Finding Your Identity in Jesus - Introduction to John Part 2

3:19Do whatever you want, do whatever your impulses lead you to do, and be proud of doing it because that's who you are. So express yourself and so find your self-identity there. Some, it's find your self-identity through accomplishment. I didn't watch the Olympics last night, but I heard about the Iron Lady. How many of you heard about the Iron Lady from Hungary that set a new world record in the 400-meter individual medley? She destroyed the competition, right?

3:54Well, she'll have a name, at least for a while, until the next person comes along and outdoes her, right? But for many, we also live in this society that seeks identity through accomplishment. And this spills over into all facets of life. I mean, not just in sports, but in the business world, in the political world, it's a sense of accomplishment. Others seek to find themselves through material gain and through all other sorts of ambitions, possessions. But the question is, Comes back to you. How do you want to be remembered?

4:36How do you most identify yourself? Who are you? How do you see yourself? Who are you? Well, let me give you the answer to this question. Let me tell you who you are. You will be remembered forever the way Jesus sees you. You will be remembered forever the way Jesus sees you. In other words, he has the final say. And how Jesus sees you is how you will be remembered. You will be remembered as a disciple who Jesus loved or as a person whom Jesus cursed and sent away as a liar, a thief, whatever. However, he sees you, you are going to be known forever in your relationship to Jesus because he is the final word. He is the word of God.

5:37But as you look at John, I am fascinated. I was struck by this self-realization that John found. I am the disciple whom Jesus loved. He didn't even use the word I. He doesn't even use the word me. He simply refers to himself as a disciple whom Jesus loved. He was completely satisfied in having his. His identity completely eclipsed in the person of Jesus. It's like John is saying, I am who I am because of my relationship to Jesus, and the highest title that I could ever have or ever known or ever be satisfied in is that I am loved by Jesus.

6:19How did John get there? Or how do I get there? How do I get to the point to where I'm just completely satisfied in nothing more than the fact that Jesus loves me? How do we get there? Well, the answer is very simple. We need to experience God's transforming grace. Because if you're really honest with yourself, you'll probably say, I'm not there. There's a lot of other things I'd like to add to my name. In fact, I'd like my name to be in the picture somewhere.

6:55John's like, I'm the disciple whom Jesus loved. How do we completely lose our identity and find our identity in Christ? Well, it's transforming grace. You're never going to get there unless you're transformed by his grace. And that's exactly what happened to John. John is a wonderful example of transforming grace. And I want us this morning to look at those internal changes that took place as he followed Christ. I want you to see the transformation. Of John's life as he continued to follow Jesus, so that you will know what the Christian life is all about. It's about following, it's about transformation, it's about continual following. And just like God did in John's life, there are five aspects of your life that need transforming. Five aspects in your life that need transforming, that God will transform if you continue to follow Him in order that you may find your identity solely in Christ. Five aspects of your life that God will transform. And those are what I want to look at this morning: five aspects of your life that need to be transformed in order for you to find your identity in Jesus. First of all, your source of wisdom is going to have to be transformed. Your source of wisdom, you're going to have to go from the wisdom of man to the wisdom of God. You're going to have to go from following the wisdom of man to following the wisdom of God. You see, because a follower must first be a listener. A follower must first be a listener. At some point in John's life, John turned from listening to the wisdom of man to listening to the words of God. You see, before John could ever even begin his journey with Christ, he had to be in the right place at the right place. The right time.

9:02And in order to be there, when Jesus drew near, John had to have been a hearer of the word before he could ever be a doer of the word. And that's what happens. Fundamentally, the very first thing that's going to have to transform in your life is your source of wisdom. Being a follower of God implies listening to the word of God. And God has ordained. This is what the Gospel of John shows: is that God has ordained that belief is going to occur in the context of hearing. That's why it's important to hear the words. Faith does not come about absence of the hearing of the word. And so it's in these communities of believers today where we are to keep the word of God, keep the hearing of God active. And it's in these contexts where true belief is going to happen.

10:03Listen and keep listening. A follower must first learn to listen. And this is where we first meet John. He's a listener. You go back to 1 John chapter 1. I mean, John chapter 1. There's the first, in verse 35, we first meet John. He's there with John the Baptist. Again, the next day, John. Was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked and said, Behold, the Lamb of God. The two disciples heard him and speak, and they followed Jesus. One of them, we know by name, John tells us one of them is Andrew, right?

10:50But the other one isn't named because the other one's John, the other disciple. And we know that this was John because He was there. There's a very detailed description of what John the Baptist was testifying. He doesn't describe himself, doesn't mention himself as characteristic of the gospel. But John was there. John was certainly a listener of the wisdom of God. How did he know to follow Christ? He had already been listening to the man that God had raised up. He had enough of an ear to go and to hear John. And then in hearing John, he was able to be there and hear and listen and learn so that he would know who the Lamb of God was and follow him.

11:40Had John not been open to the wisdom of God, he would not have come to believe. And the same is true today. If you do not bring yourself into the hearing of God's word and exposing yourself to the words of God, you will not believe. Believe. Cannot believe. So the first thing that has to turn is you have to go from listening to the wisdom of man, and there are many things out there, many sources of truth, so to speak. But you need to turn and go and be discipled by the wisdom of God. A disciple, the wisdom of man can only make a disciple of man. And it may be philosophically or religiously, whatever it is, you want to follow not the wisdom of man, but the wisdom of God. You will never find satisfaction in being identified with Jesus if your primary source of wisdom originates from man. It's just not there.

12:46Worldly wisdom does not esteem Christ. He's too exclusive. He's too narrow. He's too so many other things. So your source of wisdom, the source of truth, where you get your guiding principles in life, must be transformed. But second, not only does your source of wisdom need to be transformed, but your human allegiances will have to be transformed. Your human allegiances will have to be transformed from your closest relationships to Jesus. No human relationship is going to take priority. Over your relationship with Jesus, or you'll never find your identity in Jesus. Every other human relationship, no matter how close, if you're going to follow Jesus, you're going to have to sever, at least in position of priority. So if you perverb your opinions of parents over Jesus, or opinions of anyone over Jesus, cannot follow. And this holds true for every relationship. And this is where we first see John appearing on the scene. And in Mark chapter 1 and 19, you remember Jesus comes out and he sees James and John in the boat with their father Zebedee. And Jesus says to them, Come and follow me.

14:24And they left the boat and followed Jesus. You see, John first gave priority to Jesus over every other relationship, and he could not have followed Christ otherwise. Same is true today. If you're going to continue to be a follower of Jesus, every human allegiance must be transformed to give priority to Christ. Every other human being, alive or dead, whoever they may be, listen, if you're in a relationship with somebody and they cause You to sin, or you're enticed to sin because of them, you're being discipled by them instead of Christ. I don't care what that relationship is. Any human relationship you have, if it takes you into a place of sin, you're not being discipled by Christ, you're being discipled by the person who's taking you into sin, and whatever context that relationship may occur in.

15:26So, your source of wisdom has to be transformed, your human allegiances have to be transformed. And number three, your primary goal in life has to be transformed. And I put down here your primary goal has to go from cash to Christ-likeness, just because I like the C's, from cash to Christ-likeness. But if you're going to follow Christ and be engaged in the activities that He leads you to do, you must prefer Christ-likeness over every form of monetary gain.

16:01And sometime in John's life, His heart was transformed. At some time, He decided to pursue Christ over monetary gain. And you can be sure there came a point where He really had to decide. There may have been a growing trend, but there was at some point when there was a decisiveness that He decided to pursue Christ instead of monetary gain, and probably had to make that decision several times. We understand if you just get a look at John's background and his home life. His father was Zebedee, probably a man of some prominence, because the fact that whenever he mentions James and John, they always mention them as the sons of Zebedee, as if the more significant figure was Zebedee rather than James and John.

16:54We know from Mark chapter 1 that he had a successful fishing business. And from John chapter 18, we know he had some kind of connection with the high priest. So Zebedee is a fairly significant individual in his day. His mother was Salome. If you look at Matthew 27 and 55 and Mark 16, 1, you can see it spelled out there and make the connection. But Salome was one of the many women who followed Jesus. We know that from Luke 8. She was there probably helping to prepare meals and maybe do some logistics, maybe some helping financially, helping practically in many ways. But for Salome to be able to join her sons, James and John, for long periods of time, speaks of their family's affluence.

17:44They had some means. We know his brother James was a pretty fiery individual. We know that he was the first martyr, but he was a fisherman by trade. Kind of get the idea of what John's home life would have been like. They were hands-on, hard-working, very industrious. Dad probably made him get up early and get to work and stay up late. Family business was very important. They understood how to be good managers of people, of tasks, and money, and everything that goes into running a successful business. They understood how to run a business. And all this indicates that John came from a family of significance, and that John certainly had the opportunity to pursue wealth.

18:43But somewhere, his love was transferred to something else. As he sat under the hearing of God's Word, he must have been a student to some degree of the Old Testament, certainly a student of John the Baptist, taking all this in. And when he heard John point to Jesus, he followed after Jesus. And when he heard Jesus say, Come and follow me, he went and he followed it. And as he continued to follow Jesus, his heart transferred. And he left the pursuits of family and family business and all that that was connected to, he left behind. You see, in the course of following Christ, there are going to come times when your decisions do not make food. Financial sense. I'm not talking about financial impropriety. I'm just saying that following Christ does not give you the best return on your investment, at least from a monetary standpoint. You know, see, it would have made a whole lot more financial sense. And if John had sat down with his financial planner and had said, okay, what should I do? He said, well, you're going to get a higher return on your investment if you get engaged in that fishing business rather than following this itinerant rabbi around Israel.

20:09It's not going to make the most financial sense, but yet, think about what John would have missed if he had pursued a life of financial gain. John had witnessed so much, so much. In fact, his last statement in his gospel is this: This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things and who has written these things. And we know his testimony is true. Now, there are also many other things that Jesus did, where every one of them written, I suppose, that the world itself could not contain the books that were written. He had witnessed so much, and John's like, I can't even begin to write them all down. I have seen so much.

20:51He had seen everything that the disciples had seen, but he also saw a lot of things that the other disciples didn't see. You remember, John was among the Elite three, Peter, James, and John, they were the ones that went in and witnessed Jairus' daughter being raised. They're the ones that saw Jesus transfigured into all his glory there on the Mount of Transfiguration. He was there. He saw Jesus grieving in the depths of Gethsemane. He was there. He was among the elite three. But he was also among the elite one because he saw some things that no one else saw. He alone was the one recording as leaning on Jesus during the Lord's last Passover. He alone was recorded as being at the cross. Son, here is your mother.

21:49He alone was given charge to take care of Jesus' mother. Now, that's a pretty elite privilege. He outlived the other disciples. He witnessed the early events of the church, as we saw last time, the destruction. He saw so much. Think about all that John would have missed if his heart and mind were fixated on material gain and had he tried to stay on the path of financial expediency or even a twinge of it. No, he had to cut ties and go with Christ wherever that took him.

22:25Same is true for us. You will miss so many rich experiences. Experiences of eternal worth if your pursuits are even slightly tainted with a love for money. You will miss it. Which brings that question: what is money? It's a very abstract concept, anyway. What do I hold here? It's a dollar, right? A dollar bill. But what is this? What is this? When you really start thinking about what money is, the concept becomes very abstract. Yeah, we see it's a dollar. But what it is, it's basically a means that you and I can trade goods and services. Money has a perceived worth. There's no worth in it. It's only worth a dollar. The dollar I hold is only worth a dollar because you and I agree that it's worth a dollar. So it's a matter of perception. And through the medium of money, we can exchange goods and services.

23:39But you know what? It's a stewardship. I hold in my hand a small stewardship that I'm going to do business, go and trade and trade this for goods and services. And what Jesus spoke about money more than anything else. How you steward this says the Lord. Lot about your heart. Do you trade these little bills of stewardship for things that are eternal or for things that are temporal? You have been given a stewardship with every dollar you have. May you invest it in that which leads to Christ-likeness, that which promotes Christ-likeness in your own heart, and that which promotes Christ-likeness in the world. You're given this for a limited time because guess what's going to happen? In the place we're going, there's not this concept. Now, I would burn this for effect, but I think that's a federal offense, but you get the idea, right?

24:49And we wouldn't want to do that, right? Listen, and just as a side note, there is coming a financial crisis in the church that the church in America has not seen. And I'm not talking about just losing our tax ID status. I'm talking about a total generation that really doesn't even know how to give or even values giving. And I'm talking to you, millennials, and a lot of others. I'm not just exclusively talking to millennials. Last year, we saw the International or the IMB, the mission board for the Southern Baptists, the largest one in the world, have to cut back 800 missionaries. A couple of years ago, we all witnessed Glorieta, that great conference center of the Southern Baptists, that I'd think if you had to duplicate it today, it would cost you $100 million to do. They had to give it away for a dollar. The generation, the older generation, that World War II generation that valued the collective good would give to the collective good. And the baby boomers, to a large degree, follow suit, maybe to a little bit lesser degree, but they still have a value in the collective whole. My generation, Generation X, is far less removed from that, a little more, far more individualistic than the World War II generation. And you, millennials, incredibly, incredibly individualistic.

26:28You hardly have a view for the collective good or the collective ministry of the church. And I encourage you to tithe to the church. That is why there is a financial crisis coming. It's not the tax. It's people who have very little value in the corporate proclamation and community of faith. Listen, the church, this church, and other churches in our community are charged with keeping the Hearing the proclamation of the word of God going in our little communities, our little associations, our little interactions, so that faith can take place. It doesn't happen except in the hearing. And this is what John's gospel is about.

27:17But invest your money to this end. People ask me about parachurches or parachurch organizations. I think there are a lot of great parachurch organizations, and I encourage you to give to those that you feel that are serving a unique purpose that is very important for our community. But don't think that that replaces the church. Even the best parachurch organizations will want to relay people to the church where there is a place where they can grow in the systematic year-over-year proclamation and shepherding ministry under the ministry of the word.

27:58If you hold on to a greedy and stingy way with money, you will not be able to continue to follow Christ. The two will take you down two different paths. Jesus Himself said this over and over: Your primary goal in life must be Christ-likeness. And if you continue to follow Christ, you will. God will, by His grace, transform you to where the priority becomes Christ-like. Over cash or monetary gain. That's what you can expect God to do in your life.

28:41Five aspects of your life that need to be transformed in order for you to find your identity in Christ. Your source of wisdom has to be transformed, your human allegiances have to be transformed, and your primary goal has to be transformed. And fourth, your quest for significance has to be transformed. If you're going to continue to follow Jesus, your whole value system must change. You must go from worldly or seeing significance in worldly prominence to humble service. So your quest is going to go from worldly prominence to humble service.

29:25Your ambitions are going to have to go. They will go if you continue to follow Jesus from seeking recognition and prominence to finding joy in humble service. That your very idea of what is significant must be transformed. You know, John had to go through this transformation. John's desire for greatness showed itself at one of the most inappropriate times. You remember in Mark chapter 10, Jesus is going up to Rome. Jerusalem, and he says, You know what? I'm going to go up to Jerusalem, and they're going to mock me, they're going to spit on me, they're going to scourge me, and they're going to kill me, and three days later I'm going to rise again. Immediately, the next verse, James and John approach him and said, You know what, grant that we might sit at your right and your left in glory.

30:23And Jesus said, You do not even know what you're asking. But this was John. This is the John that we're studying. He had a worldly ambition for greatness, he was self-confident. Oh, yeah, I can, I'm completely adequate to sit at the right or the left. In fact, you can put James on the left, put me on your right. That'll work out good. He completely felt adequate to sit at the side of Jesus over all of these things.

30:54Yeah, absolutely. Give me the best. That's me. Give me the absolute best seat. That's me. I'm completely adequate, completely sufficient for it, but that's us, isn't it? Isn't that the way we think oftentimes? That we so much tie significance to worldly prominence. And when worldly prominence or some kind of recognition isn't in the mix, we tend to shy away from those areas of ministry. But then shortly after John made these requests, John witnessed something that forever changed his perception of humble service. And only John records this foot washing event in John chapter 13. Let me just read to you part of that. John chapter 13, verse 1. Now, before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come, that he would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were within the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, verse 3, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hand and that he had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up from supper and laid aside his garments, and taking a towel, he girded himself. Then he poured water into the basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. And then dropping down to verse 12. So when he had washed their feet and taken his garments and reclined at the table again, he said to them, Do you know what I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If then I, the Lord, and the teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I gave you an example that you should do as I did to you. Truly I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, You are blessed if you do them.

33:04And that shattered, I think that event shattered John's perception of significance in service. The gospel writers are very clear that John had selfish ambitions, but in order for him to continue to follow Christ, they had to be transformed. And all of Christ's followers are going to figure that out one day. Christ has a completely different value system than we do. And if we're going to continue to follow him, our value system is going to change. And as John's going to point out throughout his gospel, there are many who turn around. There are many who follow Christ for a little while.

33:55But then, because they have an untransformed heart, they do not continue anymore with him. Well, if you love worldly prominence, you cannot and will not find your identity in Jesus. Because Jesus leads us down a path that takes us to a destination of humble service, not worldly prominence. So God's going to transform five aspects of your being if you are going to follow Christ. Your source of wisdom. Your human allegiances, your primary goal, your quest for significance. And fifth, your natural temperament is going to have to be transformed as well. There's a way we react to things, right? There's a natural impulse. We react.

34:47John's name, or only Mark tells us about the nickname that Jesus gave John and his older brother. He called them the sons of thunder, Boanergis, an Aramaic term, which literally means the sons of thunder. It's a funny term, but it's also a very descriptive term of the personality of John. He had a fiery temperament. You know, one of my favorite employees, and I think I may have told you this story before, but one of my favorite employees in all the years that I had people work for me was a guy that I would call, and I've called him a son of thunder. He was a son of thunder. He was this big guy. He had a very acute sense of right and wrong, and he was easily set off, but he would always try to hold it in and try to control his fury. I hired him on, very strong guy. And there is my right-hand man who was running the office one day, and I was out. He was kind of another big guy, but he was kind of mean to the staff. I learned this after I was gone. And But one particular day, he told this son of thunder, get in there and get to work, to which he started going in there and getting to work. This is after I had left. And then he kicked him in the seat of the pants in front of everybody. Well, this ticked off this son of thunder. And so he turned around and just grabbed the guy, threw him on the ground. This is a supervisor, the guy that's in charge of the office, throws him down, pins him to the ground, gets him in a very painful position, and says, I realize that you are the leader in Thomas's absence around here. And I'm going to do what you tell me to do. But you're not ever going to kick me like that again, are you? And you're going to say you're sorry, aren't you?

36:47Yes. The rest of the staff is watching this, and he gets up. Okay, now, what was that you wanted me to do? This is a son of thunder. And on another occasion, there was a just had a guy on our staff who, if my memory serves me correctly, was a state champion in California in wrestling. And one day he started mouthing off to the son of thunder and said, Oh, I could take you down easy. I could take you down easy. And this son of thunder said, Well, no, I'm not going to engage you. He goes, Let's look. And this guy kept challenging him. So he said, Okay, let's do it. But we're going to have to do it after work hours because it's not. Right to do it on the clock. So afterwards, you know, somehow they turned the bullpen into a wrestling arena. And so we're going to say, we're going to do best two out of three. Best two out of three. And so, well, let me tell you who won. This son of thunder dropped the guy two out of three times, and match is over. And then later he felt kind of bad about it. Said, I shouldn't have done that in front of everybody. Tom, you know, anyway.

37:56But this is what I picture John like. Kind of had this fiery temperament. And you, you see this in Luke chapter 9. I'll just read you this event. When the days were approaching for his ascension, Jesus was determined to go up to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers on ahead of him. And they went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for him, but they did not receive him because he was traveling towards Jerusalem. Now, picture John back there. You know, that kind of ticks me off. Jesus was good to the Samaritans previously, and they're not receiving him. You know what? That ticks me off.

38:39When his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume him? But he turned and rebuked them and said, You do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. In other words, he's like, Whoa. Slow down. There's no need to incinerate the mission field. We came here to save the mission field, not incinerate them.

39:12You see, John was zealous for Jesus' honor, but he had missed the whole point. And so this son of thunder, by God's grace, became the apostle of love. By the grace of God, by the instruction of Christ, and by the transforming work of the Spirit, John forever will be remembered throughout church history as the apostle of love. One word, if there's one word that describes John, it's love. Eighty times it's used in his writings. He loved God, he loved the truth, and he loved each other. He said, Jesus gave us a new commandment that we love one another. He said, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. And God's redeeming grace and transforming grace had an effect to where this son of thunder was transformed into the apostle of love.

40:07Well, by most accounts, John died in 98 during the reign of the Emperor Trajan. Jerome says in his final days at Ephesus, he had to be carried into the church because he was so weak. But one phrase that was constantly on his lips was, My little children, love one another. And someone asked him why. Why should we? Why is this? Why do you constantly say this? And he says, It is the Lord's command, and if this alone be done, it is enough.

40:40Jesus says, You got to control. Your natural temperament has to be transformed, it has to be channeled down avenues of love and grace. And if you think about Jesus, he has all power, all authority, but he directs his power down good and loving paths. I mean, he can incinerate the mission field like that, but his whole purpose is to save those he's going to take his word to. And so let us not have a mind to incinerate our mission field. We do not know what kind of manner of people we are. And let us bring our fiery temperaments and our natural temperaments under subjection and control of God's Spirit.

41:34Well, by the time God was through transforming John's life, John no longer had to search for his identity. He knew who he was. He was loved by Jesus, and this was enough. In fact, this is all he needed to know. And if you are a true follower of Jesus, you will continue. To follow him. That's what John's gospel is about. You will experience a transformation in your source of wisdom, in your human allegiances, in your primary goal in life, in your quest for significance, and in your natural temperament.

42:18John wants everyone to encounter the true Jesus and enter into a transforming relationship with him. That's what being a Christian is about. It's about entering, it's becoming a learner and follower, one who comes into the process with a unique, transforming relationship with Christ and then continues to follow and be continually transformed. That's the nature of discipleship. And this transformation will lead you to one point to where your identity is totally found in Jesus alone. This is what to God's glory alone means, is to find your identity only in him.

43:11Well, the bottom line is, you are going to be remembered the way Jesus really sees you. That's how you're going to be remembered throughout eternity. Matt earlier read Revelation 21, and in verse 8, Jesus, there are those. Who forever will be remembered as cowardly ones. And these are Jesus' own words. Unbelieving ones, abominable ones, murdering ones, immoral ones, idolaters, all liars, hypocrites. Go on down the when Jesus says, oh, that's that individual that Jesus saw as a hypocrite, that Jesus said was a liar. This is the girl, this is the boy, this is the man, and that is how you will be remembered for eternity. We are all going to be remembered as how we relate to Jesus.

44:12Or you can be remembered as a disciple whom Jesus loved. And that's why John writes to us. He lays all this out so that you too can be a disciple that Jesus loves. So come to him and experience his transforming grace. That's the message of John's gospel. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for the life of this incredible man, for this disciple that you loved. Thank you for him. And Father, we just pray now that we would believe his words, Father, and that we would enter into that transforming relationship with your Son. Go with us now in Jesus' name. Amen. Um