ENCOUNTERS // Jesus Encounters the Seeker

Amen.

If you have your Bible, let's open up to the Gospel of John.

We're going to start in chapter one.

And uh Scripture this morning.

And we've been doing this sometimes and I preach after the reading of the Scripture.

I say this is the word of the Lord, and I invite you, us together collectively, to say, Thanks be to God.

When we read the Scripture, we we always want to read with a posture of gratitude.

Let's not take it for granted.

John chapter 1, starting in verse 35.

John 1 · chapter mention

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

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

Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, 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.

So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

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, and Jesus looked at him and said, You are Simon, the son of John.

You shall be called Cephas, which means Peter.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Amen.

I do want to say a thank you to Walt Roberts and Dee Dee last week for bringing the message I called Walt late on Saturday night and said, I'm stuck in New York.

It's just like home alone.

I feel like Macaulay Calkin.

And he says, I've got it.

I said, Awesome.

We tagged him, you know, we high-fived virtually and uh and he got it.

It was a fantastic service.

Thank you, Walt.

It was beautiful, beautiful time last week.

And as we come into the summer, we're turning, we're what we're gonna do is we're turning our attention to the Gospel of John and specifically the encounters of Jesus with individuals throughout the Gospel of John.

This is where we're gonna spend significant time together for the next several weeks.

It's one of the most cap uh captivating things about Jesus.

Jesus has a way of meeting every person exactly where they are at.

He knows exactly how to get to the hearts and the real issues of every single individual, including you.

He doesn't speak in general terms, he speaks to individuals.

We're not just numbers, we are names to the heart of God.

And every time he does that, there's this gracious invitation, sometimes not so gracious, some kind of a convicting invitation to you, the kingdom of God's kingdom of God is available to even you.

And you can step in right now.

And he does this with all kinds of people.

He does this with the poor and with the powerful, with the lost and the religious, with the blind, the abused, and the pure-hearted.

He doesn't really prefer one or the other.

He finds a way of meeting every single person where they're at and inviting them into the new reality of the kingdom of God.

Isn't that true?

So as we look to these encounters, what we find is not just hope for ourselves, but we catch a vision for how as well we're called to go and meet people where they're at.

And that's what we've been talking about all year, right?

This theme since the beginning of the year that we've been in is this theme of for the sake of others.

And we've just really felt like God has been pulling us and drawing us into a greater awareness of life, our our life before God, it should not just work on Sunday mornings.

It's got to work the rest of the week.

And it's got to be good news for the people he sent us to.

And as Jesus encounters us in specific ways, he leads us out to encounter others.

And that's what we're gonna be digging into.

And we're gonna have, you know, as we as we get into further into the summer, we're gonna have some of our developing teachers around here bring us into some different passages.

We're gonna kind of be jumping around the Gospel of John together.

So I hope that you're good for that because that's what we're doing.

And this particular this passage in particular that we're starting off here in the Gospel of John, this is really the calling of his first disciples.

There's a calling of his first disciples as as uh as we're kind of getting moving and we see how he interacts with those who are seeking him for the first time.

And so before we get to Jesus, though, we have to, we we're we're looking at another individual which has a prominent role in the Gospels.

His name is John the Baptist.

He's kind of a wily guy, wears goat skin, eats locusts and honey, and uh is just kind of a wild man that lives out in the desert.

And uh, and so John the Baptist in this scene that we just read, as he sees Jesus walking by, we read that immediately he points to Jesus and said, Behold, the Lamb of God.

And what we learn about John the Baptist, which is so important for us today, John the Baptist know who he was and he knows who he's not.

He knows who he is and he knows who he's who he's not.

He knew that his one job on earth was to prepare the way for another individual.

And so when he says, behold the Lamb of God, his disciples knew exactly what he meant.

When he said Lamb of God, they knew he was referring to the sacrificial Lamb, the one who would come and take away the sins of the world.

And even before this, John was preparing his people and said, Hey guys, listen, I know that you're all into me.

He was very well regarded for the most part, except for you know the Roman rulers.

He's well regarded among the Pharisees and the people as a prophet.

But even John himself said, Listen, I know that you're resonating with everything I said, but there's there's one who is coming after me whose sandals I am unworthy to untie.

He knows who he is, he knows who he's not.

And he had his own following, but he was happy to pass off his followers to the one who was to come.

And this is really important about John, that John knows that his influence was to get people to see Jesus.

That was this whole point.

He knew that any influence he had was not to build his own platform, but to lead people to Jesus.

And I just want to point out that this is this is the lesson from John the Baptist, a leadership lesson for all of us who have been given influence.

You have followers in your life, you have people who look to you for leadership, for direction, that trustworthy spiritual leaders really aren't there just to grow a big platform.

They're there to use their platform to get people to Jesus.

For instance, if I do my job right, you're not, you're no longer following me, you're following him.

If I do my job right, you are following him, right?

If if you if I do my job right, you're not just listening to me, you're learning to listen to him.

The job of those spirit, spiritual leaders in the church and beyond is to get people to Jesus.

And that's an important call out, especially in a society, in a culture that is obsessed with followership, it's obsessed with influence, it's obsessed with growing platforms.

As somebody in the kingdom of God, your job is to use every ounce of influence you've been given to gladly hand people off to Jesus.

There's some Christian ministries that would collapse if people stopped following the ministry and actually started following Jesus.

Hello.

But it's not a bad thing because our job is to get people to Jesus, even if we have to say goodbye to them, hello to Jesus.

Come on.

So they immediately left and started following Jesus.

And they don't know exactly what to do.

So the scripture says that they start following a short distance behind Jesus, which I think is kind of funny.

Jesus turns around and it's like he sees a couple minions behind him, just kind of politely, just standing behind him.

He's like, Oh, hey there.

How you doing?

What are you what are you seeking?

And immediately, like these guys that are following him, they just know they need to be around him.

So the first question that Jesus is going to ask these two new followers is, What are you seeking?

Which seems like a very plain or innocent question, but it's a question that we know for Jesus gets to the heart of all of his followers and the heart of everything he's doing.

This is the first thing that Jesus is recorded to say in the Gospel of John.

What are you seeking?

And putting it in other words, in other translations, it's Jesus saying, Hey, what do you want?

What are you doing here?

How can I help you?

And it's it's it's a fascinating thing because Jesus, as any new followers come to him, this is the first kind of question that he asks all of his disciples, including you.

What do you want?

And why is that?

Why is that important to Jesus, the heart of Jesus, to get to desire?

Because Jesus wants us, we cannot actually follow Jesus until we name what it is we want, the root of desire.

Transformation starts when we can own the things that we're actually looking for.

Have you ever tried to convince somebody to do something that you knew would be good for them, but they didn't do it anyways, as much as you tried to convince them, even though you knew it would be good for them, but they didn't actually want it for themselves?

Come on.

Come on.

Any parents in the room?

Will you want something so badly?

You know exactly what your child should do.

You're like, let me just explain.

I'm just I'm gonna tell you exactly what to do in this scenario.

But until they want it, it's like, until they want it, you're just hoping they'll listen to you, but until they want it and own what they want, there's just no bearing.

There's no ground there.

Have you ever tried to convince a family member of, like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you don't want to invest in that, or you don't want to spend your money, you know, you don't, you don't want to do that.

This is where that's gonna go.

But that whatever was captivating the desire was something else.

They weren't asking the question yet.

And so when Jesus encounters us, he encounters everybody, it's just fascinating because he's always, he always wants to know, okay, first of all, before I do anything for you, what is it that you want?

Because there's something powerful about naming what your deepest motivation is, right?

So, like, even right now in the room, I just let me just ask you for a second, why are you here?

Why are you here right now?

You're like, well, I don't put me on the spot.

I mean, why are you here?

It's like you could say, well, I don't know, because this is what Christians do on Sunday mornings.

It's like, no, no, no, no.

Why are you here today?

What is it that you want that brought you here?

What is it that you want?

And for some of you, it could hit you in different ways.

I'm here because I'm looking for peace.

I want comfort, truth, clarity.

I want his presence, right?

I'm looking for wholeness or satisfaction.

What is it that you want today?

Because the center point of where God is wanting to meet you is likely anchored in your deepest desire that brought you here today.

And what you wake up to every day.

So, Jesus is what are you seeking?

And it's this is important because Jesus doesn't, when he interacts with people in the gospels, he's not just trying to convince everybody of everything up front.

It's not like the followers came to him and said, All right, here's the top ten things you need to know about following me.

Can you sign down here just to make sure you understand we're on the same page?

We have good expectations and a good agreement before we start this discipleship thing, right?

He didn't walk through several steps.

He he wanted, before anything else, to expose the eternal craving that already existed in their hearts so that he can show how he would be the fulfillment of that.

Do you guys know that Jesus is the fulfillment of every craving deep in your heart?

He is.

Are you guys with me?

That's Jesus.

He is actually every human heart is seated with desire and eternity, the scripture says that eternity is on the heart of every person.

And we spend our entire lives finding that all of that really just is every longing is a giant arrow pointing back to him, the one, the messiah, the one we've been waiting for.

What is it that you want?

Come on.

So they don't know how to answer the question, just like a lot of us don't know how to answer the question.

So they answered a question with the question, which is what Jews apparently do a lot.

So he says, What are you seeking?

They say, Rabbi, uh, where are you staying?

Right?

And so this word rabbi, it was a respectful way of saying teacher or master.

They're acknowledging that they're following him into a new way.

But I thought I find it fascinating that when he asks them what are you seeking, they didn't start with, hey, tell us a little bit about what you're teaching about these days.

What's your philosophy uh on the Torah?

Or what just give me your your one-liner, give me your elevator pitch before we go any further.

Let's just be clear here what's going on.

Right?

They didn't ask him, like, describe, you know, before we were fully in on this, describe a little bit more about what to expect.

No, they say, Where are you staying?

And it's a question, again, on the surface, it seems very simple, like, hey, which are you at the Hampton Inn or the Spring Hill Suites?

Or where are you staying?

Whose home are you occupying right now?

And they probably didn't mean a physical sense, but also they wanted, they asked, where are you staying?

Because in their heart of hearts, what they were seeking is they wanted to be with him.

They wanted to stay with him.

They knew that the heart of what they actually wanted was to wherever he was going to be, they wanted to be where he was.

They didn't have a different motive as other people in the gospels we see have different motives when they start asking Jesus question.

But we see here this kind of innocence.

They were seeking him and they were seeking, and they were ready to move in with him, to move in with Jesus.

How many of you guys know that the center point, the the launching point of life with God is moving in with him, and moving in with us.

It's just being with him.

Where are you staying, Rabbi?

And and what what I love about in the scriptures here, this word staying, it just has layers.

It's the same word that John would use later on throughout the rest of the gospel, this word abiding.

Hey, Rabbi, where are you abiding?

Which seems like a slow pitch to Jesus, right?

That's an easy one.

He's kind of, I can almost imagine him smirking at that question.

Hey, where are you abiding?

You want to know where I'm abiding?

I'll tell you where I'm abiding.

So in the heart of Jesus, he's like, Yeah, come and stay with me.

But I'm gonna, I'm gonna teach, I'm gonna, I'm gonna show you where I'm abiding, but I'm gonna show you a new kind of abiding that you know nothing of.

If you want to learn how to abide, come and follow me.

And in the Gospel of John, we see this word abiding, everything in the life of following Jesus is about union with him.

Not just learning things in our heads, not just doing things with our hands.

It's experiencing a new kind of life union with the Father and the Son and the Spirit.

That's what Jesus is offering.

He's not offering anything else.

If you want to learn how to abide, if you want to know where I'm staying, he says, come and see.

Come.

And you will see are Jesus' next words.

And that's his invitation.

If you want to see where I'm abiding, just come.

And as you come, you will see.

As you come, your eyes are gonna open.

So they spent the day with Jesus.

And afterwards, something clicked, at which point Andrew, one of the two disciples that followed Jesus, went and got his brother.

But Andrew and this unnamed, we don't know who the other disciple is.

Some scholars think it's actually John, and he's recording how he came to follow the master for the first time.

And so Andrew and this other disciple were with Jesus all day, and then it says that they that Andrew goes to find his brother Simon Peter to Simon at this point.

And he says, We found the anointed one.

Isn't that interesting?

It first starts off with Rabbi, but after spending a day with Jesus, they say, We found the anointed one.

He was a teacher on day one, day two, we found the one.

This is the guy.

We just spent a day with him, and I'm telling you, he's the one, he's the one that we're waiting for.

There was a transformation that happened after they were with him.

So Andrew brings his brother Simon, and before he says anything else, as Simon stands before Jesus, Jesus looks at him and says, You are Simon, you're the son of John.

And you shall be called Cephas, which means Peter or the rock.

And we'll just settle into how powerful this is.

As he comes before Jesus, as somebody brings him before Jesus, before Jesus says anything else, he gazes upon Simon.

He looks at him and he perceives him and he says, You.

You're Simon.

I don't know who your father is to you.

But guess what?

I'm calling you Cephas, because you're a rock.

And in other gospels, it says, You're the rock upon which I will build the church.

Upon this rock I will build the church.

And as he says this, as he kind of perceives Peter, he calls him by a new name.

What he's saying is, uh he's saying is, I don't see you as just who your father is, and I don't see you as who your father says you are.

You are not who you think you are, and what or who your father thinks you are.

Your deepest identity is what the heavenly father says about you.

That's a good word on Father's Day, too.

That your deepest identity is not what others say about you, it's what the Father in Heaven says about you.

And he has specific thoughts towards you because he knew you before you were born.

He knit you together in your mother's womb.

Eternity was waiting for you.

You were a thought in the mind of God.

And so what Jesus is doing here before anything else, before there's any invitation to Simon Peter, he calls him by a new name.

This is what Jesus does with all of his disciples, including us.

He treats us according to our heavenly identity and gives us a new name.

Following Jesus starts with being seen by Jesus because then we become the type of people who can see others in the same heavenly eyes.

Do you guys understand that?

If we want to be able to perceive other people through the lens of heaven, we have to receive that from Jesus Himself.

Identity is the core of kingdom life.

And letting Him speak over His truth, His destiny over us is where is our starting point.

So we have to be trained in a new way to see.

It's difficult to accurately perceive others.

It's difficult to actually perceive a lot of things.

In fact, I want to show you a picture of a cheeseburger.

I just want you to take a look at this cheeseburger on the screen.

It's kind of an awkward-looking cheeseburger.

But if you squint your eyes slightly, what you will see is a transformation, and all of a sudden, you will see the one and only Steve Harvey from the Family Feud.

You guys see it?

You will never see that cheeseburger the same way again.

You just thought it was a cheeseburger.

It's the beloved Steve Harvey.

You can take that down now.

There's multiple ways of seeing the same thing.

One of the issues I think that we're facing in our world right now is that we perceive each other according to the surface.

And depending on our life experience, where we grew up, and the judgments of our own heart, we see each other and we size them up before we ever perceive them according to what God says about them.

This is happening in our nation, this is happening all around the world.

And one of the greatest contributions we can make in this day and age is to be seen by the Father and learn how to see others in a completely new light that goes beyond surface level perception.

It's difficult to accurately perceive those we don't know because we we we what we see is age, we see ethnicity.

Ethnicity, we see sex, we see height, we see bodies rather than seeing the person.

Uh Bob, can you come up here for a second?

I need a human example.

Come on up to the stage.

Everybody, welcome Bob Young to the stage here for a sec.

You don't have to do anything.

I just want you to stand right here.

Face your beloved community.

All right, everybody, I want you to look at Bob's body.

You shouldn't be laughing right now.

Just look at Bob's body.

Take a spin, Bob.

Take a spin.

Okay.

Now I want you to look at the person, Bob.

I want you to take a moment and behold Robert Young.

Thank you, Bob.

You can take a seat.

There's a difference between looking at somebody's body and looking at their person.

And so one of the things we've happened that's happened in our culture, we've separated bodies from people.

This is part of like the breakdown, even of our understanding of sexuality and the gift of sexuality, because we've separated sex from persons and we've just made it about what bodies do together.

But what we have what happens when we follow Jesus and we when we come into alignment with the kingdom of God, we perceive people not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

This is one of the greatest contributions we can make as people living from a different kingdom.

We're not seeing each other through the same lens.

We don't have the same kinds of uh uh, I don't know, limitations with how we see each other.

We see beneath the surface with each other.

So a couple weeks ago, Megan and I were in New York City for a different time, and we were at a marriage retreat, and it was a powerful time.

Uh Megan and I got to share together.

Um it was really profound, and it was a beautiful time uh together.

And one of the things that we did when we were there, they led us through an exercise just like this.

They say, like, we don't spend enough time beholding each other.

And what we're gonna do, we're gonna practice just seeing each other.

And so they had us sit knee to knee.

Well, first of all, they had us sit with the group and and just share what we were perceiving, but then they had us sit knee to knee, just Megan and I, and then just start to tell everything that we adored about each other.

And it was beautiful because it's it's just rare that you have that pocket where it's just that intentional.

We're able to sit and just gaze eye to eye and just speak to each other what we see and what heaven sees, what we adored about each other, and we said everything that we loved about each other.

We did our best, which is not hard.

There's just so much I adore about my wife.

And we made our lists and we spoke to each other, and it wasn't just the nice things, it was over the top, too.

I mean, it was like Song of Song style, guys.

Woo! Getting spicy.

Stuff you can't say in church.

But we got together and we just said everything I love about you through and through.

And it was it was it was healing to receive it, and it was healing to say.

Because how many of you know, like when you're married, uh you know, that at some point in your marriage, like you get into this conversation where like it's easy to even, it's it's hard to perceive people you don't know.

It's sometimes even hard to perceive people you're so familiar with.

And even in marriage, like there's always comes a point in time where you get into a conversation and and it comes down to like, you're just like your mother.

You're just like your father.

That's usually not a compliment, right?

When that comes out.

You're just like your mother, just like your father.

It's like the you're you're saying you're you're pulling up the worst qualities of the parents, and like using that, you're like, you don't we we fail to see each other for who we are, and then we start to associate the worst parts of our family of origin into that moment.

Not to say it's good to talk about your family of origin, but you know what I'm saying?

We perceive each other.

This is this is why I think it's so powerful when Jesus says, You I know who your father is, Simon, but I call you Cephas.

I know what your father says about you, but you I call you Peter the Rock.

And the same thing in marriage, we have to be able to perceive each other through the hurts, through the wounding, through the disappointments to see what heaven sees and fall in love again.

Right?

Yeah, and it's a skill that we must practice, all right?

So here's what I'm gonna try.

Um, I'm gonna invite Megan up, and we're gonna try something together, okay?

Um, I'm gonna ask for a volunteer to come up.

And so just looking around the room.

And if I ask you to come up, I'm not gonna ask you to do anything crazy.

Uh like uh you know you don't have to speak or say anything, but if you're willing to, we just want to practice perceiving what we believe God thinks about you.

Okay, so and I'm gonna put somebody on the spot.

Uh Doug Almy.

Can I put you on the spot, man?

Everybody walk in.

Can you come up here for a second, man?

He's gonna be a good sport for us.

If you guys don't know Doug, you gotta get to know Doug.

This guy is a is all right.

So here's what we're gonna do, Doug.

You just stand right there, okay?

Just stand right there.

And we just we're gonna take a moment and we're just gonna behold you.

So, like we talk a lot about practicing the presence of God.

Do you guys know we actually have to practice the presence of people as well?

So we're just gonna take a moment, we're gonna behold Doug.

Now, Doug, you and I, we've had conversations, so it's not like this is a clean slate, right?

So I'm just gonna own that, you know.

And so what you know, we're gonna do is just we're just gonna say what we see uh in you.

And um and hopefully that's a gift today.

If nothing else, we're gonna practice this.

And so hopefully, so let's just let's just take a moment and just be whole done.

You want to go first, or you want to go first?

I can.

Okay.

Um, okay, I don't know you very well just from just a few conversations, but um when I look at you and you smile, I just see um the love you have for Jesus.

Like it just radiates off of you.

And it's so comforting, like your smile, it just feels it feels very comforting.

Like I feel safe just when you smile at me.

So uh that's one of the things I see.

And um I think that you're really humble, or I can tell that you're really humble just the way you stand.

Uh I saw you earlier at the windows, I think last week you were sitting at the windows kneeling, and I could just see how humble you are, and um just your love for God.

So not only do you radiate it, you can feel the love of God that you have for Him too.

So good.

Um yeah, Doug, I when I first saw you and when I continue to see you, the first thing that stands out is your stature, because you have the gift of height that I don't have.

And and uh, but it's your countenance, like when you come in the room, there like she's there's there's a radiance to you that God's given you.

And I see it in worship, I see it in in stat, it's not just physical stature, I just see an oak of righteousness, is what I see.

And I see a pillar and a strength that God's built into you.

When you worship, I see your wingspan.

And I'm just I just I feel the covering of God, but I just feel like the and like almost like the presence of like the angelic, just the angels around you.

It's just like there's something that I experience in worship, even watching you worship.

That's uh it's a gift to see you use your body even in worship.

Um the the the shine in your eyes, that there's a glow to your eyes, and I know that in I know that inside of you that the craving for God and the longing for to experience more of Him.

I know that's there, and you've told me that too.

But I see it in your stature, your demeanor, and God loves that.

He loves the longing, he loves the desire.

I see even your your sandals, I think just even the physical, it's just looking at your sandals, appreciating like those look like Jesus sandals.

I'm like, man, what a beautiful follower of Jesus.

And you're willing to go even into the uncomfortable places, you're willing to do what it takes to be with him.

So I want to bless you in that, man.

Anything else?

No, I don't think so.

Okay.

All right, thanks, Doug.

All right, I'm gonna have the worship team come up.

And here's what we're gonna do.

This is this is again, this is something we have to practice.

It this is not natural in human terms.

This is supernatural, which means we have to have the eyes of God.

Paul says it like this, 2 Corinthians 5.

He says, From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.

Therefore, if any was in anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away, behold, the new has come.

So his Paul's invitation to us is to not see each other according to the old, but to see a new creation in every person we look at who has God made you to be.