The Gospel of John: Follow...

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Transcript August 30/31, 2014

The Gospel of John: Follow Me Aaron Brockett | John 1:35-51

This morning we’re in John, chapter 1, verse 35. I’m hoping that it’s as good as last night. Last night I preached so hard that one of the lights blew and there was fire on stage – it was very, very exciting. I’ve been trying to replicate it. I couldn’t do it again at nine. But hopefully today we’ll get going into this. If you are visiting with us, three weeks ago we started this series in the Gospel of John and what a gospel is – maybe you need to this just as review or maybe this is the first time for you to get this information – a gospel is the written recordings of Jesus’ life, His ministry, and His actions. We have four of them. They begin the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The first three that were written were Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They are known as the synoptic gospels. The reason why is because that word “synoptic” means viewing or seeing together. So these three guys write their gospels right around the same time frame, about 20 to 30 years after Jesus’ resurrection. Their primary goal was to get an accurate, historical record of what Jesus said and did on paper for future generations and there’s a lot of overlap. They actually rely upon one another for either an eye witness or they are talking to eye witnesses. That was their primary goal – get it down on paper so that way we can know what Jesus said and did. By the time John comes around it’s about 20 or 30 years after the synoptic gospels. John was one of the youngest disciples who followed Jesus back in his early days. Now he’s an older man. He’s a seasoned, veteran pastor and it’s about 70 years after Jesus’ resurrection. The culture is dramatically changed. John wants to write a gospel but he’s not into regurgitating everything that the synoptic guys have given us. He’s like, “They’ve done a fine job. I’m going to give you something different.” About 90 percent of what is in the Gospel of John is unique to John. He spends about two-‐thirds of his time focusing upon the last week of Jesus’ life. And John’s goal is a bit different. John is writing with the person in mind who is struggling to believe. John wants to address the objections, address the questions that they might have and to show them why Jesus matters. He’s like, “This is who Jesus is theologically.” But John also has in mind seasoned believers, people in this room who have grown up in church, maybe who accepted Christ a long time ago. Maybe you are like, “Okay, I know what that passage says.” John writes with you in mind as well, basically to say, “Maybe you need a good reminder that Jesus is more than just your co-‐pilot. Jesus is more than your weekly therapist, or your personal assistant. Jesus is God and He has come to bridge the gap between broken humanity and a Holy God. The analogy that we’ve been using, and will use throughout this entire series, is that of a swimming pool. The Gospel of John is like a pool. And so you have a deep end, and a shallow end, and a baby pool and it’s an all swim. Everybody can come play regardless of what angle you are looking at this from, regardless of whether you buy this or not, believe in this or not, or what you would call tracking as a Christian or not, you can still come to this gospel and think about it and contemplate it.

The Gospel of John: Follow Me August 30/31, 2014

Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 2

Two weeks ago as we started we looked at the first 18 verses. John introduces us to Jesus theologically. He says, “This is the Logos, Logic, Messiah.” And then last week he introduced us to this fascinating character called John the Baptist. John basically came to make straight the path for the Lord. He said, “There’s the Lamb of God.” John is the guy who could have grasped for the spotlight and made it all about him. He could have easily done that. Jesus even said in Matthew, chapter 11, verse 11 that there is nobody greater than John. But John didn’t do that. John had, as we said last week, an accurate view of his identity. He knew who he was. He knew who he wasn’t. And it led him to say this, “Jesus must increase and I must decrease until it is Christ alone.” And we said that’s the aspiration for all of us whether you are pre-‐Christ or pro-‐Christ, whether you have accepted Him or not, the barrier that may keep you from Him is the view that you have of yourself. And we said that what we meant by that is that if you think too lowly of yourself, then it’s impossible for you to respond to the gospel because you don’t think that God’s grace can reach you. You don’t think that He would have you and that becomes a barrier. If you think too highly of yourself then you don’t see a need for a Savior, “Why do I need that religious crutch? I’m doing fine on my own.” What comes from the gospel is understanding that I’m not nearly as good as I think I am and I’m not as bad as I think I am. So, we come with an accurate self-‐identity to Jesus Christ. Now there may be some of you who would say, “Aaron, this all sounds fine and good, I’m just not ready to believe. I’m just not ready to cross that line. I’m just not ready to sign up just yet.” And this becomes a big barrier. I think that for many of us we think that we’ve just got to jump in immediately and say that we believe all of this. And what John would say to us if he were standing here this morning, he would say, “I’m not asking you to believe anything just yet. I’m actually asking you to come and see Jesus. I’m actually asking you to come and check this thing out. As we come to our passage this morning from chapter 1, verse35, what I want you to notice is that John has already introduced us to Jesus theologically, now John’s going to introduce us to Him personally. And if you have a red-‐letter edition Bible, the red letters are the actual words of Jesus. So, as we come to this passage you’ll notice that this is the very first red letters that we get in the Gospel of John. Now John was one of the closest disciples to Jesus. Arguably you could say that he was His best friend. So the very first thing that John wants us to know about what Jesus says is found in this passage. And I think it is utterly fascinating. So let’s look at this passage. Let me read it and then I’ll actually give a synopsis of what we just read and then I’ll break it down. Chapter 1, verse 35. You can follow along in your Bible or this is up on the screens behind me. It says, “The next day again John,” and he’s referring to John the Baptist here, “was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as He walked by and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them,” Now, here’s the very first words of Jesus, it’s red-‐letter, and this is surprising to me. I would think He would say, “Do you believe in Me? Do you know who I am?” That’s probably what I would have said. Jesus says, “‘What are you seeking?’” In other words, “What do you want?” I wonder if He said it with an attitude. “What do you want?” I don’t know. Maybe He’s not that harsh. I don’t know. He says, “‘What are you seeking?’” That’s huge. We’ll unpack that here in a few minutes. “And they said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and you will see.’ So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.”



Verse 40, “One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas’ (which means Peter).” Now for those of you who know who Peter is, I just want you to think about this for a minute. This is the very first time that Jesus is meeting Peter. Now, could you imagine the look on Jesus’ face? “Ah, so you’re Peter. We’re going to have fun together. Did you bring a rooster with you? Oh, just messing with you, alright? You don’t even know what that’s all about yet. But you will, alright?” I would imagine that Jesus looked at him with great compassion. He changes his name – we’ll get to that here in a minute. Verse 43, “The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’” So, we’ve already seen come and see, and follow Me. “Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him and said of him, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!’” Jesus is like, “Nathanael, I know your character and you’re an upstanding guy. There is no deceit in you. Verse 48, “Nathanael said to Him, ‘How do You know me?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.’” So, apparently Nathanael had some sort of spiritual experience under a fig tree where he was sitting down, maybe he was reading his Bible, maybe he was journaling and he had some questions and maybe he called out to God, “God if you’re real would you do this, would you show this to me?” Some kind of experience and Jesus wants him to know that He knows all about it. Verse 49, “Nathanael answered him, ‘Rabbi,’” he kind of changes tune, “‘You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ Jesus answered him, ‘Because I said to you, “I saw you under the fig tree,” do you believe?’” In other words Jesus is saying, “That was easy. Just because I told you that I knew you were sitting under a fig tree you believe? Listen, man, you haven’t see anything yet.” “‘You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you,’” that phrase “truly, truly” will be used about 25 times in the Gospel of John. It’s this idea of there’s this weight, there’s this authority, behind what Jesus is saying. He’s saying, “Listen up.” “‘…you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.’” So, what we see here if we could just give a very condensed, precise synopsis of what we just read is that you have John the Baptist who has two followers, Andrew and the unnamed disciple. Now we have every reason to believe that the unnamed disciple was the Apostle John himself. John is kind of taking a cue from John the Baptist, “He must increase, I must decrease until it is Christ alone.” So, as he writes about himself, he doesn’t mention himself in first person. So they come with John the Baptist and John is like, “Guys why are you still following me around? You’ve graduated. I’ve already taught you everything I can teach you. Go follow that Guy. He’s the Guy who can change your life.” So they do. They go running after Jesus. They run up behind Him and Jesus turns around and He says, “What do you guys want.” And they’re like, “Hey, can we hang out with you? Can we spend a little bit of time with you?” And what you see there is that Jesus doesn’t say anything about



belief or accepting any sort of proposition for them to follow. He’s like, “Man, just come and spend some time with Me. Just get into close proximity of Me.” What I want you to see is the relational flow all through this passage. You have John the Baptist, Andrew, and John. Andrew has a brother named Simon and he tells him about it. They’re from the same home town as Philip and Nathanael. And Philip leads Nathanael to the Lord. You see all of this running through this whole passage. And Jesus changes Peter’s name. The question I had as I was studying this is why did Jesus feel the need to change Peter’s name right as He meets him? In the Old Testament God would oftentimes change people’s names to indicate their special calling. He would change Abram’s name to Abraham and Jacob to Israel. And so, Jesus, as soon as He meets Peter knows that Peter is going to play a significant role as an apostle in the first church. So, He changes his name. But I think it’s even more than that. I think Jesus is saying, “The only One who is able to do this is God, Himself. And I just changed your name. I’m God.” So we see here this first introduction to Jesus personally. Now, what I want you to underline, highlight, write down, focus on is these two sets of words, “Come and see,” and “Follow Me.” Come and see and follow Me. Jesus does not say, “I need you to believe this first. I need you to accept this proposition.” Now, those things are important but the first thing He wants us to know is, “I need you to come and see,” which requires some sort of action on our part. That word “come” is this idea of, “Okay, I’m right here now I need to go over here. I need to relocate myself. I need to get in close proximity to Christ.” This summer our family was in Boulder, Colorado and on a Saturday we were going to go visit a church that night and Lindsay had read about this restaurant that she really wanted to check out that’s in the Denver area called Snooze. Apparently they are well know for serving amazing breakfast food all day long in a retro diner. And we read online that if you’re going to go you need to get there early because there are really long lines. So, we said, “Oh, let’s wait until after the luch crowd. Let’s go about 2 o’clock in the afternoon.” We got there at 2 o’clock and it was an hour-‐long wait. Apparently it’s very, very popular. So we take our four kids out on the sidewalk and we’re trying to occupy them, keep them from arguing and killing each other – we’re all hungry because we waited until 2 o’clock. And we’re sitting on the sidewalk and after about 40 or 45 minutes in this guy walks by and he’s got his hair slicked back, he’s got these sunglasses on, and he’s on his cell phone. He stops right in front of us until he’s done with his phone call. He hangs up and he looks at me and he says, “Are these your kids?” And I’m always like, “Yeah, what did they do?” And I said, “Yeah, they’re my kids.” Then he asked a very strange question. He asked, “All of them?” I was like, “Well – that one’s a stray we’ve taken him in.” I said, “Yeah, all of them.” And then he asked another really weird question. He’s like, “They all like full-‐blood.” And I was like, “There not puppies.” I said, “Yes, they’re our kids.” And then he looked right at me and he said, “I’m in the film industry in Southern California and I’m telling you right now I could put your kids on TV like next week.” I didn’t know if I was being pumped or what was going on there. And he said to me, “Where are you from?” I said, “We’re from Indiana.” And he says, “Well, you’d have to come out. You’d have to relocate. You couldn’t do it from there. You’d have come over here.” And then he looked at me and he said, “So, how soon do you think you could get that done?” I was really hungry. When I’m hungry, I get really grumpy, alright? So, I looked right at him without skipping a beat



and I go, “How about never?” And he kind of laughed a little nervously, kind of like some of you are laughing right now. And he’s like, “Well, I think this could really happen. How much time do you need to think about it?” And I was like, “I’ve already thought about it.” And he goes, “What’s your answer?” I was like, “It’s not going to happen, bro. Just move on.” And he’s like, “Oh, I see what you are doing.” He goes, “You’re holding out for more money.” And I was like, “No. I’m really not. This is not going to happen. I don’t want my kids on TV in Hollywood.” And right then they called our names and our table was ready. I was really relieved for it. And we went in and had biscuts and gravey and bacon and the day got a whole lot better after that. This is what this idea is encapsulating here. It’s this idea that Jesus is basically saying, “I need you to come with Me. I need you to follow Me.” You are like, “Well, I don’t believe.” Jesus didn’t say anything about belief, “Would you just be willing to come and check it out? Would you just be willing to come and get in close proximity to Me?” This is the idea, here’s why I highlight this. This is the very first thing that John wants us to know about Jesus. In fact, did you know as you study through the four gospels, we are told four times more to follow Jesus than we are to believe in Him. Does that surprise any of you at all? It surprised me because I grew up in church and I always had this impression that the Christianity thing was all about mustering up enough belief to believe in some things that are hard to believe. And while belief certainly plays a huge role in this whole thing, we don’t want to undermine that – in fact we’ll get to that in John, chapter 3, verse 16 the most well known verse in the Bible. We see it all over football stadiums around the country, “For God so loved the world that whoever believes in Him…” right? So this is huge but John is saying that it’s not the first thing. And it’s certainly not the primary thing. Jesus is saying to you, wherever you are, “Would you be willing to come and see? Would you be willing to come and follow Me?” All of this fits under this word right here. It’s the word “discipleship”. What does it mean to be a disciple? Now the Great Commandment in the Bible is simply this. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. And if you believe in God or you don’t you’re like, “Oh, that’s pretty good. I should love my neighbor as myself.” The Great Commission, though, is directed toward the church. And the church is not a building, the church is not an organization, the church is the gathering of the saints of God. And Jesus says to us – the Great Commission – He says, “Go and make disciples.” Jesus didn’t say, “Go and invite people to church.” He didn’t say, “Go and make converts.” He didn’t say, “Go and convince people to believe.” He said, “Go and make disciples.” That word “disciple” means student. It means learner. Here’s what I want you to understand. Discipleship doesn’t necessarily begin after your conversion. I really do believe that the whole process of it begins before because it’s this idea of being a student. It’s this idea of learning some things. It’s this idea of following after Jesus. And you can begin to follow, you can begin to come after Him prior to your conversion. And then you need to continue to follow Him after your conversion.



So, Jesus would say this to all of us regardless of where you are on the spectrem, “Let’s hang out. I’m not asking you to sign anything. I’m not asking you to take a blind leap into some unknown abyss. Let’s just spend some time together and let the relationship develop.” Now, if any of you are like me – the question I would always have when I was growing up and I would hear a youth pastor say, “Jesus wants you to follow Him,” is that I would say, “Man, that sounds great. Where is He? If you could show me where He is, I’d be glad to follow Him.” And maybe this brings up a little bit of tension here, that when we read this passage we go, “Well, you know. You’ve got Andrew and John, Peter, and Philip, and Nathanael and they can see Jesus in the flesh. They can hear Him, and they can touch Him, and they can talk to Him – of course they could follow Him. But I don’t have that advantage. How am I supposed to follow Jesus when I can’t see Him?” That’s a really, really good question. And what I want you to know is that we are in the same boat as John’s original audience because they couldn’t see or touch Jesus either. It’s 70 years after the resurrection and John knows this. And so what John is doing is he is saying, “I want to, through this description here, show you how you can follow Jesus even when you can’t physically see Him. I see three things in this passage. Here’s the first. Following Jesus means: Come and think. It means come and think. Building off of these phrases come and see and follow me is come and think. The call to discipleship is a call for you to use your brains. I don’t know where we got this idea that to be a Christian means that you check your brain at the door and just blindly jump into something. And so we cheapen the word faith. It’s this idea of faith is turning your head away from the evidence and taking a blind jump into something and just believing it because you want to believe it. That is not an accurate definition or description of what faith is. Faith is acquiring as much knowledge as you can and continuing to acquire that knowledge upon which you make a decision based upon trust of the knowledge you have acquired. That’s faith. This is why, it doesn’t matter what you believe, if you believe in the God of the Bible or some other thing or just a kind of generic spirituality – there is, at some point in time, whether you conciously or sub-‐conciously make it that you’re making a decision based upon trust because nothing is 100 percent provable. And so Jesus said, “I’m not asking any of you to check your brains at the door, acquire knowledge and then make a decision based upon trust of the knowledge that you have acquired. So look again at verse 38. John the Baptist tells Andrew and John to go follow Jesus and so they go after Him and Jesus turns around and He says, “What are you seeking? What do you want?” That really says a lot to me about the mindset of Jesus Christ. I grew up thinking, once again, in church, that God wasn’t all that interested in what I had to think. He wants to tell me what to think. Have you ever had that experience? Any of you ever thought that growing up? “God’s not interested in what I think, He just wants to tell me what to think. He just wants a religious robot or a religious zombie.” The first words out of Jesus’ mouth, “What’s on your mind? What are you thinking? What are you throwing around right now? What do you want out of life?” He was asking Andrew and John to articulate their thoughts. That would require them to think. The next thing I want you to see is that when Philip tells his friend Nathanael that they had found the Messiah he says, “Hey, come. We’ve found the Messiah. Jesus of Nazareth.” And Nathanael is like, “Nazareth? What good comes out of Nazareth?” Now, this was more than a cheap shot at a po-‐dunk town, although I do think it was that, but I think that it was more than that because Nathanael clearly



was a thinker. He was clearly a student and so he knew from his Jewish, Old Testament history that the Messiah would be from Bethlehem born of the line of David. And so he hears Jesus of Nazareth and he thinks that He can’t be the Messiah because He’s not from Bethlehem. He’s not from the line of David. Well, Jesus was born in Bethlehem and He was from the line of David, Nathanael just didn’t have that information yet. And Philip is just like, “Well, I just heard that He’s from Nazareth.” And so Nathanael is like, “He can’t be the Messiah because He’s from Nazareth.” What I want you to see, look in your Bibles, how did Philip respond? Did Philip go, “Man, would you take this by faith? Man, why do you always have to question this? Why do you always have to punch holes in my Christianity? Why can’t you just believe this?” Philip didn’t say that. What does Philip say to him? Philip goes, “Man, that’s a really good question. Let’s go ask Him together. Let’s see. Let’s go study this. Let’s go figure this out together.” Now, I know that some of you in this room are modern day Nathanaels. You’re thinkers. You ask questions. So maybe as you hear about the gospel, you hear about Jesus Christ, you’re like, “You know this sounds really interesting, Aaron. I would actually like to come to believe but I’ve got some barriers in the path toward belief. I’ve just got these nagging questions that just won’t let me get over that hump.” And so maybe you’ve got questions about how science and faith can co-‐exist. Maybe you’ve got questions about if God is really a good God then how can we live in such a world of injustice? Maybe you’ve got questions about cultural issues and tolerance and intolerance. And all of these things – you’ve just got these questions and these are barriers that are keeping you from coming to believe. Maybe you’ve had this experience where you asked your questions, you come to church, you walked into Christian circles and everybody got real uncomfortable with your questions. And maybe they even said to you, directly or indirectly, “Will you stop asking your questions? Could you just kind of keep that to yourself? You’re kind of ruining our fun. Could you just stop?” And what I want you to hear this morning is that’s not Jesus. Jesus is fine with your questions. Jesus says that it’s okay if you come with questions – that’s actually part of the process here. Now, I will say this. When you come with questions you need to genuinely ask yourself, “Where is this line of questioning taking me?” because sometimes we ask questions, not because we want answers, but because we really don’t want to make a decision based upon the knowledge that we’ve been given. So we’re like, “Well, I actually really love having control of my life and I don’t want to give anybody the Lordship of my life. So let me just stay on this treadmill of questioning.” And, it’s a smoke screen, “I’m going to keep frustrating.” We call that deconstruction – never ending deconstruction, “I’m just going to deconstruct, and deconstruct, and deconstruct.” You know if you do that forever you don’t have a house to live in. See, the basis of questioning is construction, “Do I genuinely want answers to this? Is this leading me somewhere?” Jesus says to these guys and He says to you and me, “Go ahead and bring your questions. Go ahead and ask your questions constructively. Ask them rigorously. Ask them critically.” Jesus is big enough to handle those questions. That’s part of what it means to be a disciple. That’s part of what it means to be a student or a learner.



I know that maybe some of you right now are on the other side of this and you feel a little bit uncomfortable talking about this. It seems like I periodically talk to people and when we get to some of the tough questions they say, “I’d really rather not talk about this because I don’t want you to destroy my faith.” You ever felt that way? “I don’t want to ask these questions because I’m afraid that, you know… I’ve got faith and I don’t want my faith to be eroded by asking these questions.” I understand that. My wife, probably more than any other person that I’ve ever met, has the gift of faith. And Lindsay has just never really gone through seasons of debilitating doubt. I have. I’ve gone through several seasons where I’m just like, “I’m not sure if this is true and how do I believe this?” And I’m really wrestling through it and she’s just always had the gift of faith. Her faith is not shallow – it’s very deep. Her relationship with God is deep, she’s never been rattled to easily by some of these things. I’m really interested in reading apologetics and theology. Not long ago we were sitting in bed together and we were getting ready to turn the light off and I’ve got a stack of theology books on the nightstand. And I’m reading them and then I start talking out loud, processing out loud what it is that I am reading and she was listening very patiently and she responded very thoughtfully. She actually had some really good thoughts as she responded and then she said this to me. She said, “Does it bother you that I’m not more interested in reading what you are reading?” Any of you ever felt that way? Can I be a disciple and not read all of that heavy stuff? Yes, you can be a disciple… Now you might want to stretch yourself. But I want to say this. There are some of you in this room who do need that stuff – there are some of you in this room who do need to read that. I just want you to know that it’s there. The claims of Christ have satisfied some of the most brilliant minds in history. And that content is there if you just go after it. So ladies, if you’re wrestling with how theology works with your role as a wife and mother whether you work inside the home or out, you might pick up a title by Aimee Byrd called Housewife Theologian. She does an excellent job with this. If your wrestling about how faith and science can co-‐exist pick up a book by Francis Collins called The Language of God. If you wondering about some of the most common objections to the existence of God you might pick up Tim Keller’s book The Reason for God. If you are interested in an overview of what all of this is about you’ve got to pick up J. I. Packer’s classic book Knowing God. The information is there. Jesus says, “Come and think.” Here’s the second thing it means in this passage. It means: Come and hang out. Come and hang out. Notice Jesus response to them. He’s like, “Hey, guys. I want you to come and spend some time.” They’re like, “Okay, man. Where’s your place? We’ll go and we’ll hang out with you.” And the goal here is that they would get into close proximity with Jesus. Here’s what I want you to see and understand. As set of faith propositions never changed anybody. It’s proximity to Jesus Christ. That’s what changes you. So, you use your mind cognitively to ask questions but what saves you is close proximity to Jesus and spending time with Him. It works just like any other relationship. And so I just want to say this to the room. There are some of you here – maybe this is your first church experience, maybe you’re coming back to church after a season or a stretch of being away for a while because maybe you had a bad experience. Maybe some of you have some hurts you need to heal from. Maybe you’ve got some baggage that you need to say goodbye to. Maybe you have some general trust that just needs to be rebuilt. And I want you to know that I get it. And you are absolutely welcome here regardless of your story, regardless of what you believe or don’t believe.



I want to say it like this. This church is a safe place to belong even before you believe. I’d go as far even to say this. This is a safe place for you to belong even if you might never come to believe because the goal here isn’t trying to close the deal. The goal here isn’t to try and get you to sign on some dotted line. The goal is that you would know that you are loved and I would like for you to be in close proximity with Jesus Christ. I’m going to lay my cards on the table after saying that. As your pastor, my desire, my daily prayer is that eventually you would come to know Jesus Christ. Now, I’m not saying that you would become some sort of religious zombie. I’m saying that you would come to know the goodness of the gospel and the joy that Jesus wants you to have in Him, from Him, and through Him. I desire that you would eventually come to get that. Now, here’s the thing – here’s why I’ll say that so directly and bodly. I’ve been here seven years now and I’ve seen this dozens, and dozens, and dozens of times. I have faith in it because I’ve seen it. Where people will come just as hardened, hurting, saying stay away… I’ll walk down the hallway and say, “Hey, how are you doing?” They look away, “I don’t want to talk to you. You’re the dude on the stage, right? I don’t trust you.” And eventually, by hanging out here, building relationships with others, seeing the Spirit of Christ, they slowly begin to change. Your relationship with Christ is most accurately described as one step followed by another. There’s nothing about a leap. It’s all about one step in front of the other. So how do we pratically do that? “Aaron, how am I supposed to spend time with Jesus?” This is John’s whole aim. And John says this about five or six times in chapter 1. He says, “I saw and I said.” I saw and I said. Sometimes he uses the word testimony. Sometimes he uses the word witness. But the idea is the same. John is basically saying to us, “Look, I know that Jesus isn’t physically in front of you. I just want you to know what I saw, I’m saying to you now. And that saying is the idea that there is weight behind it. What I’m saying to you will hold up in a court of law.” John has given us the Gospel of John here to put us in close proximity to Jesus Christ. And he wants you to know this is the next best thing to sitting in front of Jesus face to face because he was His closest friend and he wants us to know who Jesus is, what He says, and why that matters. You can trust in this. There’s a guy by the name of Reynolds Price who is an English professor at Duke and his books are often reviewed in the New York Times. A couple of years ago he spent time in the gospels and he had this interesting observation coming from his background in literature. And he said that modern fiction includes details. So, if you pick up a fictional book now-‐a-‐days, pick up a best seller of whatever is out there, it’s not uncommon for you as you read through that fiction to see details. So it says, “Hey, we went over to so and so’s house at 3:30 and we left at 6 o’clock.” You say, “Okay, it’s fiction but it includes details.” Reynolds Price says that in ancient fiction they never used details. So legends, doozies, whoppers – they never used detail at all. And he said details fill the Gospel of John. Why do you think that it says that they stayed with Jesus until the 10th hour? I think it was because John was there and he just remembers it, “Man, I remember. I remember how long that we were there.” This is the reason why, at the beginning of our text today, it didn’t say, “Once upon a time.” It said, “The very next day.” So he’s giving us this eye-‐witness account and if you want to follow Jesus, immerse yourself in the Gospel of John. Let me say this to you. If you’re new to all of this and you want to know who Jesus is – get into the Book of John. And that’s why we are spending so much time in it as a church.



Here’s the last thing in this passage: Come and see. What this means is come and hang and it means come along with friends. And you just see the relational thread all through this passage. And I think here’s the reason why. In Scripture we always see that God works through key relationships with other people. I would imagine if I were to sit down with all of you in this room and say, “Hey, can you rattle off a few names of people who God has used significantly in your life? People who have introduced you to Jesus, people who have helped you grow in Jesus.” You could probably rattle off several names. Now, I did this this last week and I could come up with a couple of dozen on a list of names. Some of these people I haven’t seen in years but I’m glad that God brought them into a certain season of my life when I needed them and they spoke the truth of the gospel into my life and called me on to the next step of discipleship. Pay attention to who God has brought into your life. I remember one man who was a tremendous influence upon me. He was the father of one my friends. He was a pastor, he was a Bible College president – I didn’t know that at the time. I was in elementary school and I’d just go over to their house to play Nintendo, and ride skate boards, and shoot hoops. And I remember going into the kitchen of this house every week, and he was always making something in the kitchen. He had an orange juicer. He was always juicing something. I remember walking in and he was squeezing oranges and he looks up at me. I was in the 6th grade and he was like, “There’s the next world changer. Aaron Brockett, the next world changer.” And I was like, “Dude, your dad is so weird. What’s in those oranges?” And he was like, “Dad, quit calling my friends world-‐changers. We already talked about this.” And they would get in this big argument. And he just continued to speak into my life and pour into my life. Here’s why this is so important. For some of you the biggest barrier to taking your next step toward Christ is the friendships you have or the lack thereof. So, if you’ve got friends who are cynical or deconstructionists you’re stuck. If you have no friends, you’re stuck. God works through relationships. I think that there is a connection. You see all through Scripture this relational thing called relational evangelism and statistically today, the statistics say that most grown men don’t even have one close friend. The enemy will isolate you and he’ll go after… He has you. So maybe for you the application from this message is, “Man, I need friends. I need to be a friend who will urge others on to that next step.” And I can’t do this without friends. I would be burned out, I would reach the end of my reservoir if I didn’t have close, godly friends around me on a weekly basis, speaking into my life, calling things out of me, praying over me. You cannot do this on your own. So, come along with friends. You’re like, “Hey, man. I’ve got some questions about this would you come with me? Would you come with me to church?” See, this is all about transformation and change. And what I want you to see… I want to look real quickly at Jesus’ conversation with Nathanael. You look at this conversation. Nathanael questions it first and then He looks at him when he walks up and says, “Hey, there’s an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” And Nathanael is like, “Whoa. How do You know me?” Here’s a thought for you. What if Jesus really wants to know you because… What if He wants you to know Him because He already knows you? I want you to think about this for just a minute. What if you had a close friend who got into a car accident? What if you have a spouse and they had amnesia and they forgot you. How badly would you want them to remember you? You remember that movie that came out a few years ago it had – I don’t remember the name of the guy – Rachel McAdams was the girl who played in it. It’s based upon true



events. They are a married couple. She goes through – due to a car accident she goes through the windshield and she loses her memory. She forgets who her husband is. She remembers who everyone else is in her life, including her old fiancée, that’s a kick in the gut. But she forgets who her husband is. She doesn’t have any recollection of him. And it immediately causes a strain in their relationship. He takes her home. He’s trying to care for her. She’s seeing all of these pictures on the wall – wedding – but she cannot remember him. She feels like she is living with a stranger. She makes him sleep on the couch. Eventually she asks him to move out. And then her old fiancée begins to court her again. I’m watching the movie and I’m just gagging. And what does he do? He begins to court her again. He’s like, “You know what? I’ve given up on the fact that your memory is ever going to come back. I’m just going to court you all over again.” Eventually he wins her heart and they stay married and start a family. In a very similar way that is the message of the gospel. Sin was our car accident. God has existed from the beginning of time. He has known you from your inception. But you don’t know Him – spiritual blinders cover your eyes. And this old fiancée begins to creep in and God says, “Through Jesus I’ll court you. I’ll come to you.” So Jesus comes to Nathanael and He says, “Truly, truly I say to you…” and He references this idea of angels ascending and descending out of heaven and we are like, “What are You talking about?” This is a reference to Genesis, chapter 28. If any of you remember your Old Testament history in Genesis, 28 you’ve got this Israelite named Jacob. And Jacob is a deceitful man. So Jesus is kind of contrasting Jacob and Nathanael. Jacob was filled with deceit. He deceived his brother Esau out of his birthright and he immediately goes on the run because Esau wants to kill him. And he feels the weight of his guilt, the shame. He gets about 40 miles outside of town. He makes camp. He’s sleeping out in the wilderness and he’s like, “Man, I’ve ruined my life. Reached rock bottom.” Any of you ever been there? He’s looking up in the sky and he begins to doze off to sleep and God gives him a dream where a ladder comes out of heaven and angels are ascending and descending up and down the ladder. And you’re like, “What in the world is that about? It made a really cool song but what is that about?” And this is the idea that God is saying to Jacob, “Look, I know that you’re isolated, I know that you’ve messed up, I know that you’ve deceived your family but I have not given up on you, Jacob. There is traffic between heaven and earth on account of you.” God stays after him, and He restores him, and He redeems him, and He changes his name to Israel. Jesus brings this up to Nathanael, I think for a couple of reasons. Number one: He knows that Nathanael is a thinker. He knows that Nathanael knows the story and that he will make the connection. And He’s basically saying, “Nathanael, you’re actually morally better that Jacob but you still need a Savior. And there’s still traffic between heaven and earth on account of you.” And so He says to him, “I’ve come and there are angels ascending and descending” But did you notice that Jesus leaves one important aspect out of the story? He didn’t say anything about a ladder. Some of the finest Greek scholars have looked at this passage and they said that they believe that the reason is that Jesus is saying to Nathanael, “I am the ladder. I have come to connect heaven and earth. I am here to bring restoration to you.” See, a disciple is somebody who says, “Jesus, You are my highest priority. I’ve made You primary. All other pursuits are secondary.” So, if you are not a Christian the call of Jesus is come and see. And once



you receive Jesus Christ into your life all of that is full-‐on discipleship which basically means that Jesus is primary and all other pursuits are secondary. All other pursuits aren’t bad, you shouldn’t forsake all other pursuits but they’re just secondary. Jesus’ relationship is primary. Maybe the way that I could describe this the best is that the most important earthly relationship that I have is the relationship that I have with my wife. Now, I’ve got other relationships that mean a lot as well. But all other relationships are secondary, she is primary which essentially means that at the end of the day, when it comes down to her and the rest of you all – she wins. So you say, “Hey, Brockett. You want to go see a movie tonight at 7 o’clock?” I would be like, “Absolutely, I’d love to go see a movie with you,” but then my wife says, “Honey, would you like to have dinner with me at 7 o’clock?” Sorry bro – she wins. I’m going with her. And this is the idea of discipleship. It does not mean that you forsake the rest of the world. It does not mean that you despise the rest of your relationships. It just means that Jesus is primary. Here’s what I want you to think about. Once again, this is for Christians. When it comes to your earthly relationships, whether it’s your spouse, or a close friend, or a family member – how they thrive is when you make a series of mutual investments, “I’ll invest in you. You invest in me,” and the relationship thrives. And where relationships shrivel up and die is when one person or both people refuse to invest in the other. And they say, “This is all about me. I don’t care what you think. This is what I think. And the relationship starts to die.” Now, the same thing is true with Jesus. You come to Jesus, and Jesus says, “I’ve given everything. I’ve invested everything. I’ve continued to give you My Spirit. I’ve continued to nurture you.” And if we say to Jesus, “Thanks but no thanks,” the relationship begins to shrivel and die. But where you make mutual investments… Now here’s what I want you to think about. Jesus is the Logos, Logic of God. Jesus holds the universe together by the Word of His power. And He wants a relationship with you? How is that supposed to work? How do you treat somebody like that? Casually? Flippantly? I don’t know about you guys, but there have been times in my life… Here’s how I have treated Jesus, “Jesus, I most definitely want you in my life. I definitely want You as my Savoir. Just as long as You could stay in Your place and kind of take a back seat and not show Yourself in other areas of my life. I’ll come to church when I can. If you would just stay over here and don’t embarrass me.” Any of you ever treat Jesus like this? “Don’t call me. I’ll call you. Hey, Man. When I need You You better be right there. If You’re not I won’t believe that You exist. I know that You said this. This is right and this is wrong – but You know what? I’ll take that into consideration. But ultimately, I’ll have the final say here. I’ll have my people call Your people.” And Jesus basically says, “No, actually what it means to follow is that you come to Me with a surrendered spirit.” And surrender is the word. I’m not saying sacrifice necessarily – I’m saying surrendered. It’s this idea, “Jesus, I believe that You are good. I believe that You want what’s best for me. I believe that You want something for me and not something from me. And so, I’m going to come to You open handed in a spirit of surrender.” Following Jesus does not mean trying it means dying. And so, “Jesus, I’m going to come to you and I’m going to surrender my will, and I’m going to surrender my speech, and I’m going to surrender my finances, and I’m going to surrender my relationships. I come to You…” And in this ironic twist, Christians, if you read your Bible, if you attend church, if you serve without a surrendered spirit it just serves to put more distance between you and Jesus because ultimately you’re



just doing that for yourself. You’re trying to justify yourself. But you come to Jesus with just… There is such freedom in this, “I come to you with a surrendered spirit.” Now, I know that this makes us uncomfortable and I know that for many of you you are like, “Well, the thing that’s keeping me from following Jesus is that if I follow Him I’m afraid He’ll ask me to do something I don’t want to do.” And can I just go ahead and get it out? Yes He will ask you to do something that you don’t want to do. Of course He will. Any of you ever had a coach? He asked you to do some things that you probably didn’t want to do and it was for your betterment. Any of you have a parent that was good. He asked you to do something that you didn’t want to do for your betterment. A teacher who was good asked you to do something that you didn’t want to do for your betterment. And God is good. And He is Holy. And He is righteous. And of course, Jesus is going to say, “Would you surrender? I will call you to do some things that you don’t want to do but it’s for your good. It’s for your ultimate joy. And it’s for My glory.” The only way to come to Jesus is open handed. One of my favorite stories in the Bible is found in I Kings, chapter 19. It’s the story of the prophet Elisha. God comes to Elisha and Elisha is plowing a field with 24 oxen. And that’s an indicator that Elisha was doing well for himself. The plow with 24 oxen was the First Century equivalent of a Bentley. And so he’s very comfortable, he’s doing well and God comes to him and says, “Elisha, I need you to leave that. I need you to go and be my spokesman.” And what does Elisha do? Elisha doesn’t say, “Alright God. I’ve got that. Let me just finish plowing the field. Let me get this harvest in because this is an expensive harvest. I’ll put this money in the bank and I can give it away to people.” He didn’t say that. He didn’t say, “God let me get this business going on the side just in case this whole following You thing doesn’t work out and then I fall back on that.” Elisha doesn’t say that. In fact, what it says is that Elisha takes all of his farm equipment, piles it up, and sets it on fire. He was an eccentric fellow. And all the neighbors see all the smoke billowing and they come over and ask, “Elisha, what’s going on? You’re burning the Bentley, man.” And he comes over and he slaughters the 24 oxen and has a barbecue. Now, what in the world is all of that about? That is Elisha saying, “God has said come and see. Come and follow. And I will not let anything stand in the way of that. I’m all in.” He said, “I’m not going to put my hand to the plow and look back. So, I’ll just get rid of it.” The challenge for us is – what is that thing that is keeping you from following Jesus? What is that thing, what is that barrier that is just the next step for you? Whatever that barrier is, you need to get rid of it. Now, I’m not saying go home and burn your house. I have nothing to do with that. I wash my hands of that. I don’t think this is anything necessarily physical, or tangible, or financial. This could be emotional. This could be spiritual. What is the thing that is blocking the next step you need to take in your discipleship? Do what you can to remove it. Jesus says, “Just come and see. Just come and follow.” Nobody’s heart will ever change by a set of propositions it’s always relationship. So, come and see. Father we come to You right now and thank You for this great passage and for the passion of John to help us to know, and to see, and to feel what he felt as he followed Jesus Christ. God I pray today for those who are not yet fully convinced, those who would honestly say, “I’m not in. I don’t believe this yet. I don’t get this yet. I have barriers.” God I thank you that they are here. I pray that they would know that



they are always welcome here and continue to come, to continue to think, to continue to process, to continue to ask questions. And I pray that they would just know that they are loved and accepted, man, just as they are. And Father, for those of us who maybe have been in a relationship, who have been tracking with You for a while and maybe who feel stuck, who feel like we’ve taken a few steps backward, I pray that we would accept the challenge here to just come and see all over again. Come and follow. There are some of us who have not taken that next step for a while. And so whatever it is that we need to remove from our path I pray that You would give us the courage to do it. Pray that if there are people here who need to be humbled by Your word that they would be humbled. I there are people here who need to be comforted that they would be comforted. I ask that Your Spirit be present in this room as we commune with You now. And we ask this in Jesus’ name.

The Gospel of John: Follow...

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