Follow Me (John 1:35-51)

Thank you, Ben, and good morning.

My name is Chris.

If we haven't met, we're going to be in the Gospel of John, chapter one.

If you would like a Bible, please raise your hand and we would love to bring one to you.

If you don't have a Bible, that is our gift to you.

We would love for you to keep that as your own.

But we encourage everybody to read along in Scripture as we're going through verse by verse through here and to follow along.

I love looking out and seeing people highlighting and underlining and taking notes because really the heart behind what we're doing isn't just for how we want to apply it to ourselves, but hopefully you can sit down this Tuesday and have coffee with somebody and teach them this scripture from the notes that you were taking and from everything that you had gained from this morning.

So that's really our hope and what we do with the Word.

So like I said, we're in John chapter 1, we're going to be starting in verse 35.

John 1 · chapter mention

And we're going to be talking about geography, we're going to be talking about history, we're going to be talking about discipleship and what that is and what that looked like in Jesus' day as well.

So I'm excited about what the Lord has for us this morning.

So if you're able, would you please stand with me for the reading of God's Word?

John chapter 1, starting in verse 35.

John 1 · chapter mention

The next day, John was standing with two of his disciples, but when he saw Jesus passing by, he said, Look, the Lamb of God.

The two disciples heard him say this and followed Jesus.

When Jesus turned and noticed them following him, he asked them, What are you looking for?

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

Come and you'll see, he replied.

So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day.

It was about four in the afternoon.

Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard John and followed him.

He first found his own brother Simon and told him, We have found the Messiah, which is translated the Christ.

And he brought Simon to Jesus.

When Jesus saw him, he said, You are Simon, son of John.

You will be called Cephas, which is translated Peter.

The next day, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee.

He found Philip and told him, Follow me.

Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter.

Philip found Nathaniel and told him, We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law, and so did the prophets.

Jesus, the son of Joseph, from Nazareth.

Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Nathanael asked him.

Come and see, Philip answered.

Then Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him and said about him, Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.

How do you know me?

Nathanael asked.

Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.

Jesus answered, Rabbi, Nathaniel replied, You are the Son of God.

You are the King of Israel.

Jesus responded to him, Do you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree?

You will see greater things than this.

Then he said, Truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

Let's pray.

Lord, as we always do, we we thank you for your word.

We thank you that you've left us your word so that we can open it and study it just like we are, so that we can open it and we can hear your voice, Lord.

This is your inspired word given by the hand of the Holy Spirit to us, and we thank you so much for it.

Lord, we pray that you would change us, that you would make us into the people you want us to be, Lord, that you would make us true disciples of Jesus.

Lord, more and more like him on a daily basis, and that you would use this passage here this morning to do just that in us, we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen.

You may be seated.

So if you remember, when we did the introduction to this book, you know, we talked about how John didn't write the gospel primarily for a Jewish audience.

He his primary audience was the greater Greco-Roman world at this time.

And some evidence of that is John defining some things that he would not have to define to a Jewish audience.

And we'll see a lot of that today in our passage.

Basically, all the explanations that we see in parentheses is John making sure that if a Greek or a Roman is reading this, that they would be able to fully understand it.

Now, another big part of today will be about Jesus' first encounters with his disciples.

You know, in the synoptic gospels in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we see the calling of these men.

But today we get to see the first encounters when they realize that they have found the Messiah.

And soon after they will be called to be his disciples.

But again, John's gospel gives us a different angle than the synoptics do.

And we're going to see that again today, a different angle of these disciples and their first encounters with Jesus.

And the calling of disciples is something that's very different than we're used to in our current modern day culture.

So as we see these disciples for the first time, it's a good idea to talk about what a disciple is.

And you hear us talk about discipleship a lot from up here.

And we're going to talk specifically, though, about the process of discipleship at this time when Jesus was on earth.

You know, we talked extensively on this when we were going through the book of Mark, so I'm only going to do a brief history today, but it should really help us to understand what Jesus' disciples are signing up for when they follow him.

And to make it clear, disciple simply means a learner or a follower.

So if you hear somebody say, I'm a follower of Christ, what they are really saying is, I am a disciple of Jesus.

I'm learning from Jesus and I'm desiring to become more like him.

Now, when I was serving down at Calvary Chapel, Oxnard, the pastor down there, his name's Lance Ralston.

He's a total history buff.

And I learned a lot of history from him.

He has a podcast called Communio Sanctorum, which is the history of the Christian church, which I highly recommend.

But a lot of this, I would just want to give him credit, you know, from the beginning and not plagiarize him, but a lot of this is stuff that I learned from him.

So I'm going to give us a little geography lesson and then a little bit of a history lesson is really going to help us to understand that.

So we have a map, and there's three sections of Israel at this time there's Judea, Samaria, and Galilee.

So we have Judea down here in the bottom.

And that's the southern region.

It has Jerusalem, it has the temple, it was the center of worship, and it was filled with religious leaders and teachers at this time.

And as we saw last week, the delegation that came out to John the Baptist to see what he was up to, they came from Jerusalem.

Now, if you look in the middle of the map, we have Samaria, which is right here.

And if you have read through the Gospels, you know that Samaria was really looked down upon.

People from the north and the south went to great lengths to avoid even walking through Samaria because they hated it so much.

Because if you've been going through the book of Ezra with us in our home groups, the Samaritans were the ones bringing so much opposition to the exiles that were returning from Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem.

After Israel fell to Assyria in the early 700s BC, most of Israel was taken into exile.

The Israelites that were left from the northern kingdom started to intermarry with the Assyrians, something that God told them specifically not to do.

And they started to worship pagan gods along with God.

So they had this weird hybrid religion, again, something God told them not to do.

So the rest of Israel thought that the Samaritans really were unfaithful half-breeds and even referred to them as dogs.

They didn't even call them Samaritans.

They said those dogs, you know, that live in the middle of our country.

So no one from the north or the south liked these people.

So that's the middle of Israel.

And then up at the top we have Galilee, where Jesus is from.

And here's Nazareth, right here where Jesus grew up.

And then a little bit later we're going to see Beth Seda up here on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, up there.

And this is where Jesus is from.

It was way up north, and it was really this blue-collar community at the time.

It was filled with farmers and fishermen and laborers.

So Galilee was looked down upon by the South.

So the South just looks down upon everybody, really, is what it comes down to.

The people from Galilee, from the north, though, they talked differently.

They were considered backwards in their ways, and they had a recognizable accent.

You could tell somebody was from Galilee just by the way they talked.

Just like we could probably tell if somebody's from Louisiana or from the South.

They had a different, they're still speaking English, but things were a little bit different.

So compared to Judea, those in Galilee were considered uneducated.

They were considered backward, they were looked down upon.

So we have Galilee at the north, we have Samaria in the middle, and then we have Judea at the bottom.

So that's the geography lesson for today.

Now we need to dig back into the Old Testament and learn a little bit more about rabbis, because we're going to be talking a lot about rabbis today.

So when Israel came out of Babylonian captivity in the 500s BC, they realized the reason that they were in captivity is because they didn't follow God's scripture and they fell into idolatry and they ignored all the things that God had laid out for them.

So they started to put an emphasis on the teaching of God's word.

And that is where rabbis came from.

They were experts in scripture.

They lived a life dedicated to learning God's word and then teaching and applying it and teaching others to do the same.

With the hopes that Israel would not fall back into that same idolatry that led them into the Babylonian captivity.

Now, this position of rabbi became revered, and rabbis became famous in this day.

There weren't a lot of them, and as my pastor used to say, they would probably, as far as fame goes, be equivalent to like a rock star or some superstar athlete where the culture just knows who these people are.

Everyone knew them.

They knew their name, they knew their reputation, their character, and they knew their ministry.

You know, most parents wanted their sons to grow up to be rabbis in this day.

Now, remember, Galilee was looked down on as backwards, as uneducated.

So they chose as a community to focus on education as a way to kind of elevate themselves to the southern standards of Judea.

So the people of Galilee started different levels of education, realizing that the education needed to start with their kids if they wanted to try and elevate themselves out of what the South thought of them.

So they started sending their kids for a couple hours each morning to school.

They sent all of their kids, boys and girls, roughly ages six to ten, to memorize the Torah.

The first five books of the Bible.

Think about that.

All the kids.

Anybody in the reading plan just finished the first five books of the Bible?

It's hard to even read through, right?

Six to ten, all the kids were to memorize the first five books of the Bible.

After this, all the girls were done, and most of the boys were done.

But the exceptional ones would move on to the next level while everybody else would go and do their family business or an apprenticeship or something like that.

But the boys that were left, the exceptional students with the most potential, would move on to a school from roughly 11 years old to 15 years old.

And there they would memorize, get this, the whole Old Testament.

So the Torah, the historical books, the poetry books, the prophetic books.

Then at the age of about 15, the exceptional boys from that small group would then be encouraged to go and follow a rabbi.

The rest of these boys wouldn't make it to the next phase, so they would either go to a trade or a family business, or they would use those boys to teach the classes for the younger kids that were in that same education.

Now, this is the part that really pertains to our text here this morning.

These exceptional 15-year-old boys would choose which rabbi they wanted to follow.

And they were familiar with these men.

Remember, these were the rock stars of the day.

Everyone knew them, they knew their reputation, they knew their teaching style.

So these exceptional 15-year-old boys were told to go and follow the one that they most wanted to be like.

So they would show up to this rabbi and they would just start following.

And then some extra biblical history tells us that some of the rabbis would ignore the new followers for a few days just to test how badly they actually wanted to follow them and how bad they really wanted it.

Some of the rabbis would start quizzing them to recite certain chunks of scripture.

And history says that there were some rabbis that were so hardcore that if they even said um before reciting that chunk of scripture, the rabbi would dismiss them and said, nope, sorry, go home.

But for those that passed the test, whether it was being ignored for a couple days or quizzed or whatever it was, if the rabbi saw that that person had what it takes, they would say, follow me.

And when someone heard these words from a rabbi, it literally meant, follow me for 15 years until you're 30.

And then we'll decide if you have what it takes to actually become a rabbi yourself.

So, a side note, how old was Jesus when he started his ministry?

Around 30, right?

The age a rabbi started his own ministry.

But from 15 to 30, the disciples' job was simply to follow.

That was their job, to stay close behind, to observe all that they do, how they handle every situation, so that they could become just like their rabbi.

So get this.

The goal of every disciple was to become just like the rabbi.

So, what is the goal of every disciple?

Alright.

And it's no different for us.

As disciples of Jesus, our goal is to become just like our rabbi, who is Jesus.

Okay, so we're that's kind of our history lesson, but speaking of rabbis, a pastor, a priest.

You know where I'm going with this, don't you?

A pastor, a priest, and a rabbit walk into a clinic to donate blood.

The nurse asks if they know their blood type.

Pastor says, Well, I'm a type A.

The priest says, I'm a type B.

And then the rabbit says, I'm pretty sure I'm a typo.

Take a little minute.

If you groan, it only encourages me.

I'll keep going.

So with all of that, with all of that, we just need a little break there.

Verse 35.

So John starts off here in verse 35 by saying, the next day.

So the day after John points and says, Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The following day, this is where we pick up.

The next day, John was standing with two of his disciples.

So we learn in verse 40 that Andrew was one of these disciples, and the second is never named here.

But there's a lot of support that leads to this second disciple being John, our author.

He never names himself in this gospel.

Um, but the details in which he's speaking and he's telling this, it's really that, um, what he's sharing is the details of an eyewitness.

But it never says for sure.

Look at verse 36.

When he, speaking of John the Baptist, saw Jesus passing by, he said, Look, the Lamb of God.

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

Get that?

Followed Jesus.

So John set up in the previous passage who Jesus is.

We talked about him being the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And what is the purpose of John's ministry?

It's to testify and to point to Jesus.

To point people to Jesus, to prepare their hearts for Jesus.

So it makes sense that whenever John the Baptist sees Jesus, he says, Look, behold the Lamb.

And this time, when John does it, two of his own disciples start to follow Jesus.

The first step of becoming a disciple was to follow the rabbi that you wanted to become like.

But the rabbi still had to say, follow me.

And we haven't seen Jesus say that yet.

Look at verse 38.

When Jesus turned and noticed them following him, he asked them, What are you looking for?

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

Now notice Jesus didn't say, Who are you looking for?

He says, What are you looking for?

You're following me, what are you looking for?

Are you looking for miracles?

Are you looking for food?

You're just wondering who this guy is that John keeps calling a lamb?

Or are you looking for a rabbi to follow?

And then what is the first thing he says?

Rabbi, right?

The word is also translated master.

And that's what the King James says.

It says master.

This is a term used to honor these Jewish teachers.

Jesus says, What are you looking for?

And what's the first thing they say?

Master.

Teacher, rabbi.

And I think they could have just stopped there.

That's what they were looking for.

But they say, Rabbi, where are you staying?

I think they're really saying, can we come too?

You know, the fact that they were following John already, John the Baptist already, tells you that they had a heart for God, that they had faith in God and they wanted to follow God with all that they had.

They had this desire to follow, and now they had the opportunity to follow the rabbi.

So when John the Baptist said, There is the rabbi, behold the rabbi, the Lamb of God, they went.

And if you notice, John the Baptist didn't protest here, did he?

John was not about growing his ministry.

He wasn't about trying to gain more followers.

He was about pointing people to Jesus.

He probably rejoiced when these two went to follow Jesus.

You know, it's like, hey, two down.

Let's see how many more we can get to follow him.

Look at verse 39.

Jesus' words here.

He says, Come and you'll see, he replied.

So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day.

It was about four in the afternoon.

So Jesus doesn't say, follow me yet.

But he gives them the permission to tag along for a little while.

And notice that Andrew and this second disciple didn't care where Jesus was staying.

They didn't say, Well, no, you tell us where you're going, and then we'll let you know if we're going to follow you or not.

Jesus said, Come and see, and they went.

And the fact that the hour is mentioned here makes me really think this is John, the author here.

These are some firsthand details that he's given us.

Look at verse 40.

Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard who heard John and followed him.

He first found his own brother Simon and told him, We have found the Messiah, which is translated the Christ.

And he brought Simon to Jesus.

So it sounds like Peter was not following John the Baptist, but Andrew went and got him and brought him back to where Jesus was staying.

So this is Andrew's testimony that we are seeing here.

It's his confession of Jesus being the Messiah.

So it's one more first hand witness that John is using to give testimony of who Jesus is.

And think of this news that Andrew.

Andrew was sharing.

You know, Israel had been waiting for their Messiah for about 2,000 years at this point, the seed of Abraham that was promised.

And then you see him and you talk to him and he lets you hang out with him.

I mean, wouldn't you want to be the bearer of that great news to everybody that was waiting for this Messiah?

We found the Messiah.

Well, guess what?

We do get to share that with the world.

The good news of Jesus being the Messiah.

And Andrew gets to tell Peter this good news and then bring him to Jesus.

Look at the second part of verse 42.

When Jesus saw him, he said, You are Simon, son of John.

You will be called Cephas, which is translated Peter.

So naming or changing a name really shows ownership.

My kids each have a sheep right now for the Slaves Valley Fair and they do it through their 4-H.

When they bought them here about a month ago, they named them Lucy and Jen because they own them.

Now, if you were to come over to meet those sheep and you say, I'm going to name them Ananias and Sapphira, my kids would tell you, go fly a kite.

Like, you don't own them.

You don't have the right to change their name.

We own them and we named them.

And you have no right to do that.

And you're really bad at naming sheep, apparently.

So but Jesus changes Simon's name to Peter, meaning stone.

And Peter doesn't protest, he's talking to the Messiah and had the attitude that Jesus can do whatever he wants with him.

The same attitude that we should have with Jesus as well.

And Jesus names Peter, not based on who Peter was, but who Jesus would make Peter to be.

Peter was fickle.

He acted on his emotions without thinking over and over and over.

But that wasn't how Jesus saw Peter.

He saw who Peter would become.

And that should be so encouraging to each one of us as well.

Jesus chose normal, imperfect people to be his disciples.

Jesus sees all of us and still desires for us to be his follower, still desires for us to be his disciple.

He doesn't wait until we've reached our full potential and that we're only sinning on occasion.

He knows the beginning from the end.

He sees who we will become and is willing to deal with our shortcomings along the way.

Look at verse 43.

The next day, so this is the fourth day in this timeline we've been building, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee.

He found Philip and told him, follow me.

So there's those words.

Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter.

So we showed you where Bethsaida is on the map.

It's up on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, right up there.

And this is the first time John uses these words, follow me.

And this word follow in the Greek doesn't mean to just walk behind.

It's not like, oh, you need to go to the bathroom, follow me.

It's real hard to find it.

You know what you go back there.

It's not that kind of follow.

In the Greek, here's the from the Greek dictionary, he says, to follow one who precedes.

Join him as his attendant, accompany him, to join one as a disciple, become or be his disciple, side with his party.

That is what Jesus is inviting him into.

So Jesus tells Philip, join me as a disciple.

Follow me.

We don't even see Philip's response, just the invitation here.

But I think we see his answer by what he does next.

Look at verse 45.

Philip found Nathanael and told him, We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law, and so did the prophets.

Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.

Now we get to see Philip testify and be a witness to Nathaniel.

That Jesus is the one the prophets, excuse me, told us about.

Jesus is the word.

He's the fulfillment of the Old Testament.

He's the Messiah.

He's the prophet that, like Moses, spoke the word of God to Israel.

He's the, as we saw in Hebrews, the exact expression of God.

And Philip gets to tell Nathanael, we found him.

And his name is Jesus, and he's the son of Joseph, and he's from Nazareth.

And then Nathaniel says in verse 46, Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Nathanael asked him, and then he says, Come and see, Philip answered.

So Galilee, as we're talking about, was this blue-collar country region of this country that was looked down upon.

We'd probably call him a bunch of hicks if we were using our modern-day language.

And Nazareth seemed to have an even worse reputation than the region that it was in.

You know, it's kind of that attitude.

You think we're hicks, you should see those people from Nazareth, you know.

And this may tell us a bit about Nathanael.

You know, he may have been a bit cynical, he may have been a bit prejudiced, maybe has some doubts, maybe he's a little bit untrusting.

So Philip doesn't argue.

He says, just come and see for yourself.

And I think we can learn, excuse me, we I think we can learn from this ourselves.

You know, if you're ever telling somebody about Jesus and they have their doubts, you know, about all that God stuff that you're telling them, just tell them, come and see for yourself.

Ask God yourself if he's real.

And if he is real, that you would, that he would show himself to you and see for yourself.

You know, Philip probably knew Andrew was a cynic and said, you know, I'm not gonna argue with you.

I know you like to argue.

Just come and see for yourself.

And what does Jesus do?

He meets Nathaniel where he was at and proved to him that he is the Messiah.

Look at verse 47.

Then Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said about him, here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.

Think back to Galatians.

What is a true Israelite, according to what we learned in Galatians?

It's somebody that truly has faith in God, like Abraham did.

Not faith in their bloodline, but truly has faith in God.

So Jesus is saying, this is a guy that has faith.

He says, Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.

Now with Nathaniel, I think what you see is what you get.

You know, he seems to be concerned with the truth, which is great.

He didn't want to deceive people, and he didn't want to be deceived by others, even Philip.

He wants to see for himself.

And the first thing Jesus says is that he has no deceit.

He's an honest guy that's concerned with the truth.

Look at verse 48.

How do you know me?

Nathaniel asks.

Jesus replies here, Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.

So Jesus tells him something that only God could know.

And there's debate about this, but it's interesting.

You know, many commentators and historians point to under the fig tree being an expression of that day that meant praying or meditating on scripture.

Today it would be like, I saw you in your quiet time.

So Jesus could be saying, I saw you all those times that you were praying and meditating and waiting for me, and here I am.

Or he was literally under a fig tree when Philip found him, and maybe he was reading about Jacob and how Jacob was a trickster and a deceiver.

You know, who knows exactly what's going on here?

But regardless, Jesus tells him something that only God can know.

And look at verse 49.

It worked.

Verse 49, Rabbi, Nathaniel replied, You are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel.

Nathaniel recognizes that yes, Jesus is a rabbi.

He goes further and he confesses that he is the Messiah.

You know, we're now seeing Nathaniel's testimony of who Jesus is.

By those words of Jesus about the fig tree and him not being a deceiver, Nathaniel knows this is the Messiah and testifies that he is.

Look at verse 50 with me.

Jesus responded to him, Do you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree?

You will see greater things than this.

So Jesus just showed Nathaniel one thing that only God can do.

As Nathaniel follows Jesus, he's gonna see lots of things that God can do.

F.

B.

Meyer in his commentary regarding John chapter 1, he wrote this: He says, Have you known Christ as the Word?

John 1 · chapter mention

He is more, both spirit and life.

Has he become flesh?

You shall behold him glorified with the glory he had before the world.

Have you known him as Alpha before all?

He is also Omega.

Have you met John?

You shall meet one so much greater.

Do you know the baptism of water?

You shall be baptized by fire.

Have you beheld the Lamb on the cross?

You shall behold him in the midst of his throne.

You know, it's like Jesus is saying here to Nathaniel, oh Nathaniel, you know, if you've gathered all of this from the two sentences that I've spoken to you, just wait until you stick around a little longer and see what I'm gonna do with you in the years to come.

Look at verse 51.

Then he said, Truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

So here Jesus is saying, I'm the connection between heaven and earth.

The Jews would hear this and they would immediately be thinking back to Jacob's ladder, wouldn't they?

Genesis 28, I want to read that to you, verses 10 through 14.

It says, Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran.

He reached a certain place and spent the night there because the sun had set.

He took one of the stones from the place, put it there at his head, and lay down in that place.

And he dreamed.

A stairway was set on the ground with his top, with its top reaching to the sky, and God's angels were going up and down on it.

The Lord was standing there beside him, saying, I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham, and the God of Isaac.

I will give you and your offspring the land on which you are lying.

Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out toward the west, the east, the north, and the south.

All the peoples on the earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.

That's the promise of Jesus right there.

Jesus is telling Nathaniel, I'm that ladder.

I am what the angels are ascending and descending on.

I'm the connection between heaven and earth.

I'm the word of God.

I'm the exact expression of God.

And I act as a mediator.

He's telling him, I am the Messiah.

And at this point, I just imagine Nathaniel's mind is just blown.

Jesus knew his character.

He knew where he was before Philip ever met Jesus.

Nathanael, you know, just met the long-awaited Messiah and witnessed something that only God could do.

And I can't even imagine all the emotions that these guys are feeling at this moment.

You know, I don't think they probably slept much that night.

They met the Messiah and they can't wait to tell everyone about it.

They can't wait to learn from this teacher, from this master, from this rabbi that they are now wanting to follow.

And I think our takeaway this morning is we're called to do the exact same thing.

To become like our rabbi.

And to tell others and to bring others to him as well.

You know, and you might be thinking, well, things were different back then.

You know, it was easier.

All of Israel was waiting for their Messiah.

Yes, but they were waiting for a Messiah that met their expectations.

They weren't waiting for Jesus.

And if you think telling people about Jesus being the Savior was easier back then, how many of Jesus' disciples were with him at the cross?

Only a few.

So I have a hard time believing that telling people about Jesus is harder today than it was back then.

These guys were sharing the best news that ever happened to them.

That they met Jesus.

So I have a question for you.

What's the best news that has ever happened to you?

If you're a follower of a Christ, it should be that you met Jesus.

So my question is, why aren't we as passionate about telling people about Jesus as these disciples were when they met him?

And don't worry, I'm convicted too.

But why is that?

Something I've been thinking about all week.

And I'm not going to tell you the answer to that question because only you can answer that question, and only I can answer that question for myself.

But that's the question that I want us to leave here with today.

Where is our passion level for telling people about the greatest thing that has ever happened to us?

You know, and if you're not a disciple of Jesus, if you're not following him and you haven't accepted the greatest news in history, he's calling your name right now.

And he's saying, follow me.

He's giving that invitation.

He opened that door for everyone to follow him, and today is the day to do that.

You know, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

And Jesus will say, Follow me.

Enter into this relationship with me and stay so close to me that you become just like me.

Let's pray.

Oh Lord, we thank you so much for the gift of your son.

We thank you so much that you loved us so deeply that you sent him so that he can be the mediator.

Lord, so that we can talk to you directly right now.

Or we thank you that through Jesus, through his death on the cross and through the resurrection, that our sins, that our wrongdoings, all of our shortcomings can be forgiven.

And we thank you so much, Lord, that you don't wait until we've become like Jesus before we're saved.

You ask us to follow Jesus and then become like him.

And Lord, here we are.

We're following Jesus and we're asking, how do you want us to become more like Him?

Lord, I pray that we would learn what it means to abide in Christ, to stay that close and that connected to where every ounce of life that comes through us comes from the source of life, which is Jesus Christ.

Lord, would you convict us now of the things that you want to remove from our life to make us more like Jesus?

And Lord, help us to not hold on to those things with white knuckles because we're afraid of what it will be like without them.

Help us to release those things and to allow you to do your work, to allow you to wash us with the blood of Jesus and to make us just like him.

Or only you can do that through your power.

And we thank you that you've offered that invitation to every one of us to follow Jesus.

Help us to do that well and to do that moment by moment every day we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.