Encounters with Jesus

OK, grab your Bible. You can open up to chapter 20 of

the Gospel of John. You're going to begin at the

end, chapter 20. I think it's verse 31, the very

last verse of chapter 20. I'm sure you know this, but text

or tone is not, is not well perceived over text.

In in my business. I always used to say, you know,

your first mandate is not to send a WhatsApp or an e-mail.

Ideally at least if you could just phone because tone is not

well perceived over text. First prize would be face to

face, right? Because what happens is when you

get that WhatsApp or you're reading that e-mail, there's

filters and pasts and issues and it's that person and you know,

you've got problems or whatever the case might be.

And so face to face is always the easiest body language tone.

It's a whole lot better, dispels a whole lot of fears and

idiosyncrasies and all the rest of it.

And I don't know if you know this, but the same is true about

scripture. When we read Scripture,

sometimes it's hard to pick up on tone because you're reading

it through. It's through your past, through

your disappointments, through your church experience or church

hurt. And so in the same way as a

WhatsApp or an e-mail, you know face to face is best.

So I want to introduce you to Jesus and allow you to have an

encounter with him so you face to face can see what he thinks

of you, how he handles brokenness, how much he loves

you, how he plots and plans over your future.

So we're going to be doing this through the series and John

encounters with Jesus. And so we're going to start with

the reason why he wrote it. And this is the very last verse

in John chapter 20. It's so that we could have these

John 20 · chapter mention

encounters, as Rory said, where it says these signs, these

miracles that what John has written down, it's all written

that you may believe. Remember all said 10203080

times. It's 98 times that you may

believe. So once you to encounter Jesus,

so you may believe, so you can get past those fears and those

disappointments and doubts so that you can believe that Jesus

is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may

have life in his name. So it's not just a cognitive

understanding, but it's a life changing encounter with Jesus

because no one who encounters Jesus ever stays the same.

So we're going to go through the book of John looking at

encounters with Jesus and we'll see a whole mixed bag of these

encounters from Nicodemus. You know, he was one of these

fancy hoity toity and Nicodemus probably used these and thou's

and then you've got the Samaritan women who probably

used opioids and alcohol and you got royal officials and slaves

and leaders and lawyers and farmers and Pharisees.

Everyone in counting Jesus coming away changed for all

eternity. So this is what we're trusting

for. This is what we're looking in.

And This is why the book was written so that you might have

life having believed so in the words of Trevor Noah, you might

be saying even me. Well, let's see, let's go to the

very first page in the 1st chapter in the first encounter

and John was which is Jesus encounter with John the Baptist.

Now the moniker being the Baptist, you know, he's going

around baptizing, he's at the Jordan River and he's was he

baptizing people he's encountered.

Now these officials that have been sent down a delegation come

to investigate to make sure that this guy is not, you know,

rocking the apple cart, so to speak.

And they just can't seem to get a grip on what what it is he's

doing and why it is that he's there.

And so verse 22, he gives a little bit of an answer.

They say to him, who are you give us an answer to take back

to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?

And John replied, in the words of Isaiah, the prophets, I am

the voice of one calling in the wilderness, prepare the way for

the Lord. Then not goes on to say in verse

29. The next day, John saw Jesus

coming toward him and said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes

away the sin of the world. That's that's John's first,

that's the first encounter. Behold the Lamb of God who takes

away the sin of the world. And I look at them, I wonder,

like, how did John know? How did John know?

How did John know and no one else know that that Jesus would

be the Lamb of God? It took away the Sinner of the

world. How did he know?

Well, the Bible says there he was prepared.

He was sent to prepare the way of the Lord.

And what we're going to see through the book of John is

you're going to meet some people who have an encounter with Jesus

who are prepared for that encounter.

As we all said a little earlier, you know, you, you might think

you just came to church to make mom happy, but actually God is

preparing an encounter for you. And when it comes to being

prepared, you'll see throughout the book of John somewhat

prepared. Some not so much, but John

himself was prepared. I was, I was sitting with a

couple. We were preparing for their

their wedding day. And what we normally do is a few

weeks before we sit and just chat about marriage and what's

expected of the husband and the wife and all the rest of it.

But while we're having this conversation, I'm starting to

pick up on the fact that there is no relational reality when it

comes to their relationship with God.

It seems like they're cat man, Sir, but that's about it.

There's there's no relational reality.

And I'm, I'm asking questions, trying to be nice about it.

And eventually I've figured, you know what, I'm going to pull an

RT Kendall on them. And this is what RT always loves

to say. Actually, he would stand like

this and he would say, if you were to die today and you might,

and if you were to stand in front of your heavenly Father

and you will, and he was to ask you, why should I let you into

my heaven? What would you say?

So I pulled this RT on the the couple and I said, if you died

and might and if you stand before God and you will, and he

had to say to you, why should I let you into my heaven?

What would you say? And then I added my own little

caveat. There's only one right answer.

And then I saw this couple sort of blinking, blinking, and they

started telling me about their church attendance and how they'd

they'd actually moved out. They were sleeping together, but

they'd moved out and they're trying to, they're trying to do

right by God. And so I said, OK, having pulled

an RT, I'm going to pull a Rory. So I grabbed my Bible and I

paged the cross to the book of Romans chapter 3.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

And I turned it around and I pushed it across the table and

said, read, read Romans 3 verse 10 to me.

Romans 3:10

And he read, no one is righteous.

No, not one. So I said, do you know what it

means by being righteous? It means being right with God.

No one is right with God. And he sort of started taking

this in because that's where our conversation had started was

because his life is a little bit of a mess.

He was under discipline at work and this thing with his fiance.

And so he got the fact that he's not right with God.

But he said to me, but I'm trying really hard.

So I said, OK, cool. Read a little bit further down

verse 23 and he read it all of sinned and fallen short of the

glory of God. So I said, you're in the same

package and same position as everybody.

So what are we going to do about this?

How can I prepare you for when Jesus asks you, why should I let

you into my heaven? So I said, look in my Bible

because right next to Romans 323 and small said Romans 5 verse 8.

Romans 5:8

So I said, OK, turn to Romans 5 verse 8 and read that to me,

Romans 5:8

which says, but God showed his love for us and that while we

were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And I said stop, stop, stop, stop.

When did he show his love for you?

And he said, wow, because my Bible wow is underlined and

circled and highlighted. While you were still sinners,

Christ died for you. Not when.

So you got to realize not when you started coming to church,

not when you got your life sorted out, not when all the you

got all your ducks in the row, not when you were living a

squeaky clean Christian life, But while you were sinners,

Christ died for you. And I could see that things

started ticking over to the point where he asked me the

questions like, what's all this dying about?

Why did Jesus have to die? So I said, well, what's written

there next to you? Romans 5 verse 8 and then small,

Romans 5:8

I'd written Romans 623. So he said, OK, let's turn to

Romans 623. And Romans 623 says for the

wages of sin is death. So that's why Jesus had to die.

Someone had to die and it's not you then it's Jesus comma, but

the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus and this

was just God was setting him up because he asked me the

question. He said free gift.

How do I get this free gift? So say, well, what does it say

under Romans 623 says why you've written here Romans 10/9.

So let's turn to Romans 10/9. So you turn across the Romans

10/9 and you read if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is

Lord and believe in your heart that God raised them from the

dead, you will be saved. Well, the Scripture says

everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.

So there's a will and there's an everyone.

And I'm busy telling him, listen, you are wanting to know

how it is that God would let you into his heaven.

What what is the answer? Well, I've confessed with my

mouth that Jesus is Lord. Believe in my heart.

The Christ was raised from the dead.

I said yes, because what happens is when you believe in that,

then you're no longer believing in your own works.

And I'm trying to prepare him now for this encounter with his

heavenly Father. And I said, read verse 13 of

chapter 10. For everyone who calls on the

name of the Lord will be saved. And in that room across that

coffee table, he had a face to face encounter with Jesus.

And his life was never the same. And his fiance's life was never

the same because those who encounter Jesus can't walk away

unchanged. And so he came unprepared but

has had the unbelievable privilege of preparing him for

that moment. Because there is only one

answer. And that's the answer that John

gave the Lamb of God. It takes away the sin of the

world. I believe in the Lamb of God.

It takes away the sin of the world.

And so through the book of John, we're going to encounter people

like this, like you and me, trying to do really, really well

and get our acts together and love on our wives and say please

and thank you and, and not break the speed limits.

And all the while in our hearts, we're trying to prepare for that

moment when we stand before our heavenly Father and we have to

give an account for our lives. But actually, all that effort

really ends up leaving you unprepared.

And so we want you to have an encounter with Jesus so that

your life will never be the same, so that you'll be prepared

one day when you breathe your last to face your heavenly

Father. And when he asks you, why should

I let you into my heaven, say, because I surrendered my life to

the Lamb of God, it takes away the sin of the world.

That's why Jesus came. And that's the first encounter

that we found in the book of John believing rightly.

The world says there are there is no truth.

You have your truth, I have mine.

But there is a believing rightly that the book of John addresses

again and again and again and again and over the weeks while

you come here might be the very first time you ever heard that.

I want to trust with you that God will allow you to become

prepared for the day that you breathe your lost.

So we found through John some who are prepared, but we also

found some who are unprepared like Peter, my good friend

Peter, as properly unprepared as one can get.

John one verse 40 says Andrew. Now this is just a whole lot of

of word salad. I'll unpackage it in just a bit.

But Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who

heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and

tell him we've found the Messiah, that is the Christ and

he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said,

you are Simon's son of John. You'll be called Cephas, which

then translated means Peter. So one thing I want to draw out

from here, this is the second encounter that we see in the

book of John. What I want to highlight here is

the difference between Andrew and Peter.

So Andrew was Peter's brother. I don't know if you've got a

sibling like these two where it's like black and white.

So Andrew seemed to be really pursuing the things of God.

Yeah. It would seem like John the

Baptist was his rabbi. So he really had cracked the nod

and sort of gotten one of the best of the best that he was

following after. And in the Engineer E, the only

way you could become a follower of a rabbi was you had to be the

best of the best. And he would take from the cream

of the crop. So you have Andrew, who's there.

He's around ministry and everything like this.

Peter's AWOL, Peter's absence. Peter's uninterested, probably

unqualified in his own mind, he's maybe processed this thing

through like, you know, you just you, you go to church, you eat

your car. I'm I'm going to go fish.

You're probably thinking, you know, keep your rabbi stuffs.

I don't want another ball that I failed.

I don't want another to be another disappointment in

another space. So he's all fishing.

I don't know if you've got that in, in your home.

I had that in my home. My dad's IQ was at Mensa levels

and my sister got all of that. I can I can still remember

academic awards evening sitting there.

I remember standard five dates, me right, Remember standard 5.

Like they call her up and it's a book prize for maths and science

and advanced mathematics and World Peace, you know, and

eventually like she needs the wheelbarrows, like squeaky,

squeaky, squeaky, squeaky. So you know, she's like, thank

you, thank you. I'm sitting there on these

squidgy little Gray chairs and I'm praying Lord Jesus, I've

heard of the rapture. If it happens now, you would be

doing me the world in a favour. I just don't want my mom to find

out. I might fail class too.

And this is what's happening here.

You've got Andrew who's like on fire for for the the Kingdom and

he's rooted in his in his Jewish heritage and he's pursuing and

understanding in a relationship with Jesus.

Well with God hasn't yet discovered it's Jesus.

Peter's nowhere to be found. Peter's praying.

Please come back. I might fail class, too.

I don't know if you know the name John Harper that I was

reading up about him. He was a Scottish preacher and

he was invited to go preach in America.

But this was in the early 1900s. And so he had to take a ship to

get from Scotland to America to go and preach the gospel there.

Unfortunately, he booked tickets on the Titanic.

And so John Harper's on the ship when it hits the iceberg and

being radically saved and being the evangelist that he was, he's

going around while everyone else was saying women and children

first, women and children first. He's going around saying, no,

women and children and unsaved first.

Ask them, are they saved? If they are, they should get off

and put someone who's unsaved in there.

And he kept saying these people highly likely that they're going

to drown. They're going to stand before

God tonight and have to give an account without an understanding

of the grace of God, without an understanding of the finished

work of the cross, without an understanding of this free gift

that I read to you from Romans. So he said, please, you've got

to ask these people. Are they saved before you allow

them onto the lifeboats? The Titanic sinks.

Sorry, spoiler alert if you haven't watched the movie.

The Titanic sinks and he's and he's busy drifting in the frigid

waters. And the Agaba, the name of

Aquila web says, you know, the unlike the movies, it wasn't

completely flat. There was currents and swells

and everything like it. Aquila says he's now hanging

onto some wreckage and floating in the ocean.

And Mr. Harper gets sort of washed up close to him and he

says the following. He says, Sir, are you saved?

Aquila says, no, I said I'm honestly, I'm not saved.

And he went on to list all the disqualifications just like

Peter would have in his mind, just like you probably have in

your mind all the reasons why, you know, this isn't for me.

I can never attain to some higher religious righteous

standing. And and he shares this with John

Harper. So John says, Acts 1631 says

believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved.

And then Aquila says that the oceans then sort of pulled them

away and he was behind a swell again.

And a few minutes later back comes John Harper.

And he says, are you saved now, Sir?

And his answer was no, I can honestly say that I'm not saved.

So John Harper let go of the piece of wood that he was

floating on, gave it to Jack and Rose and he swam across and he

took off his life jacket and he gave it to him.

And he says, you have greater need of this than I do.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

And a few minutes later he went under, never to be seen again.

And the quilt says they're alone in the dark of night with two

miles of water underneath me. I believed, you know, Aquila

Webb had an encounter with Jesus thanks to John Harper.

Peter had an encounter with Jesus thanks to his brother

Andrew. And both of their lives were

never to be the same again. That is our trust for you.

It's my trust for me, even in my relationship with Jesus, a fresh

encounter with him that my life would never be the same again.

I don't know if you know this, but Peter actually was quite a

big deal on the back of this. You know, the Roman Catholic

Church modeled themselves the Pope after Peter.

You know that his first sermon that he preached 3000 people got

saved. You know that if you page to the

end of your Bible, you'll actually find that God used him

to write holy eternal scripture. Doesn't matter how far away from

God you are right now. Doesn't matter how deep in the

weeds your your life could be like Aquila's life, literally a

shipwreck. But one encounter with Jesus and

you will never be the same again.

And John does this again and again and again.

We're trusting that our Heavenly Father will do this again and

again and again through these weeks as we unpack this

magnificent book of John. Because no one encounters Jesus

and stays the same one more and this is what this is one of my

favorites. So we're going to jump ahead and

squeeze it in. This is Nathaniel verse 47 says

when Jesus saw Nathaniel approaching, he said of him here

truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.

How do you know me? Nathaniel asked.

Now that when he says no, it's not like, hey, I know your name

or gosh, yeah, you're good with names.

I'm I'm terrible with names and faces.

And so you're not saying that when he says, how do you know me

that that would know there's an incredibly intimate, personal,

compassionate and kind knowing. He's like so taken aback that

you would know me. And so Jesus answered, I saw you

my Bible. I've underlined it.

I saw you while you're still under the fig tree before Philip

called you. Take a look at the response.

Nathaniel's heart knowing that Jesus saw him.

Verse 49. Then Nathaniel declared, Rabbi,

you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel.

So Jesus said you believe because I told you I saw you

under the fig tree. You're going to see a whole lot

more than just that. There's something about being

seen by Jesus. I don't know if you feel unseen.

I don't know if you feel unseen. I came in early.

My daughter is working on the barista team so I was here a

little earlier than usual and it was interesting to see in all

the dark pockets that people sitting.

Maybe you feel unseen. I don't know if you know this,

but the very first time God is given the name is given the name

by Hagar. So Adam and Eve, you know,

Adam's naming the animals and naming their children, and then

the children name their cities and they name their land, and

God introduces himself by name. But there's one moment, the

first moment that God is given a name by us, and that is Hagar in

Genesis 16. And you know what she names him?

Elroy, the God who sees me. It's the first time God is given

a name. And Hagar, if you don't know the

story, Hagar was a slave and she was put in the very unfortunate

position of having to sleep with her Master to give him a child.

And when that child was born, she was ostracized.

She was mocked and belittled, persecuted and abused to the

point that Hagar was eventually kicked out.

She sent away to go and die in the wilderness.

You take your stuffs and just go away.

We don't need you anymore. We've used and abused you.

We've got what we wanted. Now you can go away and die.

And in that place God comes to her in the corners, dark corners

of the church. God comes to her in his

compassion and kindness. And it says Genesis 16.

She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her.

You are El Roy, the God who sees me, Not just the God who sees,

but the God who sees me. And you know, he was so moved by

that that God kept that name for himself because it is true to

character. And all these years later, what

is the first thing Jesus says to Nathaniel?

I saw you, I saw you, I've heard you cry, I am concerned.

I've seen you and I've come down and I don't know where you fit

on the spectrum, how far away you might be like Peter.

We're like a rather go and just busy myself at the office then

come anywhere near to this scary God.

Or maybe you sit there with fears and doubts and diagnosis

and you're going like God. Do you even hear?

Do you even know an encounter with this God?

One thing you will realize is he is Elroy, the God who sees me.

And so throughout this incredible book we found those

who are prepared come to church notebook Bible, buy a few people

some extra coffees and everyone by name just like John.

And throughout this book we also find Peters who are unprepared

running away. Your mother has to bribe you to

come to church with her. There's really pretty girls at 3

CR and you come unprepared to encounter the living Christ.

Or you might be like Nathaniel where you just like I don't know

if he even knows what I'm going through, but at the very least

you'll find that you're just like Philip.

Take a look at this. This is my my favorite word in

this book is found in verse 43. The next day, Jesus decided to

leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, find that.

Oh, I love that word finding Philip.

He said, follow me. Now, if you've been here a

while, you know, I love words. I'm a bit of a wordsmith.

I suppose it's part of my my advertising background and

copywriting. But finding I went to look at

this word in the Greek and it's the prolonged verb, prolonged

form of the verb. And it doesn't just mean like,

oh, look, I found my phone. It means to search thoroughly,

to inquire after, to enforce discovery.

With relentless pursuit, he relentlessly pursued Philip.

But take a look at the first few words there.

The next day, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee.

In other words, Philip wasn't in Jerusalem.

Philip wasn't anywhere near Jesus.

So Jesus said I I will go and find him.

Hey Hilt, Matthew is in the Carew writing songs for Internet

Girl and I've been praying. Finding Matthew.

Finding Matthew. Jesus went to Galilee to find

Philip. Jesus can walk through the

streets of our city and find those who are running from him,

hiding from him, finding Philip. I've got a picture I want to

show you. It's a picture of.

It's actually my father's favorite plane, but it's a the

carnage of a plane crash in the Amazon jungle.

It's a single prop Cessna. The irony of that plane crash is

it happened on Mayday the 1st of May 2023, but it took them a

week to find it because apparently this this search area

was something like 200 kilometers by 50 kilometers wide

and it was in the thickest, deepest Amazon jungle.

Took them a week just to get to that point.

And when they got there, they found that the pilot and two

adults had passed away on impact.

But when they looked around, they realized actually the

manifest is there are seven people were seven people on that

plane and there were 4 missing aged 13, 9-4 years old and 11

months. And so they called in a couple

hundred special forces to come and search for these children.

They knew they were alive because all four of their little

footprints that were found in the mud, tiny little teeny

little 11 month old had obviously needed a nappy change

because not too far away there was dirty nappy and some left

behind plastics and they searched for them.

Now remember it took a week for them just to find the wreckage.

So these four have been lost in the jungle for a week already

and it took almost another three weeks for them and searching

before they found the kids. But what happened was they got

to a point where one of the guys said, I wonder if they these

children actually want to be saved or rescued.

And he said, like, imagine you've just had a plane crash.

You're terrified. You're in the jungle, snakes and

spiders and tarantulas and lions and tigers, you know, and you

don't know what to do. You don't know how to get home.

And all you see are these baddies with the guns, the

search and rescue team. And So what they did was they

went and they got the grandmother to record an

explanation of who these men were and why they were there and

how they were wanting to rescue them.

And so they were dropping food parcels all over the place.

And with it they had these little Bluetooth speakers that

would loop this message the whole time.

And after a month in the jungle, a 13 year old, 9 year old, 4

year old and an 11 month old came out to their rescuers.

Finding Philip. Finding Philip.

If I can lean for just a moment, you might have spent your entire

life hiding, ducking, running from the very God who's

searching you out, hiding from him because he, you think he's,

he's coming after you. No, He wants to rescue you.

He so loves you. He doesn't want to leave you in

the jungle of your mess and brokenness and separation from

him. And my invitation to you is come

and let the book of John, let this unbelievable encounter with

Jesus wash over your heart. He's calling you home.

Come out of that jungle in the middle of your shipwrecked life.

Or maybe you've thought you had it all together, just like John,

but need an encounter with the Lamb of God who takes away the

sin of the world. That's the invitation of the

book of John, because no one who encounters Jesus stays the same.

So irrespective of where you are on this spectrum, how far or how

close you are to God, allow an encounter with Him maybe Sunday

after Sunday, slowly when you're hot, to draw you and pull you

out of that shipwreck and out of the jungle and allow this

unbelievable gospel not only to change your life, but to change

your world. Thank you.