06/09/26

John 1:35-42

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

35. John 1, 35, and uh we'll dig in and see where the Lord has us to be. Hopefully, we're gonna get a good ways tonight. But um I'm gonna read, I'm gonna read the first up through 39, and then we'll pray and get started. Said again the next day after John stood and two of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned and saw them following and saith unto them, What seek ye? They saith unto him, Rabbi, which is to say, being interpreted, Master, where dwellest thou? And he saith, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelled and abode with him a day, for it was about the tenth hour. Let's pray right quick. Lord, I love you for this time, dear God, that you've brought us here to just to get to dig into your word, just to get to fellowship. And Lord God, I pray it's more than fellowship. Lord, I pray it's a more drawing close to you. Lord God, I just pray that Lord, the words out of my mouth will be of you, not of me. Lord God, before I go any further, Lord, if there be any sin in me, if there be any sin in the camp, Lord God, we confess now and ask you, Lord God, to cleanse us and forgive us from all unrighteousness. We pray for you, the Holy Spirit, to work in this place. And Lord, we'll be careful to give you the praise, honor, and glory, because you deserve it all, and we deserve nothing, God. That's your name we pray in Christ's name. Amen. So notice there's a trend going on. If you'll notice back in verse number 29, he said, the next day. So it started even before that. And then in verse 29, he said the next day. Then it says again in verse number 35, and the next day. And it's teaching us something. And look what he did the next day. John did something right here in verse 35. And the next day after John stood and the two disciples. So what the Lord is showing us is this man of God that God called to be the forerunner for Jesus Christ. Listen, what he was doing every day is the same thing that God is calling you and I to do every single day. And it's calling run, it's calling go, it's calling preach, it's calling teach. It's calling live that example in front of them every single day. It wasn't a day that it's not a thing that, hey, we get to take a break from God through the week and we just we just serve him on Sunday. What he's saying is, man, John was John was in God's word, John was teaching people about Jesus Christ. He was baptizing every single day. That's what he was doing because he was about the Father's business. And the same thing he's teaching us every day. Listen, there's not a day to stop. You and I will encounter someone that is lost every single day of our lives. And the thing that we need to understand is living that example in front of them so they'll see that there's something different about them than what that lost person's got. And the thing that's different is Jesus Christ. The thing is different is, man, we know where our end is. The thing is different. We ain't got to worry about tomorrow because we know who holds tomorrow. That's the thing that we need to get excited about, is knowing that, listen, hey, heaven's before us and hell's behind us, man. And we need to teach those others that we're getting watched by every day that listen, he's worth it. He's worth it. He's worth giving up that old life that we once had. And it said the next day he stood. It didn't mean he stood. Man, it meant he stood and preached the word. If you go back to the book of Nehemiah, you'll see where when Ezra, when Ezra went to reading the word, man, that they all stood. That's where it comes from when you'll see a pastor. He'll say, if you'll stand and honor the reading word. That comes from the Old Testament when they stood, man, because they honored him. They honored who God was. They honored what his word was. And too many times we take this word and it's just a book we throw around. It's just a book we grab and we go into a building and let somebody preach about it, and it's not honored. You know, you go to the Ten Commandments and you read all those things, but man, God calls you to honor Him. He called you to be His first. He is to be first in your life. When He said it in Matthew 6, 33, He said, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. He's taught us those things. And He's making us understand that listen, if we'll seek those things first, if we'll seek His righteousness, all those things, and I've said it before, all your things in life, some of them go away, and some of them change. Hey, but He'll add to the things that matter in your life. That's what He's saying. But notice he said in verse 35, and then the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples, we know who the two disciples were. They were Andrew and John, who wrote the book of John. That's who's that's who was with him. And I want you to notice something in just a few verses. There were some of them that wasn't with him. But these two right here had been persuaded enough by John the Baptist that man, they were his disciples. They believed what he said. They believed that Jesus Christ was coming. They believed what the Old Testament was teaching. They believed in him. So they followed John the Baptist and they watched what he was doing as he was going and he was baptized and he was telling that, listen, this Jesus man is coming. So he said in verse number 29, he said, Behold the Lamb of God. Then he said in verse number 34, he said, Behold the child of God. I mean the son of God. Then he says in verse number 36, and looking upon Jesus as he walketh, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God. Notice right here it says, and looking upon Jesus as he walked. See, even though John was preaching the word and John was doing what God had called him to do, when Jesus Christ showed up in his life, when he showed up in his life, everything else had to change. And the question is for us is listen, when Jesus shows up or he's working, do you put him on the back burner or do you put everything else on the back burner and serve him and listen to him? That's the thing to ask ourselves many times. Is he your first or is he your leftovers? And it's real. It's real, y'all. What is he in your life right now? Notice what Jesus was doing. And it said, and looking upon Jesus as he walked. You didn't find Jesus with his feet propped up in scripture. Jesus was always busy. The same thing as the Lord started this in verse 35, busy doing the work. He was busy all about wanting to make sure, make sure that people knew who he was. And the question for you and I tonight are you busy about making a living, or are you busy about making people understand that Jesus Christ is it? Hey, it's amen or oh me. That's just what we gotta see. Because listen, we can't take it with us, but there's one thing you can take with you. As many people as you can try to tell them about Jesus Christ and you take that with you. There's gonna be crowns put up in heaven for you, that one that won. That one that no one else could win because you chose to do it. You chose to listen to the Lord. You chose to go to that person at the gas station or that person that that you work with every day. You chose to tell them about Jesus Christ. And because you chose that, they come to know Christ, or you watered that seed, or you fertilized that seed. And you might not have seen the increase, but Jesus Christ did. And that is our goal. That's my goal. That's your goal. Not to see how much we can do, but to see how glorified He can be. And it said in verse number 37. So he said, Behold the Lamb of God, verse number 36. When he said, Behold the Lamb of God. So when he said that, man, they knew it's time to listen. They knew that it's time to listen and to understand that. So then in verse number 37, it said, and the two disciples heard, the two disciples talking about John and Andrew. And the two disciples heard him speak, talking about John the Baptist, and they followed Jesus. They heard him speak and they followed Jesus. It'd be easy for John to say, wait a minute, I need y'all to stick with me. I need you to stay here. I need you to help me here in this ministry. I need you to stay at this church. I need you to do all this for me. But but a good leader, a good leader is going to teach somebody as much as they can do. They can teach them in an apprenticeship, they can teach them in the word. You can teach them all things in life. But a good leader is going to let them go and let them get better. But too many times in churches and places of the day, we hold them down because they'll benefit us more than they'll benefit Jesus Christ. And that's the truth. Sometimes you just got to cut the rope. See, they followed and they were never leading. They didn't even know. The disciples left a place where people were getting baptized and lives were being changed to go somewhere and follow a man that they didn't even know what was going to happen. It was an unknown direction to follow Jesus. It's the same thing by faith as what we do today. Just follow him by faith and say, Lord, I don't know where you lead, but Lord, wherever you lead, I'll go. But the problem with many of us today is, Lord, wherever you lead, it's like, oh no, Lord, I didn't plan this. Lord, I never planned to go teach this class. Lord, I never planned to go help these people. Lord, I never planned this. And Lord, I don't want to do it because it might take away from what I want to do. And if we're if we're honest, men, that's where our selfish, our selfishness comes in. That's where mine comes in. I'm like, Lord, I don't want to do that. I'd take away from what I want to do. I want to be at this spot right now, but Lord, I'm here. But you know what? God's got you right where he wants you. If you'll be obedient to him. You weren't here by appointment by just, you just showed up tonight. This is by divine appointment that God wanted you to hear his word tonight, not hear me, but hear him. And hear him draw you. That's what he wants. That's what he wants from all of us to listen and to hear him. Just like these two disciples in verse 37. They heard, they heard John because they was listening to John. And John had done told them, when he shows up, when he shows up, when you see what to do. They knew what to do, and look what they did. And they followed Jesus. And they followed Jesus. And look what happened next. Then Jesus turned and saw them following. See, Jesus, he was an all-knowing God. He was anticipating. Jesus was anticipating these men following him. He knew that these men were following him. See, Jesus knows that we should be following him. Do you see the pattern here though? And he saw them following him. So the question is, does he see you following him? Or are you trying to tell him where to get in the boat? Ask yourself that question. Is Jesus following you, or are you following him? That's the question for you and I. So it says right here, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned and saw them following. And saith unto them, What seeking? So here's a question for you and I tonight. Why do you do it? Why do you why do you follow Jesus? Why why do you do the things that you do as a Christian? I wrote some some examples. This is tough, but it's real. Do you do it for your power, your prestige, for your possessions, or your promises? Or do you do it for your pocketbook? Do you do you do you follow Jesus because of what he promises? That's the question to ask yourself tonight. Why do you follow him? Because it's the right thing to do? Why do you follow him? Because I'm gonna be honest, what the Lord laid on my heart. He laid on this, I woke up in the middle of the night last week and he laid this star, he laid this this right here in my heart. He said, Many of us follow Christ for the promises and the possessions, but yet we don't want his presence. Don't you think about it now? We want his promise, but yet when it gets real, we don't want his we don't want his presence. Do you want his presence? Because listen, his presence is going to reveal some things to you. His presence is going to reveal you the good, the bad, and the ugly. If the Holy Spirit lives within you, hey, he's going to show you when you ought not to be doing what you're doing. He's going to show you when you need to be doing what you ain't doing. He's going to show you those things. And the presence of the Lord is what we all should desire in our lives, but too many times we want everything He can give us, but we don't want Him. You say, man, that's not right. It is right. That is what happens many times. There's many people that's going to walk into the doors of the churches every single Sunday, and they want all the blessings of the Lord, but they don't want the Lord. We've got to desire his presence. And look what he said. And they said unto him, so he said, What do you seek? What do you want? And look what they said right there. They said, they said unto him, Rabbi, which is to be saying in terms of master, where dwellest thou? He said, I want to know where you live. I want to know where you live, Lord. Where are you at? Because here's the real thing in Matthew 6.21. It says, Where your treasure is, there your heart is also. They're asking the Lord, if you're who you say you are, tell me where you live. And look what he said. And he said unto him, Come and see. What they said then when they said, Where do you dwell? He says, Where do you abide? Where do you tarry? Where do you hang around? Where do you hang out most of the time? Where can I find you? And then Jesus said, Come and see. I was studying this thing two nights ago and man got all God got all over me. I want you to think about it. If you don't hear nothing else, hear verse 39. If Jesus Christ stood in this room right now and asked you, where do you dwell? And his next question was, I mean, your your next response was, could you respond to him? I want you to come and see. Come on. Will you invite him into your house, your home, your lifestyle, your phone, your everybody? Will you invite him in? Will you let him into your life and your testimony? If he's not Lord of all, he's not Lord at all. And you've got to let him in. And if the God's convicting you right now, like he convicted me, man, he got all over me. As I was sitting there, man, he just got all over me. I'm like, Lord, I'm not sure if I want you in it in every corner and every closet and every Lord, I'm not sure if I want you in all those places. Man, he just got all over me. The same way he should be convicting some of us in this room tonight, because I'll be willing to bet there's not 100% of the men living 100% where you ought to be in God's will right now. So are you going to invite him in or are you going to shut the door on him? Because the Bible said, what did he say? He said, Where your treasure is, your heart is also. So the thing that you need to ask yourself tonight, can he come in? It's kind of like you know how it is. Only our wives would do this. If you've invited some couples from church to your house or somebody that you ain't seen in a while, what happens? What happens? She starts cleaning up. We start sweeping up. We start, hey, we look like the president's coming into my house, man. I mean, we we've got this thing sparkling. People come in and be like, man, she keeps a house like this all the time? No. But ain't that what we do on Sunday morning? Don't we clean up, we freshen up, we shave, we get our hair all right, we put on the nicest clothes and we show up, but we know inside we ain't what we say we are. God says, quit being a fake and a phony. He's saying to us, he's saying, listen, be who you are. And if you're not who you ought to be, he said, clean your butt up. That's what he's saying to us. He's saying to seek him first. He's saying, if they sin in your life, 1 John 1.9, I quote it all the time. He said, confess your sins, and he'll be faithful and just to cleanse you and forgive you from all unrighteousness. That's what he's saying to you and I don't either. Man, just clean yourself up. So can you invite him in to come and see everything that's in your house? Or do you got to clean some things up? Can I tell you? He's out to get you better. Okay? And I think too many people view Jesus as like you're bad, just get better. No. What he's saying is, I'm on you because I want you to be the best that you can be. Same thing you are with your children many times, with playing sports or doing their studies or whatever they're doing. You want your child to be the best that they can be, so you stay on them. And some of you got to stay on them worse than others. And some of my kids, I had to stay on worse than others. Because some of them just needed more staying on to. Anyone like that? Anyone was like that? Anybody still like that? Your wife stays on all your time. Amen. Tony, good job. But that's just what happens. That's right. See, Jesus invited him into his, he said, I invite you into my house. And he why he wasn't he wasn't opposed to being exposed to anything he had. Because he knew that he was who he says he was. And I think God is saying to you tonight, you know what? Be who you say you are. 24-7. Not just when the crowd's looking. Then he said, They saw ready to welt and abode with him a day. They didn't just see a little bit of him. They they hung with him. They seemed the good, the bad, and ugly, but they wasn't no good. They wasn't no bad, and they wasn't no ugly. It was just good Jesus. That's all it was. And it said, one of the twelve which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. This is where it gets real, man. Right here in this verse is where it gets real. How much do you care about your brother in Christ? This was his physical brother. Andrew cared enough about his brother that he left Jesus to go get his brother and tell him that the Messiah has come. I found him. He cared that much about his brother that he brought him to the cross, that he brought him to Jesus. He brought him to Jesus because he loved him that much and he knew. He knew that he wasn't, that Simon Peter wasn't living the life that God had called him to lead. He knew he wasn't. But he loved him that much that he left the presence of the Lord to go get his brother. Would you do that? Do you love a brother in Christ enough that you know that's lost right now and you say, you know what? I got to go get him. And it might be tough. It might be rough. But God's called us to do it. He's called us to do it. Then it says in verse number 42, and I'm almost done. I know it's a short, but that's just where we're going to be. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon, the son of Jonah, thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation a stone. Question, I very rarely do this, but the question is tonight. I want you to ask yourself, I ain't asking you to say it out loud. I ain't here to embarrass anybody, but when you met Jesus, did your name change and the way people viewed you? Is it different? That's the question I want you to ask yourself. Because hey, I know who the old me was. I know who the old some of you were. Has your name and the outlook by others have they changed since Jesus Christ came into your life? Because if they cut if it because if they haven't, he's never come into your life. If they haven't, you just like the person that I talked about tonight that you can dress it up all you want to. You can put on the right clothes, you can put on the right face, and you can say the right stuff when you get to church. When somebody comes to you and they ask you, how are you doing? You say, I'm just blessed and highly favored, man. I just, man, God's so good to me. And you know inside you're dying going to a devil's hell because you've never had a real change in your life. Hey, we can live it all we want to, man. We can show up, we can go to church, we can do it all our all, and there's gonna be people. There's gonna be people bust hell's gates wide open, and you might be one of them. I'm not I'm not taking that anybody saved or not except for me. I'm just telling you, you you might bust hell's gates wide open because you're hanging on to something that you did, that's something that you did when you were little. Can I tell you there's nothing that you can do? It's what he did on that cross for you and understanding that that's Jesus Christ coming to your life and to save you and to change you. Listen, you can ask God you want to. But but listen, I can I can ask God to forgive me if I want to, but if I go back to the same thing like a hog in the mirror, man, and in the mirror clay, listen, God's saying, I want your true heart. I don't I don't want you, I don't want this fake you anymore. He said, I want the real you. You see what he said in the last part of this verse. Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation a stone. So what are you? What are you? What's your name tonight? Was your name the old you? Or the you that love Jesus more than you love yourself? That's the question to ask yourself tonight. So I'm gonna leave you with this. Jesus is entering the room. He walks up to you. He says, Where are you dwelling? Can you ask? Can you tell him? Come on, Jesus, come and see. Or is there some things you need to clean up? The only thing that needs to be cleaned up is, hey, Lord, I'm a sinner in need of a Savior to come into my life and change me and clean me up, God, because I can't clean myself, but I know you can do all those things. And I ask you to do it right now. That's my prayer for each and every one of you tonight. Anyone else got anything to add to that?

SPEAKER_02 27:21

You know, for a long time, you ain't never heard of it. I'm one of the hard heads with that.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

And everybody said amen. Go ahead, Chuck.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

You know, but watching all you men with all this different, everybody just got me back on the church on the year and I'll even die in church. Instead of having God in front of me, I've been dragging behind me for a long time. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

We don't agree, and how we get you know, we all should play two three or not. God, all the time, more for you, more for you, more for you. You know, we can play.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

I'll even have three. That's the only thing I'm looking for. That's how we get it.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Okay. Kind of like that old scene I was sharing with somebody earlier. I was riding around the island this weekend and come up old Cottonmouth laying in the middle of the road. I hopped out and found old dead palm limb. And I popped him in the head once, and that was it. He was done. And that's the same thing what God's saying to that sin that's in your life that you're letting sit there and creep around. He says, You need to get the stick out, and you need to pop that thing in the head and be done with it. Don't keep don't sit here and keep dancing around. Before you know it, it's gonna bite you. Let's pray. Lord, we love you and thank you, Lord, for this night. Thank you, Lord, for the conviction you're putting on hearts tonight. Thank you, Lord, for just showing up in this place tonight, dear God. It's not just a place that men gather, but it's a place that men gather to seek your face and to draw close to you. And Lord, I pray that. Lord, as your word has spoken tonight, Lord God, I pray we're listening. And Lord, I pray we don't just listen, Lord, but we do something about it. And God, I'm so thankful for you and so thankful for what you've done this ministry. I'm so thankful for what you've done in my life. And Lord, I pray you continue to work. I pray you continue to guide us, continue to give us a vision, Lord, of how you want us to do things and what that you want us to do next. Lord, I pray we'll be careful to listen. And obey you, Lord. Go with us now. Lead God and wake us. Bless these men, dear God, tonight. They they give of you your time. And Lord God, it's all deserving of you, Lord, and I just pray you'll bless them this week because they just they give a little bit more to you, Lord, I pray. I love you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.