John 1:35-51 “Follow the Teacher”

1:08Today we're going to be introduced to Jesus' first disciples. And one of the things you're going to notice is how each one of their stories and how they came to Jesus is unique. Some of them were pointed to Jesus. Some of them were brought to Jesus by family members or friends. Some were called by Jesus. Jesus directly. But in every case, they followed him and became his disciples. And there's so much confusion about what it means to be a Christian in our day and age, what it means to be a follower of Christ. And I think this text helps us to see what discipleship is all about. It's about following Jesus. We've made things much more complicated than they need to be. So I hope as we look at these origin stories of these first disciples who began following Jesus, that we would be refreshed and renewed and challenged today in our own discipleship and what it means to be a follower of Christ.

2:11So let's pick up here in verse 35. This is taking place the next day after what we saw in the text last week. The next day, the day after John announced that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So on this day, he's standing with two of his disciples, and Jesus walks by again, and he points them to Jesus, and they begin following him. And I think the first thing to note is that John the Baptist has done a great job as a disciple maker. He's done a great job as a disciple maker. He prepared his disciples well to look for the Christ, and then when they saw him, they immediately began following him. They left everything to follow the Christ.

2:57And as we've seen to this point, John was not concerned about. His own ministry, about his own success. His life was dedicated to preparing the way for the Savior and then pointing others to him. So his disciples leaving him to follow Jesus was not a failure, that was a success. And friends, in the same way, we are called to make disciples of Jesus and to teach them to obey everything that he commanded. The Apostle Paul wrote, imitate me as I imitate Christ. He didn't just say, imitate me. He wanted the Christians that he discipled to become more and more like Jesus, which would happen as they imitated him, because what was Paul doing? Paul was seeking to be an imitator of Christ himself. Look what Jesus wrote in Luke or said in Luke 6:40. A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher. And that right there is the whole point of discipleship: it is to become like your teacher. And so we can just take a page out of John the Baptist's book today. We want to make sure that we are imitating Christ so that when people imitate us, they are imitating Jesus. Because he's the one that we're ultimately pointing people to. We're not pointing people to ourselves. We're pointing people to him. We want them to become like him in every way. So that's the first thing to note: that John was a great disciple maker.

4:30But the second thing that I want you to see in this first verse here is that these two men started following Jesus. Literally. They followed him because that's what disciples did. Disciples followed their rabbi, their teacher, so that they could watch what he did. They could hear what he said, how he answered questions, how he dealt with the situations that came up in life, so that they could learn to be like him in every way. And as I said a few minutes ago, I think in the American church, there's a lot of confusion about what it means to be a Christian. And if you ask a lot of people what a Christian is, what does it mean to be a Christian, they would say something along the lines of, well, it means you got saved.

5:18It means that you asked Jesus into your heart. It means that you made a decision for Christ. You walked the aisle. You got baptized, and so on. And you notice in those definitions of what it means to be a Christian, that the emphasis is almost entirely on this one moment, this one decision, this one act of the will. And I don't want you to misunderstand because it's very important. It is essential for you to make a decision for Christ. You need to consciously choose to turn from your sin and to turn toward Christ in faith. There's no doubt that the two disciples in our text today clearly made a decision for Christ.

6:00But when we read scripture, we learn that Christians aren't people who make one decision about Jesus and then just kind of go on with the rest of their lives. No, they are men and women, boys, and girls who are actively following Jesus. That's what it means to be a Christian. It seems that many people in the church believe that there's almost a kind of caste system within Christianity. And so you have it kind of like this bottom level people who are saved, but who are worldly and are ensnared to all sorts of sin.

6:40And then maybe a rung above that, you've got people who are saved and they're not necessarily ensnared in a whole bunch of sin, but their faith isn't very important to them either. And then at the top level, you've got disciples. You've got people who are very serious about their faith, who are serious about spiritual disciplines, who are serious about the church, who are serious about making disciples, all those kinds of things. They're the people that we think of as the pastors and missionaries and leaders in the church. We think of them as disciples. But, friends, that's an unbiblical way to think about the Christian life.

7:17There are just two types of people in the world: Christians and non-Christians. Disciples and those who are not disciples, followers of Jesus and those who don't follow Jesus. Those are the only categories. And so, because Becoming a Christian means that you become a disciple of Jesus. It means that you become a follower of the rabbi. You follow him so that you can seek to conform your thoughts, your words, your actions to his teaching and example. And this becomes really apparent in verse 38. If you look down here at verse 38, Jesus turns around to see these two men following him, and he asks them, What are you seeking?

8:01What are you seeking? What an important question. Why have you come to me? What are you looking for? What are your hopes and expectations? Are you seeking a revolutionary? Are you seeking a military leader that will rise up and deliver our people from Rome? Are you looking for somebody who will affirm you, who came with the sole purpose of telling you that you actually need to make no changes to your life? Everything that you've been doing for thousands of years is spot on.

8:41What are you seeking? That question is just as important and relevant today as it was when Jesus asked it in the first century. What are you seeking? Why are you here? Are you looking for a good luck charm? You know, I think for some people, they come to you. To Jesus because they want him to bless their choices, their efforts, their plans, their lifestyle. And they think that if they attend worship occasionally, or if they give occasionally, or if they do some religious activities, God will bless them. It's almost a superstition.

9:17Coming to Jesus is kind of a way to ward off bad karma. Are you hoping for health and wealth? That's a relevant question because so many preachers are promising health and wealth to those who come to Jesus. And they're telling them that if they become Christians, they won't experience suffering in the form of medical or financial hardships. That if they come to Jesus, they'll enjoy robust health and increasing material prosperity. But of course, Jesus is not a good luck charm and he never promised health and wealth. In fact, he promised the opposite. Take a look at what he says at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.

10:00Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Friends, this question, what are you seeking, is directed to anybody who comes to Jesus? What are you seeking? Why are you here? What are you looking for? What are your hopes and expectations? Jesus does not come to bless everything that you want to do in this life. He is not a genie in the bottle who exists to grant your wishes. He doesn't promise health and wealth to those who follow him. In fact, if you begin following Jesus, it is very likely that your life will get harder.

10:52But he does promise eternal life that begins today. He promises a life that is filled with meaning and purpose. He promises a life where our trials and our tragedies, our sorrows and our sufferings are not meaningless and wasted because they are used for our good and his glory. What are you seeking? If it's not these things, then Jesus is not for you. I want you to look again at verse 38 and listen to the answer that the disciples give when Jesus asks them this question, Rabbi, where are you staying?

11:41Rabbi, where are you staying? At first glance, that seems like such a strange answer, doesn't it? Jesus asks them, what are you seeking? And they ask him, where are you staying? Like, it's almost like they didn't hear him. But you may remember the story of Ruth in the Bible. Ruth is a Moabite woman who ends up marrying an Israelite, the son of a woman named Naomi. And Naomi's husband dies, and Ruth's husband dies, and so Naomi is going to go back to Israel.

12:14She's going to go back to Israel, and she tells Ruth, you should stay here with your people. And I want you to look at what Ruth says to her in response. But Ruth said, Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. When you die, where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me, and more also if anything but death parts me from you.

12:52Where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. That's what these disciples were saying to Jesus. We intend to go where you go and stay where you stay. We are leaving our old life behind. We're never going back to that. We are your disciples now. So, friends, what God is showing us here in John's Gospel is that a Christian is a disciple, and a disciple is a follower of Jesus. Where he goes, we go. Where he stays, we stay. We're trying to learn to obey everything that he commanded and to teach others to do. The same, to imitate us as we imitate Christ. And so, this is the calling on every one of us to become these kinds of disciples, not spiritual consumers, not people who are fringely involved with the church and the church's ministry, not people who kind of dabble in spirituality and religion from time to time, but people who are actively following Jesus every moment of every day. That our whole life is discipleship. Life is not divided into spiritual things and unspiritual things. No matter what your vocation is, no matter what your work is, no matter what you're studying, no matter what you're doing in life, you are a follower of Jesus. You are his disciple in the area of life and in the vocation that he has called you to.

14:18And so, that's what we're being called to. It's a very serious commitment. But frankly, if you're still here two years into COVID, I'm inclined to conclude that you intend to take this seriously. I think most everybody else has found something else to do at this point. And so, let's call each other to this kind of serious discipleship where we are following Jesus actively together. Now, in verse 40, if you look there, we learn the name of one of the two disciples that John pointed to Jesus. It says, One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was. Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.

15:05Now, I think it's important to note that almost every time Andrew is mentioned in scripture, he is always referred to in the exact same way: Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. Now, don't you wonder how that affected Andrew? That his identity, the way that people knew him and thought of him, was only in relation to his brother? I mean, not for anything that he said or that he did, but just that he was Peter's brother. I think there's some of you that know what this is like firsthand.

15:47Your entire life, you've been known as so-and-so's brother, so-and-so's sister, because they had a lot of academic or athletic success growing up. Or you're known as so-and-so's son or so-and-so's daughter because they did big things in the business world or the political world or even in the church. You're known primarily for your relation to someone else. And friends, that can be tough. You know, it's hard when you feel like you exist in the background, when other people's efforts get noticed and appreciated, but yours always seem to get overlooked. That you don't make a real difference in other people's eyes except in your relationship. Relation to someone else.

16:34But I want you to remember this morning that God knows and God sees you. This past week, we read Genesis 16 in our Together in 22 reading. And I was thinking about Hagar as I was writing the sermon. And when she was left all alone, scared to death in the wilderness, and she was weeping, and God came and revealed Himself to her, she called him, You are the God who sees me. God knew and saw Hagar.

17:13She wasn't just Abraham's exiled mistress. She was a person created in his image and likeness that he loved and that he was delighted to reveal himself to. Andrew wasn't just Simon Peter's brother. He was a beloved child of God. And friends, God knows and sees you. Even when you feel invisible, even when you feel like you're only known in relation to other people, he sees you, he knows you, and he will reward you. All the things that you do in secret that nobody else knows about.

17:54And as we move into verse 41, you see, what's the first thing that Andrew does? After he goes to Jesus, he goes and finds his brother, Simon, to tell him that they found the Messiah. And, friends, it has been said that Andrew's greatest contribution to the church was going to find his brother. And I think there's some truth to that. You think about Peter's incredible ministry in the early church, his leadership, the way that God used him to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. I mean, there's some truth to this. We don't know much about Andrew, but we do know that he brought Peter to Jesus, and that may have been his greatest service to the church.

18:37And just think about this for a minute. Do you know who Charles Spurgeon is? Yeah, most of you do. One of the greatest preachers ever. Do you know the name of the man that led Charles Spurgeon to Christ? I guarantee you don't, because even he doesn't. When he went to a church service one day to hear God's word preached, the preacher was delayed, and some layman got up there and preached the worst sermon that Charles Spurgeon has ever heard.

19:08He just kind of repeated the same phrase over and over again: look to Christ, look to Christ, look to Christ. And so he did. Do you know who Billy Graham is? Of course you do. Do you know who led Billy Graham to Christ? Probably not. And yet, friends, Charles Spurgeon and Billy Graham were used. By God to bring millions upon millions of people to faith in Christ. Their ministries, long after their deaths, continue to bring people to faith in Christ.

19:44And so there's a lot of times where you might feel like, you know, my efforts, what do they matter? Nobody sees, nobody notices. I think especially about parents, you know, there are days where you feel like all you're doing is changing diapers. All you're doing is helping with math homework. All you're doing is settling disputes. All you're doing is leading devotionals for people who do not care. But I want you to remember what Andy Stanley said.

20:11Your greatest contribution may not be something that you do, but someone that you raise. That might be your greatest contribution. Just like Andrew's greatest contribution may have been finding his brother and bringing him to Jesus. Such a small act of obedience, but God changed the world through Peter. And therefore, God changed the world through Andrew. So let's never forget that. Verse 42. Andrew brings Peter to Jesus and take a look. Jesus looked at him and said, So, you are Simon, the son of John. You shall be called Cephas, which means Peter.

21:03This is one of the most fascinating interactions in the gospels, in my opinion. Jesus takes one look at him and he says, This is who you are. This is who you're going to be. You are Simon. You will be Peter. You will be the rock. This, in some respects, is representative of the heart of the gospel message. God sees us just as we are, and he also sees us as we will be once he gets done working with us. He acknowledges our current identity and then gives us a brand new identity.

21:54So, brothers and sisters, I don't know who you were before you came to faith in Christ. Some of you were probably like a wild rule breaker, like the younger son in the parable. Others, like me, were like the self-righteous older brother. But whoever you were, that's not who you are. That is no longer your identity. Jesus gave you a new identity. You are a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come. You are not who you were.

22:33So, when you're tempted to believe that you are the same old person, that you will never change, when you doubt that God could accept and change you, when you think that he is perpetually disappointed with you, that's not true. That's not true. He's given you a new identity, he has changed your name, so to speak. You are no longer who you were. You are now an accepted and dearly loved child of the king of the universe.

23:07You're not yet who you will be, but you're also not who you were. Praise God. And if you're not yet following Jesus, you might be thinking to yourself: you know, God could never accept me. If he knew what I've done, and he does, if he knew what I've failed to do, and he does, he'll never accept me. But I want you to remember: at this point, Peter had done absolutely nothing. Nothing. He wasn't yet Peter the Rock, who would preach to thousands, who would lead the early church, who would give bold testimony in front of the Sanhedrin. He wasn't yet Peter the Rock. He's still Simon the marshmallow.

23:56This is the guy who is going to deny Jesus. Jesus, three times when a little servant girl questions if he even knows him. He's not yet Peter the Rock. And so if you're not yet following Jesus and you think that Jesus can't accept you as you are, just look at Simon. Like him, you just come to Jesus right now as you are. Do not try to clean yourself up first. You will make it worse. You just come to Jesus as you are, just as Simon did. He will give you a new identity. He will make you into a new creation, and over time, you will become what God sees.

24:40Verse 43. The next day, Jesus decides to go to Galilee. It says, He found Philip and said to him, Follow me. I want you to notice this is not a question. It's not a suggestion. Would you like to follow me? How does that sound? No, he just says, follow me, period, not question mark. It's a command. And Philip does begin following Jesus, and then he does exactly what Andrew did. He goes and he finds his friend Nathaniel and tells him that they found the one promised in the law and the prophets, and he refers to him as Jesus of Nazareth. Well, that triggers Nathanael because he's got some prejudice toward Nazareth. Nazareth was a small Town in Lower Galilee. It was fairly insignificant. And maybe it was despised because it was so close to Samaria.

25:40A lot of the research that's been done there suggests there was a Roman garrison there, so maybe that was part of the reason. But for whatever reason, Nathaniel does not have a high opinion of Nazareth, and so he asks, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Like, there's no way that the Messiah can be from that dumpy town. But look at Philip's response, verse 46. Come and see. Come and see. He doesn't argue with him. He just invites him. Come on, come and see.

26:21I think we can learn a lot from Philip's approach. And we spend a lot of our time arguing with our non-Christian friends and family members instead of inviting them in to come and see. Instead of saying, you know, would you read the Bible with me? Come and see Jesus in the scriptures and then make your decision. Would you come to worship with me? Would you come to life group with me? Come and see Jesus through. Community and then draw your conclusions.

27:06Would you be my friend? Come and see Jesus in me as I live my life every day and then make your conclusion about Jesus. Too much, I think, of the Christian life. Maybe because of the culture that we've kind of come out of, where these things are phrased as culture wars, and we constantly see ourselves at war and in opposition to non-Christians. I think we need to adopt this approach, friends, increasingly. Come and see. Come and see Christ in the scriptures, in our community, in our worship, in my life. Come and see, and then decide if Jesus is who he claimed to be. Let's invite people in.

27:57And so Philip brings Nathaniel to Jesus, and Jesus indicates that he already knows Nathanael by referring to his character. Look what he says, verse 47. Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit. That catches Nathaniel completely off guard. He cannot believe it. How does Jesus know him? And that's where Jesus really blows his mind by saying, oh, yeah, I saw you while you were still sitting under the fig tree. And right then and there, Nathanael declares that he is the Son of God, the King of Israel. I mean, Jesus almost laughs at him. He's like, well, man, like, if that's all it takes, I could have just been walking by earlier and seen you there, man.

28:44He's like, you're going to see greater things than these. And look at those greater things. Verse 51. Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Now, way back in Genesis 28, Jacob, who becomes the father of the 12 tribes of Israel, is traveling and he goes to sleep one night and he has this vision of this ladder that's set up on the earth with its top in the heavens.

29:24And angels of God are descending and ascending on this ladder. And then if you fast forward hundreds and hundreds of years to the time of Daniel, when the Jews are living in exile, Daniel also has this vision. And in this vision, he sees one like a son of man. And in the vision, God says to him that the son of man is given dominion and glory and kingdom to be served by all peoples, nations, and languages. And so it's very Clearly, a reference to the Messiah. And so all Jews understood Son of Man. That's not a reference to Jesus' humanity. It's a reference to his divinity. That's why they took offense all the time when he called himself the Son of Man.

30:13So you put all of this together. Nathanael walks up and Jesus calls him an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. Well, what was Jacob known for? His own name, Jacob, means he cheats or he deceives. God changes his name later to Israel. He says, Here's an Israelite in whom there is no deceit, and then he tells him, You are going to see angels ascending and descending, not on a ladder, but on the Son of Man.

30:51What Jesus is claiming is that he is the Son of Man, the anticipated Messiah, and he is the bridge between heaven and earth. He is the mediator. He's fully God, so he can forgive sin. And he's fully man, so he can represent us before God and offer himself as the perfect sacrifice. He is the ladder by which God comes to us and by which we ascend to him. There is no other way, no other ladder. And throughout Jesus' ministry, his teaching, his miracles, his death, Resurrection, Nathaniel and the other disciples would come to see and believe greater things than these: that he truly is the ladder and the son of man.

31:44And so, friends, if you're trying to get to heaven by some other ladder, it's not going to work. Your good works are too short of a ladder. And your good works are imperfect, which means that your short ladder is broken. You can't ascend to heaven on your own works. The only way to ascend to heaven is the only way heaven descended to us, and that is through the person and work of Jesus Christ. And I want you to see this morning that all of these early disciples, Andrew and John, Peter, Philip, Nathaniel, they all came to Jesus in different ways. Some were pointed to him, some were brought to him by family members or friends, some were called by Jesus directly, but they all came to Jesus and became his followers, his disciples. They all believed that he was the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world.

32:58And so, if you want Eternal life. If you want forgiveness and reconciliation with God, then you have to become Jesus' disciple. You have to receive Him, believing that He is the only ladder that can connect you to God, because He is. And if you're already a Christian this morning, I want to encourage you to examine yourself to see if you're really following Jesus. The question isn't: do you have good thoughts about Him? The question is not, Do you try to stay out of sin most of the time?

33:41The question isn't, are you a decent person who's better than most people? The relevant question is: Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ? Are you actively following Him? You see, we can only produce what we are or what we are becoming. And we are called to be disciples, who are making disciples. And a disciple follows Jesus. So, who are you following today? Let's pray. Father, we have complicated the Christian life. Jesus' call was so simple: follow me.

34:33Doesn't mean that it's easy, but it was simple. God, we pray this morning that we would be known as followers of Jesus. That when people look at our lives from the outside, there would be no question about who we're following, about who we're seeking to pattern our lives after, about whose value system that we've adopted. We pray that it would be evident to everyone around us by the way that we live our lives and by the way that we love each other, that we are your disciples, your followers.

35:21God, we pray for those who have come in this morning and they see themselves like maybe some of the disciples saw themselves unworthy, ill-equipped, not holy enough, not educated enough, just not the right kind of people to be followers of Jesus. God, we pray this morning that you would draw them to your Son. That they would believe that if they come, you will receive them because that's what you promise in your word. God, we thank you that you have made the way for us to be reconciled to you in the person of Jesus, and that you took all of the initiative that we couldn't take and wouldn't take to reconcile ourselves to you on our own.

36:38God, thank you for saving us. Thank you for adopting us into your family. Thank you for giving us lives of purpose and mission and meaning. We pray that our lives would honor you. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.