How This All Got Started

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Let's pray together.

Father, we uh we're here because of those realities.

We're here, we come to you, and we come back to you when we strayed because you have the grace to accept us and the power to change us.

And so that's why we're here today.

We need to come to you for the first time.

Some of us need to return to you because we've strayed.

Some of us haven't strayed.

We just need to grow stronger in our faith.

We need to grow more intimate in our relationship with you.

For all those reasons, God, that we're here.

And for some reasons we can't even give voice to, but we're here nonetheless.

And so, Lord, say something today that has our name on it.

We ask in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

If you have a Bible, I invite you to take it and open up to John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

John chapter 1, verse, I'll start reading verse 35.

John 1 · chapter mention

I want to talk to you this morning about how this all got started.

How this all got started.

And while you're finding John chapter 1, if you don't have a Bible, there's one on your row.

John 1 · chapter mention

I'm on page 886.

Uh now let me just say this: the way things get started are an indication of what they're intended to be like.

Uh let me say that again.

I'll demonstrate.

The way things get started are an indication of what they're intended to be like, and you kind of the ethos of whatever's getting started.

For example, Southwest Airlines.

If you've ever flown on Southwest Airlines, you realize it's different from other airlines, okay?

Uh they make jokes, uh, they're pretty laid back, it's a fun place to work.

It's still one of the voted one of the best places in America, on the top 50 companies to work for.

Uh and Southwest Airlines started in a bar.

A guy named Herb Kelleher flipped over a napkin, took out a pen, and drove and drew a triangle between Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.

And he said, This is where we're gonna start.

We're gonna fly these three routes.

Now it's one of the most creative, fun places, and it started in a bar on a cocktail napkin.

And I'm just saying this the way things start are an indication of what they're gonna be like once they get up and going.

Dell Computers started by Michael Dell in his dorm room at University of Texas.

Uh, it's an indication.

Uh, Microsoft started in a garage.

Did you know that?

Uh and so you you got Bill Gates and his other nerdy friend, and they're talking back and forth, and they come up with this, you know, we're gonna have this dominant operating system.

So, again, here's what I want, just infecting your mind.

The way things start indicate the nature of what they're gonna be like once they get going.

This, if you said, hey, where did this whole following Jesus thing get started?

Right here in John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

And it's an indication of what God intends for it to be like once it gets going.

John chapter 1, verse 35 says this.

John 1:35

The next day again, John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and he said, Behold the Lamb of God.

And the two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.

And Jesus turned and saw them following, and he said to them, What are you seeking?

And they said to him, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying?

He said to them, Come and you will see.

And so they came and they saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him about that day.

For it was about the tenth hour.

And one of the two who heard John speak and follow 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 will be called Cephas, which means Peter.

So much of an indication of what God intends for it to be like once it gets going, is it is captured in this passage.

I want to point to four of these things that we see.

Whenever you read the Bible, here you need to ask yourself two questions.

Number one, what do I see?

Number two, what do I see in the text?

The second question you need to ask is what does it mean for me?

Here's what I see in the text uh when all this stuff got kicked off and going.

The first thing is a picture of discipleship.

A picture of discipleship.

Now, you'll see this over and over in John's gospel.

John uh the Baptist, he has disciples, people that have attached themselves to him.

And this didn't start in the New Testament.

This was on going on back in the Old Testament times.

People would attach themselves to somebody that knew more about God than they did, and they basically said, Teach me what you know about God.

I want to think about God the way you do, I want to relate to God the way you do, I want to pray to God the way that you do, I want to learn from you.

So much so that some people referred to themselves and said, Hey, we've been baptized into Moses.

In other words, we've immersed ourselves in the way Moses relates to God and what Moses teaches us about God, not because we want to worship Moses, we want to grow in our understanding of God.

That's what discipleship is.

Let me make a distinction.

Discipleship is not dependence, okay?

It's preparation.

If you're discipling somebody and they cannot make a major decision or many decisions without first consulting you, you've not helped those people.

You've made them dependent upon you.

And so, but John the Baptist is standing there.

He said, What's a picture of discipleship?

I missed it.

John the Baptist is standing there talking to two of his disciples.

One of them is Andrew, and best we can tell, the other one is John, the guy who writes the gospel of John.

He never outs himself, it just says Andrew and another disciple.

But he writes from this firsthand account, like eyewitness experience with what's going on.

And so he's sitting there talking, and Jesus walks by, and John and John the Baptist says, Behold the Lamb of God.

And all of a sudden they left him and they followed Jesus and they never came back and were discipled by John ever again.

In other words, what he did, he related to them in such a way he got them prepared, he got them ready to relate to Jesus in a deeper, more intimate way.

And so I just want to point subtly that, hey, the first thing we see is this picture of what discipleship is.

It's not dependence, it's preparation.

It's not dependence.

Now you should ask yourself, have I ever, if you're a Christian, have I ever been discipled?

Or I I would even expand my definition of discipleship a little bit further.

If you're not a Christian and you're just considering the claims of Christianity, you should be disciple.

You should go to somebody that you know that is a Christian.

You think that person has a vibrant faith, and ask them every question you want to ask them.

It was very sobering.

Happened to me when I was in college.

I was sitting out by the flagpole, minding my own business, reading and get studying for a quiz.

Uh it was a pop quiz that we heard was coming, and I was, I didn't want to get popped.

And so I was looking over my notes and I look up and there's some feet right where that microphone is.

And I look up and it's a girl standing there, and I was like, hey, and she goes, Hey, there's something about you, and I want to know what it is.

And she just plops down the grass right beside me.

And I was like, uh, excuse me, what's your name?

And she said, Hi, I'm Lainey.

And she goes, There's something about you.

And I said, Well, uh, I'm a Christian, and she goes, I'm an atheist, I don't believe in that.

I what else could it be?

And I said, I promise you, it's it's that's what it is.

That because I I'm by nature not a great person.

And she says, Well, I don't believe any of that stuff, and I don't believe that book you guys read.

And I was like, I did not know what to say.

Let me say that again.

I, your pastor, did not know what to say.

I was just like, uh, uh, because she was all up in my business.

I mean, she was all, and then she said this, sitting Indian style, cross-legged right in front of me.

She said, Can I follow you around the semester and watch you?

I was like, uh, this is got creepy around here.

Uh, not in a romantic way or anything.

And I said, Yeah, you can, I mean, I don't live a very interesting life.

She goes, I'll be the judge of that.

And I was like, Okay, so boys, I would go out on a date.

She'd be waiting in the lobby with a spiral notebook, and she would ask the girl, Did you just come back from a date with Neil McClendon?

Can I ask you a few questions?

I was like, She came to my intermiral football game.

I'm at the Intermiral Park.

Then me and my team, I had a bunch of just guys that were called into ministry, semi-athletic, smack talking white guys, okay?

We were bringing it.

And it always used in the baseball team, because they were great athletes, and they were always like, I was like, hey man, listen, just because I don't play sports don't mean I can't beat you.

And so it comes down to the championship game, and it's competitive, and there's smack talking.

I look up in the stands and there's Laney with a notebook taking notes.

And so, uh, big play in the game.

I intercepted a pass and I'm running it back for a touchdown.

And I hold the ball behind me, going, get you some of that, get you some of that.

And we got in the end zone and I spun the ball and we all jumped around it like it was up fire.

We were warming our hands, and boom! And so after the game, we won the championship.

You got a t-shirt.

You thought we were playing for a million bucks, that Emerald t-shirt.

And my friend's like, let's go, let's go shower up and go eat breakfast.

And so we would go late at night and eat breakfast.

We're like, Yeah, that was awesome.

Yeah, yeah.

I said to one of the guys, Hold my trophy while I kiss your girlfriend.

He's like, I hate you, McClendon.

I hate your mama too, but that don't change nothing.

We won and you lost.

We didn't lose, we came in second.

Second is the first loser, okay?

Don't rejoice over second.

About that time I hear behind me, hey Neil, I turn around.

It's Lainey with her notebook.

Hey, when that kind of fat guy was chasing you and he couldn't catch you and you're taunting him.

How do you reconcile that with your faith?

Well, it's just, you know, it's football.

We just talk and smack.

It's flag football.

And she goes, so that so Christianity doesn't apply when you play sports.

That's what I mean.

You don't have to be a Christian to be a disciple.

She watched me all semester.

All semester.

Never came to faith.

She goes, hey, I've seen this is real.

I don't think I'm ready for it yet, but thank you and shook my hand.

I've never seen her since.

So I'm I'm not being coy when I say, whether you're a Christian or not.

Hey, you should attach yourself to someone who'll shoot straight with you and tell you the truth.

Why?

Because it will prepare you to think rightly about God.

So the first thing we see back when we saw Get Started is we see a picture of discipleship.

Secondly, we see people talking about Jesus.

What do you mean, people talking about Jesus?

Uh there are three ways, three dominant ways people did this: biblical proclamation, personal testimony, and personal invitation.

And they're all three captured right here in the section.

Biblical proclamation is John the Baptist.

He says more with less words than anybody uh ever does about God when he says, Behold the Lamb of God.

Remember, I told you last week the word behold is clunky.

We don't use it very much.

He says, Behold.

Basically, what he's saying when he says the Lamb of God, this is the promised Messiah who is coming to make payment for the sins of the world.

He is going to forever change the way you relate to God.

And the two people that had attached themselves to John immersed themselves in John the Baptist so much so that they called themselves his disciples.

They turned and left John and started following after Jesus.

And so when I say people talking about Jesus, there's biblical proclamation, and John the Baptist is an example of that.

The second way that people talked about was personal testimony.

It's a guy named Andrew.

Andrew, let me tell you a few things about Andrew.

Okay, first of all, Andrew shows up three times in John's gospel, and every time he's bringing somebody and introducing them to Jesus.

Andrew does not have the personality of his brother Peter.

Peter has the big loud personality, the big outside voice, a lot of gifts.

Peter's the guy that preaches at Pentecost.

He's biblical proclamation, Peter is.

Peter preaches at Pentecost, and 3,000 people come to faith.

But here's the thing: uh, without Andrew, there is no Peter.

Because the Bible says that when you talk about what is personal testimony, he goes to his brother.

If you haven't discovered this yet, the hardest people to talk to about your faith to is your family.

He goes to his brother and he says, We have found the Messiah.

You gotta come get a load of this.

This is not just the subject we talk about in school.

This is a real human being.

God has put on flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.

Come and check this out, brother.

And his brother does.

And his brother is transformed by the graceful acceptance of Jesus and becomes one of the greatest proponents of Christianity in the New Testament.

But Andrew wasn't that guy.

Andrew was quite shy.

Andrew reminds me of my friend Ross Sawyers.

Ross Sawyers is about that tall, weighs about a buck 40.

He's always on some vegan yogurt diet, and he talks about this loud all the time.

And then he's real slow and methodical.

I'm like, talk faster, Ross.

I'm losing, I'm losing control, I'm getting sleepy, okay?

And he's like, Well, you know, I just was thinking the other day, I was reading, I'm like, ah.

He's Andrew.

I'm Peter.

Now, here's the thing: he never says to me, Neil, you should be more quiet-spirited.

You should be more like me, and blah, blah, blah.

He does say to me every once in a while, How did you get a woman like Marcy?

I know miracles never stop.

I get it, Ross.

Because here's the thing I love about his little Andrew self.

Now, here's why I'm telling you all this.

Because some of you are wired up like Andrew, and you think you should be Peter.

No, you should just keep being Andrew.

Because we were at a retreat one time, Ross and I were with a bunch of spiritual leaders getting ready to kind of help launch this movement.

And we were singing a song about kneeling down before God.

And I just knelt down.

And he came to me during the lunch break and he said, Hey, can I ask you a question?

I said, Yeah, hey, good to see you, Ross.

He said, Hey, uh, we were singing about kneeling down, and and and and you just knelt down, and he said, You know, you've been to my church.

And I said, Yeah, I've been to your church.

Nice church, has a lot of money, pretty formal and dead.

And he said, Yeah, if you were to my church, the you know, the 11 o'clock, the traditional service, and and and and we were singing something, and and and you since God wanted you to kneel down, would you kneel down?

And I said, I would, but I've been to your church many times and I've never heard anything sung that would make me want to kneel down.

And he looked at me and he's like, That's and he just kind of makes these little mental notes.

Not long after that, he resigns his church, which pays him a great salary.

He was very loved, and he leaves the state of Florida and comes to Texas and plants a church called 121 Community Church up around Grapevine, and it is an incredibly healthy biblical church.

He doesn't have a big personality, he is Andrew.

He's always bringing people to Jesus.

Always, always, always.

That's just what he does.

When I'm around Ross, I don't think I want to be more like that.

I want to I want to live out of the gifts God's given me, but I want you to know if you're Andrew, if you're a person that's like, hey, I don't have that kind of personality, I'm not big on biblical proclamation, the power of your personal testimony is just as powerful as anybody else.

You need to be fluent.

He says, Hey, we have found the Messiah.

And he brings his brother with him.

The third way people talk about Jesus in the Bible is personal invitation.

Personal invitation, it's what you see in Jesus.

When the disciples are walking behind him, he turns around and he says, What do you want?

And they said, Uh, where are you staying?

And Jesus says, Come and see.

Come and see.

Now, why is that a big deal?

What do you mean personal invitation?

If you're in this room right now and you're jaded, or you're cynical, or you're unbelieving, or you got burned by church, or you got burned by religion, or some denomination gave you uh a bad experience or whatever.

I get that, okay?

I can't fix that.

And we we as this church cannot fix that, okay?

But what we can say is what Jesus says, come and see.

Come and see.

And what you will see in this church are people that are battling addictions right now, okay?

You'll see people that that are trying to flesh out their faith.

You'll see people that are in marriage and they're just like, oh, this is hard, but I'm not going anywhere, but you make me crazy.

You'll see that here.

But here's the thing over all that, the thing that kind of guides these people in that is their faith.

It's the certainty of the fact that I have a relationship with Christ because of what Jesus has done.

And so that's the way people talked about Jesus.

Now, why do I talk about that?

Here's why.

Because I want all of us to ask ourselves this morning, which one of these am I most comfortable with?

And which one am I least comfortable with?

Because here's why.

What we'll do is we'll tend to kind of like, hey, personal invitation.

Uh we're always inviting people to church.

By the way, there's a difference in inviting people to church and inviting people to Jesus.

Don't settle for just one.

Invite people to church.

I think it's great.

But but but don't just settle into this routine of, hey, our church is awesome.

Let you bring coffee in the sanctuary.

That's awesome.

I'm all for coffee.

Not what Jesus died for.

See, you need to ask yourself, hey, which one of these am I most uncomfortable with?

So you can strengthen an area you'll be tempted to avoid.

So when we look back and say, how did this all get started?

We see a couple things.

We see a picture of discipleship.

Secondly, we see people talking about Jesus.

Third thing we see is that Jesus is confrontational.

Jesus is confrontational.

You say, What do you mean?

You cannot follow Jesus without being confronted with and threatened by everything he is and all that he purposes to do in your life.

Let me say that again.

Get this etched in your mind.

One of our men followed me out with his phone after the last service and said, Okay, say that thing about confrontation again.

I need to get that.

Uh and you cannot be, you cannot follow Jesus without being confronted with and threatened by everything he is and all that he purposes to do in your life.

Now, let me pause right here.

Look at me.

Depending on how you grew up, what your home was like, the word confrontation is a many splendor thing.

Some of you grew up in a home where it was confrontation was bad, okay?

That was kind of my home, okay?

Some of you grew up in a home where confrontation never happened.

Everybody just went to their rooms and played the silent treatment until we all forgot and just went back to doing what they were doing.

When Jesus confronts, it's not out of hate, it's out of love.

It's not out to, he's not out to embarrass anybody, he's out to instruct people.

You say, What do you mean?

Let me give you some examples from the Bible.

You don't have to turn there, but these things actually happened.

Uh, Luke chapter 9, Jesus is walking along, and a guy in the crowd yells out and says, Jesus, I'll follow you wherever you go.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

And Jesus is like, That's right, you're my brother from another mother.

No.

Jesus says this.

He says, Hey, foxes have holes and the birds of the air have have nests.

The son of man does not have a place to lay his head.

And the guy's like, Okay, never mind.

I'm good.

Another guy in the crowd jumps up and says, Hey, Jesus, I tell you what, I'll follow you, but first let me go bury my father.

Now you have to understand the cultural context of what he's saying.

When he says, first, let me go bury my father, what he's saying is, hey, I want to follow you on my terms and in my timing.

His dad's not it's like not like his dad died yesterday.

He's got to go home and dig a hole and bury his dad.

I mean, think about your smart people.

Whose dad dies and then they go to a Jesus parade?

Where's your dad?

He's at home laying on the kitchen table.

No.

What the guy is saying is this hey, Jesus, I want to follow you, but I want to make sure I can get the inheritance and everything squared away, and my retirement is squared away, and I'm good, and I'm golden, I got all my accounts topped off and brimming over and everything.

And Jesus says, He says, Hey, let me first bury my father.

And Jesus says, Let the dead bury the dead.

And this is what he's meaning.

He's saying, Hey, let those people that are spiritually dead who do not understand what I'm doing, let them do the things they can do.

You need to do the thing that God has sees you to do.

And he's like, Well, uh, uh, okay, well, let me go at least go back and say goodbye to my family.

And Jesus is confrontational.

He says, This he says, Hey, whoever puts their hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God.

Let me give you another example from the Bible.

Uh, Luke chapter 14, by verse 25.

Luke 14 · chapter mention

The Bible clearly says, and large crowds were following him.

And Jesus got the six-foot selfie stick and said, Everybody get in here, get in here, it's gonna be awesome.

We're gonna post this on Instagram.

No, he turns to the crowd and he says, This whoever comes after me and doesn't hate your mother and father and brother and sister, and yeah, even your own life, you can't be my disciple.

And the people are like, Oh, shut up! And Jesus knows they're shocked, he's not trying to be shocking, he's trying to be biblical.

He says, I tell you what, if you don't pick up your cross and come after me, you can't be my disciple.

And then he realizes they're confused.

So he wants them to be clear, tells a story.

He says, How many of you, when you set out to build a tower, will not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough to finish it?

Because if you don't, you start building and you won't be able to finish, everybody'll make fun of you.

And Jesus is like, I don't want to make fun of.

He says, or think of it this way: if you got 10,000 people in your army and you're gonna go out and you're going to uh come against somebody with 20,000, won't you first sit down and think, how do we strategize to beat these guys who have twice as many soldiers as we do?

Otherwise, if you can't beat them, you might want to send out and ask for terms of peace.

In the same way, anybody who does not give up all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Now, when Jesus says give up all that he has, he's not saying get all your worldly possessions, push them out on the curve like Hurricane Harvey refuse, and say, There you go, Jesus.

He's saying all he has, all that you think, all of your attention and all your affection right out there on the table.

And the people are like, hmm.

But let me say this confrontation is not always bam, bam, bam.

Sometimes it's subtle.

You say, What do you mean?

Uh Mark chapter 9, great chapter in the Bible, by the way.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

Great stuff happens in Mark chapter 9.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

Like, for example, Jesus is transfigured.

Now, when I say the word transfigured, some of you kind of go, I think uh the transfiguration.

Here's what happens.

Uh, Mark chapter 9 is actually kind of towards about three-quarters of the way through Jesus' life on earth and his ministry.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

And the transfiguration is a time where the disciples stand there talking, and God wants everybody to know, hey, this is the Son of God, he's the real deal.

And so Jesus transfigured, he's taken up in the air and he glows literally.

He's got this like glory shining on him.

And it's God kind of saying, Hey, this is the little foretaste of glory divine.

This is what my son left, and this is what he's coming back to.

And God speaks from heaven at the transfiguration and says the same thing he said at Jesus' baptism, and he adds one little caveat.

He says, This is my son, whom I love, with whom I'm well pleased.

And then he says this, you would do well to listen to him.

Now hear that again.

You would do well to listen to him.

Let me confess something to you.

If my friend Alex over here floats up in the air after church and glows, I'm listening to that cat when he comes down.

I'm kind of like, what'd you see up there, Alex?

You got anything for me?

Did you see my future?

Yeah.

That's what that happens in Mark chapter 9.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

After that, Jesus casts out this unclean spirit out of this little boy, and then he sits down, talks to his disciples, and says, Hey, the Son of Man is going to go to Jerusalem and I'm going to suffer many things at the hands of a bunch of religious nitwits, and I'm going to suffer, and then I'm going to die.

And they're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then right after.

That this happens.

This is how subtle I say Jesus is confrontational.

And some of you are like, oh, I don't like that.

That doesn't mean Jesus is a yeller like your alcoholic stepdad.

No, it means Jesus is intentional.

Look what he does.

After the end of Mark chapter 9, after all this great stuff, Jesus floats up in the air and glows like a setting sun.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

It's incredible.

He cast out a demon out of this kid.

He talks about his death.

Mark 9, verse 33.

Mark 9:33

And they came to a Capernaum.

And when he was in the house, he asked him, What were you discussing on the way?

By the way, he's not asking because he doesn't know.

It's kind of like when you call your kids into the living room and kind of go, Hey, is there anything you want to tell us?

Uh uh.

The disciples are all looking down at their feet.

Oh man, this is kind of awkward.

What were you discussing on the way?

Because against the backdrop of that, here's what they were discussing.

They kept silent.

For on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.

What?

Yes.

Yes.

Jesus glows.

He casts out a demon.

He talks about his death.

And all these guys can do is go, okay, enough about me.

What do you think about me?

Who's going to be the greatest?

And he sat down.

They kept silent from the way they had argued about uh with one another about who was the greatest.

And he sat down and he called the twelve and he said to them, if anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.

And he took a child and he put him in the midst of them.

And taking him in his arms, he said to them, Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.

And whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me.

Now, here's the thing you've got to visualize.

Don't just read the Bible, it's flat, one-dimensional words on a piece of skinny paper that reminds you of rolling papers from high school.

Some of you are like, You just said that.

Yeah, some of you are like, oh, I remember that.

Exactly.

Yes, JB 1.5.

Thank you very much.

Here's what I'm saying.

It's not just flat, one-dimensional, oh, there's just historical marathon taking place here.

When Jesus says, hey, you guys are talking about who's the great.

I'm talking about dying for your sins.

Shouldn't I be the He doesn't say that.

He's not defensive, he's not insecure.

He just takes a little child and puts them in front of him and he takes him in his arms.

Don't miss that.

He takes him in his arms.

And the little kid's facing the people, and Jesus is just smelling his hair, just going, Do you use conditioner?

Anyway, hey, hey, if anybody, you want to be great, you be a servant of all.

And I tell you what, anybody, see this little kid?

If you if you receive this little kid, you receive me.

And if you receive me, you receive my father who sent me.

This is fixing to happen.

There's a lady that works here at our church, she's part of our worship ministry and works in the media, named Lindsay Frelick.

She's a whole lot of pregnant, okay?

She's going to be induced later tonight, by the way.

Be praying for them.

It's all in the lobby.

I was like, don't touch that stomach.

I don't want that kid jumping out right here in the lobby.

And her family's in town, everything.

She's going to give birth.

I seen it twice.

That kid comes out looking like an alien, okay?

And I don't care who you are, your baby ain't that pretty when it first comes out.

Got stuff all over it.

Every mom in the world does this.

They lay that baby, that just but just, oh, they receive them.

Jesus says, Hey, if you receive, what it means to receive me is just, oh, yes.

Yes.

And the disciples are like, Yeah, sorry, coach.

We were kind of talking about who's going to get set in your chair when you were gone.

You're talking about dying, you know, don't hate us.

That's where our mind went.

That's confrontation.

In this passage, confrontation sounds like this: Jesus is walking down the road, he turns around, he looks at them, and he says, What do you want?

Can you imagine the God of the universe looking at you and saying, What do you want?

Uh, I tell you what, uh, I've got a list.

Here it is.

Let me kick it down the roll there.

Can you see that, G?

No.

God said, What do you want?

And all they could come up with is, Are you at the La Quinta or the Motel 6?

Are you kidding me?

No, here's what they're doing.

Because they said, Where are you staying?

Here's why they ask such a dumb-sounding question.

They're looking around, they're kind of saying, Hey, we kind of want to talk like a private conversation.

We don't want to have that in a public.

Have you ever tried to have a private conversation in a public place?

It's awkward.

I had one this week, okay, at Chewy's.

A young man emailed me and said, uh, Mr.

McClendon, I would like to come down and meet with you and talk to you about the possibility of pursuing your daughter Madison.

I can drive down to Sugarland or I can meet you halfway between Sugarland and Waco.

You can drive all the way, son.

That's the first thing.

I pulled out my pistol and just bam, just shot him.

No, I ain't driving nowhere.

Sorry, still won't spend time.

My kid, you come down here.

And so, sure enough, to his credit, he came down on Friday.

We met at my office and I met him here and we went to Chewy's for lunch, and we're chit-chatting, we sit down.

Now they said it's in Chewy's at that booth, right next to the little lattice.

The kitchen's on the other side.

It's not a solid wall.

It looks like that little lattice your grandma has in a rose garden, and you can see in here and there, and vice versa.

Why do I tell you that?

We're having a little private conversation.

And so he says to me, Well, you know, uh, and don't ask me about him how she's about that, they're just getting to know each other.

This may come to nothing.

So don't come up to me next week and go, how's Mass and boyfriend?

She doesn't have a boyfriend.

She has a boy that wants to pursue and earn the privilege of winning her heart.

He ain't even in the running yet, okay?

Let's be clear about that.

Stop giving your kid, your daughters away to strangers, men.

I looked at that rascal and he said, I said, so let's talk about why you're here, son.

Uh yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

Well, I'm here to get your blessing to pursue medicine.

First of all, let me check you up right there.

You ain't getting no blessing today because I don't know you and I don't know what your intentions are to my kid, so I ain't blessing you because I may have to curse you.

And about that time I see something move, and right us out of life, our waitress is over there taking notes on our conversation.

And I said, Here's the thing, I ain't mad at you, I don't dislike you, but you are not getting my blessing today.

If you think you're getting my blessing, you just go and have some chips.

And by the way, enjoy this delicious jalapeno ranch.

Okay, that stuff will be in heaven, all right?

I said to my waitress, she brought a little bowl.

I said, Can I get like a bathtub filled with that so I can just lay in it?

She's like, No, it's extra.

Never mind, I'll take the free stuff.

And so we're sitting there, and he said, So, uh, well, if I'm not getting your blessing, I said, You're here to get my permission.

You have my permission to pursue my daughter.

But here's the deal.

When I say pursue, let me tell you how this goes, okay?

It's three stages in my mind: it's discovery, maturity, and then exclusivity.

People your age get it wrong.

You start off trying to be exclusive, and all you do is practice divorce.

So when you get married and it gets hard and you discover things that you don't like, you're like, well, this just didn't work it out.

Let's just, you can have the kids.

I'll take the house, you take the deer leash, you take the lake house, blah, blah, blah.

Grow up.

Just grow your sorry selves up.

Man up, ladybug.

This poor kid was like.

I said, here's the thing.

Discover.

He goes, can you explain the stages?

Uh-huh.

And all of a sudden I look at her and she's like, Stage.

And I said, the first one's discovery.

You discover things about yourself, things about her.

You might have discovered some things about me.

He said, like what?

Like I'm a gun owner.

Uh-huh.

He said, okay.

And the second stage, what was that?

I said, is maturity.

What do you mean maturity?

You mature, she matures, and you as a couple mature.

The biblical paradigm is Psalm 34, 3.

Come glorify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together.

If being with you doesn't help my daughter glorify God, she doesn't need to be with you.

That's why you don't need to be exclusive right off the bat.

You have not earned the right to have my daughter's undivided attention or affection.

So don't insult me by asking for it.

Now I hear from the other side, oh my she comes out there, you guys need some more tea?

No, go back over there so you can take notes.

We can't see you.

And then he says, okay, and then what's the last part?

Last part is exclusivity.

Okay, because this happens all the time.

Some of y'all let your 15-year-old kid get exclusive of some punky boy.

And what happens is she then just locks in on him and thinks, who I gotta be for him to keep liking me, and she stops becoming who God created her to be.

That's that's a huge mistake.

So, nice kid.

I'm not mad at the kid.

I did say to him, then look at me in the eye, son, okay?

Well, I'm having me a comida deluxe.

And I said, Let me just tell you something.

And I'm not trying to be funny, but you need to know this.

You put your hand on my daughter physically or sexually, and I'll bring this to your door so fast and with such ferocity, you won't know what happened.

I'm Peter, but I got some Simon in me.

Uh yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

I think I understand.

What do you understand me saying?

You'll hurt me if I hurt Madison.

Yeah.

And you know what?

You shouldn't be afraid of me.

Because I I'm I'm I say I'm Peter.

I'm preaching about this Sunday.

I'm I'm a Christian, but before I was Peter, I became a Christian.

I was an angry, violent kid.

I put you in that Bermuda triangle right there and choke you out.

You ever heard a man being choked out?

Their eyes bulge out.

He's like, oh, well, no, sir, I haven't, uh huh.

I can show you.

Then my wife's like, You need to be prayed up when you go.

I don't need to pray, I'm ready to rock and roll.

He better be praying.

Now, look at me.

Why do I tell you that?

A little free dating sermon there for your dads, but also tell you this private conversations, they don't go well in public settings.

Our poor waitress came around, she handed me the check.

I said, I'm not gonna tip you.

You've been taking notes, that's your tip.

Oh, hey, good advice.

Whatever, get out of here.

Jesus says to the disciples, hey, what do you want?

It's confrontation, it's subtle.

What do you want?

If God asks you that question today, what would you say?

Because here's what they don't say.

They don't say, Well, you know, we'd like uh uh to know how to for sure we're gonna get to heaven, and and we'd like to understand, you know, what uh what forgiveness is about and all this kind of stuff.

They don't see any of that.

So what do they say?

They said, Where are you staying?

Jesus says, Come and see.

What they didn't say is kind of what we do.

They didn't come up to God, lay$3 on the counter and say, I'd like$3 worth of God, please.

And so, what is that?

Here's what it sounds like.

I would like to buy about$3 worth of God, please.

Not too much, just enough to make me happy, but not so much that I become inconvenient to any of my friends.

I don't want so much God that I learned to really hate covetousness, lust, and my addiction.

I certainly don't want so much that I start to love my enemies, cherish self-denial, and contemplate others before myself.

I want ecstasy, not repentance.

I want transcendence, not transformation.

I prefer a warm womb to actually being born again.

I would like to be cherished by some nice, forgiving, broad-minded people, but I prefer to be left alone.

I want to be appreciated, but not accountable.

More socialization without transformation, please.

I would like enough of God to make my family secure and my children well behaved, but not so much that I find my ambitions redirected or my giving too greatly enlarged.

I would like as much of this as I can have without my plans changing.

I would like about three dollars worth of God, please.

And beloved, for many people in the American church, that just described what they think Christianity is.

And they're walking around with$3 worth of God, wondering what's what do these people know that I don't seem to know?

They go to all these incredible uh experiences and they still walk around with a warm womb, but not a new birth experience.

The disciples are like, hey, this is not a casual encounter, this requires some privacy.

And so the Bible, then the Bible has this little line there that says, it was about the tenth hour.

That's four o'clock in the afternoon for us.

So look at me, okay?

From four o'clock in the afternoon to the next morning.

We don't know what Jesus said.

There's no biblical record of it.

We don't know what he talked about, but would you know this?

The next day, those men left everything they'd known and followed Jesus the rest of their life.

From four in the afternoon to the next morning.

It behooves us today to ask ourselves this little soul-piercing question.

What do I need to hear that I haven't heard that's gonna make me want to do what I say I want to do?

What do I need to hear that I haven't heard?

That's gonna make me want to do what I say I want to do.

Last thing we see is that this is the power of grace.

The power of grace.

This is if you look back in the beginning, and remember the the the way things get started are an indication of the nature of what they're gonna be like when they get going.

Southwest Airlines started on a cocktail napkin.

Dell computer in a dorm room.

The creative, fluid thinkers.

Okay?

What do we see when this all gets started here?

Fourth thing you see is just the power of grace.

Just the power of grace.

It's verse 42, where Andrew gets his brother uh Simon and he brings him to Jesus.

And verse 42, 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.

What do you mean, the power of grace?

Look at me.

Jesus has the grace to accept who he is and the power to transform him into who he's going to be.

It's the grace of acceptance and the grace of transformation.

Let me say that again.

You need to be fluent with those two terms: the grace of acceptance and the grace of transformation.

Because what we want to do is we want a God who has the grace of acceptance.

That's what we prefer.

And we'd like God to accept us and love us.

And if you get stuck in that and that's what you think God is, here's how you know you think that way, because you say this a lot.

Well, my God's a God of love.

Yes, that's not the sum total of all God's attributes.

We want the grace of acceptance.

If all God can do, if all God has is a grace to accept you, the best you can ever hope for is to be tolerated and never transformed.

Do you hear the difference in those two?

If you think, oh well, I just want God to be graceful and accept me, then you are tolerated, but you're never transformed.

He he says to you, You're you're Simon and you're always gonna be Simon.

Try to make this look enjoyable.

But when he says to Peter, you are Simon, but you will be called Cephas.

You are, but you will be.

That's the gospel, beloved.

See, here's the problem.

You gotta understand this.

When God looks at you, he sees your future.

When you look at you, all you see is your past.

And you're just like, well, you know, hey, I've been the same way in all these relationships, and I try to do better, and I try to talk, stop taking opioids.

I try to stop lying to my doctor saying I'm in pain all the time, I need more.

And you got, I try to, but you know, just life works better if I just do this and everyone's happier.

So this is okay, right, God?

What you're saying is, God, just please tolerate me.

Look at me.

God loves you too much to just tolerate you and not transform you.

Because he has that capacity.

That's why the Bible says in Revelation chapter 2, about verse 17, he says to all those that overcome, I'll give some of the hidden man and I give them a white stone with a new name written on it.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

That no one knows.

Why?

Because the name your mama gave you ain't gonna fit you anymore.

You're gonna outgrow that.

Why?

Because you were born Simon, but you're gonna become Peter.

You were this, but this is who you're going to be.

And you say, I don't I don't know what you mean.

To get this, you've got to understand what we mean by grace, okay?

So here's what I mean.

I brought a definition.

Grace is the unconditional acceptance of God, which brings us into relationship and into relationship with and exposure to the capacity of God.

Let me say it again.

Grace is the unconditional acceptance of God, which brings us into relationship with and exposure to the capacity of God.

You don't get grace without transformation.

Let me say that again, and I'll show you in the Bible.

You do not get grace.

If you're here today just because you want grace, but you don't want to change, you're never gonna get it.

And I'll show you that in John chapter 2, where Jesus very just spells it out.

John 2 · chapter mention

You do not get grace without transformation taking place.

Well, how do you know that?

Titus chapter 2, verse 11.

Titus 2:11

For the grace of God is appeared.

That's Jesus.

He brought that with him.

The grace of God is appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and world passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of the great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who is zealous for good works.

And now that's a lot of the Bible.

And I want you to see a couple of things that I inserted in the text after you're like, well, that parentheses are not in my Bible.

No, I put those in there because look at me.

Grace is not just going around saying no to bad stuff, it's saying yes to the right stuff.

It's not just no, no, no.

It's yes.

Grace teaches us to say no, but it also empowers us to say yes.

We say no to worldly passions, and we say yes to be in self-controlled, upright, and godly lives.

Hey, look at me, students.

Upright means you don't, you don't you don't lie when your parents ask you something.

When your parents say, Hey, you got homework?

You don't, uh, well, I want to watch Netflix, so maybe not, I don't know.

Uh-uh.

Upright means you know what?

I can say yes to this.

I can say yes to being upright.

Why?

Because this is what God came for.

Here's if you want to see if you get grace, ask yourself this question: what do I have zeal about?

What am I zealous for?

What am I eager for?

What do I just like?

Yeah.

Because when he says, you say, What do you get there?

He says, look at the last sentence.

He says he gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness, to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for good works.

People that get grace, that have experienced not just the grace of acceptance, but the grace of transformation, they have zeal in them to do good and right things.

Do you have zeal in you today, beloved, to do good and right things?

Or do you find yourself having to motivate yourself for that?

Because you can't separate the two.

You can't separate the grace of acceptance from the grace of transformation.

Because if you do, you've obligated yourself just to be tolerated and never transformed.

One of the reasons that people are so frustrated with themselves is because they feel like they've just been tolerated and never transformed.

You were created by God.

I was created by God, not just to be tolerated, to be accepted, but also to be transformed.

And by the way, once you become a Christian, God doesn't look at you and kind of say, Now, now that you've got it all together, don't mess it up.

Let me show what I'm talking about in the Bible and we'll be done.

Before that, you got one more minute in you?

This is in Luke chapter 22.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

This is at the end of Jesus' ministry.

He's winding it down.

He's talking to his disciples about the cross.

He's like, hey guys, this is fixing to all go down.

And Peter jumps up and says, Yo, these people may, they all may turn their back on you, Jesus, but I'm your man.

Now, remember I told you a minute ago that God, Jesus is confrontational, and it's not always boom.

Sometimes it's, hey, come sit here on the couch by me.

Let's talk a little bit.

It's like tonight, during Sunday night football, or this afternoon, if your wife comes in and paused the TV and said, Hey, can we talk about our marriage?

You're like, What?

Nah, now we're gonna be married in three hours.

Can we talk about it then?

You're like, because the first thing that goes through your head is, well, what?

Have you been on the phone to your mother?

What are you doing?

Yeah.

So look at me.

Jesus is not hard, but he is consequential.

We show what I mean.

Luke 22, verse 31.

Luke 22:31

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan is demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat, but I've prayed for you that your faith may not fail.

And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.

Peter said to him, Lord, I'm ready to go with you, both to prison and to death.

Jesus said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day until you deny three times that you know me.

Did you see the confrontation in there?

You're like, Yeah, I didn't get anything.

I missed it.

Uh you see the two names Jesus called him?

Remember back in John 1, he said, You're Simon, you will be called Cephas, which means Peter.

In Luke 22, at the very end, hear it again.

Simon Simon.

Behold, Satan is demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat, but I prayed for you that your faith may not fail.

If you're a Christian that struggles sometime with being consistent in your faith, hear this next sentence.

And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.

Look at me.

What Jesus is saying to Peter, that he calls Simon, he kind of winks at him, like, hey Simon, every once in a while my wife, she uses different words, but what she's saying to me is, hey, you're acting like Simon.

You're Peter.

You ain't gonna be all redneckish.

Don't go scare that boy.

Scarest thing I said to him, I said, You think I'm violent?

You wait till you talk to my wife.

He's like, Yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes, sir.

I really like Mrs.

McClendon.

Heavy on the missus and heavy on the McClendon.

But here's the thing Jesus is compassionate.

So I don't want you to think, hey man, if I become a Christian and I screw up, these are gonna just kick me out and go, go, you're on your own.

No.

Look what he says to Peter.

He says, Peter, uh, hey, when you've turned again, strengthen your brothers.

In other words, look at look at this.

Don't miss this.

He says, when you've learned.

A hard lesson from your inconsistent sinfulness.

I want you to help people around you with what you've experienced.

When you've learned that you once again, hey, you're not Simon anymore.

When you go back and act like Simon, I'm the guy that says you look what he says.

He says, I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day until you deny three times that you know me.

Jesus is just kind of winking at him, kind of going, Hey, you still got a little bit of Simon in you.

But you're Peter.

You gotta be Peter.

That's who you really are.

That's why I say, when you look at how this all got started, one of the things that you will see loud and clear is the power of grace.

The power of a God that says, Hey, when you've turned again, when you've learned from this and you've turned from it and go, you know what?

Ah, I'm just sick of lying.

Ah, I'm sick of manipulating people to get what I want.

Ah, I'm just sick.

God's not going, yeah, I'm sick too.

No, God says, Hey, when you've turned, strengthen other people.

Help them.

Because they struggle in some of the same areas that you struggle with.

That's the power of grace.

And that's when you look at Christianity, its very origins, and say, what was there?

That's what you see.

Let's pray together.

Just take a moment.

If you're our guest, we like to teach the Bible and then we like to just marinate in its juices for a minute.

So just take a moment and just ask yourself.

I'll put some questions up on the screen because I told you earlier that you know we should ask ourselves when we read the Bible, what does the text say?

And then, secondly, you should ask, what does it mean for me?

Here's some questions we want you to reflect over.

Have I ever spent intentional time with a spiritually mature person for the purpose of becoming a disciple of Jesus?

Here's the one.

How am I bearing witness to the reality of Christ right now?

Said differently, how am I talking about Jesus these days?

Here's another one.

Who or what am I avoiding that I should be confronting?

Lastly, if God has the grace of acceptance and the power of transformation, what is keeping me from being changed?

Let's just take a moment and think about these things, beloved.

Father, we're mindful today that you didn't come just to tolerate us.

You didn't come like our stepmom and just shrug and kind of go, that's who you've always been.

What I expect.

You come to say, You're Simon, but you're gonna be Peter.

You're radically inconsistent, but one day you're gonna preach the greatest sermon that the world has ever known.

And I'm gonna bear with you all along the way.

And you're gonna learn a lot from your sin.

So you're gonna have a lot to teach other people around you.

It's because grace is powerful.

So, Peter, keep talking about Jesus.

Keep discipling people, Peter.

Keep telling them everything you know about Jesus.

Father, we're grateful today that you're confrontational.

That doesn't mean you're heavy-handed or abusive.

That means you're intentional.

You have a laser focus on the sin in our life, and you say, This has got to go.

Because you didn't come just to tolerate us, you came to transform us.

Create in us an appreciation for that reality.

We pray.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

If you're our guest, let me say thanks for being part of our church.

You're always welcome here.

Uh, this is what we do.

We try to teach the Bible in a way that it that people understand, and then we'd like to give you some space to think about it.

When you came in, you were given a worship folder, it has some information about our church.

On the far right side, it has a little tear-off portion.

If you have a chance to fill that out, would you tear it off and just drop it on these wooden boxes by the doors?

That's where we gather our offering as well.

If it's a day's a day you worship God through obedience or generosity, that's where you'd do that as well.

Uh, let me make you aware of two things by way of announcement before you're dismissed.

First of all, our men's retreat is coming up.

It's in two weeks.

The deadline is next Sunday.

Uh, the cost is$95.

We're gonna be at Piney Woods uh uh Baptist Encampment, which is a little over two hours from here.

It is right and it's in the thick pine forest of East Texas, right next to the Davy Crockett National Forest.

Beautiful, serene.

Uh, you'll have a great time.

Uh if you if money's an issue, and we've all been there where you're a little short this month, don't let it be, okay?

We we want you to come.

So you can sign up that that's available in the lobby.

Uh, second thing is for our women.

Our women's ministry is for all our women, but occasionally they do events that are focused on a specific age group.

And this is one of those on November the 4th at 10 o'clock, right here in the sanctuary.

They have a luncheon.

Uh there's the information on it.

They have a Saturday brunch, uh, and it's gonna be a brunch, but they also have a lady that's a Cori Tin Boom reenactment.

Uh, Cori Ten Boom was a lady that her and her family, the movie, the book in the movie, The Hiding Place, was based on her life and her family.

They hid people in their home from the Nazis, but this lady will do a dramatic reenactment here on the stage of that.

Uh, this is one of those specific age-specific events for women that are 50 and older.

Uh, you can sign up online.

They were registering early this morning.

They won't be there after this service, but you can go online.

If you have any questions, you can contact our women's pastor Marcy just at Marcy and Grandparkway.org, okay?

Uh stand to your feet.

Let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

This all started and it kept going.

That's why you're here.

Depart now and keep it going.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you dismiss.