyes in that electric chair as I die, he's going to take care of me forever.

On August 21, 1990, hours before Billy Moore was to be electrocuted, something amazing took place. In fact, it's unprecedented in American history. The Georgia Pardon and Parole Board held an emergency hearing about a model prisoner they'd heard about.

Let me tell you something about Billy Moore. On that day he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was guilty. He knew he had committed a heinous crime, and he knew he deserved to die in that electric chair. But the five members of that Pardon and Parole Board looked at this repentant man, and they did something so amazing it made the front page of the New York Times. They looked at Billy Moore and said, "We are going to show you mercy." They threw out the death penalty against Billy Moore and did something that had never been done before in American history: they set the gears in motion to release him from prison. It was the first time in history a confessed killer on death row was to be set free.

And that, I would tell my friend, is like Jesus. It's like his grace. His grace is unmerited favor. Billy Moore deserved to die. Instead he was set free. That's what Jesus does.

You know where Billy Moore is right now? Billy Moore today is where he is every Sunday. He's in church worshiping the God of the second chance, because Billy Moore is a pastor.

I remember sitting in Billy's living room a couple of months ago, and we were talking. I started to goad him a little bit. I said, "It's just the two of us here. You can tell the truth now. What is really at the root of the miraculous change in your life? It was the prison rehabilitation system, wasn't it?"

He laughed. He said, "No, Lee, it wasn't that."

I said, "What was it then? Was it a program?"

He said, "No, it wasn't that."

I said, "Was it transcendental meditation? Was it psychological counseling?"

He said, "Come on, Lee. You know better than that. You know what it was."

I did know what it was, but I wanted to hear him say it. I said, "No, Billy, you tell me. What changed Billy Moore?"

He said, "I will tell you plain and simple. It was Jesus Christ. He changed me in ways I could never have changed myself. He gave me a reason to live. He helped me do the right thing for a change. He gave me a heart for other people. And, Lee, he saved my soul."

I thought, Bingo. That's the business Jesus is in. Aren't those the exact five things all of us want? Don't we want to be changed in ways we can never change on our own? Don't we want to have a reason for living? Don't we want to be helped to do the right thing? Don't we want to have a heart for other people? Don't we want God to save our soul and to take us to heaven? That's what Jesus does.

And the amazing thing is it's free. It is a gift. It cost Jesus everything. The price tag was his suffering and death on the cross to pay for our sin. It cost him everything; it costs us zero. He offers it as a free gift because he loves us.

In my imagination I think about this friend sitting across from me in Starbucks, and I just wish he would look back at me and say, "I want to know that Jesus. How could I not want to know that Jesus? How could I not want to be adopted and forgiven and empowered to live? What do I do, Lee?"

I would say to my friend, "It is so easy. Just do what Billy Moore did. Billy Moore went into court and confessed. All you have to do is come into the court of God. Pray and confess what you know is you've done things you ought not to have done. Say, 'God, I've messed up in ways I know I shouldn't have. I realize, God, that you're perfect. You're holy, and my sin, my wrongdoing has separated me from you. I understand now that's why you seem so distant from me. I don't want you to be distant anymore. I want you to live inside of me. I want you to change my life, to adopt me, to forgive me, to do something with my life.'

"If you pray that prayer," I tell my friend, "God never turns a deaf ear to a prayer like that. Jesus will adopt you and forgive you. And he will begin the amazing process of changing you and using your life for the good."

Who does not want to know a Jesus like that? Would you like to meet him? Would you like to meet him so that today you can begin to get to know him, and then when you die live in a perfect state forever united with God in heaven? If you want to know that Jesus, the window of opportunity is open in your soul right now. Don't turn your back. Don't say no again. Say yes to him.

Lee Strobel is teaching pastor at Saddleback Church in Mission Viejo, California. His most recent book is The Case for Faith (Zondervan, 2000).

Lee Strobel

Preaching Today Tape # 211

www.PreachingTodaySermons.com

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Lee Strobel is teaching pastor at Saddleback Community Church in Mission Viejo, California. His most recent book is The Case for Faith (Zondervan, 2000).